"I merely point it out," she interrupted," as a proof of my perfect belief in Charles's principle and Lady Alice's affection for you. If a word passes that militates against that belief, I will renounce it." A sneer distorted Sir John's features. When not blinded by passion, he saw clearly through character and motives. He had by this discerned Clara's dislike to Lady Alice, and now felt convinced she suggested the scheme as she guessed he would have his suspicions confirined. He saw thus far, but he did not see through a far darker plot he did not see that, in the deep game they played against him, Charles and Clara were confederates. That was a pleasant room; without, through bayed windows, lay a wide and fertile prospect of sunny landscape ; within, it was handsomely and luxuriously furnished. There were books in gorgeous bindings; a range of marble pillars swept its length; stands of flowers, vases of agate and alabaster, were scattered on every side; and after breakfast Mardyn and Lady Alice made it their sitting-room. The morning after the scheme suggested by Clara, they were sitting in earnest converse, Lady Alice, looking pale and care-worn, was weeping convulsively. "You tell me you must go," she said; "and were it a few months later, I would forsake all and accompany you. But for the sake of my unborn infant, you must leave me. At another time return, and you may claim me." hatred to him is alone inferior to my love for you. When I think what I sacrificed for him," she continued, passionately, "the bliss of being your wife, resigned to unite myself to a vapid sensualist, a man who was a spendthrift of his passions in youth, and yet asks to be loved, as if the woman most lost to herself could feel love for him." It was what he wished. Lady Alice had spoken with all the extravagance of woman's exaggeration; her compa. nion smiled; she understood its meaning. You despise me," she said, "that I could marry the man of whom I speak thus." "No," he replied; "but perhaps you judge Sir John harshly. We must own he has some cause for jealousy." Despite his guarded accent, something smote on Lady Alice's ear in that last sentence. She turned deadly pale was she deceived? But in a moment the sense of her utter helplessness rushed upon her. If he were false, nothing but destruction lay before her she desperately closed her eyes on her danger. "You are too generous," she replied. "If I had known what I sacrificed Poor, wretched woman, what fear was in her heart as she strove to utter words of confidence. He saw her apprehensions, and drawing her towards him, whispered loving words, and showered burning kisses on her brow. She leant her head on his breast, and her long hair fell over his arm as she lay like a child in his embrace. A few minutes later the library was empty, when the curtains that shrouded a recess near where the lovers had sat were drawn back, and Sir John Daventry emerged from his concealment. His countenance betrayed little of what passed within; every other feeling was swallowed up in a thirst for revenge— a thirst that would have risked life itself to accomplish its object-for his suspicions had gone beyond the truth, black, dreadful as was that truth to a husband's ears, and he fancied that his unborn infant owed its origin to Charles "I was mad," she replied, sadly; Mardyn; when, for that infant's sake, "but I have paid the penalty of my where no other consideration could sin against you. The last year has have restrained her, Lady Alice had been one of utter misery to me. If endured her woman's wrong, and while there is a being on earth I loathe, it is confessing her love for Mardyn, rethe man I must call my husband; my fused to listen to his solicitations, or "Dear Alice," he whispered softly, "dear, dear Alice, why did you not know me sooner? Why did you not love me more, and you would now have been my own, my wife?" to fly with him; and the reference she had made to this, and which he had overheard, appeared to him but a base design to palm the offspring of her love to Mardyn as the heir to the wealth and name of Daventry. It wanted now but a month of Lady Alice's confinement, and even Mardyn and Clara were perplexed and indecisive as to the effect their stratagem had upon Sir John. No word or sign escaped him to betray what passed within he seemed stricken with sudden age, so stern and hard had his countenance become, so fixed his icy calmness. They knew not the volcanoes that burned beneath their undisturbed surface. A sudden fear fell upon them; they were but wicked-they were not great in wickedness. Much of what they had done appeared to them clumsy and ill-contrived; yet their very fears lest they might be seen through urged on another attempt, contrived to give confirmation to Sir John's suspicions, should his mind waver. So great at this time was Mardyn's dread of detection, that he suddenly left the Hall. He knew Sir John's vengeance, if once roused, would be desperate, and feared some attempts on his life. In truth his position was a perilous one, and