removed, and made way for him. She clasped his hand in hers.

"Well, George, we must part!" said she, closing her eyes, and breathing fast. The husband sobbed like a child, with his face buried in his handkerchief. -"Do you forgive me ?" he murmured, half-choked with emotion.

"Yes, God knows I do, from my heart! I forgive all the little you have ever grieved me about!"

"Oh, Jane-Jane-Jane !" groaned the man, suddenly stooping over the bed, and kissing her lips in an apparent ecstasy. He fell down on his knees, and cried bitterly.

"Rise, George, rise," said his wife, faintly. He obeyed her, and she again clasped his hand in hers. "George are you there-are you?" she inquired, in a voice fainter and fainter.

"Here I am, love!-oh, look on me!-look on me!" he sobbed, gazing steadily on her features. Say once more that you forgive me! Let me hear your dear, blessed voice once again-or-or”

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"I Do! Kiss me-kiss me," she murmured, almost inaudibly; and her unworthy husband kissed away the last expiring breath of one of the loveliest and most injured women whose hearts have been broken by a husband's brutality!

12th. This evening I looked in at the house where my late patient lay dead, for the purpose of fulfilling my promise, and seeing her locket placed near her heart, and the coffin closed. I then went into the parlour, where sat the bereaved husband, in company with his clerk, who had, ever since his engagement, showed a deep regard and respect for Mrs. TAfter I had sat some moments in their company,— "said "I've something on my mind, Mr. Tthe young man with emotion, "which I shall not be happy till I've told you."

What is it?" inquired his master, languidly. "Do you recollect how often you used to praise

my draft-copying, and wondered how I got through so much work?"

"Why, yes, d-n you, yes!" replied his master, angrily; "what have you brought that up for now, eh?"

"To tell you, sir, that I did not deserve your praises"

"Well-well-no more," interrupted his master, impatiently.

"But I must, and will tell you that it was all done by poor Mrs. T——,who learned engrossing, and sat up whole nights together writing, that you might not lose your business, till she was nearly blinded, poor dear lady! and she would not even let me tell you! And I shall make free to tell you," continued the young man, rising, and bursting into tears,-"I shall make free to tell you, that you have behaved shamefully-brutally to her, and have broken her poor heart-you have—and God will remember you for it!" And he left the room, and never again entered the house, the scene of his beloved mistress's martyrdom. Mr. T– listened to all this without uttering a word his eyes dilated-and he presently burst into a fit of loud and lamentable weeping, which lasted long after I left; and that evening he attempted to commit suicide, unable, like one before him, to endure the heavy smitings of a guilty conscience.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SPECTRE-SMITTEN.

Few topics of medical literature have occasioned more wide and contradictory speculation than that of insanity, with reference as well to its predisposing and immediate causes as its best method of treatment;-since experience is the only substratum of real knowledge, the easiest and surest way of arriving at those general principles which may regulate both our pathological and therapeutical researches, especially concerning the subtle, almost inscrutable disorder, mania—is, when one does meet with some striking, well-marked case, to watch it closely throughout, and be particularly anxious to seize on all those smaller features, those more transient evanescent indications which are truer characteristics of the complaint than perhaps any other. With this object did I pay close attention to the very singular and affecting case detailed in the following narrative. I have not given the whole of my observations-far from it; those only are recorded which seemed to me to have some claims to the consideration of both medical and general readers. The apparent eccentricity of the title will be found accounted for in the course of the narrative.

Mr. M- as one of a very large party, had been enjoying the splendid hospitality of Lady and did not leave till a late, or rather early, hour in the morning. Pretty women, music, and champaign, had almost turned his head; and it was rather fortunate for him that a hackney-coach stand was within a stone's throw of the house he was leaving. Muffling his cloak closely around him, he contrived to

M

move towards it in a tolerably direct line, and a few moments' time beheld him driving, at the usual snail's pace of those rickety vehicles, to Lincoln's-Inn; for Mr. M- was a law student. In spite of the transient exhilaration produced by the scenes he had just quitted, and the excitement consequent on the prominent share he took in an animated discussion, in the presence of about thirty of the most elegant women that could well be brought together, he found himself becoming the subject of a most unaccountable depression of spirits. Even while at Lady -'s, he had latterly perceived himself talking often for mere talking's sake-the chain of his thoughts perpetually broken-and an impatience and irritability of manner towards those whom he addressed, which he readily resolved into the reaction following high excitement. I ought before, perhaps, to have mentioned, was a man of great talent, chiefly, however, imaginative, and had that evening been particularly brilliant on his favourite topic-diablerie and mysticism; towards which he generally contrived to incline every conversation in which he bore a part. He had been dilating, in particular, on the power which Mr. Maturin had of exciting the most fearful and horrific ideas in the minds of his readers, instancing one of his romances, the title of which I have forgotten. Long before he had reached home, the fumes of wine had evaporated, and the influence of excitement subsided; and with reference to intoxication, he was as sober and calm as ever he Iwas in his life. Why, he knew not, but his heart seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and his thoughts gloomier, every step by which he neared Lincoln'sInn. It struck three o'clock as he entered the sombrous portals of the ancient inn of court. The perfect silence-the moonlight shining sadly on the dusky buildings-the cold quivering stars-all these, together, combined to enhance his nervousness. He described it to me as though things seemed to wear

a strange, spectral, supernatural aspect. Not a watchman of the inn was heard crying the hour-not a porter moving-no living being but himself visible in the large square he was crossing. As he neared his staircase, he felt his heart fluttering; in short, he felt under some strange, unaccountable influence, which, had he reflected a little, he would have discovered to arise merely from an excitable nervous temperament, operating on an imagination peculiarly attuned to sympathize with terror. His chambers lay on the third floor of the staircase; and on reaching it, he found his door-lamp glimmering with its last expiring ray. He opened his door, and after groping some time in the dark of his sitting-room, found his chamber candlestick. In attempting to light it, he put out the lamp. He went down stairs, but found that the lamp of every landing had shared the fate of his own; so he returned, rather irritated, thinking to amerce the porter of his customary Christmas-box for his niggard supply of oil. After some time spent in the search, he discovered his tinder-box, and proceeded to strike a light. This was not the work of a moment. And where is the bachelor to whom it is? The potent spark, however, dropped at last into the very centre of the soft tinder. M- blew-it caught-spread-the match quickly kindled, and he lighted his candle. He took it in his hand, and was making for bed, when his eyes caught a glimpse of an object which brought him senseless to the floor. The furniture of his room was disposed as when he had left it; for his laundress had neglected to come and put things in order; the table, with a few books on it, drawn towards the fireplace, and by its side the ample-cushioned easy-chair. The first object visible, with sudden distinctness, was a figure sitting in the arm-chair. It was that of a gentleman, dressed in dark-coloured clothes, his hands, white as alabaster, closed together over his lap, and the face looking away; but it turned slowly towards