The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 118: what you’re looking at

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

100 THE COURT OF LONDON and solemn on that account. Mrs. Ranger listened at first with deep attention, and her lips from time to time moved as if in her heart she was echoing the clergyman’s prayer. Kobolt maintained a sullen reserve, but Hernani and Walden rapidly grew more attentive to the priest as the vehicle pro- ceeded toward its terrible destination. The wretched woman had purposely avoided meeting the eyes of the three men who were about to suffer for having consummated a crime which her gold had bribed them to commit. They had, however, gazed with some degree of wonder upon her when she first came forth from the prison door, for they were at a loss to believe that it was possible for a human being to become so changed in a few weeks. She seemed to them at least twenty years older than at the time when the terrible deed for which they were all about to suffer was perpetrated. The cart moved onward, attended by the escort, and sur- rounded by the multitude which kept pace with it. Solemn was the silence which prevailed, so far as human voices were concerned, those of the two priests being alone audible to the ears of the condemned criminals. But the sweep of the multitude, the trampling of so many feet, the heavy sounds of the cart’s massive wheels, and the hoofs of the horses that drew it, as well as of the mounted escort, combined to form a din as of a flowing torrent. The procession had to pass through the street in which the Hotel Royal was situ- ated, and though Mrs. Ranger had kept her eyes bent down from the moment she first entered the cart till now, yet she seemed to have an intuitive idea when the vehicle arrived opposite that establishment. Then she raised her looks, and swept them rapidly over the numerous windows fronting the street. They were all occupied with spectators, and therefore in so hurried a glance it would have been impossible for her to discern whether Jocelyn Loftus was of the number at any one window, but from all she knew of the young man she felt persuaded that he was not. And she was right. Not for worlds would our hero have gazed upon that spectacle of human misery. : On went the procession, and in a few minutes Mrs. Ranger knew that it was on the point of turning from the street into the great square, and that on gaining the angle of the line of buildings on the right hand her eyes would obtain a view of Comicooo S (CO) m