upon the upward and distorted face, in a deep and sickening
silence; an awe, dark and undefined, crept over my heart: I stood
beneath the solemn and sacred heavens, and felt that the hand of God
was upon me; that a mysterious and fearful edict had gone forth; that
my headlong and unholy wrath had, in the very midst of its fury, been
checked, as if but the idle anger of a child; that the plan I had laid
in the foolish wisdom of my heart had been traced, step by step, by an
all-seeing eye, and baffled in the moment of its fancied success by an
inscrutable and awful doom. I had wished the death of my enemy: lo! my
wish was accomplished,--how, I neither knew nor guessed; there, a still
and senseless clod of earth, without power of offence or injury, he lay
beneath my feet: it seemed as if, in the moment of my uplifted arm, the
Divine Avenger had asserted His prerogative,--as if the angel which
had smitten the Assyrian had again swept forth, though against a meaner
victim; and while he punished the guilt of a human criminal, had set an
eternal barrier to the vengeance of a human foe!

"I dismounted from my horse, and bent over the murdered man. I drew from
my bosom the miniature, which never forsook me, and bathed the lifeless
resemblance of Gertrude in the blood of her betrayer. Scarcely had I
done so, before my ear caught the sound of steps; hastily I thrust, as I
thought, the miniature in my bosom, remounted, and rode hurriedly away.
At that hour, and for many which succeeded to it, I believe that all
sense was suspended. I was like a man haunted by a dream, and wandering
under its influence! or as one whom a spectre pursues, and for whose
eye the breathing and busy world is but as a land of unreal forms and
flitting shadows, teeming with the monsters of darkness and the terrors
of the tomb.

"It was not till the next day that I missed the picture. I returned to
the spot; searched it carefully, but in vain; the miniature could not
be found: I returned to town, and shortly afterwards the newspapers
informed me of what had subsequently occurred. I saw, with dismay, that
all appearances pointed to me as the criminal, and that the officers
of justice were at that moment tracing the clew which my cloak and the
color of my horse afforded them. My mysterious pursuit of Tyrrell, the
disguise I had assumed, the circumstance of my passing you on the road
and of my flight when you approached, all spoke volumes against me.
A stronge