gotten possession of the key of the room. The sentinel might indeed have
thrown much light upon the subject, but he kept his own counsel for fear
of the consequences of disobedience to orders; and he boldly asserted
that no one had left the house during the night. This evidence, taken in
connection with the fact that the young girl was found sleeping, as
usual, in the little room adjoining Virginia's chamber, entirely
exculpated her from any participation in the crime. Nothing then was
left for it, but to suppose that the unhappy man, in a fit of
desperation, had himself put a period to his existence. A little
investigation might have easily satisfied them that such an hypothesis
was as groundless as the rest; for it was afterwards ascertained by
Colonel Temple, after a strict search, that no weapon was found on or
near the body, nor in the apartment where it lay. But Sir William
Berkeley, anxious to proceed upon his way to Accomac, and caring but
little, perhaps, for the fate of a rebel, whose life was probably
shortened but a few hours, gave the affair a very hurried and summary
examination. Bernard, with his quick sagacity, discovered, or at least
shrewdly suspected, the truth, and Mamalis felt, as he fixed his dark
eyes upon her, that he had read the mystery of her heart. But, for his
own reasons, the villain for the present maintained the strictest
silence on the subject.

But this catastrophe, so fatal to Berkenhead, was fortunate for young
Hansford. The Governor, more true to his word to loyalists than he had
hitherto been to the insurgents, released our hero from imprisonment, in
the absence of any testimony against him. And, to the infinite chagrin
of Alfred Bernard, his rival, once more at liberty, was again, in the
language of the treacherous Plantagenet, "a very serpent in his way." He
had too surely discovered, that so long as Hansford lived, the heart of
Virginia Temple, or what he valued far more, her hand, could never be
given to another; and yet he felt, that if he were out of the way, and
that heart, though widowed, free to choose again, the emotions of
mistaken gratitude would prompt her to listen with favour to his suit.
With all his faults, too, and with his mercenary motives, Bernard was
not without a feeling, resembling love, for Virginia. We are told that
there are fruits and flowers which, though poisonous in their native
soil, when transplanted and cherished under more genial circumstances,
be