_May 18th, Tuesday._--All down through the ages since Edward had
disappeared from home, leaving that bloody footstep on the threshold,
there had been legends and strange stories of the murder and the manner
of it. These legends differed very much among themselves. According to
some, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on the
threshold. According to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, and
dragged out. A third story told, that he was escaping with his lady love,
when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain. It
was impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of these
legends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion of
truth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from that
night, and that it never was certainly known to the public that any
intelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. Now, Middleton
may have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as,
for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was
still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that will
not do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, an
artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man as
Eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to be
applied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not at present see in
the least how this is to be wrought out. There shall be everything to
make Eldredge look with the utmost horror and alarm at any chance that he
may be superseded and ousted from his possession of the estate; for he
shall only recently have established his claim to it, tracing out his
pedigree, when the family was supposed to be extinct. And he is come to
these comfortable quarters after a life of poverty, uncertainty,
difficulty, hanging loose on society; and therefore he shall be willing
to risk soul and body both, rather than return to his former state.
Perhaps his daughter shall be introduced as a young Italian girl, to whom