“The monk turned black with rage; but he controlled himself, and said quietly:—
“‘My son, I am as innocent of their deaths as yourself. Only a few minutes ago I arrived here, having just returned from Vienna. Finding no one about the castle, I came in here seeking for your father and madame. Approaching, I heard loud words, and on entering, saw your father stab your step-mother, then turn the weapon against himself, when they both fell as you see them now. The cause of his conduct I am unacquainted with.’
“I did not credit him, and was about to inflict summary vengeance upon him, or compel him to tell me the truth, when the dying woman, raising herself half way on her elbow, after several attempts at speech, feebly articulated:
“‘Not he, but he,’ pointing to my father; ‘he did it.’
“A frightful convulsion of pain distorted her face. She pressed her hand to her neck, whence the blood issued, and falling back on the floor, after a slight spasm, expired. All this happened in a much shorter space of time than it requires to tell it you. It seemed as if the invisible hand of fate had conducted me there to behold this horrible spectacle. What insanity could have urged my father to such a deed?
“This abandoned woman was dead—stone dead. Her career of deceit and extravagance was ended, and my martyred mother’s manes appeased. After looking attentively at the corpse, to see if life was entirely extinct, I turned my attention to my father; but he was already dead. Her features retained in death their expression of lowering darkness, and his the same look of concentrated iron will they had worn in life.
“‘Oh, most gracious God!’ I ejaculated, sinking on my knees in earnest prayer;—‘Oh, vouchsafe to have mercy on their souls; grant them thy grace.’
“‘Amen,’ said the monk; and he had glided from the apartment before I could arrest his departure. I wished to detain him, at least till I had procured a physician and coroner, and had an inquest on the bodies; but he was gone. Had the devil sent him there also to witness the death of his accomplice? or accident, or what? There was none to answer my questions, but the solitary castle itself;—but could walls have spoken, I presume they would have told me many a strange tale, of strange scenes that had happened since I had left them.
“Assistance must be had, and as none of the servants had yet returned, I mounted my horse and rode to the village, whence I soon returned with a physician and magistrate.