His gun was discharged,' he continued, 'so there is no proof that he did not do it himself!' Little did I know what a fiend he was, into whose power I was putting myself." "Oh, Heaven!" cried Edith, who had been listening with her head bent down till her whole face was nearly concealed, "I see it all, now! I see it all!" "No, dear child," replied Sir Robert Croyland, in a voice sad and solemn, but wonderfully calm, "you cannot see it all; no, nor one thousandth part of what I have suffered. Even the next dreadful three hours--for he was fully that time ere he came to Harbourne--were full of horror, inconceivable to any one but to him who endured them. At length, he made his appearance; calm, grave, self-possessed, with nought of his somewhat rude and blustering manner, and announced, with an affectation of feeling to the family, that poor Clare, my keeper, had been found dying with a wound in his side." "I recollect the day, well!" said Edith, shuddering. "Do you not remember, then," said Sir Robert Croyland, "that he and I went into my writing-room--that awful room, which well deserves the old prison name of the room of torture! We were closeted there for nearly two hours; and all he said I cannot repeat. His tone, however, was the most friendly in the world. He professed the greatest interest in me and in my situation; and he told me that he had come to see me before he said a word to any one, because he wished to take my opinion as to how he was to proceed. It was necessary, he said, that I should know the facts, for, unfortunately they placed me in a very dangerous situation, which he was most anxious to free me from; and then he went on to tell me, that when he had come up, poor Clare was perfectly sensible, and had his speech distinctly. 'As a magistrate,' he continued, 'I thought it right immediately to take his dying deposition, for I saw that he had not many minutes to live. Here it is,' he said, showing his pocket-book; 'and, as I luckily always have pen and ink with me, I knelt down, and wrote his words from his own lips. He had strength enough to sign the paper; and, as you may see, there is the mark of blood from his own hand, which he had been pressing on his side.' I would fain have taken the paper, but he would not let me, saying, that he was bound to keep it; and then he went on, and read the contents. In it, the unfortunate man charged me most wrongfully with having shot him in a fit of passion; and, moreover, he said that he had been sure, beforehand, that I would do it, as I had threatened him on the preceding day, and there were plenty of people who could prove it." "Oh, how dreadful!" cried Edith.