e first object that met his sight rivetted him to
the threshold.

The moon threw a broad line of silver light into the dusty worm-eaten
apartment, and danced and gleamed in horrid mockery upon a stream of
dark liquid which was slowly spreading itself over the floor. And there,
extended upon the brick pavement, his features shockingly distorted, his
hands still clenched, and his white locks dabbled in blood, lay the
cold, mutilated form of his father.

Overpowered with horror, unable to advance or retreat, Anthony continued
to gaze upon the horrid spectacle, until the hair stiffened upon his
head, and a cold perspiration bedewed all his limbs.

Still as he gazed he fancied that the clenched hands moved, that a
bitter smile writhed the thin parted lips of the dead; and influenced by
a strange fascination, against which he struggled in vain, he continued
to watch the ghastly countenance, until horror and astonishment involved
every other object in misty obscurity.

He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, but his limbs had lost the
power of motion, his tongue of speech, and he suffered the constables,
who entered with Grenard Pike, to lead him away without offering the
least resistance. They placed him in a post-chaise, between two of the
officers of justice, and put the irons upon his wrists, but he remained
in the same state of stupefaction, making no remark upon his unusual
situation, or taking the least notice of his strange companions. When
the vehicle stopped at the entrance of the county jail, then, and not
until then, did the awfulness of his situation appear to strike him.
Starting from his frightful mental abstraction, he eagerly demanded of
the officers why his hands were manacled, and for what crime they had
brought him there?

When told for the murder of his father, he regarded the men with a look
of surprised incredulity. "My poor father! what interest could I have to
murder my father? You cannot think I committed this horrid crime?"

"We do not know what to think, Mr. Hurdlestone," said one of the men. "I
am very sorry to see you in this plight, but appearances are very much
against you. Your father was an old man and a bad man, and it is little
you owed to his parental care. But he could not have lived many years,
and all the entailed property must have been yours; it was an act of
insanity on your part to kill him. A fearful crime to send him so
unprepared into the presence of his God."

"You c