The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 295: what you’re looking at

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

A NIGHT WITH A MURDERED MAN 261 had so terribly marked those hours. At length she reached, as it were, the end of her reflections, that appalling term reminding her that she was now alone in the room with the corpse of the murdered man. Yes, upon this tremendous truth did her thoughts settle; and she said within herself, ‘‘ The dead body lies upon the same carpet where I am stretched. It is only a few feet distant, and if I could stretch out my arm I should touch it with my hand. But Heaven forbid that I should seek thus to come in contact with it, even were I able to move a mem- ber or a limb. And, oh, horror! if the corpse itself were to extend its arm — ” The wretched milliner stopped short in her reflections, which had suddenly become too soul-harrowing to permit a continuance; and over her entire frame, so rigid and statue-like, a glacial shudder passed. But it was not she who moved convulsively beneath the influence of this shudder; no, it was the icy tremor which rolled slowly over her, with the clammy sensation produced by the contact of a loathsome snake. Entombed, as it were, in the midst of that stupendous darkness, stretched helpless, motionless, and voiceless upon the carpet, with all her powers of perception, feeling, and endurance more vividly awake and more acutely susceptible than ever she had known them before, and having upon her mind the astounding conviction that within a few feet of her there was the corpse of the man whom she herself had murdered, was not such a position enough to deprive the miserable woman of reason and blast her intellect with the searing lightning of madness all in a moment? But, no, it was not within the range of her destiny that she should experience relief even in the dark mazes of mental aberration; and thus the weight of consternation crushed not at one moment, and the poignancy of anguish rent not reason’s powers at another, although tremendous indeed was the trial to which the strength of the woman’s intellect was put by those rapid and torturing alternations. How long she had lain in that position, she knew not; ~ what hour of the night it was, she could not surmise. Nor was she able to form the least conjecture as to the cause which held her thus spellbound. She was not circled by cords nor chains; for, if she were, she would feel the bonds upon (C(O) ANC 6)(0)©)