They did not presume to say that any such thing had taken place; this gentleman, honoured and beloved as he was, must be regarded as innocent till he was fully proved to be otherwise; but they would submit that had any poor man lain under the same complication of circumstances, had long entertained unfriendly feelings against the deceased—they did not yet say murdered gentleman—had he expressed an angry wish for the removal of the deceased only a few days previous, and were he the last person seen near the scene of the catastrophe, nothing could have prevented him long ago being summoned to a legal examination on that head. They thought the gentleman, if innocent, as they sincerely hoped he was, must himself desire such an inquiry for the vindication of his fair fame. It may be imagined that the sensation created by this article was intense. What its effect was on the inhabitants of Woodburn Grange, lies not within the compass of human language. Terror, grief, distraction, astonishment, were blended into one crushing and prostrating feeling. It was now that Mrs. Woodburn and her daughters for the first time learned that Mr. Woodburn, in the hay-field, had used those unfortunate words towards Mr. Drury in a moment of irritation. George had heard of them before, and they had lain on his heart with a deadly weight. Of his father’s incapability of committing such a crime, under any circumstances, he had the same assurance as he had of his own. He cast it away from him as ridiculous: but he foresaw that they would excite much prejudice, and occasion much trouble under the circumstances. He received a letter from Elizabeth Drury, expressing her horror and indignation at such a frightful imputation or even suspicion on his father. “Never! never! never! would she believe it. She would answer for Mr. Woodburn with her own existence; but the cruel aspersions, and the misery and trouble that must arise out of it, had,” she said, “added fresh poignancy to her former grief.”