clear him, as there was none to clear her.
Though circumstances might be against
him; though all the world might point to
him and denounce him; though he might at
least have to journey through the rest of his
life with a cloud of dark suspicion attending
him, and the black shadows of imputed
guilt cast behind him, still would he
disdain to justify himself, to say a single word
in his defence, precisely as she had done.

He had pitilessly called on her for proof,
which she could not give, and disdainfully
rejected the proof from her own noble and
magnanimous soul; and he felt humiliated
to think that should any suspicion or
embarrassment come of what had taken place,
or should she take the place of his silent
accuser, he could only justify himself by
appealing to his own conscience and to his
own character. Still, Heaven be thanked for
sending him this revelation, and for letting
him see—as clearly as he now saw those
stars shining in the heavens above him, and
that moon which was now stealing far
behind a cloud—that Jessica was innocent,
and that she was his again. Whatever
befell him, he longed to cast himself at her feet,
and own the injustice that he had done her.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

WHEN they returned with assistance they
found Dudley alive, but still insensible, and
one of the men, casting about as to where
it would be best to take him, reported that
there was a boat moored close by under the
bank, in which he must have come across
from the castle. The doctor of the place
said, quickly:

"We should have gained a precious half
hour if you had just rowed across and
fetched some one from the castle yonder."

Again a silent reproach struck into Conway's
heart like a sword, for he himself, but
more sternly and pitilessly, had made the
same speech to another.

"I did not know of it," he all but
faltered.

"Why, you can see it actually from this
spot," said the doctor, one of the old
"scum" of the place, who had before now
resented Conway's haughty treatment of
him in the old days. "Had you any
quarrel with him?"

They placed Dudley in the boat, and
carried him across to the castle. There the
usual violent remedies were applied, those
with which, in such desperate cases, the
battle is fought out with the King of
Terrors. The struggle went on for hours,
and then, about midnight, they told Conway
that there was a gleam of hope. By
morning it was known that Dudley's life
was safe; but there were symptoms of
lunacy that seemed incurable.

Conway went back into the town, and
there met the doctor. The whole story
was by this time all over the place.

"What is all this?" he said, austerely.
"A very awkward business, indeed. You
should have restrained yourself. We all
knew here the man was not accountable for
his actions. We all set him down for
the past week as unsound in mind. You
should have restrained yourself."

Conway would have replied warmly, but
he seemed to hear his own voice accusing
Jessica, and was silent. He, indeed, longed
to go and cast himself at her feet.

By that evening he had found her, and
made his confession. By that evening the
strange, yet noble nature bad accepted that
tardy reparation. Together they shaped
out plans for a new life. The old, by their
own consent, was too humiliating to look
back to. They owned to each other that a
fatal pride of intellect, a contempt for the
average natures about them, with an almost
arrogant purpose of shaping the common
course of events about them to their ends
and purposes, had been the cause of the
wretched series of mistakes which had
distracted their joint course of life since the
day when he had sailed into the little port
of St. Arthur's. Any obstinate self-assertion,
any violent shaping of the course of
events, the natures of others, the diversion
of the current of life to their own private
ends, this foolish theory had completely
broken down, and was gone for ever, with
the fatal Bridge of Sighs.

MR. DICKENS'S NEW WORK.
On March 31st will be Published, PRICE ONE SHILLING,
PART ONE OF
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY S. L. FILDES.
To be Completed in TWELVE MONTHLY Numbers,
uniform with the Original Editions of "PICKWICK"
and "COPPERFIELD."
London: CHAPMAN AND HALL. 193, Piccadilly.

Now Ready, price 5s. 6d., bound in green cloth,
THE SECOND VOLUME
OF THE NEW SERIES OF
ALL THE YEAR ROUND.
To be had of all Booksellers.