that was creeping over him--with the terrible scene
which he had just witnessed. It must be all a temporary excitement-
-a mistake--a hideous dream, which the next post would sweep away.
He would go and tell him so. No, he could not stir. His limbs
seemed leaden, his feet felt rooted to the ground, as in long
nightmare. And still the intolerable silence brooded overhead.

What broke it? A dull, stifled report, as of a pistol fired against
the ground; a heavy fall; and again the silence of death.

He rushed upstairs. A corpse lay on its face upon the floor, and
from among its hair, a crimson thread crept slowly across the
carpet. It was all over. He bent over the head, but one look was
sufficient. He did not try to lift it up.

On the table lay the fatal letter. Lancelot knew that he had a
right to read it. It was scrawled, mis-spelt--but there were no
tear-blots on the paper:--

'Sir--I am in prison--and where are you? Cruel man! Where were you
all those miserable weeks, while I was coming nearer and nearer to
my shame? Murdering dumb beasts in foreign lands. You have
murdered more than them. How I loved you once! How I hate you now!
But I have my revenge. YOUR BABY CRIED TWICE AFTER IT WAS BORN!'

Lancelot tore the letter into a hundred pieces, and swallowed them,
for every foot in the house was on the stairs.

So there was terror, and confusion, and running in and out: but
there were no wet eyes there except those of Bracebridge's groom,
who threw himself on the body, and would not stir. And then there
was a coroner's inquest; and it came out in the evidence how 'the
deceased had been for several days very much depressed, and had
talked of voices and apparitions;' whereat the jury--as twelve
honest, good-natured Christians were bound to do--returned a verdict
of temporary insanity; and in a week more the penny-a-liners grew
tired; and the world, too, who never expects anything, not even
French revolutions, grew tired also of repeating,--'Dear me! who
would have expected it?' and having filled up the colonel's place,
swaggered on as usual, arm-in-arm with the flesh and the devil.

Bracebridge's death had, of course, a great effect on Lancelot's
spirit. Not in the way of warning, though--such events seldom act
in that way, on the highest as well as on the lowest minds. After
all, your 'Rakes' Progresses,' and 'Atheists' Deathbeds,' do no more
good than noble