He was long in reaching it, for he deviated from the strait track largely; but when he did, oh, what an exquisite pleasure it was to lie by the brink and dash his head in, drinking up huge quantities and causing the cold stream to bubble in his mouth and ears. Not till his breath was exhausted did Jacob Gray raise his head from the pond, and then, when he did so, recollection returned to him up to the point when he had sat down to supper with his two suspicious friends in the court. With a cry that had something unearthly in it, he hurriedly thrust his hands into all his pockets, then with a wild shriek, he grovelled on the ground, dashing his head upon it, and clutching the grass with his hands as he cried,— “Gone—gone—all gone—that I have toiled for—beggared, ruined, gone.” Then he lay on his back, panting, as he looked into the clear, quiet pool before him, refecting, as it did, the face of Heaven in its glassy surface, the thought came over him of plunging in, and at once ending a life of never-ending misery. “Is it easy to drown?” he asked himself; “or are there unknown hours of maddening torture, after we think, by the cessation of all movement, life is gone?” He crawled towards the bank of the stream, and leaning over it, he gazed long and earnestly into its clear blue depths, it seemed miles down in the immensity of space, for now the ripples he had created had all subsided, and there was scarcely the slightest trembling of the reflected visage of the sky in the glassy stream. Then with a shudder he withdrew, slowly. “I dare not—I dare not,” he moaned. “It is for those of more unstained souls than mine to take the awful leap from here to eternity, and hope to be forgiven—not for me—not for me—I dare not. Yet where is now my philosophy? There is no eternity—no, no—we are all here but to play our parts in a great drama. What have I to fear? Nothing—nothing. I—I—believe in nothing.” Oh how the abject terror depicted in his countenance belied his words. He was striving to cheat himself by the lying effusions of his own tongue, while his heart was a haven of despair. Suddenly his attention was arrested by a man singing, as he ascended to the high ground, upon which Jacob Gray was lying. The strain was a merry one, and jarred strangely upon the half-maddened ears of Gray, who had just sufficient prudence left him to feel the necessity, in his present position, of not giving any clue to suspicion, for he felt that, in his weak and abject condition, a child might have arrested him. He accordingly rested his head upon his arm, in as unconcerned an attitude as he could assume, and awaited the coming of the man who was now within a few paces of him. He was coarsely and roughly attired, and evidently belonged to a very low grade of society. He did not notice Jacob Gray till he apparently came full upon him, then he cried,— “Hilloa, friend, you rise betimes. I call it over work getting up so early.”