Penny Blood Serial Cover — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

30 ALFRED DE ROSANN. On the following morning, while De Rosann was still in bed, having scarcely yet recovered from the debauchery which he sincerely regretted, being, as we before said, of temperate habits, a knock at his bed-room door aroused him from a reverie wherein Eloise was the chief actress, and La Motte entered the chamber. “JT am come,” said that individual, when the usual salutations had passed, “ to inform you that pressing business obliges me to undertake a journey to Rotter- dam; and that I must start this very day. I have given the head clerk orders to transact the affairs of the house, as if I were there; so you need not trouble yourself about them any more than you usually have done. Ina fortnight I shall be here again.” “Try and keep your promise, my dear friend,” exclaimed De Rosann; “for I shall be anxious during your absence.”’ “Calm yourself on that head, Alfred; all will go on well—and it is for the interests of the establish- ment that I quit Paris.” “Y wish you a prosperous journey; and at your return I hope to be able to name the wedding-day,”’ said Alfred. | “ Nothing will give me greater joy than to witness your nuptials,’” returned La Motte. ‘In the mean- time, farewell.” ) And with these words the villain departed, leaving his unconscious victim to bear the brunt of all the dis- ~asters that might ensue from the nefarious deeds soon to be brought to light. | For some time La Motte had foreseen the certainty of the failure of their establishment; and when the cri- sis was nearly at hand, but before any one suspected the tottering situation of the firm, he resolved bya bold and desperate stroke to secure to himself a handsome for- tune, which it was his intention to enjoy in a foreign ljand. He therefore turned to his own advantage the credulous and confiding ignorance of De Rosann in commercial .matters; and he so arranged his damna- x6) ble scheme, that had one of the discounters gusnert