death upon her young face.

At an early hour he started, that he might put an end to his
suspense. He had not yet reached the archway before the shattering
news burst upon him. From that moment he remembered nothing. But
his mother described his ghastly agitation, as, throwing himself
upon her neck, he told her, through dreadful sobs, the calamity
which had fallen. She did her best to comfort him; but he grew
wilder and wilder, and rolled upon the ground in the agony of an
immeasurable despair. She trembled for his reason and his life.
And when the messengers came to seek him, she spoke but the simple
truth in saying that he was like one distracted. Yet no sooner had
a glimpse of light dawned on him that some vague suspicion rested
on him in reference to the murder, than he started up, flung away
his agitation, and, with a calmness which was awful, answered every
question, and seemed nerved for every trial. From that moment not
a sob escaped him until, in the narrative of the night's events, he
came to that part which told of the sudden disclosure of his
bereavement. And the simple, straightforward manner in which he
told this tale, with a face entirely bloodless, and eyes that
seemed to have withdrawn all their light inwards, made a great
impression on the audience, which was heightened into sympathy when
the final sob, breaking through the forced calmness, told of the
agony which was eating its fiery way through the heart.

The story was not only plausible in itself, but accurately tallied
with what before had seemed like the criminating evidence of the
maid; tallied, moreover, precisely as to time, which would hardly
have been the case had the story been an invention. As to the
waistcoat which had figured so conspicuously in all the rumors, it