CHAPTER XXX.

"I am the murderer! wherefore are ye come?

Wist ye whence I come?

The tomb where dwells the dead-and I dwelt with him,
Till sense of life dissolved away within me!"

BERTRAM.

A LONG and miserable night was that at Ravenglas, when the unhappy Lord Allerdale and his son both lay dead beneath its ancient roof; and when Richard Musgrave and his brother, restored from a living tomb, were compelled to explanations which it was agony alike to give and to hear. Ellinor, worn out with the excitement and horror of the past day, slept under the influence of the opiate which had been administered to her while in another apartment the venerable curate did indeed render "good for evil," when he sought by every argument of reason and religion to soothe the misery of Francis Conyers, whose callous selfish heart even, was pierced by the calamities, the shame, of the late events. Mr. Neville and Mr. Blundell were occupied with the man Harris, making notes of the account he gave of the iniquitous partnership of Lord Allerdale and the lawyer Benedict. Few words, however, are necessary to detail the misery of years; the explanations of Richard Musgrave and his brother were mingled with tears and mutual entreaties for forgiveness; but it appeared from the evidence of Harris, that they had never known a grief of which Lord Allerdale was not the cause. Of

a grasping as well as imperious temper, from his youth he had coveted the lands of Ravenglas, to unite them to his own rich possessions. He hated both the Musgraves, for no worthier reason than that the lands of their inheritance were as fair as his own; and so immediately contiguous that he was possessed with an insane desire to unite them. This desire, however, as absurd as it was unjust, would not have led him to injure the Musgraves, had he not conceived a violent passion for the Lady Geraldine, the mother of Ellinor, who rejected him to accept Leonard Musgrave. Lord Allerdale knew that the lady had been originally the destined bride of the elder brother Richard; he knew, too, the compact which the latter had generously made, not himself to marry, if the parents of Lady Geraldine would consent to her union with Leonard. And without having at first any more fixed motive than that of gratifying his malice against all parties, he encouraged all the follies and faults of the, at that time, selfish and dissolute Leonard; but especially did he delight in witnessing the positive ill-usage which he inflicted on his wife. The profligacy, the extravagance of Leonard were at length indulged to an excess which human patience could not endure; and arrangements were made by his brother for him to proceed to India. With the large sum of money, however, with which his still too generous brother supplied him for this purpose, Leonard Musgrave repaired to London, where he squandered the whole amount in gambling; then he secretly returned to Ravenglas, and, in company with a profligate companion named Delaval, he forced himself into the apartments of his wife in the "Agnes Tower." It should be observed, that the principal agent of Lord Allerdale and Benedict, with regard to the Musgraves, was the valet of Leonard, a Swiss, named Salton; and that this Salton bore as great an

enmity to Delaval as Lord Allerdale and Benedict nursed against the Musgraves. Salton, who had accompanied his master on his secret visit to Ravenglas, took care to inform Lord Allerdale and his minion Benedict of that visit. The result proved more favourable to their wicked hopes than the conspirators themselves could have imagined. Richard Musgrave, visiting the apartments of his sister-in-law, to bid her farewell for the night, found her engaged in a violent altercation with her husband-her maid having been dismissed for the night. Her jewels, which Leonard had taken from a bureau which he had forced open, lay upon the dressing-table; Delaval, a man of low origin, and, in the outset of life, a companion of Salton, stood by; and Salton, by whose direction Lord Allerdale and Benedict had repaired to Ravenglas, had gone to admit them by the postern door, which had given his master and himself ingress to the "Agnes Tower." During the few minutes of Salton's absence, however, occurred that fatal catastrophe which placed the unfortunate Richard Musgrave in the power of his mortal foes. Heated with wine, and exasperated by Delaval, whose vile imagination always assumed in others a turpitude equal to his own, the grossness of conduct and language in Leonard Musgrave knew no bounds, till after indulging in the most detestable accusations of his brother's generous friendship for the unfortunate Lady Geraldine, he raised his hand, and struck her senseless to the floor.

When Salton, in company with Benedict and Lord Allerdale, entered the apartment, they found Lady Geraldine still in a swoon, her husband weltering in his blood, and Richard Musgrave standing in a state of bewilderment beside the apparent corpse, and the knife with which he had struck the fatal blow still reeking in his hand.