shing sound--a heavy fall--a faint groan, and all was
over.

At the same instant Varney called in at the window, "Is the bird caught?
Is the deed done?"

"O God, forgive us!" replied Foster.

"Why, thou fool," said Varney, "thy toil is ended, and thy reward
secure. Look down into the vault--what seest thou?"

"I see only a heap of clothes, like a snowdrift," said Foster. "O God,
she moves her arm!"

"Hurl something down on her."

"Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!" replied Foster. "There needs
nothing more--she is gone!"

"So pass our troubles," said Varney; "I dreamed not I could have
mimicked the earl's call so well."

While they were at this consultation Tressilian and Raleigh broke in
upon them. Foster fled at their entrance, and escaped all search. He
perished miserably in a secret passage, behind an iron door, forgetting
the key of the spring-clock, and years later his skeleton was
discovered.

But Varney was taken on the spot. He made very little mystery either of
the crime or of its motives--alleging that there was sufficient against
him to deprive him of Leicester's confidence, and to destroy all his
towering plans of ambition. "I was not born," he said, "to drag on the
remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my fate
shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd."

That night he swallowed a small quantity of strong poison, which he
carried about his person, and next morning was found dead in his cell.

The news of the countess's dreadful fate put a sudden stop to the
pleasures of Kenilworth. Leicester retired from court, and for a
considerable time abandoned himself to his remorse. But as Varney in his
last declaration had been studious to spare the character of his patron,
the earl was the object rather of compassion than resentment. The queen
at length recalled him to court; he was once more distinguished as a
statesman and favourite; and the rest of his career is well known to
history. But there was something retributive in his death, for it is
believed he died by swallowing a draught of poison, designed by him for
another person.

Tressilian at length embarked with his friend, Sir Walter Raleigh, for
the Virginia expedition, and young in years, but old in grief, died
before his day in that foreign land.

* * * * *

Old Mortality

"Old Mortality" and the "Black Dwarf" were published together
as the first series of the "Ta