The father of Edward de Vaux--for to him we must now turn--had gone on in the usual road by which small errors grow into great crimes. He had committed follies, and yielded to passions. Passions had hardened into vices, and vices had ultimately hurried him beyond what he would at first have dreamed possible for a reasonable creature to perpetrate. In the story we have heard told by the gipsy, the part that he had acted was in no degree overdrawn by the narrator, though there were some secrets in Lord Dewry's breast alone, which neither, indeed, justified nor even palliated his crime--for such deeds admit not of palliation,--but which showed, at least, that the crowning act itself was not accompanied by many of the circumstances which seemed to aggravate it. Overwhelmed by a debt that he could not pay, disappointed of relief from a source that had never before failed, Mr. De Vaux had set out from London to meet his brother in a state of mind which approached insanity, and was, in fact, despair. Hardened by many years of vice, he had retained very few of those Christian principles which had not been wanting in his early education; and there remained, certainly, not sufficient virtue of any kind to make him view an escape from disgrace, by an act of suicide, as any thing unmanly or infamous in itself. He had determined, then, either to obtain from his brother the full sum he demanded, by whatever means might suggest themselves at the moment--threats, supplications, or remonstrances--or to terminate his own existence on the spot,--principally with a view to avoid the shame he anticipated in London if he could not discharge his obligations, but partly, also, with a savage desire of inflicting bitter regrets upon his brother for the obduracy of his refusal. As the most retired spot for executing this purpose, he had chosen the point where we have seen that he had waited his brother's coming; and there a busy devil, that had been stirring at his heart all the way down, renewed its suggestions with tenfold importunity. He saw before him some of the rich lands of Lord Dewry; he saw them smiling with the promise of abundance; all seemed happy in the world but his own heart; all seemed prosperous but himself. His brother, notwithstanding his late loss, appeared in his eyes peculiarly blessed; and again and again the fiend within asked him what right by nature had his brother, because he was the elder, to the sole possession of all those advantages which, the same evil spirit lyingly told him, would have kept him from vice and misery, had they been equally divided between them? His brother arrived while he was in this mood. The first means he employed to obtain what he wanted were entreaty and persuasion; and when these failed, he had recourse to threats and violence. Lord Dewry retorted with reproach and reprehension; and his brother, in a moment of frantic passion, brought the curse of Cain upon his own head.