Lucretia | Page 3

the poisoned ring,--have their foundation in literal facts. Nor have I much altered the social position of the criminals, nor in the least overrated their attainments and intelligence. In those more salient essentials which will most, perhaps, provoke the Reader's incredulous wonder, I narrate a history, not invent a fiction [These criminals were not, however, in actual life, as in the novel, intimates and accomplices. Their crimes were of similar character, effected by similar agencies, and committed at dates which embrace their several careers of guilt within the same period; but I have no authority to suppose that the one was known to the other.]. All that Romance which our own time affords is not more the romance than the philosophy of the time. Tragedy never quits the world,--it surrounds us everywhere. We have but to look, wakeful and vigilant, abroad, and from the age of Pelops to that of Borgia, the same crimes, though under different garbs, will stalk on our paths. Each age comprehends in itself specimens of every virtue and every vice which has ever inspired our love or mowed our horror.
LONDON, November 1, 1846.
CONTENTS
PART THE FIRST
PROLOGUE TO PART THE FIRST
CHAPTER I
A Family Group II Lucretia III Conferences IV Guy's Oak V Household Treason VI The Will VII The Engagement VIII The Discovery IX A Soul without Hope X The Reconciliation between Father and Son
EPILOGUE TO PART THE FIRST
PART THE SECOND
PROLOGUE TO PART THE SECOND
I The Coronation II Love at First Sight III Early Training for an Upright Gentleman IV John Ardworth V The Weavers and the Woof VI The Lawyer and the Body-snatcher VII The Rape of the Mattress VIII Percival visits Lucretia IX The Rose beneath the Upas X The Rattle of the Snake XI Love and Innocence XII Sudden Celebrity and Patient Hope XIII The Loss of the Crossing XIV News from Grabman XV Varieties XVI The Invitation to Laughton XVII The Waking of the Serpent XVIII Retrospect XIX Mr. Grabman's Adventures XX More of Mrs. Joplin XXI Beck's Discovery XXII The Tapestry Chamber XXIII The Shades on the Dial XXIV Murder, towards his Design, moves like a Ghost XXV The Messenger speeds XXVI The Spy flies XXVII Lucretia regains her Son XXVIII The Lots vanish within the Urn
EPILOGUE TO PART THE SECOND

LUCRETIA; OR, THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT.

PART THE FIRST.
PROLOGUE TO PART THE FIRST.
In an apartment at Paris, one morning during the Reign of Terror, a man, whose age might be somewhat under thirty, sat before a table covered with papers, arranged and labelled with the methodical precision of a mind fond of order and habituated to business. Behind him rose a tall bookcase surmounted with a bust of Robespierre, and the shelves were filled chiefly with works of a scientific character, amongst which the greater number were on chemistry and medicine. There were to be seen also many rare books on alchemy, the great Italian historians, some English philosophical treatises, and a few manuscripts in Arabic. The absence from this collection of the stormy literature of the day seemed to denote that the owner was a quiet student, living apart from the strife and passions of the Revolution. This supposition was, however, disproved by certain papers on the table, which were formally and laconically labelled "Reports on Lyons," and by packets of letters in the handwritings of Robespierre and Couthon. At one of the windows a young boy was earnestly engaged in some occupation which appeared to excite the curiosity of the person just described; for this last, after examining the child's movements for a few moments with a silent scrutiny that betrayed but little of the half-complacent, half-melancholy affection with which busy man is apt to regard childhood, rose noiselessly from his seat, approached the boy, and looked over his shoulder unobserved. In a crevice of the wood by the window, a huge black spider had formed his web; the child had just discovered another spider, and placed it in the meshes: he was watching the result of his operations. The intrusive spider stood motionless in the midst of the web, as if fascinated. The rightful possessor was also quiescent; but a very fine ear might have caught a low, humming sound, which probably augured no hospitable intentions to the invader. Anon, the stranger insect seemed suddenly to awake from its amaze; it evinced alarm, and turned to fly; the huge spider darted forward; the boy uttered a chuckle of delight. The man's pale lip curled into a sinister sneer, and he glided back to his seat. There, leaning his face on his hand, he continued to contemplate the child. That child might have furnished to an artist a fitting subject for fair and blooming infancy. His light hair, tinged deeply, it is true, with red, hung in sleek and glittering abundance