‘In that case,’ I said bitterly, ‘your course is easy enough; you have only to make him understand he is forgiven. I will go with you to-night.’ ‘O no, not to-night!’ she said. ‘No; it is too sudden. But don’t let him go away; tell him to stay, and that perhaps things may yet be well.’ ‘He can’t leave before the first diligence,’ I said, ‘and I will meet him there and tell him to stop.’ ‘Do, do!’ she cried. ‘Keep him here for to-morrow; then I may have made up my mind what will be for the best.’ I went to see the diligence start next morning; but no M. Houlot was there. He had overslept himself probably. Well, I would go and see him at his apartment, and tell him how matters stood. I knocked at his door; but could not make him hear. Then I scribbled some words upon a visiting card I happened to have in my pocket, and thrust it under the door. The next time I saw that card it was in the hands of the _commissaire_ of police, who came, accompanied by the _juge d’instruction_, to make some _perquisitions_ as to what I might know of the last hours of M. Houlot; for he had been found that morning lying dead on his mattress. The sad end of Houlot—well, of Dawson, if you like, but I have grown to think of him and talk of him as Houlot—quite unmanned me for a while. I could not help blaming myself as being in some way the cause of it. From the moment of its discovery, I took a violent antipathy to the work I had in hand. Houlot seemed to be always standing at my elbow, reproaching me with killing him over again. I don’t know whether the widow—really now a widow—had any such visions; I fancy not. After the first shock of the news, she found that Houlot’s death was really a great relief to her. It put an end to her troubles once for all. We found at his lodgings a great heap of manuscript, which she purchased from the agent acting for the landlord of the premises—who had taken possession of everything in satisfaction of rent—for a few francs. Whether she found the material among it for a series of novels, I don’t know, for as soon as I had finished the work in hand, I gave up my connection with Collingwood Dawson. I have since taken to writing improving books for the young, and find that it pays much better. Still I hear of him occasionally, and find that he continues to be a tolerably successful author; and the other day I met my late employer, who told me that she was married for a third time, and to a gentleman of great literary ability, who had undertaken the management of Collingwood Dawson. For my own part, I advised her to form him into a Limited company, with a preference in the allotment of shares for gentlemen of the press. MR FAIR, ‘THE SILVER KING.’