The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 145: what you’re looking at

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

A FRIGHTFUL TRAGEDY 119 he should betray the tremendous secret of the murders that the flagstone in the back kitchen had hitherto so well con- cealed. : She accordingly hurried the footmen to raise the demoniac — for such he indeed appeared — from the carpet whereon he lay writhing in awful convulsions; and with much difficulty did they carry him to the nearest bedchamber. There Mrs. Brace bade them leave him to her charge, as she would take the necessary care of him; but as she gave no instructions relative to the propriety of obtaining medical assistance, one of the footmen inquired whether he should not do well to fetch the doctor. The milliner dared not reply in the negative to such a demand and under such cir- cumstances. ‘The response was accordingly given in the affirmative, and the two lackeys left her alone with her rabid paramour. : He now became somewhat more tranquil, so that she was enabled to divest him of his apparel and get him into bed. Then, as a burning thirst seemed to be oppressing him, she filled a tumbler with water and presented it to his lips. But, with a hideous yell and with an awful convulsing of the whole frame, he recoiled from the mere sight of the limpid beverage; and the next moment, in a sudden paroxysm of fury, he dashed the glass from the milliner’s hand. The spectacle which the wretched sufferer now presented for some minutes was awful in theextreme. Frightful spasms in the throat appeared to menace him with strangulation, and he writhed with all the convulsive elasticity of a stricken serpent. His eyes glared, his tongue lolled out, and a white foam stood upon his upper lip. Then there was a brief inter- val of furious delirium, under the influence of which the miserable man besought the milliner in most piteous terms not to murder him and bury his corpse beneath the stone. Mrs. Brace wrung her hands in desperate anguish. What was she to do? What would be the issue of all this? The thought that she would procure a deadly poison and admin- ister it flashed across her brain; but the next moment she remembered that the doctor had been sent for, and he would not fail to discover the cause of the man’s death. She dared not, therefore, murder him, although she longed to do so; and now she cursed herself for having allowed him to live up to the present time. CORNICOG SS (GO)