those stairs to the left,--borne along
those floors to that marriage-bed,--with the blood oozing and gushing
and plashing below as the bearers passed with their burden, then
straight that dead thing would take the awe of the dead being; it told
its own tale of violence and murder; it had dabbled in the gore of the
violated clay; it had become an evidence of the crime. No wonder that
its hairs bristled up, sharp and ragged, in the shadow of the wall.

The first part of the tragedy ends; let fall the curtain. When next it
rises, years will have passed away, graves uncounted will have wrought
fresh hollows in our merry sepulchre,--sweet earth! Take a sand from
the shore, take a drop from the ocean,--less than sand-grain and drop in
man's planet one Death and one Crime! On the map, trace all oceans,
and search out every shore,--more than seas, more than lands, in God's
balance shall weigh one Death and one Crime!

PART THE SECOND.

PROLOGUE TO PART THE SECOND.

The century has advanced. The rush of the deluge has ebbed back; the old
landmarks have reappeared; the dynasties Napoleon willed into life have
crumbled to the dust; the plough has passed over Waterloo; autumn after
autumn the harvests have glittered on that grave of an empire. Through
the immense ocean of universal change we look back on the single
track which our frail boat has cut through the waste. As a star shines
impartially over the measureless expanse, though it seems to gild but
one broken line into each eye, so, as our memory gazes on the past, the
light spreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations have
battled and argosies gone down,--it falls narrow and confined along the
single course we have taken; we lean over the small raft on which
we float, and see the sparkles but reflected from the waves that it
divides.

On the terrace at Laughton but one step paces slowly. The bride clings
not now to the bridegroom's arm. Though pale and worn, it is still
the same gentle face; but the blush of woman's love has gone from it
evermore.

Charles Vernon (to call him still by the name in which he is best known
to us) sleeps in the vault of the St. Johns. He had lived longer than he
himself had expected, than his physician had hoped,--lived, cheerful and
happy, amidst quiet pursuits and innocent excitements. Three sons had
blessed his hearth, to mourn over his grave. But the two elder were
delicate and sickly. They did not long surviv