CHAPTER CCX.
HOLFORD'S STUDIES.
It was midnight.
In a garret, belonging to a house in the same court where Crankey Jem resided, sate Henry Holford.
He was alone. His elbow rested on the table, and his hand supported his feverish head—for dark thoughts filled the brain of that young man.
The flickering light of a single candle fell upon the pages of an old volume, which he was reading with intense interest.
His cheeks were pale,—his lips were dry,—his throat was parched,—and his eye-balls glared with unnatural lustre.
He did not feel athirst—else there was water handy to assuage the craving:—nor did he hear his heart beating violently, nor experience the feverish and rapid throbbing of his temples.
No:—his whole thoughts—his entire feelings—his every sensation,—all were absorbed in the subject of his study.
And that the reader may fully comprehend the nature of those impulses which were now urging this strange young man on to the perpetration of a deed that was destined to give a terrible celebrity to his name, we must quote the passage on which his mind was so intently fixed:—
"THE ASSASSINATION OF GUSTAVUS III., OF