, was
the time chosen.

I returned early in the evening to my lodgings. Preliminaries being
settled between the combatants, Stuart had consented to spend the
evening with us, and did not retire till late. On the way to his hotel
he was exposed to no molestation, but just as he stepped within the
portico, a swarthy and malignant figure started from behind a column.
and plunged a stiletto into his body.

The author of this treason could not certainly be discovered; but the
details communicated by Stuart, respecting the history of Maxwell,
naturally pointed him out as an object of suspicion. No one expressed
more concern, on account of this disaster, than he; and he pretended
an ardent zeal to vindicate his character from the aspersions that were
cast upon it. Thenceforth, however, I denied myself to his visits; and
shortly after he disappeared from this scene.

Few possessed more estimable qualities, and a better title to happiness
and the tranquil honors of long life, than the mother and father of
Louisa Conway: yet they were cut off in the bloom of their days; and
their destiny was thus accomplished by the same hand. Maxwell was the
instrument of their destruction, though the instrument was applied to
this end in so different a manner.

I leave you to moralize on this tale. That virtue should become the
victim of treachery is, no doubt, a mournful consideration; but it will
not escape your notice, that the evils of which Carwin and Maxwell were
the authors, owed their existence to the errors of the sufferers. All
efforts would have been ineffectual to subvert the happiness or shorten
the existence of the Stuarts, if their own frailty had not seconded
these efforts. If the lady had crushed her disastrous passion in the
bud, and driven the seducer from her presence, when the tendency of
his artifices was seen; if Stuart had not admitted the spirit of absurd
revenge, we should not have had to deplore this catastrophe. If Wieland
had framed juster notions of moral duty, and of the divine attributes;
or if I had been gifted with ordinary equanimity or foresight, the
double-tongued deceiver would have been baffled and repelled.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wieland; or The Transformation, by
Charles Brockden Brown

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIELAND; OR THE TRANSFORMATION ***

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