Varney rose, approached the fire, and blew the wood embers to a blaze.

"And now," he said, with his icy irony of smile, "we may dismiss
these useful instruments,--perhaps forever. Though Walter Ardworth, in
restoring your son, leaves us dependent on that son's filial affection,
and I may have, therefore, little to hope for from the succession, to
secure which I have risked and am again to risk my life, I yet trust to
that influence which you never fail to obtain over others. I take it for
granted that when these halls are Vincent Braddell's, we shall have
no need of gold, nor of these pale alchemies. Perish, then, the mute
witnesses of our acts, the elements we have bowed to our will! No poison
shall be found in our hoards! Fire, consume your consuming children!"

As he spoke, he threw upon the hearth the contents of the casket,
and set his heel upon the logs. A bluish flame shot up, breaking into
countless sparks, and then died.

Lucretia watched him without speaking.

In coming back towards the table, Varney felt something hard beneath
his tread; he stooped, and picked up the ring which has before been
described as amongst the ghastly treasures of the casket, and which had
rolled on the floor almost to Lucretia's feet, as he had emptied the
contents on the hearth.

"This, at least, need tell no tales," said he; "a pity to destroy so
rare a piece of workmanship,--one, too, which we never can replace!"

"Ay," said Lucretia, abstractedly; "and if detection comes, it may
secure a refuge from the gibbet. Give me the ring."

"A refuge more terrible than the detection," said Varney,--"beware of
such a thought," as Lucretia, taking it from his hand, placed the ring
on her finger.

"And now I leave you for a while to recollect yourself,--to compose your
countenance and your thoughts. I will send for the physician."

Lucretia, with her eyes fixed on the floor, did not heed him, and he
withdrew.

So motionless was her attitude, so still her very breathing, that the
unseen witness behind the tapestry, who, while struck with horror at
what he had overheard (the general purport of which it was impossible
that he could misunderstand), was parched with impatience to escape to
rescue his beloved master from his impending fate, and warn him of the
fate hovering nearer still over Helen, ventured to creep along the wall
to the threshold, to peer forth from the arras, and seeing her eyes
still downcast, to emerge, and place