Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 86: what you’re looking at

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

78 HER ROYAL LOVER. as if in supreme supplication, were already cold with the icy coldness and rigidity of death. Ah! monseigneur—monseigneur! what a loss for me!” | This recital was often interrupted by the sobs that Vassili uttered. It was sickening to see the desola- tion of this old servant; Mineleko was himself stricken by it. However. notwithstanding the pity which invades his soul, his disquieted mind recovers itself; he per- ceives that this dream, this hallucination which he had believed to be a chimera, is indeed a reality, and that shadow which he had believed to have seen spring out the window, takes a body in this corpse, which was appearing in all its austerity. All these reflections had been cruel, imprudent even, to tell to this unhappy brother. “We must immediately,” said he, “send for a physician and assure ourselves if all hope of life is really lost, then, at the same time they will inform the commissary of police of all those events, as astonishing as frightful. Wait, my poor Vassili, my poor fellow,” the prince kindly added, “here are some lines from me; give this card to one of the valets, that he may run and deliver it as quickly as possible. Vassili, blinded by tears, choked by the sobs of an unlimited despair, went out staggering. Immemorable thoughts proceeding from those sad discoveries, were revolving in the mind of the Prince of Mineleko. So, he had really heard those sounds, in the passage, on the preceding night. It was then that the murder must have been com- mitted! Greatly agitated by all those ideas which incoherently succeeded each other, he leaves his apartment and goes to examine minutely the corri- Eomichooks. co