V

THE END OF THE STORY

While these things were happening at Mr. Boffin's house, Eugene
Wrayburn, with Headstone the schoolmaster watching him like a hawk, had
never left off trying to find where Lizzie Hexam had gone. At length,
through the "troublesome child" of the little dolls' dressmaker, he
learned the name of the village where she was living and went at once to
see her.

Headstone followed close behind him and when, from his hiding-place, he
saw how glad Lizzie was to see the lawyer, he went quite mad with
jealousy and hate, and that moment he determined to kill Wrayburn.

It happened that Rogue Riderhood was then working on the river that
flowed past the village, where he tended a lock. The schoolmaster, in
order to turn suspicion from himself in case any one should see him when
he did this wicked deed, observing carefully how Riderhood was dressed,
got himself clothes exactly like the lock tender's, even to a red
handkerchief tied around his neck.

In this guise, with murder in his heart, he lay in wait along the
riverside till Wrayburn passed one evening just after he had bade good
night to Lizzie Hexam. The schoolmaster crept up close behind the lawyer
and struck him a fearful crashing blow on the head with a club. Wrayburn
grappled with him, but Headstone struck again and again with the bloody
weapon, and still again as the other lay prostrate at his feet, and
dragging the body to the bank, threw it into the river. Then he fled.

Lizzie Hexam had not yet turned homeward from the riverside. She heard
through the night the sound of the blows, the faint moan and the splash.
She ran to the spot, saw the trampled grass, and, looking across the
water, saw a bloody face drifting away. She ran to launch a boat, and
rowed with all her strength to overtake it.

But for her dreadful life on the river with her father she could not
have found the drowning man in the darkness, but she did, and then she
saw it was the man she loved. One terrible cry she uttered, then rowed
with desperate strokes to the shore and with superhuman strength carried
him to a near-by inn.

Wrayburn was not dead, but was dreadfully disfigured. For many days he
hovered between life and death. Jennie Wren, the dolls' dressmaker,
came, and she and Lizzie nursed him. As soon as he could speak he made
them understand that before he died he wanted Lizzie to marry him. A
minister was sent for, and with him came John Rokesmith and Bella. So