The shades of evening were closing over Montrevor, and candles had just been lighted in the library, earlier than usual, as it seemed, for the completion of some urgent business with which its occupants were employed.

There were three individuals seated round the writing-table: Mr. Trevor, his son Eugene, and a third person, who, with pen in hand, with parchment opened before him, looked what he really was—a lawyer. He wrote some time in silence, the old man rocking himself backwards and forwards in his chair, as if nervous and weary; and the other leaning over the table, watching the proceedings of the scribe with anxious interest plainly revealed in his dark, but handsome countenance. At length, finishing with a flourish, the man of business looked up, and asked for the witnesses.

Eugene Trevor was about hastily to rise and ring the bell, when, as if by fortunate coincidence, Mabel Marryott entered the room.

"Oh, exactly; here is one, at any rate," he said, resuming his seat; and the woman advancing, was directed by the lawyer to sign the papers on which he had been occupied.

Marryott still held the pen in her hand, having accomplished the act, and was glancing at her master's son with something of a congratulatory leer upon her countenance, as he bent over eagerly towards the document, whilst Mr. Trevor's shrill voice, at the same moment, was raised in irritated inquiry, as to who was to be the other witness; exclaiming, that they had better make haste and call some one else, and let the business be at an end.

"No need of that—I am here as witness!" exclaimed a deep, low voice, whose thrilling tones burst upon the listeners' ears like thunder before the lightning flash.

Three of the assembled party, at least—the father, the son and that guilty woman—shrank from the fire of that dark, full eye, which glanced accusingly down upon them; for Eustace Trevor stood suddenly in the midst, at the very table round which was collected the startled group.

A faint shriek escaped the lips of Mr. Trevor, accompanied by the words:

"Secure him—he is mad!"

But no one stirred. There was something more powerful than the fear of madness in their hearts, which kept the others rooted to the spot whereon they sat or stood.

The lawyer indeed, as was most natural considering the reported facts on which his late business had been founded, cast a timid glance towards the door, and, had he dared, would have risen to seek that aid which he concluded would be requisite.

There was besides something in the appearance of the unhappy man before him, which accorded with Mr. A.'s preconceived idea of his circumstances and condition—his countenance wild and haggard from the recent excitement and exertion which had attended his escape, as well as from the uneffaced effects of grief and illness—his disordered and unusual appearance; and the lawyer turned a glance towards his brother, to ascertain what was to be done; but Eugene sat shrinking and ashy pale, endeavouring but in vain to meet with anything like composure, that steadfast glance the madman fixed upon his face.

A touch upon his arm, made Mr. A. look round. It was Mabel Marryott who thus sought to attract his attention; and in obedience to her significant glance, he was about to rise stealthily and leave the room, when a voice of stern command detained him.

"Be so good, Sir, as to remain where you are for the present. I may be allowed perhaps to glance my eye over this document, in which I have my suspicions I am in no small degree concerned."

There was no resisting the tone in which these words were uttered. No hand save one, and that a woman's, was raised to prevent the firm but quiet movement with which the speaker stretched forth his hand and lifted the parchment from the table—Mabel Marryott alone made a sharp but ineffectual movement, as if with all the power of her malignant will she would have secured the paper from the wronged one's grasp.

Perfect silence reigned whilst Eustace Trevor stood and read the paper through from beginning to end—a deed which, under plea of his own insanity and consequent incompetency, signed over to his brother Eugene, as guardian and trustee, the whole management and power over the entailed estate of Montrevor and the property appertaining thereto, at such time as he, Eustace Trevor, as heir-at-law, should by the testator Henry Trevor's death, come into nominal possession.

This, of course drawn out with legal amplitude and precision, Eustace attentively perused; then, when some probably were expecting its destruction, the document was calmly replaced upon the table.

"And now, Sir," turning to the lawyer, "you will perhaps do me the favour to withdraw; and you, woman, I desire you to do the same."

It was wonderful to see the power which the calm and lofty indignation, swelling in that wronged man's breast, seemed to exercise over the minds of those who so late had triumphantly trampled upon his very heart.

As for the lawyer, he hesitated not to rise, and prepare to obey that implied command; for he saw that neither of his employers were inclined to interfere.

The old man sat as one paralyzed, and the younger with compressed lips, and contracted downcast brow, seemed to await in sullen silence and discomfort the issue of the powerful scene; and Marryott even, though she paused for a moment, considered better of it, and swept from the apartment with the air of a Lady Macbeth. Those three were then left together alone. The injured face to face with the foes of his own household—his father and his brother!

What should he say to these? or rather to him—his brother? To the other, he had long ceased to look but as on one who had forfeited all right to the name of father. "For what one amongst ye, who if his son ask a fish will he give him a serpent; or if he ask for bread will give him a stone," and by what better manner of speech figure forth all that old man had ever done by him, his luckless son? Nay, if this were all—if he could but have paused here, and forgotten how that father had played the part of husband to a sainted mother; but he looked not on him now—he looked only to him, that mother's son; from whom, in spite of all he might have ever had to reprobate and forgive, it had not entered into his thoughts to conceive cruel perfidy such as that, of which since entering that room he had become but the more fully convinced he had been made the victim; and the bitterness of death—during that first instant that he thus stood reading in his brother Eugene's sullen, downcast brow, a too certain confirmation of his guilt—overwhelmed his soul.

But it passed over, and was gone; and a just and righteous indignation re-asserted its dominion in its place.

