From the cottage I proceeded to Kingsley's. He was in readiness,

and waiting me. We drove directly to Edgerton's lodging-house,

the appointed hour of four being at hand. Kingsley only alighted

from the carriage, and entered the dwelling. He was absent several

minutes. When he returned, he returned alone.

"Edgerton is either asleep or has gone out. His room-door is locked.

The landlord called and knocked, but received no answer. He lacks

manliness, and I suspect has fled. The steamboat went at two."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed, leaping from the carriage. "I know

Edgerton better. I can not think he would fly, after the solemn

pledge he gave me."

"You have only thought too well of him always," said the other, as

we entered the house.

"Let us go to the room together," I said to the landlord. "I fear

something wrong."

"Well, so do I," responded the publican. "The poor gentleman has

been looking very badly, and sometimes gets into a strange wild

taking, and then he goes along seeing nobody. Only last Saturday

I said to my old woman, as how I thought everything warn't altogether

right HERE,"--and the licensed sinner touched his head with his

fore-finger, himself looking the very picture of well-satisfied

sagacity. We said nothing, but leaving the eloquence to him, followed

him up to Edgerton's chamber. I struck the door thrice with the

butt end of my whip, then called his name, but without receiving

any answer. Endeavoring to look through the key-hole, I discovered

the key on the inside, and within the lock. I then immediately

conjectured the truth. William Edgerton had committed suicide.

And so it was. We burst the door, and found him suspended by a

silk handkerchief to a beam that traversed the apartment. He had

raised himself upon a chair, which he had kicked over after the knot

had been adjusted. Such a proceeding evinced the most determined

resolution.

We took him down with all despatch, but life had already been

long extinct. He must have been hanging two hours. His face was

perfectly livid--his eyeballs dilated--his mouth distorted--but the

neck remained unbroken. He had died by suffocation. I pass over the

ordinary proceedings--the consternation, the clamor, the attendance

of the grave-looking gentlemen with lancet and lotion. They did

a great deal, of course, in doing nothing. Nothing could be done.

Then followed the "crowner's" inquest. A paper, addressed to the

landlord, was submitted to them, and formed the burden of their

report.

"I die by my own hands," said this document, "that I may lose the

sense of pain, bodily and mental. I die at peace with the world.

It has never wronged me. I am the source of my own sorrows, as I

am the cause of my own death. I will not say that I die sane. I am

doubtful on that head. I am sure that I have been the victim of a

sort of madness for a very long time. This has led me to do wrong,

and to meditate wrong--has made me guilty of many things, which,

in my better moments of mind and body, I should have shrunk from

in horror. I write this that nobody may be suspected of sharing

in a deed the blame of which must rest on my head only."




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