is coming again, and pressing--pressing so fearfully on the throbbing brain. Help--O God!... Easier now--and hark! A voice seems calling to him. No, it's but the sighing wind. Oh for rest, and forgetfulness, and peace! Rest and oblivion. Take all--all! and give me that. Cannot wealth buy it? It is there, though--down there! How quietly those black boulders sleep amid that boiling foam. One leap and I am free! With a frantic toss of his arms Rufus Heath flung himself off the bridge. A form vanished into the dark abyss, and all was over. Sullenly and persistently, as before, the Passaic plunged over the steep, bearing in its rapid tide the magnifico of Belton, like a drifting log. * * * * * Early the next morning, as some artisans were going to their work and walking along the riversde, their attention was attracted by a partly submerged object near the bank. It was the body of Rufus Heath, kept to the surface by the swirl of an eddy. With the assistance of a boat, the corpse was drawn ashore, and kept there until the coroner could be summoned. Like wild-fire the news spread through Belton, and crowds hurried to see the drowned body of its chief citizen. And then through the circle of gaping, curious spectators came a cry of anguish that separated them like the thrust of a sword; and they hustled aside as the daughter hastened with faltering steps to her dead father. With clasped hands, knit brows, and brimming eyes the poor child knelt to embrace the wet and bruised head. Her low quivering sobs awed them all, until George Gildersleeve, tenderly unclasping her clinging arms, raised her fainting form, and bore her away. XVII. The huge battlemented villa on the cliff was a gloomy enough residence since the death of its owner. The remaining occupants, oppressed by their bereavement, moved about the silent rooms like shadows. Mrs. Applegate was of the opinion that a change of scene was absolutely necessary to dissipate Edna's excessive grief, and that a continued stay in their present habitation might tend to impair her health. Edna, however, seemed reluctant to leave her home, and it was only at the urgent solicitation of the Mumbies that she did so. Mr. Mumbie was one of the executors of Mr. Heath's will, and was also appointed Edna's guardian. Mr. Mumbie felt the loss of his old friend Rufus Heath deeply. His first impulse was to put his whole family in mourning, but on second thoughts he confined himself to delivering a eulogy on the character of the deceased to every one he met, prefacing it by the sage remark, solemnly delivered, that it was a very sudden death. As this was a proposition that did not admit of much controversy, the listener generally coincided. "Ah! sir, such is life," continued Mr. Mumbie, addressing Dr. Wattletop, who added, "And death."