It was with a numbed and dreary sense of bruised and outraged feeling that Mary—the last fibre of mistaken partiality torn from her heart—the last atom of her false idol crumbled into dust, lay down upon her bed that night.

She had lain there perhaps an hour, when the loud ringing of the hall-door aroused her from the state of dreamy stupor which was stealing over her.

Her first supposition was that her cousin Louis had returned. Then the hasty-ascending footstep of the servant, the quick knocking at the door of Mrs. de Burgh's dressing-room, from which the chamber appointed for Mary was not far removed; the hasty communication then given, the loud and agitated voice of Eugene in reply, his impetuous rush down stairs and from the house—as the banging of the hall-door made her aware—led her rather to conclude that some intelligence of peculiar importance, perhaps relating to the illness of old Mr. Trevor, had been received from Montrevor.

The next moment Mrs. de Burgh's bell rang violently, and very soon after her maid entered Mary's apartment, begging Miss Seaham to go immediately to Mrs. de Burgh.

Montrevor was on fire! Mr. Eugene Trevor had been sent for. Mrs. de Burgh was greatly agitated.

Pale and horror-stricken, Mary hastened to obey the summons. She found her cousin with her sofa pushed towards the window, gazing in strong excitement on the red glare, now again plainly visible in the distance, and so fearfully accounted for.

"Gracious heavens, Mary, is not this terrible! the poor old place. Eugene has gone off distracted, not knowing whether he will find the whole house consumed; as for the wretched old man, God only knows what has become of him! it did not seem that the messenger brought any sure tidings of his safety. How dreadful if he were to perish in the flames!"

"Dreadful, indeed!" murmured Mary; but she was no match for her cousin's volubility. She sank down shivering by her side, her eyes fixed in appalled bewilderment on the awful sign written in the heavens—sign, as it were, of the judgment and fiery indignation which is to devour the adversary.

They sat there long intent upon the anxious watch, though little was to be gleaned from that flickering and unconstant glare, now deepening, now dying into comparative darkness, but that the fire was still in existence.

Mrs. de Burgh had ordered some of her servants to follow Eugene, and render any assistance in their power; one was to return immediately with intelligence. In the meantime she entreated Mary not to leave her, a petition which poor Mary, in her present state of mind, was not inclined to resist.

Coffee was brought up to revive their strength and spirits, during the two hours which at least must elapse before the messenger could arrive, and wrapping Mary in a warm shawl, the weary interval of suspense passed away as quickly as could be expected. It was over at last. The servant returned. Mrs. de Burgh had him up to the dressing-room to hear the account from his own lips.

In a few words the man related, that one entire wing of the house had been past recovery when the party arrived from Silverton, or before any effectual assistance could be procured. It was the wing containing the private library of Mr. Trevor; there it was supposed the fire had broken out and made some way before discovered by the household.

The catastrophe was supposed to have originated in some way from Mr. Trevor, as he was missing in his own apartment; and it was feared that he had perished in the flames, as he had been known to have some nights before crept stealthily from his bed-room to the study. It did not appear that any of the servants had been sufficiently courageous to attempt his rescue, and of course now all hope of saving the unfortunate old man was at an end, the flames having communicated with the adjoining passages before the alarm was given, though even then Mr. Eugene Trevor had seemed almost inclined to pierce the flames in that direction, so great was his horror at the intelligence.

Mrs. de Burgh at this awful communication fell into a fit of hysterical weeping, whilst Mary, pale as death, speechless, tearless with emotion, sat with her eyes raised and her hands clasped together. "Thoughts too deep for tears" stirred up within her breast—thoughts of death, judgment, and eternity.

How terrible indeed the retribution which had fallen upon the head of that sinful old man. How mighty and terrible the hand which might be said to have taken up the cause of the oppressed, and stopped the way of the ungodly!

Fearfully vivid was the light which guided Eugene Trevor on his course, as like a demon of the night he dashed through the darkness—his neighing, foaming steed bearing him far onward before the party following him from Silverton.

The conflagration lighted the country many miles around, and fierce was the effort the distracted rider had to make to force the frightened animal to proceed.

When entering the grounds, the flames shone through the leafless trees full upon his path, his dilated nostrils inhaled at every breath air heated like a furnace; and bleeding, panting, trembling in every limb, stopped short before the blazing pile.

