the idle anger of a child; that the plan I had laid in the foolish wisdom
of my heart had been traced, step by step, by an all-seeing eye, and
baffled in the moment of its fancied success by an inscrutable and awful
doom. I had wished the death of my enemy: lo! my wish was accomplished,
--how, I neither knew nor guessed; there, a still and senseless clod of
earth, without power of offence or injury, he lay beneath my feet: it
seemed as if, in the moment of my uplifted arm, the Divine Avenger had
asserted His prerogative,--as if the angel which had smitten the Assyrian
had again swept forth, though against a meaner victim; and while he
punished the guilt of a human criminal, had set an eternal barrier to the
vengeance of a human foe!

"I dismounted from my horse, and bent over the murdered man. I drew from
my bosom the miniature, which never forsook me, and bathed the lifeless
resemblance of Gertrude in the blood of her betrayer. Scarcely had I
done so, before my ear caught the sound of steps; hastily I thrust, as I
thought, the miniature in my bosom, remounted, and rode hurriedly away.
At that hour, and for many which succeeded to it, I believe that all
sense was suspended. I was like a man haunted by a dream, and wandering
under its influence! or as one whom a spectre pursues, and for whose eye
the breathing and busy world is but as a land of unreal forms and
flitting shadows, teeming with the monsters of darkness and the terrors
of the tomb.

"It was not till the next day that I missed the picture. I returned to
the spot; searched it carefully, but in vain; the miniature could not be
found: I returned to town, and shortly afterwards the newspapers informed
me of what had subsequently occurred. I saw, with dismay, that all
appearances pointed to me as the criminal, and that the officers of
justice were at that moment tracing the clew which my cloak and the color