considerable period after these occurrences, I had occasion--by a
connection with a medium through which Dewhurst received from his
father, whose fortunes had in the meantime failed, a petty allowance--to
be the bearer to him, now liberated, of a quarter's payment. I forget
the part of the town where I found him, but I have a distinct
remembrance of the room. It was a garret, almost entirely empty. He was
lying on a kind of bed spread upon the floor. There was a small grate,
with a handful of red cinders in it; only one chair, and a pot or pan or
two. There was a woman moving between him and the fireplace, as if she
had been preparing some warm drink or medicine of some kind for him. I
did not know then, but I knew afterwards, that that woman was she who
called upon him in prison, and deposited the small bottle of wine. Her
love for him had always overcome any of those feelings of enmity, or
something stronger, generally deemed so natural in one who has been
robbed of her dearest treasure, and ruined. She alone had indeed not
assumed the diamond eyes. The diamonds were elsewhere,--yea, in her
heart, where she nourished pity for him who had so cruelly deserted her,
and left her to a fate so common, and requiring only a hint to be
understood by those who know the nature of women. After he had got out
of prison, she sought him out, got the room for him, collected the
paltry articles, procured food for him, and continued to nurse him till
his death, with all the tenderness of a lover who had not only not been
cast off, but cherished. He betrayed the ordinary symptoms of
consumption, and the few words he muttered were those of thanks. I think
he was buried in the Canongate Churchyard.




DAVID LORIMER.