Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 316: what you’re looking at

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

THE SNARE 299 the effect of overawing the strongest and _ proudest minds. ‘We will do nothing to hurt you,’ ) said the Marquis of Eagledean. ‘‘ No, not for worlds would we be guilty of ingratitude.’ “Heaven forbid!’ ejaculated William Deveril. “It is well,’ observed Madge Somers. “ I believe you — I put faith in you both, and therefore I exact not any solemn pledge or vow. In a few instants you shall depart. But stay, let us assure ourselves that the miscreant has met his righteous doom.”’ Thus speaking, Madge Somers passed into the inner room, and making a slight circuit, so as to avoid the gaping chasm, she took up the candle from the table; then advancing to the very edge of the abyss, she stooped over, holding the candle above her head so as to obtain a greater benefit from the hight. ‘All dark—as dark as pitch,’ she muttered. “A thousand candles would not throw a single beam down to the bottom.”’ Then she paused and listened for nearly a minute. “ Allis still, too, as still as death,” she said, turning away from the chasm, over which she had bent so far and so fearlessly that both Deveril and the marquis shuddered lest she should lose her balance and tumble in. It was therefore quite a relief to them both, and they breathed freely once more, when she moved away from the edge of the pitfall. “Now, my good woman,’ said the marquis, ‘‘ Heaven knows that we shall be full well pleased to escape from this den of horrors, but in the first place I wish to ask you one or two questions, and in the second place you must allow me to give you such reward as what I have about me will enable me to. offer.”’ ‘The questions first. Go on,” said Madge, curtly and peremptorily. | ‘“ Know you at whose instigation that miscreant ’’ — and the Marquis of Eagledean pointed toward the dark yawning eulf — “‘ sought our lives? ”’ ‘’ Perhaps I do,’’ answered Madge, “‘ but the time is not come to satisfy you on this point. In short, I cannot be questioned now; I will not be. On the 21st of this month — and it is not many days hence — I have an appointment CONnNIEDOOKS (FO)