"Houseman lied," wrote the condemned man. "I did not strike the blow. I
never designed a murder. But the deed was done, and Houseman divided the
booty. My share he buried in the earth, leaving me to withdraw it when I
chose. There, perhaps, it lies still. I never touched what I had
murdered my _own_ life to gain. Three days after that deed a relative,
who had neglected me in life, died and left me wealth--wealth, at least,
to me! Wealth greater than that for which I had----My ambition died in
remorse!"

Houseman passed away in his own bed. But he had to be buried secretly in
the dead of night, for, ten years after Eugene Aram had died on the
scaffold, the hatred of the world survived for his accomplice. Rowland
Lester did not live long after Madeline's death. But when Walter
returned from a period of honourable service with the great Frederick of
Prussia, it was with no merely cousinly welcome that Ellinor received
him.

* * * * *




The Last Days of Pompeii


"The Last Days of Pompeii," the most popular of Lytton's
historical romances, was begun and almost completed at Naples
in the winter of 1832-3, and was first published in 1834. The
period dealt with is that of 79 A.D., during the short reign
of Titus, when Rome was at its zenith and the picturesque