Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

58 BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. He was weeping—lI could not. ‘¢ Where is she?” I asked, mechanically. “She can’t be found,” this in a husky whisper; “‘the man who found the body says she must have escaped. I need not look for her, Iva!” he said, in a curiously helpless voice, ‘‘the officers of justice are after her—if she is alive, they will find her.” ‘Who told you this, father?” “They were talking about it at the Exchange,” he groaned. ‘“‘I was here and there and everywhere, all night long, try- ing to trace them; young Lindhurst was with me until five o'clock. It was he who came to me an hour ago and said the merchants had a queer story among them on ’Change; some parties coming in from Greely’s Mills where the accident occurred, brought the news. The young man’s mother has applied to have her arrested; a band of detec- tives went out this morning to see Mrs. Beaumont and hear the particulars. Strange, isn’t it, that the body was found not half a mile from Mrs Beaumont’s house? What could your sister want there.” _ ; 7 Father, what are you going to do?’ I whispered, help- essly. ‘‘T will try to find my poor girl; I shall not leave her to be hunted down by the law. Oh, my child! my pride! I was happy when my eyes fell on her—never father loved child as I loved that girl, Oh, my darling, come back to your poor old father—don’t be afraid of him!” ‘‘ Father,” I said, reverently kissing his hand, ‘comfort yourself with the thought of her innocence. This misfor- tune is very heavy, but Heaven will bring it all right again, since poor Isolina was quite guiltless of any wrong, from be- ginning to end. Comfort yourself, dear father.” While [ was speaking, I had been debating with my- self whether I was justified in keeping silence longer on the subject of my sister’s mysterious movements ever since the advent of Cecil Beaumont, and I reasoned that as long as there was a chance of this breach of confidence throwing a light upon the subsequent events, which might restore her to us, 1t was my duty tocommunicate what I knew to my father. Inwardly praying, therefore, that the ‘‘ happiness of this family” would not be destroyed by what I was about to re- late—as she had declared it would—but would rather be re- CORNUCG OOO S (©)