insensibility, which, compared with what he experienced, was scarcely
less enviable than beatitude itself. Horror, detestation, revenge,
inexpressible longings to shake off the evil, and a persuasion that in
this case all effort was powerless, filled his soul even to bursting.

One other event closed the transactions of this memorable evening. Mr.
Falkland was baffled of the vengeance that yet remained to him. Mr.
Tyrrel was found by some of the company dead in the street, having been
murdered at the distance of a few yards from the assembly house.




CHAPTER XII.


I shall endeavour to state the remainder of this narrative in the words
of Mr. Collins. The reader has already had occasion to perceive that Mr.
Collins was a man of no vulgar order; and his reflections on the subject
were uncommonly judicious.

"This day was the crisis of Mr. Falkland's history. From hence took its
beginning that gloomy and unsociable melancholy, of which he has since
been the victim. No two characters can be in certain respects more
strongly contrasted, than the Mr. Falkland of a date prior and
subsequent to these events. Hitherto he had been attended by a fortune
perpetually prosperous. His mind was sanguine; full of that undoubting
confidence in its own powers which prosperity is qualified to produce.
Though the habits of his life were those of a serious and sublime
visionary they were nevertheless full of cheerfulness and tranquillity.