this lull of fierce elements seemed to forerun some terrible explosion-where the storm might spend its fury was as yet hid in darkness. Happy was it for the Lady Alice Daventry that she knew none of these things, or her's would have been a position of unparalleled wretchedness, as over the plotters, the deceived, and the foredoomed ones, glided on the rapid moments that brought them nearer and nearer, till they stood on the threshold of crime and death. And now, through the dark channels of fraud and jealousy, we have come to the eve of that strange and wild page in our story, which long attached a tragic interest to the halls of Daventry, and swept all but the name of that ancient race into obscurity. On the fifteenth of December, Lady Alice Daventry was confined of a son. All the usual demonstrations of joy were forbidden by Sir John, on the plea of Lady Alice's precarious situation. Her health, weakened by the events of the past year, had nearly proved unequal to this trial of her married life, and the fifth morning after her illness was the first on which the physician held out confident hopes of her having strength to carry her through. Up to that time the survival of the infant had been a matter of doubt; but on that morning, as though the one slender thread had bound both to existence, fear was laid aside, and calmness reigned through the mansion of Daventry. On that morning, too, arrived a letter directed to "The Lady Alice Daventry." A dark shade flitted over Sir John's face as he read the direction; then placing it among his other letters reserved for private perusal, he left the room. The day wore on, each hour giving increasing strength to the Lady Alice and her boy-heir. During its progress, it was noticed, even by the servants, that their master seemed unusually discomposed, and that his countenance wore an expression of ghastly paleness. As he sat alone, after dinner, he drank glass after glass of wine, but they brought no flush to his cheek-wrought no change in his appearance; some mightier spirit seemed to bid defiance to the effects of drink. At a late hour he retired to his room. The physician had previously paid his last visit to the chamber of his patient; she was in a calm sleep, and the last doubt as to her condition faded from his mind, as, in a confident tone, he reiterated his assurance to the nurse-tender "that she might lie down and take some restthat nothing more was to be feared." The gloom of a December's night had closed, dark and dreary, around the Hall, while, through the darkness, the wind drove the heavy rain against the casements; but, undisturbed by the rain and winds, the Lady Alice and her infant lay in a tranquil sleep; doubt and danger had passed from them; the grave had seemed to yawn towards the mother and child, but the clear colour on the transparent cheek, the soft and regular breathing caught through the stillness of the chamber, when the wind had died in the distance, gave assurance to the nurse that all danger was past; and, wearied with the watching of the last four nights, she retired to a closet opening from Lady Alice's apartment, and was soon buried in the heavy slumber of exhaustion. That profound sleep was rudely broken through by wild, loud cries, reaching over the rage of the elements, which had now risen to a storm. The terrified woman staggered to the bedroom, to witness there a fearful change -sudden, not to be accounted for. A night-lamp shed its dim light through the apartment on a scene of horror and mystery. All was silence now-and the Lady Alice stood erect on the floor, half shrouded in the heavy curtains of the bed, and clasping her infant in her arms. By this time the attendants, roused from sleep, had reached the apartment, and assisted in taking the child from its mother's stiff embrace; it had uttered no cry, and when they brought it to the light, the blaze fell on features swollen and lifeless-it was dead in its helplessness-dead by violence, for on its throat were the marks of strong and sudden pressure; but how, by whom, was a horrid mystery. They laid the mother on the bed, and as they did so, a letter fell from her grasp -a wild fit of delirium succeeded, followed by a heavy swoon, from which the physician failed in awaking her— before the night had passed, Lady Alice Daventry had been summoned to her rest. The sole clue to the events of that night was the letter which had fallen from Lady Alice; it the physician had picked up and read, but positively refused to reveal its contents, more than to hint that they betrayed guilt that rendered his wife and child's removal more a blessing then a misfortune to Sir John Daventry. Yet somehow rumours were heard that the letter was in Charles Mardyn's hand; that it had fallen in Sir John's way, and revealed to him a guilty attachment between Mardyn and his wife; but how it came into her hands, or how productive of such a catastrophe as the destruction of her infant, her frenzy, and death, remained unknown: but one further gleam of light was ever thrown on