nstrance. I instantly made a movement
towards Mr Renshawe, with a view to loosen his cravat--his features
being frightfully convulsed, and to get him out of the way as quickly
as possible, for I guessed what was about to happen--when he,
mistaking my intention, started back, turned half round, and found
himself confronted by Mrs Irwin, her pale features and white
night-dress dabbled with blood, in consequence of a partial
disturbance of the bandages in struggling with the nurse--a
terrifying, ghastly sight even to me; to him utterly overwhelming, and
scarcely needing her frenzied execrations on the murderer of her child
to deprive him utterly of all remaining sense and strength. He
suddenly reeled, threw his arms wildly into the air, and before I
could stretch forth my hand to save him, fell heavily backwards from
the edge of the steep stairs, where he was standing, to the bottom.
Tomlins and I hastened to his assistance, lifted him up, and as we did
so, a jet of blood gushed from his mouth; he had likewise received a
terrible wound near the right temple, from which the life-stream
issued copiously.

We got him to bed: Dr Garland and a neighbouring surgeon were soon
with us, and prompt remedies were applied. It was a fruitless labour.
Day had scarcely dawned before he heard from the physician's lips that
life with him was swiftly ebbing to its close. He was perfectly
conscious and collected. Happily there was no stain of murder on his
soul: he had merely enticed the child away, and placed him, under an
ingenious pretence, with an acquaintance at Camden-Town; and by this
time both he and his mother were standing, awe-struck and weeping, by
Henry Renshawe's deathbed. He had thrown the child's hat into the
river, and his motive in thus acting appeared to have been a double
one. In the first place, because he thought the boy's likeness to his
father was the chief obstacle to Mrs Irwin's toleration of his
addresses; and next, to bribe her into compliance by a promise to
restore her son. But he could not be deemed accountable for his
actions. 'I think,' he murmured brokenly, 'that the delusion was
partly self-cherished, or of the Evil One. I observed the likeness
long before, but it was not till the--the husband was dying, that the
idea fastened itself upon my aching brain, and grew there. But the
world is passing: forgive me--Ellen--Laura'----He was dead!

The inquest on the cause of death returned, of course, that it was