of her son's imprisonment, to visit him, but, on each instance, fainted on being lifted into the carriage; and at length desisted, on my representing the danger which accompanied her attempts. Her niece also seemed more dead than alive when she attended her aunt. Pritchard, however the faithful, attached Pritchard -often went to and fro between Newgate and the house where Mrs Beauchamp lodged, two or three times a-day, so that they were thus enabled to keep up a constant but sorrowful correspondence. Several members of the family had hurried up to London the instant they received intelligence of the disastrous circumstances above detailed; and it was well they did. Had it not been for their affectionate interference, the most lamentable consequences might have been anticipated to mother, niece, and son. I also, at Mrs Beauchamp's pressing instance, called several times on her son, and found him, on each visit, sinking into deeper and deeper despondency; yet he seemed hardly sensible of the wretched reality and extent of his misery. Many a time when I entered his room-which was the most comfortable the governor could supply him-I found him seated at the table, with his head buried in his arms; and I was sometimes obliged to shake him, in order that I might arouse him from his lethargy. Even then, he could seldom be drawn into conversation. When he spoke of his mother and cousin, it was with an apathy which affected me more than the most passionate lamentations.

I brought him one day a couple of white winter roses from his mother and Ellen, telling him they were sent as pledges of love and hope. He snatched them out of my hands, kissed them, and buried them in his bosom, saying, "Lie you there, emblems of innocence, and blanch this black heart of mine, if you can!" I shall never forget the expression, nor the stern and gloomy manner in which this was uttered. I sat silent for some minutes.

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Doctor, doctor," said he hastily, placing his hands on his breast, "they are-I feel they are-thawing my frozen feelings! -they are softening my hard heart! O God! merciful God! I am becoming human again!" He looked at me with an eagerness and vivacity to which he had long been a stranger. He

extended to me both his hands; I clasped them heartily, and he burst into tears. He wept loud and long.

"The light of eternal truth breaks in upon me! Oh, my God! hast thou, then, not forgotten me?" He fell down on his knees, and continued, "Why, what a wretch-what a monster have I been!" He started to his feet. "Ah, ha? I've been in the lion's den, and am plucked out of it!" I saw that his heart was overburdened, and his head not yet cleared. I said, therefore, little, and let him go on by fits and starts.

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"Why, I've been all along in a dream! Henry Beauchamp! -in Newgate!—on a charge of murder!—Frightful!" He shuddered. "And my mother-my blessed mother!-wherehow is she! Her heart bleeds-but no, no, no, it is not broken! —and Ellen, Ellen, Ellen!" After several short choking sobs, he burst again into a torrent of tears. I strove to soothe him ; but "he would not be comforted." "Doctor, say nothing to console me!-Don't, don't, or I shall go mad! Let me feel all my guilt; let it crush me!"

My time being expired, I rose and bade him adieu. He was in a musing mood, as if he were striving, with painful effort, to propose some subject to his thoughts-to keep some object before his mind-but could not. I promised to call again, between then and the day of his trial, which was but a week off.

The excruciating anxiety endured by these unhappy ladies, Mrs Beauchamp and her niece, as the day of trial approached, when the life or death of one in whom both their souls were bound up, must be decided on, defies description. I never saw it equalled. To look on the settled pallor, the hollow, haggard features, the quivering limbs of Mrs Beauchamp, was heartbreaking. She seemed like one in the palsy. All the soothing as well as strengthening medicines, which all my experience could suggest, were rendered unavailing to such a "mind diseased," to "raze" such "a written sorrow from the brain." Ellen, too, was wasting by her side to a mere shadow. She had written letter after letter to her cousin, and the only answer she received was—

"Cousin Ellen! How can you-how dare you-write to such a wretch as- —Henry Beauchamp?"

4

These two lines almost broke the poor girl's heart. What was to become of her? Had she clung to her cousin through guilt and through blood, and did he now refuse to love her, or receive her proffered sympathy? She never wrote again to him till her aunt implored, nay, commanded her to write, for the purpose of inducing him to see them if they called. He refused. He was inflexible. Expostulation was useless. He turned out poor Pritchard, who had undertaken to plead their cause, with violence from his room. Whether he dreaded the effects of such

an interview on the shattered nerves, the weakened frame of his mother and cousin, or feared that his own fortitude would be overpowered-or debarred himself of their sweet but sorrowful society, by way of penance, I know not; but he returned an unwavering denial to every such application. I think the last mentioned was the motive which actuated him; for I said to him, on one occasion, "Well, but Beauchamp, suppose your mother should die before you have seen her, and received her forgiveness?" He replied sternly, “Well, I shall have deserved it." I could thus account for his feelings, without referring them to sullenness or obstinacy. His heart bled at every pore under the unceasing lashings of remorse! On another occasion, he said to me, "It would kill my mother to see me here. She shall never die in a prison."

