As I watched him a strong desire seized me to revisit the scenes of
which he was thinking, and I winged my way back to England, and soon
found myself in the drowsy, respectable streets of Muddleton.

It was New Year's Eve, and I saw Mrs. O'Reilly preparing presents
for her grandchildren, and talking, as she tied them up, of that
dreadful Nihilist who had deceived them in the summer. I saw Lena
Houghton, and Mr. Blackthorne, and Mrs. Milton-Cleave, kneeling in
church on that Friday morning, praying that pity might be shown
"upon all prisoners and captives, and all that are desolate or
oppressed."

It never occurred to them that they were responsible for the
sufferings of one weary prisoner, or that his death would be laid at
their door.

I flew to Dulminster, and saw Mrs. Selldon kneeling in the cathedral
at the late evening service and rigorously examining herself as to
the shortcomings of the dying year. She confessed many things in a
vague, untroubled way; but had any one told her that she had cruelly
wronged her neighbour, and helped to bring an innocent man to shame,
and prison, and death, she would not have believed the accusation.

I sought out Mark Shrewsbury. He was at his chambers in Pump Court
working away with his type-writer; he had a fancy for working the
old year out and the new year in, and now he was in the full swing
of that novel which had suggested itself to his mind when Mrs.
Selldon described the rich and mysterious foreigner who had settled
down at Ivy Cottage. Most happily he laboured on, never dreaming