"Eugene," he said, "that paper," and he pointed to the legal document before him, "throws but too clear a light on the transactions of which I have been made the victim. Oh, how could you allow that demon, covetousness, to gain such empire over your heart? Cain, in the angry passion of the moment, slew his brother; but you, in cold-blooded calculation, could bend yourself to an act which time and circumstances, perhaps remote, could alone turn to your advantage."

"Eustace!" stammered his brother; "I excuse this intemperate language on your part, for of course you cannot appreciate the circumstances of the case; but any one would be ready to justify the necessary, but painful, course of conduct to which we were reduced. In whatever state of mind you may be now, there are others to testify as to the fact—"

"Pshaw! justify—who will justify one, who, during the temporary delirium of a brain fever, confined his own brother to a madhouse! affixed to his name that stamp and stigma which must cling to it for the remainder of his days; or, still more unwarrantable and cruel, the evident attempts to detain him in that madhouse, long after any reasonable possible excuse was afforded? But I can plainly read the motive which thus influenced you—too plainly, alas! Eugene, two months ago I had not conceived such conduct possible; but I know you now. I think I can pretty well divine what has been the course of conduct you have pursued; you have been to London, perhaps—"

He paused. There was no denial.

"You went to your clubs; and there very surely took means to establish the fact of your eldest brother's melancholy condition—his insanity, his confinement!"

Eugene Trevor in a hoarse and angry voice would have attempted some reply, but Eustace's indignant voice overpowered him.

"And then you brought that man down," he continued, "to fill up the measure of your iniquity, and one scratch of the pen alone was needed now to make it good. Let it be done. That paper of his, that base and villainous forgery, now lies before me at my mercy. But I scorn to touch it. I treat it as it is—a worthless, valueless nothing. If I but chose to follow your example—go, call my friends and neighbours about me, declare before them all the unnatural fraud which has been practised upon me; yes, show them this," and he bared his blackened, wounded wrists, "and ring in their astounded ears, what, and for what, it entered a brother's heart to conceive an act of such atrocity; then, do you think that I could not manage to make those who knew, and cared for me, credit my testimony before that of an abandoned woman and two ignorant time-serving country doctors? Ask Dr. Miller, would he even dare to say, my attack was anything but the temporary delirium of fever?"

"Merciful heavens, Eugene!" murmured Mr. Trevor, trying in an under tone to gain his younger son's attention, without being heard by the other. "Is there no one at hand to stop him—to secure him?"

But Eustace caught the muttered syllables, and turned sternly round.

"No one, Sir; who will dare to do it? Think not that I entered your house without precaution against what I there had every reason to expect. These," drawing a brace of pistols from his pocket, "I found opportunity to obtain; and should one of these poor trembling menials by your orders, dare—"

"Eugene! Eugene! are they loaded? for the love of Heaven save me; he will murder us all!" Mr. Trevor exclaimed in terror.

"Eustace! this is indeed madness!" the brother would have said, but shame choked the words within his throat; "this violence is most uncalled for. What motive could there now be on our part for having recourse to such expedients as you seem to fear. I assure you, you are quite at liberty to remain, or depart at your pleasure; and as for what has been done, I am quite ready to answer for my conduct," he added doggedly, "if you choose to drag the matter forward so publicly."

"Would you be so prepared, Eugene? Dare not repeat that falsehood, wretched man. Fear not, I will not drag you forward to such a test. I hate, I curse you not for what you have done, but the cause, the sin which brought you to commit it. I do abhor, nay, I am sickened unto death, of the very world in which I have suffered so much, and in which sin so despicable and revolting can exist; still more with the home (if it be not sacrilege to use that hallowed name in such a case) in which it asserts such hateful power. The very air I breathe beneath it seems to choke me; if all the gold which fills the coffers of its master were laid in heaps before my feet, that would not make it tolerable to my heart. Rejoice then, when I swear that never under this roof together with you two—my most unnatural relations, shall I again set my foot. I have borne and suffered too much within its walls. I willingly resign all sonship, brotherhood, with those who have trampled on every human tie. I leave you to carry out, as far as in you lies, your hearts' desires. I shake the very dust off my feet, and depart. I leave this place to-night, this country, perhaps, to-morrow, caring not that for the present the stigma you have cast upon my name must remain. You, Sir, should we never meet again on earth, may Heaven forgive! You, Eugene, farewell; we may meet again in this world, but never again as brothers."

He turned, and was gone. None saw him depart. He went out into the dark night; and many within that house who had heard of his startling arrival, concluded that he had been secretly restored to the asylum from which he had made his escape. Only a few days after, an old servant, much attached to Mrs. Trevor and her second son, who on his dismissal from Montrevor had served Eustace during his residence at Oxford, appeared at the hall, with authority from his master to gather and pack up all the effects belonging to him; and having done so without molestation, he silently conveyed them away.

He threw no light upon the subject, or on his master's destination. Indeed, it was soon afterwards ascertained, by those chiefly interested in the matter, that he was equally ignorant on the point as themselves.

Eugene Trevor remained for some time at Montrevor, then returned to the world, to find the general impression apparently continuing as it was before, concerning the derangement and consequent confinement of his brother. Then it was deemed advisable to report that the unhappy young man was so far recovered, that he had gone abroad under proper guardianship; and the world, too busy with its own affairs to keep up any long-sustained interest or inquiry into the fate and fortune of those removed out of their light, were contented to suppose this to be the case; and when some years had run their course, as we have seen, and nothing more had been seen or heard of the unhappy Eustace Trevor, many gave him up as lost for ever to society, and Eugene, gay, prosperous, and invested with all importance and privilege in his father's house, had soon assumed in the eyes of the world a certain—though it might be somewhat equivocal—position as heir, under some few restrictions, to the property and estates of Montrevor.