that dark tragedy. The nurse-tender, who had first come to her mistress's assistance, declared that, as she entered the room, she had heard steps in quick retreat along the gallery leading from Lady Alice's room, and a few surmised that, in the dead of night, her husband had placed that letter in her hand, and told her he knew her guilt. This was but conjecture-a wild and improbable one, perhaps. Charles Mardyn came not again to the Hall. What he and Clara Ďaventry thought of what had passed, was known only to themselves. A year went on, and Clara and her father lived alone. -a year of terror to the former, for from that terrible night her father had become subject to bursts of savage passion that filled her with alarm for her own safety; these, followed by long fits of moody silence, rendered her life, for a year, harassed and wretched; but then settling into confirmed insanity, released her from his violence. Sir John Daventry was removed to an asylum, and Clara was mistress of the Hall. Another year passed, and she became the wife of Charles Mardyn. It was now the harvest of their labours, and reaped as such harvests must be. The pleasures and amusements of a London life had grown distasteful to Mardyn- they palled on his senses, and he sought change in a residence at the Hall; but here greater discontent awaited him. The force of conscience allowed them not happiness in a place peopled with such associations; they were childless, they lived in solitary state, unvisited by those of their own rank, who were deterred from making overtures of intimacy by the stories that were whispered affixing discredit to his name; his pride and violent temper were ill fitted to brook this neglect; in disgust, they left Daventry, and went to Mardyn Park, an old seat left him by his mother, on the coast of Dorsetshire. It was wildly situated, and had been long uninhabited; and in this lonely residence the cup of Clara's wretchedness was filled to overflowing. In Mardyn there was now no trace left of the man who had once captivated her fancy; prematurely old, soured in temper, he had become brutal and overbearing; for Clara he had cast off every semblance of decency, and indifference was now usurped by hate and violence; their childless condition was made a constant source of bitter reproach from her husband. Time brought no alleviation to this state of wretchedness, but rather increased their evil passions and mutual abhorrence. They had long and bitterly disputed one day, after dinner, and each reminded the other of their sins with a vehemence of reproach that, from the lips of any other, must have overwhelmed the guilty pair with shame and terror. Driven from the room by Mardyn's unmanly violence and coarse epithets, Clara reached the drawing-room, and spent some hours struggling with the stings of conscience aroused by Mardyn's taunts. They had heard that morning of Sir John Daventry's death, and the removal of the only being who lived to suffer for their sin had seemed but to add a deeper gloom to their miserable existence the time was past when anything could bid them hope. Her past career passed through the guilty woman's mind, and filled her with dread, and a fearful looking out for judgment. She had not noticed how time had fled, till she saw it was long past Mardyn's hour for retiring, and that he had not come up stairs yet. Another hour passed, and then a vague fear seized upon her mind-she felt frightened at being alone, and descended to the parlour. She had brought no light with her, and when she reached the door she paused; all in the house seemed so still, she trembled, and turning the lock, entered the room. The candles had burnt out, and the faint red glare of the fire alone shone through the darkness; by the dim light she saw that Mardyn was sittting, his arms folded on the table, and his head reclined as if in sleep. She touched him, he stirred not, and her hand, slipping from his shoulder, fell upon the table and was wet; she saw that a decanter had been overturned, and fancied Mardyn had been drinking, and fallen asleep; she hastened from the room for a candle. As she seized a light burning in the passage, she saw that the hand she had extended was crimsoned with blood. Almost delirious with terror, she regained the room. The light from her hand fell on the table-it was covered with a pool of blood, that was falling slowly to the floor. With a wild effort she raised her husband-his head fell on her arm -the throat was severed from ear to ear the countenance set, and distorted in death. In that moment the curse of an of fended God worked its final vengeance on guilt-Clara Mardyn was a lunatic. POPULAR CHANSONS OF FRANCE. BY JONATHAN FREKE SLINGSBY. Carrigbawn, August 15th, 1850. any MY DEAR ANTHONY,-As you well know, I am not much given to what are called "hard nights;" but, I protest, I have never put in or put over such hard nights as those that have ushered in this present month. Hard nights did I call them? I should, under favour, have called them soft nights. Was there ever