In these two words let me shroud a tale of horror. Harriet was my victim! Ask not how. _I_ triumphed! _She_ fell! An angel might have fallen as she did, and lost no purity. But her stainless heart was too proud in virtue to palter and equivocate with circumstances. She never rose from what she deemed her bridal bed. And ere twenty summers had fanned her cheek, the grave-worm banqueted upon its loveliness.
This was my _first_ crime. The recollection of it is engraven upon my memory by an awful catastrophe. The night wind that sung _her_ funeral dirge, howled with dismal fury through the burning ruins of my paternal mansion. Yes! that very night, as if it were in mercy to them, my father and my mother both perished in the flames which reduced the house itself to cinders. They were seen at the windows of their bedchamber, shrieking for aid; but before any could be procured, the flooring gave way, and they sunk at once into the yawning furnace that roared beneath. Their remains, when afterwards dug out, were a few shovelsfull of blackened ashes; except my father's right hand, which was found clasped in that of my mother, and both unconsumed. I followed these sad relics to the sepulchre. But with the tears I shed, there was blended a feeble consolation at the thought they had died before they knew the fate of Harriet; and a frightful joy, that another pang was added to the wretchedness of my uncle.
I can well remember what a feeling of loneliness and desolation now took possession of me. Time, however, rolled on; and I grew callous, if not reconciled. I could not disguise from myself that the more select circles of society were closed against me; or, if I found my way into them, some blushing whisper was quickly circulated, which created a solitude around me.
It was during this period, and while I was squandering thousands to achieve the conquest of shadows, that I succeeded in fixing an intimacy with a family equal to my own in station, and superior to it in fortune. The eldest daughter was an heiress of large expectations, and my proposals of marriage were favourably received. I might almost say that Matilda was mine; when one day I received a letter from her father, peremptorily forbidding my visits. I was thunderstruck. I hastened to the house, and demanded an explanation. It was given in few words. _I was referred to my uncle for any information I required_.