oach.

"No one accused me; they still believed in me, and laid the blame on
different incidents, but I felt crushed under the weight of my despair,
and the wildest self-reproaches.

"On entering the chamber of death, her father looking like a corpse,
staggered heavily into my arms, and losing all self-command, burst into
such convulsive sobs, that the people passing in the streets stopped to
listen. Then the sight of all the old servants who had adored her; of
her mother so completely _changed_--even to this day my hair stands on
end when I think of that dreadful scene. The mother beside herself with
grief called for wine, for I was to drink Ellen's health--she supposed
the 'so called good God' would not object to that. But when the servant
brought it, the father taking the glass from the plate dashed it
against the wall, crying out: 'broken! dead!' A hundred times, till his
voice was choked by tears.--At last his wife led him away and I was
left alone with the dead.

"Enough of this dreadful night. I need only add that by dissection, I
obtained a full confirmation, of that, of which the quick penetration
of the old physician had foreseen the danger.--Could it have been
averted? Who can say with certainty whether a conflagration can be
stayed or not, if he does not know what feeds it, or from whence the
wind blows. I had poured fuel on the fire which had snatched away this
innocent life.

"You may imagine that I did not close my eyes that night. The morning
found me still sitting, racked with pain and fever, by the bed-side of
my sister, when the door opened, and her mother entered the room. She
had recovered the noble and gentle serenity of her features, now that
the first delirium of despair had passed. She kissed me, with
overflowing tears, and even in _my_ burning eyes the tears welled up,
'My dear son,' she said 'I here surrender to you a small packet which I
found in her writing-table: Your name is on it.'

"It was her diary, beginning with her twelfth year, up to a few days
before her death--On every page I found my name; on the last were these
words, 'I am dying, darling--I have known you and been permitted to
love you. What more can life bring me? I now have no other wish but
that you should know that I only lived for you, and through you!'--And
this to her murderer!!

"All the events that succeeded; the death of her father, the short
widowhood of her mother, who pined away till she was at last re-united