"O Fred, Fred!" said he with a series of interjectional gasps, "I am the most unfortunate wretch in the universe. All the hopes I had formerly cherished are blighted at once in the bud! She is gone, my friend—gone away from me, and, alas! I fear, for ever!"
"The deuce she has! and how?"
"Oh what madness tempted me to lead her to the court?—what infatuation it was to expose those angelic features to the risk of recognition! Who that ever saw those dove-like eyes could forget them?"
"I have no objection to the eyes—they were really very passable. But who twigged her?"
"An emissary of her father's—that odious miscreant who was giving evidence at the trial."
"The policeman? Whew! Tom!—I don't like that."
"He was formerly the land-steward of the Viscount;—a callous, cruel wretch, who was more than suspected of having made away with his wife."
"And did he recognise her?"
"Dorothea says that she felt fascinated by the glitter of his cold grey eye. A shuddering sensation passed through her frame, just as the poor warbler of the woods quivers at the approach of the rattle-snake. A dark mist gathered before her sight, and she saw no more until she awoke to consciousness within my arms."
"Very pretty work, truly! And what then?"