His Other Wife: A Novel — page 245: what you’re looking at

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

“IN DURANCE VILE.” 237 Miss Draper, watched beside the bed of his feverish patient. The next day it was discovered that the chamber of Mrs, Foster, the housekeeper, was empty. Her bed had not been slept on, nor her effects in any way confused or disturbed. Diligent search and inquiry were at once in- stituted, but not a trace of the poor, demented fugitive was to be found. | ‘* Possibly she has drowned herself in the lake. It was her habit to take long, lonely walks after nightfall about its shores, and I have often felt a cold, creeping horror at seeing her steal in through the ‘gardens long after mid- night, with her black garments clinging in damp folds to her tall, witch-like form.” This was Miss Draper's testimony when the news.of Mrs. Foster’s strange disappearance was discussed in con- clave. The lake was dragged, but no ghastly shadow of suicide was found to have fallen upon its fair, quiet bosom, that seemed far fitter for the baths of Nymph and Oread than the grim enticement of a pain-driven soul to seek the shores of Acheron beneath its limpid wave. _As for the beautiful mistress of Lucerne, she remained invisible within her own apartments. None knew—and few seemed to care—how it fared with the cold, haughty wife of the accused criminal during those days of mystery that elapsed after Mathew Croft's arrest on the charge of attempting to kill by poison a person whose name and Eomicbooks: (E(0)