The guardsman pressed forward to claim Miss Liebenheim’s hand for the next dance; a movement which she was quick to favor, by retreating behind one or two parties from a person who seemed coming toward her.  The music again began to pour its voluptuous tides through the bounding pulses of the youthful company; again the flying feet of the dancers began to respond to the measures; again the mounting spirit of delight began to fill the sails of the hurrying night with steady inspiration.  All went happily.  Already had one dance finished; some were pacing up and down, leaning on the arms of their partners; some were reposing from their exertions; when—­O heavens! what a shriek! what a gathering tumult!

Every eye was bent toward the doors—­every eye strained forward to discover what was passing.  But there, every moment, less and less could be seen, for the gathering crowd more and more intercepted the view;—­so much the more was the ear at leisure for the shrieks redoubled upon shrieks.  Miss Liebenheim had moved downward to the crowd.  From her superior height she overlooked all the ladies at the point where she stood.  In the center stood a rustic girl, whose features had been familiar to her for some months.  She had recently come into the city, and had lived with her uncle, a tradesman, not ten doors from Margaret’s own residence, partly on the terms of a kinswoman, partly as a servant on trial.  At this moment she was exhausted with excitement, and the nature of the shock she had sustained.  Mere panic seemed to have mastered her; and she was leaning, unconscious and weeping, upon the shoulder of some gentleman, who was endeavoring to soothe her.  A silence of horror seemed to possess the company, most of whom were still unacquainted with the cause of the alarming interruption.  A few, however, who had heard her first agitated words, finding that they waited in vain for a fuller explanation, now rushed tumultuously out of the ballroom to satisfy themselves on the spot.  The distance was not great; and within five minutes several persons returned hastily, and cried out to the crowd of ladies that all was true which the young girl had said.  “What was true?” That her uncle Mr. Weishaupt’s family had been murdered; that not one member of the family had been spared—­namely, Mr. Weishaupt himself and his wife, neither of them much above sixty, but both infirm beyond their years; two maiden sisters of Mr. Weishaupt, from forty to forty-six years of age, and an elderly female domestic.

An incident happened during the recital of these horrors, and of the details which followed, that furnished matter for conversation even in these hours when so thrilling an interest had possession of all minds.  Many ladies fainted; among them Miss Liebenheim—­and she would have fallen to the ground but for Maximilian, who sprang forward and caught her in his arms.  She was long of returning to herself; and, during the agony of his suspense, he stooped and kissed her