“Ah! that’s all gone and past,” she went on with a sigh. “My eldest lad was more than handsome, he was a genius as well. He was taken away from me when he was but a little lad--and never came home again till--till the devil got hold of him, and made him think shame of his poor mother, and the poor place he was born in. I would never have blamed him. I would have had him hold his head with the highest, as he had a right--for had he not gotten that place for himself?--but when he came back to the water-side a great gentleman and scholar, and would never have let on where he belonged to, one that is not here to bear the blame,” said ’Lizabeth, setting her teeth--“one that is gone to his account--and well I wot the Almighty has punished him for his ill deeds--betrayed my lad. Some of the gentry were good to him--as good as the angels in heaven--but some were as devils, that being their nature. And this is what I’ve got to say:” here she made a pause, raised herself to her full height, and threw off the red kerchief from her head in her agitation. “I’ve come here to accuse before God, and you, Sir Henry, my son, Abel Bampfylde, him I was most proud of and loved best, of the murder of young Lord Stanton, which took place on the morning of the 2nd of August, eighteen hundred and forty-five--fifteen years ago and more.” The sensation that followed is indescribable. Sir Henry Stanton himself rose from his seat, excited by wonder, horror, and pity, beyond all ordinary rule. The bystanders had but a vague sense of the extraordinary revelation she made, so much were they moved by the more extraordinary passion in her, and the position in which she stood. “My good woman, my poor woman!” he cried, “this last dreadful tragedy has gone to your brain--and no wonder. You don’t know what you say.” She smiled--mournfully enough, but still it was a smile--and shook her head. “If you had said it as often to yourself as I have done--night and day--night and day; open me when I’m dead, and you’ll find it here,” she cried--all unaware that this same language of passion had been used before--and pressing her hand upon her breast. “The second of August, eighteen hundred and forty-five--if you had said it over as often as me!” There was a whisper all about, and the lawyer of the district, who acted as Sir Henry’s clerk on important occasions, stooped towards him and said something. “The date is right. Yes, yes, I know the date is right,” Sir Henry said, half-angrily. Then added, “There must be insanity in the family. What more like the effort of a diseased imagination than to link the old crime of fifteen years ago with what has happened to-day?”