He passed the night in pacing his apartment, expecting every moment that Julia, who was occupied according to her heart’s desire, would return to her home—but no Julia came; and in the morning he was saluted by the carrier, who asked him, with a knowing look, what had become of Mrs M’Iver, and to what use he had applied the coffin he (the carrier) had seen through the window when he last passed the house. Gustavus stared at him in amazement, without deigning one word of reply; but, the man being gone, he saw, with as much light as his brain was capable of reflecting, something like a foundation for a charge of murder against him, in the event of his wife not making her appearance. This conclusion wound up the evils that he had entailed upon himself by entering into the fearful state of matrimony; and there can be little doubt that, if he had known the Greek of the woman-hater, Simonides, of which of course he knew never a syllable, he would have thundered forth the whole epithets of his poem in a voice of thunder. Another day passed, and no Julia was yet to be seen; and on the second day, straggling individuals began to pry about the house, just as if a murder had been committed there, and they were looking for blood-spots. He grew every moment more terrified, was unable to cook, or even to eat, and roamed about with the muscles of his face hanging over the maxillary bones like flaps of leather, and sunken eyes that seemed to look inwards, where there was in fact nothing to be seen worth looking at. Every step frightened him, and every sound startled him, from reveries of trials and interrogations, and hanging and dissecting; for he looked every hour for a visit from the authorities. He had sense enough to see that everything was against him—the disappearance of Julia—their endless quarrels—the coffin—all arrayed against a drivelling, idiot statement about trying to wean his wife from the quaich by pretending to bury her alive. Things were fast progressing to being just as bad as there is any occasion for them to be when a sinful man is the victim; for, some time afterwards, the mother of Julia herself, with two friends from the Canongate, came to see the married pair. Now, Gustavus saw them at a long distance, and, knowing that he could not account for his wife, he resolved upon sneaking away into the woods, after locking the door; and this accordingly he did in double quick time; but he had not got far away, when, upon turning to look behind him, he saw the carrier again returning, and very soon stop at his door, and enter into conversation with the three women. He watched all their motions, and it was apparent to him that the very affair of the murder they supposed he had committed was alone the subject of their conversation. Nay, he saw them begin to try to force open the door and able to contain himself no longer, he said to himself—