"'The house of Vavasour is doomed--its last hour has come;' and, saying these words, he drew from his pocketbook a letter, which he threw towards me. I seized it; and judge of my horror when I perceived this paper." Lord Mortlake then took from his escritoire the following letter:-- "SIR THOMAS,--You have had your triumph--my triumph comes now. The despised Mortlake rejoices in the extinction of the proud Vavasour. Know, haughty man, Edward is not the son of your brother!" "It is not possible to describe my feelings, Tom, at this instant--my head turned round. That the statement was false, I doubted not; for I knew better than Sir Thomas the deep feeling of hatred my mother could entertain, and did entertain, against us both. "'Uncle, this letter is the legacy of an enemy--allow me to retain it, and I will bring positive evidence to disprove the assertion it contains.' "My uncle was too much excited to listen to me. In a hoarse and angry voice, he muttered-- "'Give me the letter, you villain!' "I endeavoured to pacify him, but without success; when, suddenly rising, he seized a knife, and, rushing forward, made a thrust at me with it. I avoided the blow, and retreated. He, incautiously advancing, lost his footing, and fell with the knife underneath. I hastily stepped forward to raise him, but had not strength to do so; for, by one of those strange and unaccountable accidents, which not unfrequently give the air of romance to real life, the point of the knife had been turned towards his body, and, passing between his ribs, had pierced his heart. He died in an instant. I endeavoured again to raise the body, but in vain. I drew out the knife, and blood then came with it. To describe my situation at this terrible moment is impossible: my uncle dead at my feet--no one to witness how the accident happened--I might be dragged as a felon to trial for his supposed murder. My grief for his unhappy end was soon absorbed in fears for my own safety--for, here was I, the apparent heir, discovered with the man to whom I was to succeed, a bleeding corpse beside me; then the quarrel between us--the stigma thrown upon me by my vindictive parent, which, for aught I knew, Sir Thomas might have bruited abroad--all this made me tremble. Even if acquitted, still the suspicious circumstances of the case would be greedily seized upon by the public, which never judges favourably, and a stain would have been cast upon the family name never to be effaced. My uncle was past all human assistance, and my remaining could not aid him. I therefore fled, unobserved by any one; and barely three hours had elapsed from my leaving the inn, until I was again its inmate. At a late hour I heard a noise of voices, which accorded ill with my morbid state of feeling. I rang to know the cause; and the answer to my inquiry was the announcement that a dreadful murder had been committed upon Sir Thomas Vavasour, and that you, Tom, had been taken