his clenched hand against the table with violence. His motion was of
that tempestuous kind as to overwhelm the power of utterance, and found
it easier to vent itself in gesticulations than in words. At length he
exclaimed,--

"'It is well. Now has the hour, so long and so impatiently demanded by
my vengeance, arrived. Welbeck! Would that my first words could strike
thee dead! They will so, if thou hast any title to the name of man.

"'My sister is dead; dead of anguish and a broken heart. Remote from her
friends; in a hovel; the abode of indigence and misery.

"'Her husband is no more. He returned after a long absence, a tedious
navigation, and vicissitudes of hardships. He flew to the bosom of his
love; of his wife. She was gone; lost to him, and to virtue. In a fit of
desperation, he retired to his chamber and despatched himself. This is
the instrument with which the deed was performed.'

"Saying this, Watson took a pistol from his pocket, and held it to my
head. I lifted not my hand to turn aside the weapon. I did not shudder
at the spectacle, or shrink from his approaching hand. With fingers
clasped together, and eyes fixed upon the floor, I waited till his fury
was exhausted. He continued:--

"'All passed in a few hours. The elopement of his daughter,--the death
of his son. O my father! Most loved and most venerable of men! To see
thee changed into a maniac! Haggard and wild! Deterred from outrage on
thyself and those around thee by fetters and stripes! What was it that
saved me from a like fate? To view this hideous ruin, and to think by
whom it was occasioned! Yet not to become frantic like thee, my father;