As the word passed the lips of the foreman of the jury, a piercing shriek rang through the court.  It proceeded from a tall figure in black, who, with closely-drawn veil, had sat motionless during the trial, just before the dock.  It was the prisoner’s mother.  The next instant she rose, and throwing back her veil wildly exclaimed, “He is innocent—­innocent, I tell ye!  I alone”—­

“Mother! mother! for the love of Heaven be silent!” shouted the prisoner with frantic vehemence, and stretching himself over the front of the dock, as if to grasp and restrain her.

“Innocent, I tell you!” continued the woman.  “I—­I alone am the guilty person!  It was I alone that perpetrated the deed!  He knew it not, suspected it not, till it was too late.  Here,” she added, drawing a sheet of paper from her bosom—­“here is my confession, with each circumstance detailed!”

As she waved it over her head, it was snatched by her son, and, swift as lightning, torn to shreds.  “She is mad!  Heed her not—­believe her not!” He at the same time shouted at the top of his powerful voice, “She is distracted—­mad!  Now, my lord, your sentence!  Come!”

The tumult and excitement in the court no language which I can employ would convey an adequate impression of.  As soon as calm was partially restored, Mrs. Bourdon was taken into custody:  the prisoner was removed; and the court adjourned, of course without passing sentence.

It was even as his mother said!  Subsequent investigation, aided by her confessions, amply proved that the fearful crime was conceived and perpetrated by her alone, in the frantic hope of securing for her idolized son the hand and fortune of Miss Armitage.  She had often been present with him in his laboratory, and had thus become acquainted with the uses to which certain agents could be put.  She had purloined the key of the recess; and he, unfortunately too late to prevent the perpetration of the crime, had by mere accident discovered the abstraction of the poison.  His subsequent declarations had been made for the determined purpose of saving his mother’s life by the sacrifice of his own!

The wretched woman was not reserved to fall before the justice of her country.  The hand of God smote her ere the scaffold was prepared for her.  She was smitten with frenzy, and died raving in the Metropolitan Lunatic Asylum.  Alfred Bourdon, after a lengthened imprisonment, was liberated.  He called on me, by appointment, a few days previous to leaving this country forever; and I placed in his hands a small pocket-Bible, on the fly-leaf of which was written one word—­“Ellen!” His dim eye lighted up with something of its old fire as he glanced at the characters; he then closed the book, placed it in his bosom, and waving me a mute farewell—­I saw he durst not trust himself to speak—­hastily departed.  I never saw him more!

“THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS.”