His Other Wife: A Novel — page 361: what you’re looking at

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

SENTENCED AND RECLAIMED. 353 to mock at him with their cruel laughter as they waved him a final adieu. In their place rose other three, ghastly shapes, that hastened toward him with gibbering smiles and outstretched arms open to embrace him—Disgrace, Poverty, and Despair were their names, Across this dread, phantasmal picture he heard, as if from far away, the voice of the law’s vice-regent pro- nouncing his sentence: ‘“Mathew Croft, the offense of which you now stand convicted, is—next to those which immediately affect the State, the Government, and the Constitution of our country —of the blackest dye that man can commit; for, of all felonies, murder is the most horrible, and of all murders, poisoning is the most detestable. Poisoning is a secret art, against which there aré no means of preserving or defending a man’s life; and as far as there can be different degrees in crimes of the same nature, yours surpasses all that have ever gone before it. The manner in which this dark deed was transacted, and the person on whom it was committed, much enhance your guilt. It was executed under pretext of the tenderest devotion to the most sacred of trusts, and upon the being who, of all the world, should have been shielded with your own life from harm _or peril. | ‘‘So far as you are concerned, your murderous act was a complete act; and, to add to its horror, you accepted the frightful contingency of interring alive the faithful, loving wife, whose only crime had been loving you too Eomichoo CS: (E(e)