The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 173: what you’re looking at

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

THE MAIDEN’S CHAMBER 151 shriek thrilled from Louisa’s lips as she at once recognized the Honourable and Reverend Bernard Audley. The young maiden had not begun to prepare for rest when this infamous intrusion took place. She was there- fore completely dressed, no article of apparel being laid aside. | , The minor canon sprang upon her rather with the violence of a tiger than in the manner of a human being, and, seizing her around the waist, he said, in a hoarse, thick voice, ‘‘ You are mine, Louisa, you are mine. Nothing can save you.” But again from the young damsel’s lips went forth a piercing, rending shriek, a shriek which must have penetra- ted through wall and floor and ceiling, and would have been heard far beyond the cottage were any one passing at the time. She struggled desperately to release herself from the iron grasp which Bernard Audley had fixed upon her, and at the very instant that he was about to approach his lips to hers, she seized him by the hair and wrenched back his head with an almost superhuman force. And still her tongue sent forth the wildest cries for help. ‘‘ By Heaven! you shall be mine,” said the minor canon, in the same hoarse, thick voice of concentrated passion as before, and he placed one of his hands upon Louisa’s mouth, in the hope of stifling her cries. At this instant a door was heard to open violently, and the next moment a form, looking like a ghost from the grave, appeared upon the threshold of Louisa’s chamber. The minor canon, stricken with sudden dismay, loosened his hold upon the young damsel, and she, at once breaking from him, rushed wildly toward that spectre-like form, exclaiming, “My aunt! my aunt!” Miss Stanley, for she indeed it was, habited in her night- clothes, just as she had sprung up from the couch which for three long years she had kept in paralysis and unconscious- ness, threw her arms about the neck of her niece, murmuring, “‘ Louisa, dearest Louisa!’’ Then, as if utterly overpowered by the tremendous effort, she sank down heavily upon the floor. ‘““ Heaven itself wars against me!’’ exclaimed Bernard Audley; and though through this relapse of the aunt into profound unconsciousness again Louisa was as much as ever ¢ (C(O) nn) ( DOO <Si