lay me down for my last long sleep as peacefully."

Alfgar followed his example, and, commending himself to God, slept.

About half-an-hour after midnight Alfgar awoke with a strange
impression upon his mind that some one was in the room. It was very
dark and stormy, and the wind, finding its way through crevices in the
ill-built house, would account for many noises, but there was
something stirring which was not the wind, and the impression was
strong on his waking senses that between him and the window, which was
opposite his bed, a figure had passed.

Not fully trusting impressions produced at such a moment, yet with a
heavy vague sense of evil weighing him down like a nightmare, Alfgar
lay and listened.

At length he heard a sound which might have been produced by falling
rain percolating through the roof, drop, drop upon the floor, but it
was strange, for there was no sound of rain outside at that moment.

At length a cold draught made him turn his head, and he dimly saw
Edmund's door open and disclose the window within the room, then shut
slowly again.

He could control his apprehensions no longer, and rose gently from his
bed, so as not to warn the foe, on the one hand, should one be
present, or if, as he strove to believe, all was fancy, not to awake
Edmund. No one was in his own little room, that he felt rather than
saw in a moment; but some one might be in Edmund's, and he passed
through the door, which he remembered, with a shudder, was shut firmly
when Edmund said "goodnight." At that instant he heard a low click, as
of a spring lock, but very faintly; hesitating no longer, he passed
into the monarch's room, and advanced to the bedside.

"My lord!" he gently whispered, but there was no answer; he spoke
again in vain.

Just then he felt his naked feet come into contact with some wet
substance, slightly glutinous, on the floor, and shuddered at the
contact. All trembling, he put his hand to the pillow, and drew it
back; it was wet with the same fluid, which his reason and experience
told him was blood. He could hardly refrain from crying for help, but
first sought a light. The process of procuring light then from flint,
steel, and tinder was very slow, and it was some minutes before he had
a taper lighted, when its beams disclosed to his horror-stricken sight
Edmund, weltering in his blood; a dagger had been driven suddenly and
swiftly to his heart, and he had died apparently without a struggle.
The