such heat? I verily believe that the sun goes rambling about all night over these parts incog., as Haroun al Raschid used to go through Bagdad. Sleep, to reasonable extent, seems quite out of the question; and I doubt that all the powers of animal magnetism could carry one clean through a comfortable, steady, continuous nap, from twelve at night to six in the morning. Last night, for instance, I made up my mind to a good night's rest, if possible. I am sure I was justly entitled to expect it, for I took the best means to ensure it. After my evening's ramble by the river side, I sat watching the fading twilight deepening down into the gloom of night. By degrees the varied and, to me, delightful sounds of animation were hushed those sounds that remind one, as he sits alone, that without and beyond him is a world of men, and women, and children-ay, and of beasts, and birds, and other soulless creatures, as we are wont to call them, that are bound to us by sympathies more or less strong-that minister to our affections, our comforts, our pleasures, our discipline, and our wants-that like ourselves are links, some stronger and more polished, some weaker and more rudely formed yet still links in that mysterious and most wonderful chain of spiritual and physical organisation, which, issuing from the clouds and darkness that are around God's throne, descends through every gradation, till it is again lost to our view in the rudest form of organised matter. These sounds, I say, ceased, one by one; the pleasant laughter of young men and maidens disporting on the greensward, with the occasional outbreak of more boisterous mirth, as some young lover, chasing his sweetheart through the mazes of the ring, had at length succeeded in capturing the flying girl, and exacted from her blushing checks and laughing lips the ransom for her deliverance. The lowing of kine and the bleat of sheep came on the ear at longer intervals; the crows had all returned home with abundance of clamour, and scarce a croak was now heard from the boughs where they had been lately swinging themselves to and fro, in a debate as garrulous and discordant as could he got up either in the House of Commons or Congress; the little sparrows had all gone to bed, and I could hear, now and again, the flutter of wings in the woodbine that was trained above my window, announcing that some uneasy sleeper was turning on the other side, or disputing with its mate for a fair share of the bed-clothes. The last belated hiveward-bound bee had just returned, and discontinued his drone as he entered the gate of his city; but the bat was still fluttering blindly and heavily about, and the owl had just commenced his whooping in an old ivy-clad chimney, which had belonged to an age long since gone by. This last, and the slow dash of distant water, as it fell over the wheel of a tuck-mill, whose dull, muffled beat came at regular intervals, not unpleasingly, on the ear, were soon the only sounds that were to be heard; and I now sat listening to them in one of those reveries, in which the mind may be said to have let down its braces, and stretched itself at full length. To compose my senses, and to reduce my nerves to a state favourable to somnolency, I addressed myself to that most soothing and, let me add, intellectual occupation-imbibing the fragrance of aromatised cavendish through an ancient and time-stained meershaum; and further, in order to cool down my system, I applied to my lips, at rare intervals and in moderate quantity, a composing draught, which my worthy medical attendant, Dr. Melancthon, the celebrated homeopathist, prescribed for me with singular success." And so, dear Anthony, I smoked and sipped till the clock struck eleven, when I retired to court that sleep which I had been so industriously earning. But "Nature's soft nurse" withheld her gentle ministrations from me, as she did from King Henry. I tossed and turned, and made excursions to every part of my ample bed for a cool spot, and turned my head to every point of the compass; but in vain. sang Lord Byron amongst the Jura Alps; and truly if the want of sleep be the test of the glory of the night, we may all "make glorious nights of it" now, dear Authony. For my part, I think Kent's remark to King Lear is more suitable to such weather : 66 Things that love night Love not such nights as these." Well, in the midst of thoughts of this kind, I fell asleep-I know not when or how, nor can I say how long I continued so-when a shrill, piercing cry rang through my ears, and broke my dreamless slumber. It was a cry that it would be impossible to describe to those who have never heard it, but which the man who has once heard will not readily forget; a cry which well might "murder sleep," and make sleepy maids and drowsy hinds start from their beds in * As I have fortunately retained the recipe for this excellent medicine, I now subjoin a copy of it verbatim for the benefit of all nervous persons:- "Misce, perturbans molliter cum cochleare. Q suf. sumend. sub nocte. "F. MELANCTHON." |