He can tell you, as well as you can tell him, that
all this was recorded day by day, as a lesson of
experience for future service. He can tell you,
better than you can tell him, where that journal
is at this moment."

Slinkton stopped the action of his foot, and
looked at Beckwith.

"No," said the latter, as if answering a question
from him. "Not in the drawer of the
writing-desk that opens with the spring; it is
not there, and it never will be there again."

"Then you are a thief!" said Slinkton.

Without any change whatever in the inflexible
purpose which it was quite terrific even to me to
contemplate, and from the power of which I had
all along felt convinced it was impossible for this
wretch to escape, Beckwith returned:

"And I am your niece's shadow, too."

With an imprecation, Slinkton put his hand
to his head, tore out some hair, and flung it on
the ground. It was the end of the smooth walk;
he destroyed it in the action, and it will soon be
seen that his use for it was past.

Beckwith went on: "Whenever you left here,
I left here. Although I understood that you
found it necessary to pause in the completion of
that purpose, to avert suspicion, still I watched
you close, with the poor confiding girl. When
I had your diary, and could read it word by word
—it was only about the night before your last
visit to Scarborough—you remember the night?
you slept with a small flat phial tied to your wrist
—I sent to Mr. Sampson, who was kept out of
view. This is Mr. Sampson's trusty servant
standing by the door. We three saved your
niece among us."

Slinkton looked at us all, took an uncertain
step or two from the place where he had stood,
returned to it, and glanced about him in a very
curious way—as one of the meaner reptiles might,
when looking for a hole to hide in. I noticed at
the same time, that a singular change took place
in the figure of the man—as if it collapsed within
his clothes, and they consequently became ill-
shapen and ill-litting.

"You shall know," said Beckwith, "for I
hope the knowledge will be bitter and terrible to
you, why you have been pursued by one man,
and why, when the whole interest that Mr.
Sampson represents, would have expended any
money in hunting you down, you have been
tracked to death at a single individual's charge.
I hear you have had the name of Meltham on
your lips sometimes?"

I saw, in addition to those other changes, a
sudden stoppage come upon his breathing.

"When you sent the sweet girl whom you
murdered (you know with what artfully-made-
out surroundings and probabilities you sent her),
to Meltham's office before taking her abroad, to
originate the transaction that doomed her to the
grave, it fell to Meltham's lot to see her and to
speak with her. It did not fall to his lot to save
her, though I know he would freely give his own
life to have done it. He admired her;—I would
say, he loved her deeply, if I thought it possible
that you could understand the word. When she
was sacrificed, he was thoroughly assured of
your guilt. Having lost her, he had but one
object left in life, and that was, to avenge her
and destroy you."

I saw the villain's nostrils rise and fall,
convulsively; but, I saw no moving at his mouth.

"That man, Meltham," Beckwith steadily
pursued, "was as absolutely certain that you
could never elude him in this world, if he
devoted himself to your destruction with his
utmost fidelity and earnestness, and if he divided
the sacred duty with no other duty in life, as he
was certain that in achieving it he would be a
poor instrument in the hands of Providence,
and would do well before Heaven in striking
you out from among living men. I am that
man, and I thank GOD that I have done my
work!"

If Slinkton had been running for his life from
swift-footed savages, a dozen miles, he could not
have shown more emphatic signs of being
oppressed at heart and labouring for breath, than
he showed now, when he looked at the pursuer
who had so relentlessly hunted him down.

"You never saw me under my right name,
before; you see me under my right name, now.
You shall see me once again, in the body, when
you are tried for your life. You shall see me
once again, in the spirit, when the cord is round
your neck, and the crowd are crying against
you!"

When Meltham had spoken these last words,
that miscreant suddenly turned away his face,
and seemed to strike his mouth with his open
hand. At the same instant, the room was filled
with a new and powerful odour, and, almost at
the same instant, he broke into a crooked run,
leap, start—I have no name for the spasm—and
fell, with a dull weight that shook the heavy old
doors and windows in their frames.

That was the fitting end of him.

When we saw that he was dead, we drew
away from the room, and Meltham, giving me
his hand, said with a weary air:

"I have no more work on earth, my friend.
But, I shall see her again, elsewhere."

It was in vain that I tried to rally him. He
might have saved her, he said; he had not
saved her, and he reproached himself; he had
lost her, and he was broken-hearted.

"The purpose that sustained me, is over,
Sampson, and there is nothing now to hold
me to life. I am not fit for life; I am weak
and spiritless; I have no hope and no object;
my day is done."

In truth, I could hardly have believed that the
broken man who then spoke to me, was the man
who had so strongly and so differently impressed
me when his purpose was yet before him. I used
such entreaties with him, as I could; but, he
still said, and always said, in a patient
undemonstrative way—nothing could avail him—he
was broken-hearted.

He died early in the next spring. He was
buried by the side of the poor young lady for
whom he had cherished those tender and
unhappy regrets, and he left all he had to her