The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 155: what you’re looking at

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

THE TWO ACCIDENTS 137 the occurrence itself, and which therefore raised up a vague and indistinct suspicion in the young damsel’s mind. And now, too, as she pondered thereupon, back to her memory came the incident which marked the first day of her arrival, and which we ere now recalled to the remembrance of the reader. She began to see, too, that there was something more than she had previously fancied in Octavian’s conduct in calling on her, after the duel, under a feigned name, and also in so urgently beseeching her not to mention their previous acquaintance to Zoe. All these reflections naturally engendered new ideas and troubling suspicions in the mind of Christina. Still the purity of her nature made her en- deavour to throw off the influence of these suspicions, but she could not. And furthermore, in strictly and carefully analyzing her own feelings, the conviction gradually stole into her mind that it was more with surprise than displeasure, more with amazed confusion than with indignation or anger, that she had heard at the time those ejaculations sent forth from Octavian’s lips. She shuddered with an unknown feeling. She felt as if she were doing something wrong; she thought that she should no longer remain beneath that roof, and indeed that she never ought to have tarried there at all when once she found that a secret subsisted between herself and Octavian and which was to be withheld from Zoe. Yet what was she to do? To attach of her own accord im- portance to those ejaculations,— no, certainly not. To leave the house precipitately, and without being able to assign any specific cause, — equally impossible. She must remain therefore, — at least for the present; there was no other step to be taken. The reader will not be surprised that Christina mentioned not the incident at the time to her brother; it would have been to shock the delicacy of her own soul, to be outraging her own feelings, were she to attach im- portance to Octavian’s ejaculations, or to take it upon her- self to give them a specific significancy. Weeks again passed away, but not in the same manner as before. If ever Octavian and Christina found themselves alone together — which, as they dwelt beneath the same roof, necessarily occurred now and then—there was a mutual constraint; it was a feeling of uneasiness, an awk- wardness and embarrassment, reciprocally visible. It ap- peared as if Octavian had something to say, but dared not GOMIIGIOO (CO) mM