you; I
clenched my teeth and drew my breath, as I once more retreated to a
distance. In a short time two men passed me, and I found that, owing to
some accident on the road, they stopped to assist you. It appears, by
your evidence on a subsequent event, that these men were Thornton and
his friend Dawson; at the time they passed too rapidly, and I was too
much occupied in my own dark thoughts, to observe them: still I kept
up to you and Tyrrell, sometimes catching the outlines of your figures
through the moon, light, at others (with the acute sense of anxiety),
only just distinguishing the clang of your horses' hoofs on the stony
ground. At last a heavy shower came on: imagine my joy when Tyrrell left
you and rode off alone!

"I passed you, and followed my enemy as fast as my horse would permit;
but it was not equal to Tyrrell's, which was almost at its full speed.
However, I came, at last, to a very steep and almost precipitous
descent. I was forced to ride slowly and cautiously; this, however, I
the less regarded, from my conviction that Tyrrell must be obliged
to use the same precaution. My hand was on my pistol with a grasp of
premeditated revenge, when a shrill, sharp, solitary cry broke on my
ear.

"No sound followed: all was silence. I was just approaching towards
the close of the descent, when a horse without its rider passed me.
The shower had ceased, and the moon broke from the cloud some minutes
before; by its light I recognized the horse rode by Tyrrell; perhaps, I
thought, it has thrown its master, and my victim will now be utterly in
my power. I pushed hastily forward in spite of the hill, not yet wholly
passed. I came to a spot of singular desolation: it was a broad patch
of waste land, a pool of water was on the right, and a remarkable and
withered tree hung over it. I looked round, but saw nothing of life
stirring. A dark and imperfectly developed object lay by the side of the
pond; I pressed forward: merciful God! my enemy had escaped my hand, and
lay in the stillness of death before me!"

"What!" I exclaimed, interrupting Glanville, for I could contain myself
no longer, "it was not by you then that Tyrrell fell?" With these
words, I grasped his hand; and, excited as I had been by my painful and
wrought-up interest in his recital, I burst into tears of gratitude and
joy. Reginald Glanville was innocent: Ellen was not the sister of an
assassin!

After a short pause, Glanville continued:

"I gazed