hards is there. It is better than an hour
since now. Let me come in." She got into her sister's bed, and there
she told the tale of her tardy triumph. "He declared to me at last
that he trusted me," she said,--almost believing that real words had
come from his lips to that effect. Then she fell into a flood of
tears, and after a while she also slept.

CHAPTER XCIX.

CONCLUSION.

At last the maniac was dead, and in his last moments he had made such
reparation as was in his power for the evil that he had done. With
that slight touch of his dry fevered lips he had made the assertion
on which was to depend the future peace and comfort of the woman whom
he had so cruelly misused. To her mind the acquittal was perfect;
but she never explained to human ears,--not even to those of her
sister,--the manner in which it had been given. Her life, as far as
we are concerned with it, has been told. For the rest, it cannot be
but that it should be better than that which was passed. If there be
any retribution for such sufferings in money, liberty, and outward
comfort, such retribution she possessed;--for all that had been his,
was now hers. He had once suggested what she should do, were she
ever to be married again; and she felt that of such a career there
could be no possibility. Anything but that! We all know that widows'
practices in this matter do not always tally with wives' vows; but,
as regards Mrs. Trevelyan, we are disposed to think that the promise
will be kept. She has her child, and he will give her sufficient
interest to make life worth having.

Early in the following spring Hugh Stanbury was married to Nora
Rowley in the parish church of Monkhams,--at which place by that time
Nora found herself to be almost as much at home as she might have
been under other circumstances. They had prayed that the marriage
might be very private;--but when the day arrived there was no
very close privacy. The parish church was quite full, there were
half-a-dozen bridesmaids, there was a great breakfast, Mrs. Crutch
had a new brown silk gown given to her, there was a long article
in the county gazette, and there were short paragraphs in various
metropolitan newspapers. It was generally thought among his compeers
that Hugh Stanbury had married into the aristocracy, and that the
fact was a triumph for the profession to which he belonged. It shewed
what a Bohemian could do, and that men of the press in England might
gradually hope