an woeful want of it."

It was the stay-lace by which Mrs. POTTS, from too great persistence in
drawing herself up proudly, had perished in her prime.

"Now come into the open air with me, and let us walk to Central Park,"
continued Mr. DIBBLE, shaking off his momentary fit of gloom, "I have
strange things to tell you both. I have to teach you, in justice to a
much-injured man, that we have, in our hearts, cruelly wronged that
excellent and devout Mr. BUMSTEAD, by suspecting him of a crime whereof
he is now proved innocent at least _I_ suspected him. To-morrow night we
must all be in Bumsteadville. I will tell you why as we walk."

CHAPTER XXVII.

SOLUTION.

In the darkness of a night made opaque by approaching showers, a man
stands under the low-drooping branches of the edge of a wood skirting
the cross-road leading down to Gospeler's Gulch.

"Not enough saved from the wreck even to buy the merciful rope that
should end all my humor and impecuniosity!" he mutters, over his folded
arms and heaving chest. "I have come to this out-of-the-way suburb to
end my miserable days, and not so much as one clothes-line have I seen
yet. There is the pond, however; I can jump into that, I suppose: but
how much more decent were it to make one's quietus under the merry
greenwood tree with a cord--"

He stops suddenly, holding his breath; and, almost simultaneously with a
sharp, rushing noise in the leaves overhead, something drops upon his
shoulder. He grasps it, cautiously feels of it, and, to his unspeakable
amazement, discovers that it is a rope apparently fastened to the
branches above!

"Wonderful!" he ejaculates, in an awe-stricken whisper. "Providence
helps a wretch to die, if not to live. At any other time I should think
this very strange, but just now I've got but one thing to do. Here's my
rope, here's my neck, and here goes!"

Heedless of everything but his dread intention, he rapidly ties the rope
about his throat, and is in the act of throwing forward his whole weight
upon it, when there is a sharp jerk of the rope, he is drawn up about
three feet in the air, and, before he can collect his thoughts, is as
abruptly let down upon his feet again. Simultaneously, a sound almost
like suppressed swearing comes very clearly to his ear, and he is
conscious of something dimly white in the profound darkness, not far
away.

"Sold again: signed, J. BUMSTEAD," exclaims a deep voice. "I thought the
rope was caught in a cr