I thought that when Honora Urquhart left my house to be married to M. De Fontaine, in the church below the hill, peace would return to us once more.
But there is no peace. This morning another horrible tragedy defiled my doorstep.
I was sitting in the open porch waiting for the mail coach, for it seemed to me that it was about time I received some word from Mr. Tamworth. It was yet some minutes before the time when the rumble of the coach is usually heard, and I was brooding, as was natural, over the more than terrible occurrences of the last few weeks, when I heard the clatter of horses' hoofs, and looking up and down the road, saw a small party of men approaching from the south. As they came nearer, I noticed that one of the riders was white-haired and presumably aged, and was interesting myself in him, when he came near enough for me to distinguish his features, and I perceived it was no other than Mr. Tamworth.
Rising in perturbation, I glanced at the men behind and abreast of him, and saw that one of these rode with lowered head and oppressed mien, and was just about to give that person a name in my mind when the horse he bestrode suddenly reared, bolted, and dashed forward to where I sat, flinging his rider at the very threshold of my house, where he lay senseless as the stone upon which his head had fallen.
For an instant both his companions and myself paused aghast at a sight so terrible and bewildering; then, amid cries from the road and one wild shriek from within, I rushed forward, and turning over the head, looked upon the face of the fallen man. It was not a new one to me. Though changed and seamed and white now in death, I recognized it at once. It was that of Edwin Urquhart.
. . . . . . . . .
This noon I took down the sign which has swung for twenty years over my front door. "Happy-Go-Lucky" is scarcely the name for an inn accursed by so many horrors.
February 3, 1792.
This week I have fulfilled the threat of years ago. I have had the oak parlor and its hideous adjunct torn from my house.