young man is EDWIN DROOD, of the Grecian nose, hyacinthine locks,
and classic features, as in Sir L. Fildes's third illustration.

Mr. Proctor correctly understood the unmistakable meaning of this
last design, Jasper entering the vault -


"To-day the dead are living,
The lost is found to-day."


Mr. Cuming Walters tells us that he did not examine these designs
by Mr. Collins till he had formed his theory, and finished his
book. "On the conclusion of the whole work the pictures were
referred to for the first time, and were then found to support in
the most striking manner the opinions arrived at," namely, that
Drood was killed, and that Helena is Datchery. Thus does theory
blind us to facts!

Mr. Cuming Walters connects the figure of the whiskerless young man
kneeling to a girl in a garden seat, with the whiskered Jasper's
proposal to Rosa in a garden seat. But Jasper does not kneel to
Rosa; he stands apart, leaning on a sundial; he only once vaguely
"touches" her, which she resents; he does not kneel; he does not
kiss her hand (Rosa "took the kiss sedately," like Maud in the
poem); and--Jasper had lustrous thick black whiskers.

Again, the same whiskerless young man, bounding up the spiral
staircase in daylight, and wildly pointing upwards, is taken by Mr.
Cuming Walters to represent Jasper climbing the staircase to