The day previous to his trial I called upon him, pursuant to my promise. The room was full of counsel and attorneys; and numerous papers were lying on the table, which a clerk was beginning to gather up into a bag when I entered. They had been holding their final consultation; and left their client more disturbed than I had seen him for some days. The eminent counsel who had been retained, spoke by no means encouragingly of the expected issue of the trial, and reiterated the determination to" do the very uttermost on his behalf." They repeated, also, that the prosecutor was following him up like a blood-hound; that he had got scent of some evidence against Beauchamp, in particular, which would tell terribly against him —and make out a case of "malice prepense.”—And, as if matters had not been already sufficiently gloomy, the attorney had learned, only that afternoon, that the case was to be tried by one

of the judges who, it was rumoured, was resolved to make an example of the first duellist he could convict!

"I shall, undoubtedly, be sacrificed, as my fortune has been already," said Beauchamp, with a little trepidation. "Every thing seems against me. If I should be condemned to deathwhat is to become of my mother and Ellen?"

"I feel assured of your acquittal, Mr Beauchamp," said I, not knowing exactly why, if he had asked me.

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I am a little given to superstition, doctor," he replied— "and I feel a persuasion, an innate conviction, that the grand finishing stroke has yet to descend—my misery awaits its climax."

Why, what can you mean, my dear sir? Nothing new has been elicited."

"Doctor," he replied gloomily-"I'll tell you something. I feel I OUGHT to die!"

"Why, Mr Beauchamp ?" I asked with surprize.

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Ought not he to die who is at heart a murderer?" he enquired.

"Assuredly."

"Then I am such an one. I MEANT to kill Apsley. I prayed to God that I might. I would have shot breast to breast, but I would have killed him, and rid the earth of such a ruffian," said Beauchamp, rising with much excitement from his chair, and walking hurriedly to and fro. I shuddered to hear him make such an avowal, and continued silent. I felt my colour changed.

"Are you shocked, doctor?" he enquired, pausing abruptly, and looking me full in the face. "I repeat it," clenching his fist, "I would have perished eternally, to gratify my revenge. So would you," he continued, "if you had suffered as I have.” With the last words he elevated his voice to a high key, and his eye glanced on me like lightning, as he passed and repassed me.

"How can we expect the mercy we will not show ?" I enquired mildly.

"Don't mistake me, doctor," he resumed, without answering my last question, "It is not death I dread, disturbed as I appear, but only the mode of it. Death I covet, as a relief from life,

which has grown hateful; but, great Heaven, to be HUNG like a dog!"

"Think of hereafter!" I exclaimed.

"Pshaw! I'm past thoughts of that. Why did not God keep me from the snares into which I have fallen ?"

At that moment, came a letter from Sir Edward Streighton. When he recognized the superscription, he threw it down on the table, exclaiming "There! this is the first time I have heard from this accomplished scoundrel, since the day I killed Apsley." He opened it, a scowl of fury and contempt on his brow, and read the following flippant and unfeeling letter:

"Dear Brother in the bonds of blood!

"My right trusty and well-beloved counsellor, and thine -Hillier, and thy unworthy E. S., intend duly to take our stand beside thee, at nine o'clock to-morrow morning, in the dock of the Old Bailey, as per recognizances. Be not thou cast down, O my soul; but throw thou fear unto the dogs! There's never a jury in England will convict us, even though, as I hear, that bloody-minded old is to try us! We've got a good fellow (on reasonable terms, considering) to swear he happened to be present, and that we put you up at forty paces! and that he heard you tender an apology to Apsley! The sweet convenient rogue!!! What think you of that, dear Beau? Yours ever-but not on the gallows

"EDW. STREIGHTON.

"P.S.-I wish Apsley, by the way, poor devil! had paid me a trifling hundred or two he owed me, before going home. But he went in a hurry, 'tis true. Catch me ever putting up another man before asking him if he has any debts unprovided for!"

"There, there, doctor!" exclaimed Beauchamp, flinging the letter on the floor, and stamping on it—" ought not I to go out of the world, for allowing such a fellow as this to lead me the dance of ruin ?"

I shook my head.

"Oh, did you but know the secret history of the last six months," he continued bitterly-" the surpassing folly-the black ingratitude—the villanies of all kinds with which it was