His Other Wife: A Novel — page 267: what you’re looking at

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

A MIDNIGHT VISITANT. 259 glance encountered a line written in charcoal upon the discolored plastering. It was only a man’s name, with the day of the month and date of year annexed. ~ “Yoel Bradwell, Friday, March roth, 18—. Amen!” A mortal shuddering crept through the man’s whole body as his gaze fastened on this scrawled sentence on the “prison wall. ee: He fancied he experienced a sensation like unto the dread of the Eastern monarch when he looked upon the phantom writing traced upon his banquet hall. Was. this. commonplace line, this conjunction of or- dinary words, a fell prognostic of his fate, sure as the mys- tical ‘‘ Mene tekel,” before which Belshazzar trembled? Mathew Croft was recalling a scene full of tragic horror, in which the man, Joel Bradwell, a brutal murderer, had been led from the gates of this same jail—and he now be- lieved from this very cell—to meet his just doom upon the gallows before the howling, execrating masses of an out- raged populace. The train of gloomy reflections engendered by this dis- covery of the celebrated criminal’s name traced over his head was interrupted by the return of Mr. Fields. ‘Have you a letter for me, sir?” asked Croft, nerv- ously; for he indulged the hope that in his hour of calamity Leda’s cold heart might have been touched to sympathy. Eomicbooks: (E(@) 3