pallid lips.  That sight was more than could be borne by one who stood a little behind the group.  He rushed forward, with eyes glaring like a tiger’s, and leveled a blow at Maximilian.  It was poor, maniacal Von Harrelstein, who had been absent in the forest for a week.  Many people stepped forward and checked his arm, uplifted for a repetition of this outrage.  One or two had some influence with him, and led him away from the spot; while as to Maximilian, so absorbed was he that he had not so much as perceived the affront offered to himself.  Margaret, on reviving, was confounded at finding herself so situated amid a great crowd; and yet the prudes complained that there was a look of love exchanged between herself and Maximilian, that ought not to have escaped her in such a situation.  If they meant by such a situation, one so public, it must be also recollected that it was a situation of excessive agitation; but, if they alluded to the horrors of the moment, no situation more naturally opens the heart to affection and confiding love than the recoil from scenes of exquisite terror.

An examination went on that night before the magistrates, but all was dark; although suspicion attached to a negro named Aaron, who had occasionally been employed in menial services by the family, and had been in the house immediately before the murder.  The circumstances were such as to leave every man in utter perplexity as to the presumption for and against him.  His mode of defending himself, and his general deportment, were marked by the coolest, nay, the most sneering indifference.  The first thing he did, on being acquainted with the suspicions against himself, was to laugh ferociously, and to all appearance most cordially and unaffectedly.  He demanded whether a poor man like himself would have left so much wealth as lay scattered abroad in that house—­gold repeaters, massy plate, gold snuff boxes—­untouched?  That argument certainly weighed much in his favor.  And yet again it was turned against him; for a magistrate asked him how he happened to know already that nothing had been touched.  True it was, and a fact which had puzzled no less than it had awed the magistrates, that, upon their examination of the premises, many rich articles of bijouterie, jewelry, and personal ornaments, had been found lying underanged, and apparently in their usual situations; articles so portable that in the very hastiest flight some might have been carried off.  In particular, there was a crucifix of gold, enriched with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a prize of great magnitude.  Yet this was left untouched, though suspended in a little oratory that had been magnificently adorned by the elder of the maiden sisters.  There was an altar, in itself a splendid object, furnished with every article of the most costly material and workmanship, for the private celebration of mass.  This crucifix, as well as everything else in the