After a few days London regained her habitual aspect. Blackened ruins; fragments of walls and roofs, still sheltering emptiness; gaping, desolate spaces, which had once been human abodes with happy firesides, about which many generations had been warmed and cheered,--these alone remained to tell the tale of that four days' madness, of the strange delirium which had fallen upon the great city. But how many human remains lay beneath these ruins, which would never be recognized, and how many corpses had been swallowed by the Thames? One knew not, one dared not attempt to estimate. Some unfortunate wretches, who confessed nothing and remembered still less, or, lost to all sense of decency, accused each other, were hastily tried and hanged. The principal criminal, he who had loosed the passions of the populace, Gordon, was already under lock and key in Newgate. Had he been more misguided than perverse? He was given the benefit of the doubt. His madness, and perhaps his rank, saved him: but the remarkable fact remains that this man, who had set fire to London and led to death several hundred human beings, not to mention the enormous destruction of property of which he was the cause, was not punished; though a few years later, having written some insolent lines upon Queen Marie Antoinette, he was thrown into prison and there languished for the remainder of his days. When Reuben at last appeared after a considerable lapse of time, the events of June, 1780, had begun to be obliterated from the public mind. Though in no way apprehensive for his personal safety, he seemed pursued by a memory, haunted by a remorse which it was impossible to evade. Gloomy and humiliated, he shunned meeting his "brethren," who accused him of having deserted them in the hour of peril. He made no opposition to his cousin's marriage, but refused to be present; and on the very day that the wedding was celebrated he embarked with some emigrants bound for Canada. Thence later he journeyed to Botany Bay, after which time no tidings were received from him. It was thought that he preached the gospel in Australia. Some believed that he was killed and devoured by cannibals; others pretended that he died at Sydney in extreme old age. Lady Vereker, whose name has been assumed out of respect to her family, continued her disorderly course of life and became a desperate faro-player, remaining steadfast to her alliance with Lady Buckinghamshire, Lady Archer, and Mrs. Hobart. She transformed into a _quatuor_ the ignobly famous trio whom the caricaturist Gillray so frequently exposed to ridicule and shame in his cruel sketches.