The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 289: what you’re looking at

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

THE GLASS OF LIQUEUR 255 hour and at every moment when it might suit his fantasy and please his lustful inclinations thereafter. Yes, for nearly a minute did she gaze upon the form which was so lately endowed with a robust and vigorous health, and which now lay like a mere bundle of clothes at her feet. No, not exactly like anything so little calculated to inspire emotions of terror; for the ghastly countenance of death, was it not there? Oh, yes; and now an awful consternation began to grow upon the wretched woman, and the clock of St. James’s Church suddenly struck one, as if to remind her with that solemn sound, and at that solemn hour, that she was alone in her chamber with the corpse of her murdered victim. Then, oh, then, how bitterly, deeply, profoundly did she repent of the act which she had perpetrated, — not so much on account of the enormity of the crime itself, but because it appeared to have suddenly raised up in her path a thousand embarrassments of a magnitude which she could not see any possibility of surmounting. Oh, better, better far would it have been, she now thought, to surrender herself to the loathsome embraces of the wretch, and even incur every chance and every risk of having to prostitute herself to him in the same way wherever it should suit his caprice and his. fancy for the future. Yes, better were it to have become the slave of his beastly lusts and the victim of his odious passions altogether, rather than to have taken the one tremendous step which could not be recalled, and which in a moment, as it were, placed her within view of the black and looming scaffold. Such were her reflections, but, great Heaven! how useless now! For there, at her feet, on the carpet of her own bed- chamber, lay the corpse of the murdered man. For an instant she thought of committing suicide; but her soul sickened at the idea of self-destruction. And yet: the means were ready at hand, for there was still left a large dose of Prussic acid in that phial whence she had poured a few drops into the fatal glass of noyau. Yes, the means were ready, the inclination even prompted, but the courage — was wanting to complete all the elements necessary for the appalling tragedy of suicide. And yet what was to be done? The corpse was there, and it must be disposed of. But where could it be concealed? (C(O) ANC 6)(0)()