According to
some, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on the
threshold. According to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, and
dragged out. A third story told, that he was escaping with his lady
love, when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain.
It was impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of these
legends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion of
truth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from that
night, and that it never was certainly known to the public that any
intelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. Now, Middleton
may have communicated to Eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as,
for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was
still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. Of course, that
will not do. It must be some very ingenious and artificially natural
thing, an artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of
such a man as Eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis
mutandis, to be applied to his own requirements and purposes. I do not
at present see in the least how this is to be wrought out.
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