nails in the heel, and then slid back a sort
of lid, which covered a box-shaped hollow,
constructed in the thickness of the heel. He drew
out a small square wad of bank-notes—they were
notes to a large amount.

"There," said he; "that's for Lizzy. It was
honestly got, and is not part of my spoil, so you
need not fear taking it."

I did not put out my hand.

"Gregson," said he, "if you do not pity me,
you should pity Lizzy. I swear to you on this
Bible, she did not know how I lived. I spared
you too when I could have stripped you of every
penny of your savings."

I started.

"Do you not remember how, one night when
you had a whist party, I came in and got you
into a discussion about monograms, how we all
began to try our signatures, and I eventually
went off with the paper that contained them? I
could have forged your name to any amount,
but I spared you because we had been good
friends."

I took the money, and listened to his directions
as to how it was to be invested.

"Be kind," he said, "to Lizzy and the children
—they will not be ungrateful. The boys
will grow up good men. Give them and Polly
my love."

"But you do not go yet?"

"No, not yet," he replied, slowly; "but I
cannot bear to see them again." And as he
said this, in a rather low voice, he playfully
filliped the little brown pill at the wall and
caught it again in his hand.

"If it were not somewhat pharisaical and
cruel to preach to you at this moment,
Brancher," said I, "I should urge you to lament
your lost opportunities, your injured wife,
your degraded children. It is hard in these
selfish days to struggle upward; it is doubly
cruel, then, to take one's children and hurl
them down into an abyss of hopeless poverty.
You had talents, you had all that men require
to fight their way to the sunshine."

"And do you think I never lament those lost
opportunities?" said Brancher, turning away
his head; "it was my mode of revenging myself
on an unjust world."

"But a pitiful way; the world is an abstraction
—you cannot revenge yourself on it except
by injuring the innocent, and hardening and
debasing yourself."

"Our points of view differ," said Brancher,
rising, as the turnkey came back for me.
"Good-by. God bless you for the kind things
you mean, I feel sure, to do. Forget the rogue
but think of poor Lizzy and her children!"

(Brancher's face looked paler, as the door
closed upon him.)

I locked my bedroom door that night.

It was late next morning when I awoke:
so late that I had but just time to hurry on my
clothes, and run down and snatch a hasty
breakfast. I was so hurried that I forgot
Brancher's letter, and did not think of it until
I got to the station and had taken my ticket.
Then I remembered it, took it out of my pocket,
and opened the envelope. The letter contained
only three words, written in red ink, in a bold
commercial hand.

                  â€  "DEATH" OR DEATH †

At that moment a newsboy came running
past me with the morning local paper. It was
Saturday.

"Sudden death of a prisoner in the Castle,"
he cried. "Death of Davison, alias Brancher!"
I bought a paper, paid for it with a trembling
hand, and read as follows:

"Last night, at about ten o'clock, the turnkey
in the Castle, making his rounds to turn
out the lights, and hearing a low groan from
cell thirty-two, unlocked the door, and going
in discovered a prisoner named Davison, alias
Brancher, lying in the agonies of death at the
foot of his pallet bed. Assistance was immediately
procured, and the governor and doctor
summoned to the spot, but all in vain. The
prisoner expired at fourteen minutes past ten. He
had been in high spirits throughout the day,
and was heard by the turnkey singing at half-
past nine o'clock. It is supposed that serous
apoplexy was the cause of death. The man has
left a widow and several children. He was a
person of good education; but, lamentable to
relate, the chief, as it is supposed, of a gang of
swindlers whose machinations extended over all
Europe. An inquest is to be held to-morrow
on the body."

            NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
                   "Pickwick," "Copperfield," &c.
In MAY will be published, PART I., price 1s., of
       A NEW WORK BY CHARLES DICKENS
               IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.

        On the 16th of February, will be published, bound in
                               cloth, price 5s. 6d.,
                            THE TENTH VOLUME.

             THE END OF THE TENTH VOLUME.

      Next week will be commenced a New Serial Story, entitled
                                QUITE ALONE,
                  BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.