ominous

As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the Encyclopædia down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me.

“‘I can, sir,’ said Haydée, drawing from under her veil a satin satchel highly perfumed; ‘for here is the register of my birth, signed by my father and his principal officers, and that of my baptism, my father having consented to my being brought up in my mother’s faith,—this latter has been sealed by the grand primate of Macedonia and Epirus; and lastly (and perhaps the most important), the record of the sale of my person and that of my mother to the Armenian merchant El-Kobbir, by the French officer, who, in his infamous bargain with the Porte, had reserved as his part of the booty the wife and daughter of his benefactor, whom he sold for the sum of four hundred thousand francs.’ A greenish pallor spread over the count’s cheeks, and his eyes became bloodshot at these terrible imputations, which were listened to by the assembly with ominous silence.

The audience felt that a startling revelation was to follow this ominous prelude.