ABSTRACT
I rushed from the chamber, and descended to the parlour. The door was shut; I hastily opened it. Lady Aubrey had been compelled to quit the scene of horror, and the only object that met my eyes was the blackening corpse of Judith Blagden. She had expired in agonies which mocked the powers of description; every feature was distorted, every limb lacerated and broken. I turned away scarcely in my senses, and was darting through the outward room when I felt my arm grasped, and beheld, in the person who detained me, the host of the Black Lion, whom I once knew by the name of honest Ned. He entreated me to hear him for a single moment: – he informed me, that, involved in peril by his kindness to Edward Blagden, he had been obliged to quit his home, and to depend upon his bounty; that he had taken the name of Apprece the better to conceal himself; that he considered me as for ever banished from Glenowen for the indiscretions of my youth, and by the strong hatred of the family.
