veled to London,
immediately after completing the fullest explanation of Cosway's
startling behavior at the breakfast-table. Stone was not by nature a
sanguine man. "I don't believe in our luck," he said. "Let us be quite
sure that we are not the victims of another deception."

The accident had happened on the Thames; and the newspaper narrative
proved to be accurate in every respect. Stone personally attended
the inquest. From a natural feeling of delicacy toward Adela, Cosway
hesitated to write to her on the subject. The ever-helpful Stone wrote
in his place.

After some delay, the answer was received. It inclosed a brief statement
(communicated officially by legal authority) of the last act of malice
on the part of the late head-partner in the house of Benshaw and
Company. She had not died intestate, like her brother. The first clause
of her will contained the testator's grateful recognition of Adela
Restall's Christian act of forgiveness. The second clause (after stating
that there were neither relatives nor children to be benefited by the
will) left Adela Restall mistress of Mrs. Cosway Benshaw's fortune--on
the one merciless condition that she did _not_ marry Edwin Cosway. The
third clause--if Adela Restall violated the condition--handed over the
whole of the money to the firm in the City, "for the extension of the
business, and the benefit of the surviving partners."

Some months later, Adela came of age. To the indignation of Mr. Restall,
and the astonishment of the "Company," the money actually went to the
firm. The fourth epoch in Mr. Cosway's life witnessed his marriage to a
woman who cheerfully paid half a million of money for the happiness of
passing her life, on eight hundred a year, with the man whom she loved.

But Cosway felt bound in gratitude to make a rich woman of his wife, if
work and resolution could do it. When Stone last heard of him, he was
reading for the bar; and Mr. Atherton was ready to give him his first
brief.

NOTE.--That "most improbable" part of the present narrative, which
is contained in the division called The First Epoch, is founded on an
adventure which actually occurred to no less a person than a cousin of
Sir Walter Scott. In Lockhart's delightful "Life," the anecdote will be
found as told by Sir Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the
present story is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a
woman as the landlady would do under certain given circumsta