It seemed as if the old clerk's philosophy was not so very unsound, after all. Sooner or later,—sooner or later,—the day of retribution comes. When it grew dusk, Joseph Wilmot left the little inn, and walked back to Southampton. It was quite dark when he entered the High Street, and the tailor's shop was closing. "I thought you'd forgotten your parcel, sir," the man said; "I've had it ready for you ever so long. Can I send it any where for you?" "No, thank you; I'll take it myself." With the brown-paper parcel—which was a very bulky one—under his arm, Joseph Wilmot left the tailor's shop, and walked down to an open pier or quay abutting on the water. On his way along the river shore, between the village public-house and the town of Southampton, he had filled his pockets with stones. He knelt down now by the edge of the pier, and tied all these stones together in an old cotton pocket-handkerchief. When he had done this, carefully, compactly, and quickly, like a man accustomed to do all sorts of strange things, he tied the handkerchief full of stones to the whipcord that bound the brown-paper parcel, and dropped both packages into the water. The spot which he had chosen for this purpose was at the extreme end of the pier, where the water was deepest. He had done all this cautiously, taking care to make sure every now and then that he was unobserved. And when the parcel had sunk, he watched the widening circle upon the surface of the water till it died away. "So much for James Wentworth, and the clothes he wore," he said to himself as he walked away. He slept that night at the village inn where he had spent the day, and the next morning walked into Southampton. It was a little after nine o'clock when he entered the docks, and the _Electra_ was visible to the naked eye, steaming through the blue water under a cloudless summer sky. CHAPTER VI. CLEMENT AUSTIN'S DIARY.