ocess of the affair according to his concerted plan.
The minister was dumb; this evidence of his guilt so confused him, that
not even the consciousness of his innocence could dispel the darkness
which had come over him. The Prince looked furiously upon him, and said:
"I ought long since to have expected that you would endeavour to pay the
debts of your waste and extravagance by betraying me." This last
reproach in some degree restored the wretched man to his senses; he was
about to speak, but the Prince commanded him to be silent, to resign his
situation immediately, go home, and not leave his house till sentence
should have been pronounced upon him.

The minister accordingly went home, while big tears rolled down his
cheeks. Despair forced from the daughter the secret of her shame, and
from the wife the avowal of her crime. The strength of his spirit gave
way, his senses became confused, and that most frightful of all
visitations, insanity, drew a gloomy veil over the remembrance of the
past, and, by the ruin of his mind, healed his heart of the wounds which
his nearest and dearest had inflicted upon it.

It was at this moment that the Devil led Faustus into the chamber of the
minister, having previously informed him of every particular of the
affair. All the fibres of feeling were not yet entirely destroyed, and
some few drops of paternal sensibility were yet falling from the eyes of
the good old man upon the miserable daughter who was clasping his knees.
He smiled once more, played with her dishevelled locks, and smiled yet
again. Suddenly his son rushed in, and was about to precipitate himself
into his embrace. The father gave him a ghastly look; a wild shriek of
madness, which thrilled through the nerves of every one present, burst
from his heaving breast; and the poor sufferer became for ever an object
of horror and painful compassion.

Faustus raged, and uttered the most frightful curses. He instantly
determined to inform the Prince of the whole proceeding, and to unmask
the traitors. The Devil smiled, and advised him to go softly to work if
he wished thoroughly to know this Prince whom he boasted of as an
impersonation of all human virtues. Faustus hastened to court; and
certain, as he imagined, of being able to cause the ruin of the favourite
by this discovery, he coolly communicated every thing to the Prince.
When he came to the motive which urged the Count to this horrible action,
namely, his wish