s--passions augmented by previous
intemperance--surpass description.

The surgeon was the first who obtained something like a patient hearing;
he pronounced that the wound of Bucklaw, though severe and dangerous,
was by no means fatal, but might readily be rendered so by disturbance
and hasty removal. This silenced the numerous party of Bucklaw's
friends, who had previously insisted that he should, at all rates, be
transported from the castle to the nearest of their houses. They still
demanded, however, that, in consideration of what had happened, four of
their number should remain to watch over the sick-bed of their friend,
and that a suitable number of their domestics, well armed, should also
remain in the castle. This condition being acceded to on the part of
Colonel Ashton and his father, the rest of the bridegroom's friends left
the castle, notwithstanding the hour and the darkness of the night. The
cares of the medical man were next employed in behalf of Miss Ashton,
whom he pronounced to be in a very dangerous state. Farther medical
assistance was immediately summoned. All night she remained delirious.
On the morning, she fell into a state of absolute insensibility. The
next evening, the physicians said, would be the crisis of her malady. It
proved so; for although she awoke from her trance with some appearance
of calmness, and suffered her night-clothes to be changed, or put in
order, yet so soon as she put her hand to her neck, as if to search for
the for the fatal flue ribbon, a tide of recollections seemed to rush
upon her, which her mind and body were alike incapable of bearing.
Convulsion followed convulsion, till they closed in death, without her
being able to utter a word explanatory of the fatal scene.

The provincial judge of the district arrived the day after the young
lady had expired, and executed, though with all possible delicacy to
the afflicted family, the painful duty of inquiring into this fatal
transaction. But there occurred nothing to explain the general
hypothesis that the bride, in a sudden fit of insanity, had stabbed the
bridegroom at the threshold of the apartment. The fatal weapon was found
in the chamber smeared with blood. It was the same poniard which Henry
should have worn on the wedding-day, and the unhappy sister had probably
contrived to secrete on the preceding evening, when it had been shown to
her among other articles of preparation for the wedding.

The friends of Bucklaw