Beautiful Rienzi; or, The Secret Vendetta — page 168: what you’re looking at

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

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 161 tery was all gone; prolonged anxiety had made me weak as a child. I was worn out with watching for danger. When I could speak I told him all; his face was pale and quiet when I had finished. He caught me to his heart again and strained me tightly there. ‘You will not leave to-night?” I moaned, piteously. ‘* No, my darling; no, no!” exclaimed my lover. ‘‘ I could not leave you now.” ‘‘And you will not leave us until she is arrested—don’t protest. She will come, when the night is blackest, to poison us; she will come to-night!” I almost shrieked. ** Hush, hush!” he whispered, “I will guard you, my girl. Nothing shall enter Silverlea unchallenged to-night.” He hurried me home, and confusion arose at my coming. ~ I was ill, and could not hide it, and the eyes of love divined my powerlessness. ‘There were hurried consultations between my mother and Mr. Lindhurst, and messengers were sent to the village; but I was too ill to notice much. I watched my sister with insane terror lest she should leave the room and fall into danger as the night advanced, and I implored her not to leave my side. ‘* Hush, my darling!” whispered Ernest, ‘‘ see, your words terrify her—oh, take care!” Then I became as urgent that Isolina should retire to bed as before I had been that she should remain; for I felt the effort to restrain my breath killing me, and I knew that alarm for her might be fatal. Sophie came and took my sister away, and I beckoned the girl back to me and whis- pered, with streaming tears: “Lock her door, Sophie; oh, lock the door and sleep be- side her!” And then I hid my face in my hands with a shud- der of renewed panic, for words my sister had used once in a thrill of terror came back to me like a spell: ‘Bolts and bars are nothing to her when she chooses to come.” This was the woman whom she feared; the woman who had slid like a vapor into my chamber, through bolts and bars. I felt it; I saw with a flash of conviction that the crisis which was to destroy us had come. «‘She comes to fulfill her vow!” I exclaimed, writhing in my lover’s arms. I shrieked as if a hyena were rending my vitals, and for the third time in my life I fainted. After a strange inward experience I revived, and found (6(0) a 2 Eomicbooks