The Curse Upon Mitre Square — page 35: what you’re looking at

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

PASSION EXULTANT ! 27 much where he liked, provided he was present at the various services of the church. And so the time passed on until he again met the dark woman who had given him the scroll, in the same place— St. Catherine Cree, and this time alone. The scroll was produced, and Martin, flattening it out, read the contents and asked the woman what she had to tell him. She temporised, and the keen intelligence of the monk perceived that other designs occupied her mind— another object had prompted her to seek the interview. Had he left on discovering this, the terrible events which this narrative chronicles would never have happened; but he lingered, and looked at the woman who had dared so to deceive him. This was the climax in Martin’s life; the conflicting emotions which raged his system, the mighty passions which swayed the mind, and prompted it now to good and now to evil, put forth all their opposing strength ; virtue and vice engaged their forces in a final, fierce fight, from which one or other would emerge the victor. Formerly the conflict had been waged in the imagination only; no great visible temptation had assailed the senses. Nowcame that mighty strain on the will, which the mind had foreseen and knew to be inevitable. The woman had intended to keep up an interest in the scroll, but had failed, and faltered under the keen, penetrating gaze of the monk, and, with that subtle cleverness which often accompanies a de- praved but high intelligence, realised that the time was ripe to show her hand and appeal directly to EGOmMmIIlEDoo <S (El) mm