Julia, and Ines her mother’s namesake,--and
poor little Maurice, who smiles even amid hunger, and whose smiles are
worse than curses!--I will tell them their mother is dead!” he cried,
staggering towards the door of his childrens’ apartment--“Dead without
a blow!--that shall be their answer and their doom.”

“As he spoke, he stumbled over the senseless body of his wife; and the
tone of his mind once more strung up to the highest pitch of conscious
agony, he cried, “Men!--men!--what are your pursuits and your
passions?--your hopes and fears?--your struggles and your
triumphs?--Look on me!--learn from a human being like yourselves, who
preaches his last and fearful sermon over the corse of his wife, and
approaching the bodies of his sleeping children, whom he soon hopes to
see corses also--corses made so by his own hand!--Let all the world
listen to me!--let them resign factitious wants and wishes, and furnish
those who hang on them for subsistence with the means of bare
subsistence!--There is no care, no thought beyond this! Let our children
call on me for instruction, for promotion, for distinction, and call in
vain--I hold myself innocent. They may find those for themselves, or
want them if they list--but let them never in vain call on me for bread,
as they have done,--as they do now! I hear the moans of their hungry
sleep!--World--world, be wise, and let your children curse you to your
face for any thing but want of bread! Oh that is the bitterest of
curses,--and it is felt most when it is least uttered! I have felt it
often, but I shall feel it no longer!”--And the wretch tottered towards
the beds of his children. “Father!--father!” cried Julia, “are these your hands? Oh let me live,
and I will do any thing--any thing but”---- “Father!--dear father!”
cried Ines, “spare us!--to-morrow may bring another meal!” Maurice, the
young child, sprung from his bed, and cried, clinging round his father,
“Oh, dear father, forgive me!--but I dreamed a wolf was in the room, and
was tearing out our throats; and, father, I cried so long, that I
thought you never would come. And now--Oh God! oh God!”--as he felt the
hands of the frantic wretch grasping his throat,--“are you the wolf?”

“Fortunately those hands were powerless from the very convulsion of the
agony that prompted their desperate effort. The daughters had swooned
from horror,--and their swoon appeared like death. The child had the
cunning to counterfeit death also, and lay extended and stopping his
breath under the fierce but faultering gripe that seized his young
throat--then relinquished--then grasped it again--and then relaxed its
hold as at the expiration of a spasm. “When all was over, as the wretched father thought, he retreated from
the chamber. In doing so, he stumbled over the corse-like form of his
wife.--A groan announced that the sufferer was not dead. “What does this
mean?” said Walberg, staggering in his delirium,--“does the corse
reproach me for murder?--or does one surviving breath curse me for the
unfinished work?”

“As he spoke, he placed his foot on his wife’s body. At this moment, a
loud knock was heard at the door. “They are come!” said Walberg, whose
frenzy hurried him rapidly through the scenes of an imaginary murder,
and the consequence of a judicial process. “Well!--come in--knock again,
or lift the latch--or enter as ye list--here I sit amid the bodies of my
wife and children--I have murdered them--I confess it--ye come to drag
me to torture, I know--but never--never can your tortures inflict on me
more than the agony of seeing them perish by hunger before my eyes. Come
in--come in--the deed is done!--The corse of my wife is at my foot, and
the blood of my children is on my hands--what have I further to fear?”
But while the wretched man spoke thus, he sunk sullenly on his chair,
appearing to be employed in wiping from his fingers the traces of blood
with which he imagined they were stained. At length the knocking at the
door became louder,--the latch was lifted,--and three figures entered
the apartment in which Walberg sat. They advanced slowly,--two from age
and exhaustion,--and the third from strong emotion. Walberg heeded them
not,--his eyes were fixed,--his hands locked in each other;--nor did he
move a limb as they approached. “Do you not know us?” said the foremost, holding up a lanthern which he
held in his hand. Its light fell on a groupe worthy the pencil of a
Rembrandt. The room lay in complete darkness, except where that strong
and unbroken light fell. It glared on the rigid and moveless obduracy of
Walberg’s despair, who appeared stiffening into stone as he sat. It
showed the figure of the friendly priest who had been Guzman’s director,
and whose features, pale and haggard with age and austerities, seemed to
struggle with the smile that trembled over their wrinkled lines. Behind
him stood the aged father of Walberg, with an aspect of perfect apathy,
except when, with a momentary effort at recollection, he shook his white
head, seeming to ask himself why he was there--and wherefore he could
not speak. Supporting him stood the young form of Everhard, over whose
cheek and eye wandered a glow and a lustre too bright to last, and
instantly succeeded by paleness and dejection. He trembled,
advanced,--then shrinking back, clung to his infirm grandfather, as if
needing the support he appeared to give. Walberg was the first to break
the silence. “I know ye who ye are,” he said hollowly--“ye are come to
seize me--ye have heard my confession--why do you delay? Drag me away--I
would rise and follow you if I could, but I feel as if I had grown to
this seat--you must drag me from it yourselves.”

“As he spoke, his wife, who had remained stretched at his feet, rose
slowly but firmly; and, of all that she saw or heard, appearing to
comprehend only the meaning of her husband’s words, she clasped her arms
round him, as if to oppose his being torn from her, and gazed on the
groupe with a look of impotent and ghastly defiance. “Another witness,”
cried Walberg, “risen from the dead against me? Nay, then, it is time to
be gone,”--and he attempted to rise. “Stay, father,” said Everhard,
rushing forward and detaining him in his seat; “stay,--there is good
news, and this good priest has come to tell it,--listen to him, father,
I cannot speak.”--“You! oh you! Everhard,” answered the father, with a
look of mournful reproach, “you a witness against me too,--I never
raised my hand against you!--Those whom I murdered are silent, and will
you be my accuser?”

“They all now gathered round him, partly in terror and partly in
consolation,--all anxious to disclose to him the tidings with which
their hearts were burdened, yet fearful lest the freight might be too
much for the frail vessel that rocked and reeled before them, as if the
next breeze would be like a tempest to it.