Everything failed. Bessie had meant to die, and she had not missed her aim. There came a moment when the doctor, laying his ear for the last time to her cold breast, raised himself to bid the useless effort cease. "Send them all away," he said to the little widow, "and you stay." Watson helped to clear the room, then he and Isaac carried the dead woman upstairs. An old man followed them, a bent and broken being, who dragged himself up the steps with his stick; Watson out of compassion came back to help him. "John--yer'd better go home, an' to yer bed--yer can't do no good." "I'll wait for Mary Anne," said John, in a shaking whisper--"I'll wait for Mary Anne." And he stood at the doorway, leaning on his stick; his weak and reddened eyes fixed on his cousin, his mouth open feebly. But Mary Anne, weeping, beckoned to another woman who had come up with the little procession, and they began their last offices. "Let us go," said the doctor kindly, his hand on Isaac's shoulder, "till they have done." At that moment Watson, throwing a last professional glance round the room, perceived the piece of torn paper propped against the glass. Ah! there was the letter. There was always a letter. He walked forward, glanced at it, and handed it to Isaac. Isaac drew his hand across his brow in bewilderment, then seemed to recognise the handwriting, and thrust it into his pocket without a word. Watson touched his arm. "Don't you destroy it," he said in warning; "it'll be asked for at the inquest." The men descended. Watson and the doctor departed. John and Isaac were left alone in the kitchen. Isaac hung over the fire, which had been piled up in the hope of restoring warmth to the drowned woman. Suddenly he took out the letter and, bending his head to the blaze, began to read it. "Isaac, yer a cruel husband to me, an' there's no way fer me but the way I'm goin'. I didn't mean no 'arm, not at first, but there, wot's the good of talkin'? I can't bear the way as you speaks to me an' looks at me, an' I'll never go to prison--no, never. It's orful--fer the children ull 'ave no mother, an' I don't know however Arthur 'ull manage. But yer woodent shew me no mercy, an' I can't think of anythin' different. I did love yer an' the childer, but the drink got holt of me. Yer mus' see as Arthur is rapped up, an' Edie's eyes 'ull 'ave to be seen to now an' agen. I'm sorry, but there's nothin' else. I wud like yer to kiss me onst, when they bring me in, and jes say, Bessie, I forgive yer. It won't do yer no 'arm, an' p'raps I may 'ear it without your knowin'. So good-bye, Isaac, from yur lovin' wife, Bessie. . . ." As he read it, the man's fixed pallor and iron calm gave way. He leant against the mantelpiece, shaken at last with the sobs of a human and a helpless remorse.