The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

THE DRAMA OF A NIGHT patient was placed at his mercy he might avail himself of the secret for future extortions. The reader has now obtained a full insight into the char- acter of Doctor Maravelli. But it must not be thought that Mrs. Ranger herself was entirely ignorant on the same head. Nosuch thing. When her artfully pursued researches for a doctor first brought Maravelli’s name to her knowledge, she made the fullest inquiries into his character, and thence was it she ascertained, as we have heard her inform Agatha, that he was just the very person suited for the aims they had in view. Thus was Mrs. Ranger well aware that the doctor would endeavour to penetrate the present mystery, and it was entirely in accordance with her own secret plan that he should do so, — that is to say, to a certain extent. Had she been really serious in her expressed desire to pre- vent him from ascertaining whither he was now being led, she would not have contented herself with merely fastening a bandage over his eyes and binding him by oath not to remove it. She would have taken some other steps and have multiplied her precautions, so as to ensure the effectual maintenance of the mystery. However, to continue the thread of our narrative, we may observe that the doctor, believing Mrs. Ranger to be positively sincere in all her precautions, laughed in his sleeve at the idea of being simply blindfolded and then led up and down two or three streets, as if a man who had dwelt all his life in Geneva could not follow by memory alone the windings and turnings along which he was thus conducted. But even if he felt any doubt upon this subject, he had only to raise the bandage from his eyes very stealthily with one hand while Mrs. Ranger led him by the other, and in one of those intervals when the moon darted forth its beams from behind a cloud could he distinguish the route by which he was being conducted. Not a word was spoken between Mrs. Ranger and the doctor while she was guiding him up and down three or four streets, as already observed, but when she had led him — out of the city and they were proceeding hand in hand along the road through the fields, Maravelli broke the silence by saying, ‘“‘ And so, madam, the crisis has at length come? ”’ “ Yes,”’ answered Mrs. Ranger, ‘‘ my friend, the lady in whom I am so deeply interested, was seized with all the CONNIE OOS (C(O) im