y, yet she sometimes makes me feel as
if I were a monster. However, she is a fool, and talks of happiness as
if it were anything but a chimera or a dream. Is she herself happy? I
would be glad to see the mortal that is. Do her virtues make her happy?
No. Then where is the use of this boasted virtue, if it will not procure
that happiness after which all are so eager in pursuit, but which none
has ever yet attained? Was Christ, who is said to have been spotless,
happy? No; he was a man of sorrows. Away, then, with this cant of
virtue. It is a shadow, a deception; a thing, like religion, that has
no existence, but takes our senses, our interests, and our passions, and
works with them under its own mask. Yet why am I afraid of my daughter?
and why do I, in my heart, reverence her as a being so far superior to
myself? Why is it that I could murder--ay, murder--this worthless object
that thrust himself, or would thrust himself, or might thrust himself,
between me and the hereditary honors of my name, were it not that her
very presence, if I did it, would, I feel, overpower and paralyze me
with a sense of my guilt? Yet I struck her--I struck her; but her spirit
trampled mine in the dust--she humiliated me. Away! I am not like other
men. Yet for her sake this miserable wretch shall live. I will not
imbrue my hands in his blood, but shall place him where he will never
cross me more. It is one satisfaction to me, and security besides, that
he knows neither his real name nor lineage; and now he shall enter this
establishment under a new one. As for Lucy, she shall be Countess of
Cullamore, if she or I should die for it."

He then swallowed another glass of wine, and was about to proceed to
the stables, when a gentle tap came to the door, and Gillespie presented
himself.

"All's ready, your honor."

"Very well, Gillespie. I shall go with you to see that all is right,
In the course of a few minutes will you bring the carriage round to the
back gate? The horses are steady, and will remain there while we conduct
him down to it. Have you a dark lantern?"

"I have, your honor."

Both then proceeded toward the stables. The baronet perceived that
everything was correct; and having seen Gillespie, who was his coachman,
mount the seat, he got into the carriage, and got out again at the door
of the tool-house, where poor Fenton lay. After unlocking the door, for
he had got the key from Gillespie, he entered, and cautiously turning
the