“Your anxiety is natural,” returned Thirlby, “but you may rest satisfied, if Doctor Hodges has seen her, he has done all that human aid can effect.  But as you must perforce wait his coming forth, I will endeavour to beguile the tedious interval by relating to you so much of my history as refers to Nizza Macascree.”

After a brief pause, he commenced.  “You must know, then, that in my youth I became desperately enamoured of a lady named Isabella Morley.  She was most beautiful—­but I need not enlarge upon her attractions, since you have beheld her very image in Nizza.  When I first met her she was attached to another, but I soon rid myself of my rival.  I quarrelled with him, and slew him in a duel.  After a long and urgent suit, for the successful issue of which I was mainly indebted to my rank and wealth, which gave great influence with her parents, Isabella became mine.  But I soon found out she did not love me.  In consequence of this discovery, I became madly jealous, and embittered her life and my own by constant, and, now I know too well, groundless suspicions.  She had borne me a son, and in the excess of my jealous fury, fancying the child was not my own, I threatened to put it to death.  This violence led to the unhappy result I am about to relate.  Another child was born, a daughter—­need I say Nizza, or to give her her proper name, Isabella, for she was so christened after her mother—­and one night—­one luckless night,—­maddened by some causeless doubt, I snatched the innocent babe from her mother’s arms, and if I had not been prevented by the attendants, who rushed into the room on hearing their mistress’s shrieks, should have destroyed her.  After awhile, I became pacified, and on reviewing my conduct more calmly on the morrow, bitterly reproached myself, and hastened to express my penitence to my wife.  ’You will never have an opportunity of repeating your violence,’ she said; ’the object of your cruel and unfounded suspicions is gone.’—­’Gone!’ I exclaimed; ‘whither?’ And as I spoke I looked around the chamber.  But the babe was nowhere to be seen.  In answer to my inquiries, my wife admitted that she had caused her to be removed to a place of safety, but refused, even on my most urgent entreaties, accompanied by promises of amended conduct, to tell me where.  I next interrogated the servants, but they professed entire ignorance of the matter.  For three whole days I made ineffectual search for the child, and offered large rewards to any one who would bring her to me.  But they failed to produce her; and repairing to my wife’s chamber, I threatened her with the most terrible consequences if she persisted in her vindictive project.  She defied me, and, transported with rage, I passed my sword through her body, exclaiming as I dealt the murderous blow, ’You have sent the brat to her father—­to your lover, madam.’  Horror and remorse seized me the moment I had committed the ruthless act, and I should have turned my sword