N the evening of the 3rd of May, 1827, the garden of a large red

brick bow-windowed mansion called North-end House, which, enclosed in spacious grounds, stands on the eastern height of Hampstead Heath, between Finchley Road and the Chestnut Avenue, was the scene of a domestic tragedy.

Three persons were the actors in it. One was an old man, whose white hair and wrinkled face gave token

least sixty years of age.

that he was at

He stood erect

with his back to the wall which separates

VOL. I.

I

the garden from the Heath, in the attitude of one surprised into sudden passion, and held uplifted the heavy ebon cane, upon which he was ordinarily accustomed to lean. He was confronted by a man of two-and-twenty, unusually tall and athletic of figure, dressed in rough seafaring clothes, and who held in his arms, protecting her, a lady of middle age. The face of the young man wore an expression of horror-stricken astonishment, and the slight frame of the grey-haired woman was convulsed with sobs.

These three people were Sir Richard Devine, his wife, and his only son Richard, who had returned from abroad that morning.

"So, madam," said Sir Richard, in the high-strung accent which in crises of great mental agony are common to the most selfrestrained of us, "you have been for twenty years a living lie! For twenty years you have cheated and mocked me. For twenty years-in company with a scoundrel whose name is a byword for all that is profligate and base—you have laughed at me for a credulous and hood-winked fool; and now, because I dared to raise my hand to that reckless boy, you confess your shame, and glory in the confession!"