"You can undoubtedly do so, if you will," said the magistrate, who had marked the malice that beamed from the visage of the young man; "but do not dream that that will discharge the prisoner from arrest, or from the necessity of answering the felony of which he now stands accused, before a court and jury. The extent of the forgeries, and the temper displayed by the accused, are such, that he must and shall abide the fruits of his delinquency. He stands committed--officer, remove him." I heard no more; my brain spun round and round, and I was again carried insensible to my miserable dwelling. 6. CHAPTER VI. THE CATASTROPHE OF A TRAGEDY OFTEN PERFORMED ON THE GREAT STAGE OF LIFE. It may be supposed that the misery now weighing me to the earth was as much as could be imposed upon me; but I was destined to find, and that before the night was over, that misery is only comparative, and that there is no affliction so positively great that greater may not be experienced. In the dead of the night, when my woes had at last been drowned in slumber, I was roused by feeling a hand pressing upon my bosom; and, starting up, I saw, for there was a taper burning on a table hard by, a man standing over me, holding a pillow in his hand, which, the moment I caught sight of him, he thrust into my face, and there endeavoured to hold it, as if to suffocate me. The horror of death endowed me with a strength not my own, and the ruffian held the pillow with a feeble and trembling arm. I dashed it aside, leaped up in the bed, and beheld in the countenance of the murderer the features of the long missing and abandoned son, Abbot Skinner.