st sufferer by Hardie
senior's fraud, Hardie junior should settle his own L10,000 on her, and
marry her as soon as he came of age. Alfred joyfully agreed, privately
arranging that the money should be settled on Julia's parents, and
preparations went on apace.

But on the wedding-day the bridal party waited in vain for the
bridegroom, and Edward ran to his lodgings to fetch him.

He came back alone, white with wrath, hurried the insulted bride and her
mother into the carriage, and they went home as if from a funeral. Aye,
and a funeral it was; for the sweetest girl in England buried her hopes,
her laugh, her May of youth that day.

As soon as possible this heartbroken trio removed to London, where Mrs.
Dodd became a dressmaker, and Edward a fireman.

It was true Alfred _had_ received a letter in a female hand, but it was
from a discharged servant of his father's, offering information about
the L14,000 if he would come to a house about ten miles off the next
morning. He calculated he could do so, and still be in the church in
time, and drove there with all his luggage, only to find himself shut up
in a lunatic asylum.

He made a desperate resistance, but was soon overpowered and left
handcuffed, hobbled, and strapped down, more helpless than a swaddled
infant. He lay mute as death in his gloomy cell; deeper horror grew and
grew, gusts of rage swept over him, gusts of despair. What would his
Julia think? He shouted, he screamed, he prayed. He saw her, lovelier
than ever, all in white, waiting for him, with sweet concern in her
peerless face. Half-past ten struck. He struggled, he writhed, he made
the very room shake, and lacerated his flesh, but that was all. No
answer, no help, no hope.

By-and-by his good wit told him his only chance was calmness; they could
not long confine him as a madman, being sane. But all his efforts to
convince his keepers that he was sane were useless; his letters seemed
to go, but he got no answers; his appeals to visiting justices were in
vain. The responsibility rested with the people who signed the
certificates, and he could not even find out who they were. After months
of softening hearts and buying consciences, he was on the point of
escape, when he was moved to another asylum. Here there was no
brutality, but constant watchfulness; and he had almost prevailed on the
doctor to declare him cured when he was again moved to a still more
brutal place, if possible, than the first.

One