Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 281: what you’re looking at

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

264 THE COUR®D, OF) LONDON soul is filled with an anguish beyond the limits of the imagina- tion to conceive, and when every cord in the heart is so distended that it feels as if the whole must give way at once and the victim be stricken down in sudden death, as if by the thunderbolt of apoplexy! Such were the sensations of the merchant as he mechan- ically pursued his way homeward. ‘Though his dwelling was at some considerable distance, he thought not of taking a vehicle. A vehicle, indeed! What, when he could see Ruin staring at him with its spectral eyes, preceding him, with its ghastly countenance turned toward him, following him, walking on his right hand and on his left, hemming him in, as it were, with that terrible influence which made it ap- pear of multiform shape! And as he threaded the crowded streets, walking on like a drunken man, unconscious which . way he was pursuing, yet mechanically taking the direct ~ route, he beheld not the people who jostled him, heard not the gibes which thoughtless young men threw at him, noticed not the frail girls who saluted him with obscene jests, marked not the carriages sweeping along the thor- oughtares which he crossed. No, nothing did he see save the gaunt, spectral, and terrific form of Ruin; nothing did he hear but the silent voice which thundered through his brain the deafening word, ‘‘ Ruined! ”’ It was midnight when he reached his house, which was only at a short distance from Paradise Villas. Lights gleamed from the parlour windows, and he knew that anxious hearts were beating within. For he had no secrets from his wife and daughter; they knew all — and now they were waiting to know the worst. But he paused on the steps for upwards of two minutes ere he could command the courage and the energy sufficient to raise his hand to the knocker. How could he meet them face to face, and say, ‘Il amruined ’’? How could he encounter their earnest, inquiring gaze, and proclaim that hope was gone? For, doubtless, they were hoping still; yes, and cheering each ~ other, mother and daughter each striving and straining her utmost to sustain the spirits of the other. My God! how could he cast the blight of despair upon all those tender sympathies, those pious assurances, those holy consolations? Yet it must be done; sooner or later the blow would arrive, sooner or later must the storm of ruin level the castles which eonniiclo@alke (E(0) m