ve continued to do so.
He had gone to his own house, as it afterwards turned out, entered so
quietly that the listening, watching servants never heard him,
collected all the valuables he could easily carry away, changed his
dress, and gone off before the search had followed him thither.
A verdict of wilful murder was returned against him at the inquest, but
it is very doubtful whether he could have been convicted of anything
but manslaughter; for even if the intention could have been proved,
without his wife, whose evidence was inadmissible, the malice was not
directed against his victim, but against Trevorsham. We could not but
feel it a relief day by day, that nothing was heard of him; for who
could tell what disclosures there might be about the poor thing who
lay, delirious, needing perpetual watchfulness. Arthur devoted himself
to the care of her, and never left us, or I do not see how we could
have gone through it all.
Alured was well again, but inert and crushed, and heartless about doing
anything, except that he walked over to Spinney Lawn, and brought home
Trevor's dog, to which he gave himself up all day, and insisted on
having it in his room at night.
The burial was in the vault--nobody attended but Fulk and Alured, not
even Arthur, for though the poor mother was not aware of what was going
on, it was such a dreadful day with her, that he durst not leave us
alone to the watch. It was enough to break one's heart to stand by the
window and hear her wandering on about her Trevor coming to his place,
and not being kept from his position; while we watched the little
coffin carried across the field by the labouring men, with those two
walking after it. Our boy's first funeral was that of the friend who
had died in his stead.
We were glad to send him back to Eton, out of the sound of his poor
sister's voice; though he went off very mournfully, declaring that he
should be even more wretched there without Trevor than he was at home;
and that he never should do any good without him. But there he was
wrong, I am thankful to say. Dear Trevor was more a guide to him dead
than living. Trevor's chief Eton friend, young Maitland, a good,
high-principled, clever boy, a little older, who had valued him for
what he was, while passing Alured by as a foolish, idle little swell,
took pity upon him in the grief and dejection of his loss--did for him
all and more than Trevor could do, and has been the friend and bless
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