tagonist, with his hands clasped convulsively, and his eyes glaring upwards for several moments.

*

*

A haze of horror is spread over that black transaction; and if it is dissipated for an instant when my mind's eye suddenly looks back through the vista of years, the scene seems rather the gloomy representation or picture of some occurrence which I cannot persuade myself that I actually witnessed. To this hour, when I advert to it I am not free from fits of incredulousness. The affair created a great ferment at the time. The unhappy survivor (who in this narrative has passed under the name of Trevor) instantly left England, and died in the south of France about five years afterward, in truth, broken-hearted. In a word, since that day I have never seen men entering into discussion, when warming with wine, and approaching never so slowly towards the confines of formality, without reverting with a shudder to the trifling, the utterly insignificant circumstances which wine and the hot passions of youth kindled into the fatal brawl which cost poor Captain his life, and abroad to die a broken-hearted exile.

drove Mr.

CHAPTER III.

THE BROKEN HEART.

Intriguing and Madness.

WHEN I have seen a beautiful and popular actress, I have often thought how many young play-goers these women must intoxicate-how many even sensible and otherwise sober heads they must turn upside down! Some years ago, a case came under

my care which showed fully the justness of this reflection; and I now relate it, as I consider it pregnant both with interest and instruction. It will show how the energies of even a powerful and well-informed mind may be prostrated by the indulgence of unbridled passions. Late one evening in November, I was summoned in haste to visit a gentleman who was staying at one of the hotels in Covent Garden, and informed in a note that he had manifested symptoms of insanity. As there is no time to be lost in such cases, I hurried to the hotel, which I reached about nine o'clock. The proprietor gave me some preliminary information about the patient to whom I was summoned, which, with what I subsequently gleaned from the party himself, and other quarters, I shall present connectedly to the reader, before introducing him to the sick man's chamber.

Mr. Warningham-for that name may serve to indicate him through this narrative-was a young man of considerable fortune, some family, and a member of College, Cambridge. His person and manners were gentlemanly; and his countenance, without possessing any claims to the character of handsome, faithfully indicated a powerful and cultivated mind. He had mingled largely in college gayeties and dissipations, but knew little or nothing of what is called "town-life;" which may, in a great measure, account for much of the simplicity and extravagance of the conduct I am about to relate. Having from his youth upwards been accustomed to the instant gratification of almost every wish he could form, the slightest obstacle in his way was sufficient to irritate him almost to phrensy. His temperament was very ardent, his imagination lively and active. In short, he passed every where for what he really was a very clever man-extensively read in elegant literature, and particularly intimate with the dramatic writers. About a fortnight before the day on which I was summoned to him, he had come up

from college to visit a young lady whom he was addressing; but finding her unexpectedly gone to Paris, he resolved to continue in London the whole time he had proposed to himself, and enjoy all the amusements about town-particularly the theatres. The evening of the day on which he arrived at the

hotel, beheld him at Drury-lane, witnessing a new and, as the event proved, a very powerful tragedy. In the afterpiece, Miss was a prominent performer; and her beauty of person-her "maddening eyes," as Mr. Warningham often called them-added to her fascinating naïveté of manner, and the interesting character she sustained that evening—at once laid prostrate poor Mr. Warningham among the throng of worshippers at the feet of this "Diana of the Ephesians."

As he found she played again the next evening, he took care to engage the stage-box; and fancied he had succeeded in attracting her attention. He thought her lustrous eyes fell on him several times during the evening, and that they were instantly withdrawn, with an air of conscious confusion and embarrassment, from the intense and passionate gaze which they encountered. This was sufficient to fire the train of Mr. Warningham's susceptible feelings; and his whole heart was in a blaze instantly. Miss

sung that evening one of her favourite songs-an exquisitely pensive and beautiful air; and Mr. Warningham, almost frantic with excitement, applauded with such obstreperous vehemence, and continued shouting "encore encore”— '—so long after the general calls of the house had ceased, as to attract all eyes for an instant to his box. Miss could not, of course, fail to observe his conduct; and presently herself looked up with what he considered a gratified air. Quivering with excitement and nervous irritability, Mr. Warningham could scarcely sit out the rest of the play; and the moment the curtain fell, he hurried round to the stage door, determined to wait

and see her leave, for the purpose, if possible, of speaking to her. He presently saw her approach the door, closely muffled, veiled, and bonneted, leaning on the arm of a man of military appearance, who handed her into a very gay chariot. He perceived at once that it was the well-known Captain Will it be believed that this enthusiastic young man actually jumped up behind the carriage which contained the object of his idolatrous homage, and did not alight till it drew up opposite a large house in the western suburbs; and that this absurd feat, moreover, was performed amid an incessant shower of small searching rain? He was informed by the footman, whom he had bribed with five shillings, that Miss -'s own house was in another part of the town, and that her stay at Captain -'s was only

for a day or two. He returned to his hotel in a state of tumultuous excitement, which can be better conceived than described. As may be supposed, he slept little that night; and the first thing he did in the morning was to despatch his groom, with orders to establish himself in some public-house which could command a view of Miss- -'s residence, and return to Covent Garden as soon as he had seen her or her maid enter. It was not till seven o'clock that he brought word to his master, that no one had entered but Miss -'s maid. The papers informed him that Miss- played again that evening; and though he could not but be aware of the sort of intimacy which subsisted between Miss and the captain, his enthusiastic passion only increased with increasing obstacles. Though seriously unwell with a determination of blood to the head, induced by the perpetual excitement of his feelings, and a severe cold caught through exposure to the rain on the preceding evening he was dressing for the play, when, to his infinite mortification, his friendly medical attendant happening to step in positively forbade his leaving his room, and consigned him to bed and physic,

instead of the maddening scenes of the theatre. The next morning he felt relieved from the more urgent symptoms; and his servant having brought him word that he had at last watched Miss- enter her house, unaccompanied, except by her maid, Mr. Warningham despatched him with a copy of passionate verses, enclosed in a blank envelope. He trusted that some adroit allusions in them, might possibly give her a clew to the discovery of the writer-especially if he could contrive to be seen by her that evening in the same box he had occupied formerly; for to the play he was resolved to go, in defiance of the threats of his medical attendant. To his vexation he found the box in question pre-engaged for a family party: and-will it be credited?-he actually entertained the idea of discovering who they were, for the purpose of prevailing on them to vacate in his favour! Finding that, however, of course out of the question, he was compelled to content himself with the corresponding box opposite, where he was duly ensconced the moment the doors were opened.

Miss appeared that evening in only one piece, but in the course of it she had to sing some of her most admired songs. The character she played, also, was a favourite both with herself and the public. Her dress was exquisitely tasteful and picturesque, and calculated to set off her figure to the utmost advantage. When, at a particular crisis of the play, Mr. Warningham, by the softened lustre of the lowered foot-lights, beheld Miss emerging from a romantic glen with a cloak thrown over her shoulders, her head covered with a velvet cap, over which drooped, in snowy pendency, an ostrichfeather, while her hair strayed from beneath the cincture of her cap in loose negligent curls, down her face and beautiful cheeks; when he saw the timid and alarmed air which her part required her to assume, and the sweet and sad expression of her eyes, while she stole about as if avoiding a pursuer;