The reader can contrast its rumors, with the facts of the case, as plainly set forth in the previous confession, penned by the hand of the unfortunate and guilty Marion Merlin.
A few words more will close this painful narrative. Marion was quietly and honorably buried. Her relatives were wealthy and powerful. The 'physician's certificate' enabled them to avoid the painful formality of a coroner's inquest. She sleeps beside her husband, Walter Howard, in Greenwood Cemetery.
Soon after her decease, Mr. Lansdale sold all his property in New York, and with his daughter disappeared completely from public view.
Herman Barnhurst remained in the Lunatic Asylum for more than a year, when he was released, his intellect restored, but his health (it is stated) irretrievably broken. After his release, he left New York, and his name was soon forgotten, or if mentioned at all, only as that of a person long since dead.
Gerald Dudley, after various adventures, in Texas and Mexico, suffered at the hands of Judge Lynch, near San Antonio.
About a year after the death of Marion Merlin, a young man in moderate circumstances, accompanied by his wife, (a pale, faded, though interesting woman) and her aged father took up his residence in C——, a pleasant village in south-western Pennsylvania. They were secluded in their habits, and held but little intercourse with the other villagers. The husband passed by the name of Wilton, which (for all that the villagers knew to the contrary,) was his real name.
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."