Now, it came to pass, by a singular coincidence, that on the identical morning of the marriage, More came home, and was taking a walk about the scenes of his boyhood—a little faded since that time—when he rescued ‘Wilbert the Hunchback’ from some very rough treatment. This misguided person, in return, immediately fell to abusing his preserver in round terms, giving him to understand that he (the preserved) hated ‘manerkind, wither two eckerceptions,’ one of them being the deceiving Geoffrey, whose retainer he was, and for whom he felt an unconquerable attachment; the other, a relative, whom, in a similar redundancy of emphasis, adapted to the requirements of MR. WHELKS, he called his ‘assister.’ This misanthrope also made the cold-blooded declaration, ‘There was a timer when I loved my fellow keretures till they deserpised me. Now, I live only to witness man’s disergherace and woman’s misery!’ In furtherance of this amiable purpose of existence, he directed More to where the bridal procession was coming home from church, and Eva recognised More, and More reproached Eva, and there was a great to-do, and a violent struggling, before certain social villagers who were celebrating the event with morris-dances. Eva was borne off in a tearing condition, and the bill very truly observed that the end of that part of the business was ‘despair and madness.’ Geoffrey, Geoffrey, why were you already married to another! Why could you not be true to your lawful wife Katherine, instead of deserting her, and leaving her to come tumbling into public-houses (on account of weakness) in search of you! You might have known what it would end in, Geoffrey Thornley! You might have known that she would come up to your house on your wedding day with her marriage-certificate in her pocket, determined to expose you. You might have known beforehand, as you now very composedly observe, that you would have ‘but one course to pursue.’ That course clearly is to wind your right hand in Katherine’s long hair, wrestle with her, stab her, throw down the body behind the door (Cheers from MR. WHELKS), and tell the devoted Hunchback to get rid of it. On the devoted Hunchback’s finding that it is the body of his ‘assister,’ and taking her marriage-certificate from her pocket and denouncing you, of course you have still but one course to pursue, and that is to charge the crime upon him, and have him carried off with all speed into the ‘deep and massive dungeons beneath Thornley Hall.’ More having, as he was rather given to boast, ‘a goodly vessel on the lordly Thames,’ had better have gone away with it, weather permitting, than gone after Eva. Naturally, he got carried down to the dungeons too, for lurking about, and got put into the next dungeon to the Hunchback, then expiring from poison. And there they were, hard and fast, like two wild beasts in dens, trying to get glimpses of each other through the bars, to the unutterable interest of MR. WHELKS.