The answer that came to Mrs. Forbes and me in Alexandria was the announcement of Mr. Huntingdon’s sudden death of some disease of the heart, on the day which I calculated would put him in possession of my communication. Mrs. Forbes was again overwhelmed with apparently heartrending sorrow and remorse. The income left to her was something less than one hundred pounds a year. The secretary of the post-office, who had been a personal friend of the deceased gentleman, was his sole executor; and I received a letter from him, containing one for Mrs. Forbes, which recommended her, in terms not to be misunderstood, to fix upon some residence abroad, and not to return to England. She fancied she would like the seclusion and quiet of a convent; and I made arrangements for her to enter one in Malta, where she would still be under British protection. I left Alexandria myself on the arrival of another packet-agent; and on my return to London I had a private interview with the secretary. I found that there was no need to inform him of the circumstances I have related to you, as he had taken possession of all Mr. Huntingdon’s papers. In consideration of his ancient friendship, and of the escape of those who most merited punishment, he had come to the conclusion that it was quite as well to let bygones be bygones. At the conclusion of the interview I delivered a message which Mrs. Forbes had emphatically entrusted to me. “Mrs. Forbes wished me to impress upon your mind,” I said, “that neither she nor Mr. Forbes would have been guilty of this misdemeanour if they had not been very much in love with one another, and very much in want of money.” “Ah!” replied the secretary, with a smile, “if Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter, the fate of the world would have been different!” NO. 5 BRANCH LINE THE ENGINEER His name, sir, was Matthew Price; mine is Benjamin Hardy. We were born within a few days of each other; bred up in the same village; taught at the same school. I cannot remember the time when we were not close friends. Even as boys, we never knew what it was to quarrel. We had not a thought, we had not a possession, that was not in common. We would have stood by each other, fearlessly, to the death. It was such a friendship as one reads about sometimes in books: fast and firm as the great Tors upon our native moorlands, true as the sun in the heavens.