A shout from the spectators, now congregated in considerable numbers, announced the anxiously expected arrival of Eugene Trevor. One second's pause, as raising himself in his stirrups, he seemed in one wild, hurried, desperate glance to review the fearful scene—then casting away the reins and springing to the ground, called out in a hoarse loud voice an inquiry for his father; but without waiting an answer—or perhaps reading the full truth too plainly revealed on the countenances of those around him—he darted forward, almost as the servant had related (it might have appeared with the desperate impulse to attempt even then the rescue of his father's remains); when, either repelled by the violent heat or suddenly recalled to recollection, he staggered back, struck his clenched hand wildly against his brow, and turned away just as that part of the roofing gave way; the flames bursting out with increasing fury necessitating a hasty retreat. The conflagration presented altogether a scene of awful grandeur. Engines were playing on the other extremity of the mansion, though little hopes of checking the devastation were entertained.

All the furniture and other valuable property which it had been possible to rescue had been already removed, and now lay strewn out in the park before the house; and there, a little aloof from the rest of the crowd, with arms folded on his breast, stood Eugene Trevor watching the progress of the demolition—the terrible glare distinctly revealing the expression of dark despair settled in his glazed eyes and upturned countenance.

A few gentlemen of the neighbourhood were on the spot, but a feeling of delicacy restrained them from intruding on the sufferer their sympathy at that dreadful moment.

The feelings of a man who stands beholding the house of his forefathers burning before his eyes, with the fearful knowledge that a parent's blackened corpse is consuming to ashes beneath the ruins, might seem indeed to require no other consideration to render their harrowing nature complete. But were these the subject matter of the thoughts which pressed upon the soul of Eugene Trevor at that awful moment?—or had it been the natural promptings of filial piety alone which at first had impelled him to rush forwards in that fatal direction?

Alas! no—rather must we fear it was the impulse of the man, goaded by the consciousness that there too was consuming the papers on whose existence all which he had staked his greedy soul to obtain, and the destruction of which must be the total demolition of all his unrighteous hopes and prospects, bring him to the feet of an injured and offended brother, and prove, in short, his ruin.

The work of destruction continued unabated; portion after portion of the burning mass gradually gave way; the roof of the large dining-room fell in with a tremendous crash, and all the interior part of the mansion being now destroyed, nothing remained but the mere skeleton of one of the oldest, stateliest residences in the kingdom.

By this time, Eugene Trevor had turned away, and exerted himself to speak with the superior servants and superintendents of the estate; and then the friends still lingering by, hesitated no longer to draw near. They first shook hands in silent and sorrowful token of their sympathy with the bereaved man, proceeding to press upon him invitations to accompany them to their respective homes. Eugene received their advances with as much calmness as could be expected; their hospitality, however, he thankfully declined.

If he went anywhere he had promised to return to Silverton, but his presence would be required on the spot some time longer. After he had seen to everything that remained to be done, he should probably go to ----, the town four miles distant. He had hurt his arm by approaching too near the fire, and must have it looked at by a surgeon.

His friends had too much consideration to urge him further, and having received his repeated thanks, and assured them that they could not be of any further assistance, they departed.

The further proceedings of that night, or rather morning (for it was about four o'clock) before the work of ruin was finally achieved, were, as may be supposed, to seek for the remains of Mr. Trevor from amidst the wreck of the fallen house. They were at length discovered.

There they lay: the iron chests which lined the apartment, (once the general library of the mansion, but long since monopolized by Mr. Trevor for his especial use and purposes)—and which alone remained of everything belonging to it, testified to its identity. The existence of these giving hopes of the security of its contents, caused a ray of renovated hope to kindle on the countenance of Eugene Trevor, who superintended the investigation in person.

But the hope was but transitory. The position of the blackened bones indicating his father's remains, plainly betokened the vicinity of the miser to the old oak bureau, at the time of his dreadful death: of that receptacle, of course, nothing now remained but the iron bends which had once so jealously secured its contents, and the blackened ashes of paper in considerable quantity; rendering it still more probable that the horrible catastrophe had originated through their means—namely, that the wretched old man had set some of them on fire during their examination; indeed, within the fleshless hand of the miser, clutched doubtless in his dying agony, there still remained a scorched fragment of parchment, upon which the eager eyes of his son still deciphered a word or two, which at once told him his fate was decided; that it was the unrighteous will on which his future fortunes so strongly depended, the last atom of which, miraculously preserved, he now beheld.

A few moments more, and Eugene Trevor turned his back upon the smoking ruins of his home; and soon, in the hateful light of morning, with bent brow and livid cheek, was riding away to ——, with feelings at his heart it would be indeed but a futile endeavour to describe.

With the guilty woe of him who ponders over a well-merited fate—a serpent wound around the heart, stinging its every thought to strife—can alone perhaps suggest a fit comparison, when applied to the state of a man's mind under circumstances like the present.