The cell was warm with sunlight, and it struck me at the time that this was most unsuitable. As, half awake, I looked at the Governor, a somewhat humorous idea struck me. I thought I was late for the ceremony, and that he had come to bid me make haste. I sprang up with a start, and I may have turned a little pale. It was excusable, I think. I then saw that the room was full of people, and not the people whom I had expected to see. The Governor seized my hand, and Grahame Hallward sprang forward and grasped the other. “Lord Gascoyne, your innocence has been established beyond question. The real culprit has confessed.” It sounded like a speech out of a melodrama. Luckily, I retained my self-possession sufficiently to say something expressive of my thanks to Providence. I think it met the occasion. Who the real culprit could be I failed to understand. “I have given instructions,” said the Governor, “for you to be taken to a comfortable room till the actual order for your release arrives.” Then I recollected my manuscript on the table. No one had seen it but myself, but if it were noticed it would be awkward. It was a terrible moment. I expected the Governor as I picked it up to say: “Anything written in a prison becomes the property of the Crown,” but I was allowed to walk off with it. Escorted by a congratulatory group, I was taken to a room which was quite luxurious. Grahame Hallward and myself breakfasted together. Then he told me all about it. “You remember the governess at Hammerton Castle?” he asked. I nodded. “Well, it is very sad for Lady Gascoyne, but it appears that Lord Gascoyne had made love to her, that she was about to become a mother, and that she poisoned his tea that evening as she had already poisoned the wine. The servants remember now that she had been in the dining-room. She intended at the time to kill herself as well, but she had not the courage. Last night, however, she did so, having written to your wife and to the Home Secretary, your lawyer, and others, so as to make sure of the news arriving in time.” I looked at him, striving to hide the sheer horror which I felt for the first time in my life. I was not surprised at the sacrifice, for it was the sort of gigantic thing that a nature like Esther’s would have conceived and carried out. Nevertheless, the news filled me with a profound gloom. It was better, however, to be sitting there finishing my coffee and smoking a cigarette than meandering out on to the unknown. “Sibella has been awfully ill, Israel.” “Did people think me guilty?” I asked. He avoided my question, and said: “The revulsion of feeling has been tremendous. Everybody will be delighted.” And so it turned out. People had not at all liked the idea of a real, live lord becoming an unreal, dead lord by such means. The Home Secretary sent the order for my release the same afternoon. The dead Lord Gascoyne became a monster of iniquity, and I was congratulated by everyone on the _dénouement_.