The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 84: what you’re looking at

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

i @ 42h a=ba DS eee ee eee a ! | | | THE MYSTLRIES which their massive fringes swept. When these curtains were drawn aside, a window appeared, it was true,—bat a window defended with massive iron bars, and looking only into another room, and not upon the openair. This other room had a conical skylight on the roof: bug an inner range of glass was set in the cireular aperture above which the skylight rose—and thus every precan- tion waa taken to deadeo, or rather hush and stifle any seunds either from within or from without. When Louisa had awoke in the , after a | 7 Louisa only knew the hour because the attendant had told her that it was near eleven when she thus took leave of her until the morrow. Pale—with dishevelled hair—and disordered ap- parel, sate the maiden iu ber prison-chamber. There was a wildness in her eyes which denoted. an incipient frenzy of the brain;—and yet she pressed her hand to her throbbing brows in the hope of steadying her thoughts. She must escape—Oh! she must escape! Bus how !—where were the means f—in which direo- tion lay am avenue of egress from that dreadful OF THE OOURT. few hours of restless and troubled sleep, the light | room f had burnt.out: but the woman, who had already Suddenly, and as. if by inspiration, she remem- entered the chamber, had drawn back the window- , bered her adventure some weeks previously with the curtains—and the lustre of day, having first to, Reverend Bernard Audley, the Canon of Canter- penetrate through the double panes of the sky- light in the next room, shone with only the dim- ness of a fonereal gloom into the captive’s cham- ber. Then, as to the doors, the idea which had atruck Louisa on the previous evening was con- firmed by the morning's olose investigation: for she found that the inner doar was covered with baise and stuffed like the walls—and whenever the elderly female made her appearance, an outer door was. first unbolted and epened before this inner one moved upon its hinges. There were consequently two doors— thus completing and perfecting all those arrangements which had been so artfully contrived to rendes the chamber impervious to all sounds from without as well as to prevent the es- cape of even the shrillest shriek or the most pieso- ing cry from within. At least, such were the impressions which the ' goustruction of this terrible voom made upon the EE mind ef the anfortunate Louisa Stanley whea she had by degrees ascertained all the and _ detaile we have just recorded. And, Oh! there was something horribly foreboding—something hideously frightful in the mere sense of being. held ceaptise in euch a chamber as this! It seemed as if the object and.inteat were to immure the victim ina living tomb—to separate her altogether from the world—to reserve her for some doom which would inevitably goad her to a desperation or an agony the sbricks and cries of which it was neces- sazy to stifle and subdue ! Bat of what pature could.this doom be? The mind ef Louisa Stanley was too innocent and her imagination too pure to allow her to comprehend at thewisat the possibility of that extreme to which the abontinable pessiens and burning inets of man will sometimes hurry him. She was so uttarly ignerant of the wild lisense of desire amd the sabid frenzy of lascivious that. it was leng ere a suspicion of the real canse ef her stele into her mind: and thas throagh- out the long, long day had she vainly tortured her n with conjectures relative to the abject of her imprisonment and the author of the out- Tlat day had passed amidst alsernations of wild grief. and profound despondency—harrowing re- fections aad blank despair—torrents of tears and besvale of delibewate meditation. The evening had ecome—a lamp was aaorti upon the table by the elderly attendant—and the curtains of the wisdow were ence more drawn. The supper-tray was left ia case sha: should choose to break her feat—for she had eaten nothing the whole day: bat the weman bad left her for the uight—and nn i (wey Ee we eee fw = B bury Cathedral. The recollection seemed to flash to her mind in the same way as a gleam of a lamp all in.an inetant discloses the aspect of some dark and unknown cavern. The strange proceeding of the ‘Canon on that occasion appeared to connect itself with this terrible misfortune which had overtaken her. At first she essayed to discard the thought as involving an impossibility. [t seemed so ulterly improbable that a minister of the Gospel would act ° in such a manner towards.a defenceless girl. But the suspicion grew upon hers some secret voice whispered in the depths of her eoul that her conjec- tures bad falfen into the right channel.s— and gradually, gradually did a light dawn in upon her hitherto unsophisticated mind, leading her to a sort of glimmering notion of the probability that the Canon was enamoured of her and had adopted the present means of making her bis own. Now that her speculations asto the author and the cause of her captivity had at leagth settled into a definite idea, she was relieved of much of the anguish ef suspense on the one hand, although her terrore were grievously augmented on the other. Far she now pictured to herself a lengthene! cap- tivity ; she fancied, in her artless innocence, that the Reverend Bernard. Audley purposed to enforce her consent to become his wife ;—aud although ler sus- picions had travelled thus far, she did not dream thatany dasker and deeper outrage could be medi- tated against ber. Her purity of soul raised a bar- rier to the progress of her ideas when they had reached.a certain point; but the spprehension of a forced marriage with Besnard Audley was still enough te overwhelm with despair the heart that was filled with the image of Jocelyn Lofius, Bat she was now, if possible, more than ever animated with the idea of escape: and this fervid longing—this profound yearning to free herself from so shocking a captivity, became enhanced into a hope that she would succeed in her endea- vour. Rising from her seat, she hurriedly atranged her dishevalled hair and her disordered dreas—and then once more began narrowly and olosely to | scrutinize every feature of the chamber. While | she was thus engaged, a thought strack her. Ifso much precaution had. been adopted to make the walls impervious to all sounds, either from within or from without, it was. fair te infer that in the ab- sence of these precautions such sounds would have | free isdim. In other words, if she were now to raise an the baize and the wool-wadding would deaden it: but if tke baize and the wool- wadding were removed, her screams would perhaps bring succour to her aid, She resolved therefore to tear away the barrier nh Tee? Geo ee oa =u CONNEC MOO SS COMM