A Lost Life

THE twenty-first of December was an eventful night. In the fashionable
part of the town of Brightstone, in a house opposite the corner house of
Brunswick Terrace, and just two doors from the Catholic chapel, sat two
ladies, one about forty-five, the other a young girl of some fifteen
years.

"It is late, Arabella," said the older lady; "we had better go to bed.
Cuthbert will not arrive to-night."

"Very well, Aunt Alice," replied Arabella.

"But hark!--what is that noise in the street opposite?" Just as the
clock of the Catholic chapel was striking 12 there rose on the still
night air a fearful cry--"Murder! murder!"--and Lady Alice St. John,
tearing aside the curtain, looked from the window. Lights were flashing
in the corner house, and a crowd was fast gathering; and she could see
one man in the grasp of a policeman, "Oh, heavens!" she said, "what has
happened? What is the matter?" she cried aloud to a man hurrying past.

"Murder!" he answered with a face of horror. "There has been murder done
there to-night."

"Who--who?" said Lady Alice. "I know the family--in pity speak."

"It is the foreign lady, Lady Egerton; they've taken the murderer under
her window; he's an Italian," said the man, and mingled with the crowd.

A few days after this event, the following paragraph appeared in the
local paper:

"A terrible murder has been committed at Brightstone, on the night of
the 21st instant. The murdered lady was the Lady Egerton, and the deed
was perpetrated in the most cruel and deliberate manner, the unfortunate
lady having been first stabbed and then shot with a pistol. The guilty
party was arrested under the very window, one pistol in his hand, and
its fellow on his person. He is a foreigner, and gave his name Giulio
Doria, strongly protesting his innocence, and said he saw a man run
round the corner; but though he had none of the quantity of missing
jewels (the supposed temptation to the deed) on his person, he was at
once secured and taken before the magistrates. The most singular part of
the affair is, that Sir Angelo Egerton, the murdered lady's son, is
reluctant to prosecute, asserting his belief in the prisoner's
innocence; and a little girl, his ward, who was in the bedroom at the
moment of the fearful deed, maintains that the man was not its
perpetrator, but her tender age, only six years, renders her evidence,
especially at a time of such terror and agitation, of comparatively
little weight. The Bench thought there was strong presumptive evidence
against the prisoner, and fully committed him for trial."