erable horror.
For some moments she was speechless, and then, looking at Lord
Hartfield, she said, piteously--

'Why did you let him come here? He ought to be taken care of--shut up.
It is Steadman's old uncle--a lunatic--I sheltered. Why is he allowed to
come to my room?'

'I am Lord Maulevrier,' said the old man, drawing himself up and
planting his crutch stick upon the floor; 'I am Lord Maulevrier, and this
woman is my wife. Yes, I am mad sometimes, but not always, I have my bad
fits, but not often. But I never forget who and what I am, Algernon,
Earl of Maulevrier, Governor of Madras.'

'Lady Maulevrier, is this horrible thing true?' cried her grandson,
vehemently.

'He is mad, Maulevrier. Don't you see that he is mad?' she exclaimed,
looking from Hartfield to her grandson, and then with a look of loathing
and horror at her accuser.

'I tell you, young man, I am Maulevrier,' said the accuser; 'there is no
one else who has a right to be called by that name, while I live. They
have shut me up--she and her accomplice--denied my name--hidden me from
the world. He is dead, and she lies there--stricken for her sins.'

'My grandfather died at the inn at Great Langdale, faltered Maulevrier.

'Your grandfather was brought to this house--ill--out of his wits. All
cloud and darkness here,' said the old man, touching his forehead. 'How
long has it been? Who can tell? A weary time--long, dark nights, full of
ghosts. Yes, I have seen him--the Rajah, that copper-faced scoundrel,
seen him as she told me he looked when she gave the signal to her slaves
to strangle him, there in the hall, where the grave was dug ready for
the traitor's carcass. She too--yes, she has haunted me, calling upon me
to give up her treasure, to restore her son.'

'Yes,' cried the paralytic woman, suddenly lifted out of herself, as it
were, in a paroxysm of fury, every feature convulsed, every nerve
strained to its utmost tension; 'yes, this is Lord Maulevrier. You have
heard the truth, and from his own lips. You, his only son's only son.
You his granddaughter's husband. You hear him avow himself the
instigator of a diabolical murder; you hear him confess how his
paramour's husband was strangled at his false wife's bidding, in his own
palace, buried under the Moorish pavement in the hall of many arches.
You hear how he inherited the Rajah's treasures from a mistress who
died strangely, swiftly, conveniently, as soon so he had wearied of her,
and a