第46章

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 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.