One winter evening, as the family were gathered about the open wood-fire, a sleigh halted at the door, and a visitor appeared in the person of a middle-aged man, who came unbidden into the room, shaking the snow from his great coat, and seating himself in the midst of the family. Regarding for a moment the face of the aged father, and then the countenance of the young husband and wife, which alike in their pallor, seemed to bear the traces of an irrevocable calamity, the visitor said quietly,-- "Herman Barnhurst, I am the relative to whom Marion Merlin addressed her confession, and whom she invested with the trusteeship of her estate." Had a thunderbolt fallen into the midst of the party, it would not have created so much consternation, as these few words from the lips of the visitor. The young wife shrieked, the old man started from his chair; Herman Barnhurst, (otherwise called Mr. Wilton,) with the blood rushing to his pale face, said simply, "That accursed woman!" "I hold her last Will and Testament in my hand," continued the visitor: "I am her nearest relative, and would inherit her estate, but for this will, by which she names _you and your wife Fanny, as the sole heirs of her immense property_." Herman took the Will from the visitor's hands. "As administrator of her estate, I am here to surrender it into your hands. The will was made as a small atonement for the injury she caused you." Herman quietly dropped the parchment into the fire: "Her money and her memory are alike accursed. I will have nothing to do with either." That night the relative turned his face eastward, to take possession of the estate of Marion Merlin. _And beneath this, in a different hand, was added the following singular narrative:_ CHAPTER XV. AFTER THE DEATH OF MARION. A pleasant place, in summer time, was the country-mansion of the celebrated Doctor N----, situated upon the heights of Weehawken, about one mile from the Hudson River. A huge edifice of brick, separated from the high road by a garden, it was surrounded by tall trees, whose branches overhung its steep roof, and relieved by the background of the rich foliage and blossoms of the orchard trees. A pleasant place, in summer, was the mansion of the celebrated Doctor, but lonely enough, and desolate enough in winter. On this drear winter night, it looks sad and desolate as the grave. The sky above it is leaden, the trees around it are leafless, the garden white with snow, and the bitter wind howls dismally over the waste of snow, which clothes the adjacent fields. In the distance, the Hudson glitters dimly, white and cold, with fields of floating ice. It is near morning, and but a single room in the vast country mansion is tenanted. You can see a light trembling faintly through the half vailed window yonder; the window near the roof, in the southern wing.