My arrival was not noticed by any member of the family. They were up-stairs, and I saw none of them; but from one of their guests, I obtained the details of the sad story. I was indeed, as Jessie had said in her letter, _too late_! A few minutes before my arrival, she had been found dead in her dressing-room--with a bottle of prussic acid by her side! I rushed back into the cab; and ordered the driver to take me home again. I was too much unmanned, to remain a minute longer in that house of woe. I had suffered great mental agony on many previous occasions. When alone, with the body of my companion Hiram--whom I had neglected when on the "prospecting" expedition in California--my thoughts had been far from pleasant. They were not agreeable when I saw my friend, Richard Guinane, by his own act fall a corpse before my face. Great was the pain I felt, when standing by the side of poor Stormy Jack, and looking upon his last agonies. So was it, when my mother left me; but all these--even the grief I felt when told that Lenore was married, were nothing to the anguish I experienced, while riding home through the crowded streets of London, and trying to realise the awful reality that Jessie H--had committed suicide. A heart that but an hour ago had been throbbing with warm love--and that love for me--was now cold and still. A pure spirit, altogether devoted to me, had passed suddenly away-- passed into eternity with a prayer upon her righteous lips; and that prayer for myself! My anguish at her untimely end, was mingled with the fires of regret. I submitted my conscience to a strict self-examination. Had I ever deceived her, by pretending a love I did not feel? Was I, in any way, to blame for the sin she had committed? Did I, in any way, lead her to that act of self-destruction? Could her parents, in the agony of their grief, reproach me for anything? These questions haunted me all that night; and I slept not. I even endeavoured to remember something in my conduct, which had been wrong. But I could not: for I had never talked to _her_ of love. In all, that had passed between us, I had been true to Lenore. In the voyage of her life, her hopes, as well as her existence, had been wrecked upon me; but I was no more to blame than the rock, unmarked on map or chart, against which some noble ship has been dashed to pieces. In that sad letter, Jessie had expressed a hope that I would think of her, and believe her only guilty of the crime of having loved me too well. That wish died with her; but obedience to it, still lives with me. When I returned home, on the day of her death, I locked myself in my chamber; and read that letter over and over again. No thoughts--not even of Lenore--could keep the rain of sorrow from dimming my eyes, and drowning my cheeks.