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Upon hearing of these dreadful tidings, lady Louisa Southwell hastened to the house of mourning, and would have hurried Geraldine away; but she resisted all entreaties to quit it, till the last sad duties had been performed to her father's remains. Lady Louisa felt deeply distressed, in consequence of the turn events had taken; she now sometimes reproached herself for having been instrumental in Fitz-Clare's recall; she also reflected, with bitterness, that the marquis of Beaudesert had given, after all, but a cold and forced consent to his son's union with Fitz-Clare's daughter. Such, and so questionable, is the good a female effects, however intelligent her mind, however benevolent her motives, the moment she steps beyond her allotted sphere of action.

The ruling passion soon returning, lady Louisa Southwell bent all her zeal to dis cover the murderer of Fitz-Clare. Though he had escaped at the moment, she declared that the utmost ends of the earth

should

should not hide him from the persevering pursuits of the family he had so irreparably injured.

The event justified this declaration. Knowlan at length was taken; and though it is anticipating on the order of time, we here commemorate his fate, to have done with the painful subject. The testimony of lord O'Melvyl and his attendants was too decisive to admit, in his judges, the smallest hesitation with respect to his guilt; and the unhappy man at length paid the forfeit, with his life, of his numerous crimes committed both against private friendship and against society.

The situation of Geraldine's mind, for some time after her father's death, was truly such as to inspire compassion. The manner in which Fitz-Clare met his fate greatly added to the severity of her affliction." Oh, my forebodings did not deceive me!" she would say, in allusion to the shock she had twice received from the wild, fiendish aspect of Knowlan. “It

was

was not only his being a villain, a ruffian, that filled me with such involuntary horror at his sight-it was that I beheld, in that dreadful countenance, the destined murderer of my father."

To banish these superstitious ideas, which prevented her mind from regaining any degree of strength, lady Louisa left Geraldine as little as possible to herself, and lord O'Melvyl also spent every hour he could possibly command with her. The store of latent tenderness which O'Melvyl's heart possessed, when thus called into action, disclosed itself in a thousand soothing and delicate attentions, that rendered him dearer to the suffering Geraldine than ever.

Lord O'Melvyl was summoned from this office of consoler, which he performed so well, to attend himself the dying bed of a parent. Lord Beaudesert, whose life had been one scene of suffering, since the poison was administered to him in Italy, was at length released; and as, in the

hour

hour of approaching death, the visions of ambition receded from his view, he made lord O'Melvyl the only reparation in his power, for his long opposition to his wishes, by solemnly approving and ratifying his choice.

Though lord Beaudesert's character and conduct were not such as to excite that lively filial tenderness which Geraldine had experienced during her short intercourse with her father, still, to a mind like O'Melvyl's, the loss of a parent must always be a painful blow. It added a shade of pensive softness to his manners, that rendered him, if possible, more calculated for a companion to the melancholy Geraldine.

In time the lovers began to look through the dim horizon of grief, and admit the possibility of future pleasure. Geraldine could smile through her tears, and Ferdinand, to divert her mind from dwelling too intently upon her late sorrows, described to her what yet remained unexplained in his own." I have often ad

the pa

mired, my Geraldine," he said, rity of fate that seemed to destine us for each other: both motherless both restored to our remaining parent late in life. But would you believe it, my beloved, the point on which your scrupulous delicacy was most alarmed-the reproachthe only reproach that ever could be af fixed to the name of your father, was in danger of being also ascribed to mine!"

Geraldine listened in breathless amazement." Lord Beaudesert accused of treason! Lord Beaudesert, the most zealous, the most unqualified supporter of the monarchy!"

She now remembered the various unexplained eccentricities in Ferdinand's conduct-his mysterious connexion with San Carlos-his disappearance at the ball -and rejoiced that the happy hour was at length arrived, when all these obscurities should be done away.

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Ferdinand seemed at a loss to begin, when he had announced his complicated

story.

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