d him from the
edge, and there he hung exactly as he himself had hung when Harry had
preserved him! How long would a man hold on like that, even a strong man
like Coe, on such a narrow ledge, with the gulls screaming about him?
Not twenty years--no, nor fifteen!

The clatter of the trap in the door of his cell, as it fell in and
formed a table, awoke him from this gloating dream. "Supper," said the
warder, looking in at him through this orifice. "What! you're still
brooding, are you?--that's bad;" then marched on to the next cell.

Some gruel and bread stood upon this little improvised side-board. If
they had been the greatest luxuries imaginable, he could not have
swallowed a morsel. The sunlight had faded away; his dream of
retribution was over; he seemed to be touching the utmost verge of human
wretchedness. Was it possible to kill himself? His neckerchief had been
taken away; but he had his braces. The gas-pipe was the only thing to
which he could attach them, and it would never bear his weight. He had
read somewhere of some poor wretch who had suffocated himself by turning
his tongue inward. Had he determination enough for such a device as
that? Plenty. His will was iron; he felt that; but it was set on
something else than suicide--that afterward, or death or life of any
kind, he cared not what; but in the first place, and above all things,
Vengeance! In the mean time, there were twenty years in which to think
upon it! Twenty years!

The bar dined with the judge that night at Cross Key, and talked, among
other things, "shop."

"A curious case that of that young fellow, Yorke," said one. "I wonder
whether he has been playing his game long with these competitive
examinations? That Chandos must be a queer one, too--son of Lord
Fitzbacon's, is he not?"

"I dare say," answered another, carelessly. "It is only vicariously that
the juvenile aristocracy ever get an appointment in these days, having
no wits of their own. This conviction will be a great blow to them."

"Very good, Sharpshins! but you'd better not let old Bantam hear you,
for he dearly loves the Swells. By-the-by, what a pretty girl that
witness for the defense was, who turned out to be for the prosecution,
eh?"

"Yes, she upset her lover's coach for him nicely. Is it true, I wonder,
that the little traitress is going to marry that dull, heavy fellow whom
Smoothbore had such work to pump? Gad! if I had been she, I'd have stuck
to the other."

"Yes;