the door of the apartment, Colonel Ashton knocked and called,
but received no answer except stifled groans. He hesitated no longer
to open the door of the apartment, in which he found opposition from
something which lay against it. When he had succeeded in opening it, the
body of the bridegroom was found lying on the threshold of the bridal
chamber, and all around was flooded with blood. A cry of surprise and
horror was raised by all present; and the company, excited by this
new alarm, began to rush tumultuously towards the sleeping apartment.
Colonel Ashton, first whispering to his mother, "Search for her; she
has murdered him!" drew his sword, planted himself in the passage, and
declared he would suffer no man to pass excepting the clergyman and
a medical person present. By their assistance, Bucklaw, who still
breathed, was raised from the ground, and transported to another
apartment, where his friends, full of suspicion and murmuring, assembled
round him to learn the opinion of the surgeon.

In the mean while, Lady Ashton, her husband, and their assistants in
vain sought Lucy in the bridal bed and in the chamber. There was no
private passage from the room, and they began to think that she must
have thrown herself from the window, when one of the company, holding
his torch lower than the rest, discovered something white in the corner
of the great old-fashioned chimney of the apartment. Here they found
the unfortunate girl seated, or rather couched like a hare upon its
form--her head-gear dishevelled, her night-clothes torn and dabbled with
blood, her eyes glazed, and her features convulsed into a wild paroxysm
of insanity. When she saw herself discovered, she gibbered, made mouths,
and pointed at them with her bloody fingers, with the frantic gestures
of an exulting demoniac.

Female assistance was now hastily summoned; the unhappy bride was
overpowered, not without the use of some force. As they carried her over
the threshold, she looked down, and uttered the only articulate words
that she had yet spoken, saying, with a sort of grinning exultation,
"So, you have ta'en up your bonny bridegroom?" She was, by the
shuddering assistants, conveyed to another and more retired apartment,
where she was secured as her situation required, and closely watched.
The unutterable agony of the parents, the horror and confusion of all
who were in the castle, the fury of contending passions between the
friends of the different partie