I now got wearied and half-disgusted with my task, and brought it to an end by reporting to Mr. Percival my absolute conviction of his wife's innocence and purity. He received my statement without offering any opinion upon it, and it was evident that he was not quite satisfied with it. It had, I dare say, weakened his suspicions, but it had not destroyed them. I was sorry for the imperfect result, but I could do no more than I had done for his satisfaction. I often mused and reflected over this curious case. What could have given rise to these suspicions in the mind of such a man as Mr. Percival? I set it down to incompatibility of temper. He was a somewhat studious and retiring man. His wife, although as good a woman as ever drew breath, was a light and somewhat volatile person. In many respects, I argued, this is an incongruous union. I thought I saw inevitable misery for both husband and wife in the future. About a year after I had finished my proper business with Mr. and Mrs. Percival, I was waited upon by an eminent London solicitor, who knew nothing of my former engagement, for the purpose of tracing the retreat of that gentleman, who had deserted his wife, and was hiding from all his friends. My visitor, the private solicitor of Mr. Percival, had not heard from him since or about his flight. It was not supposed that any violence had befallen him, although it was hard to say what harm might befall him. His physician had advised that he had been suffering from one of the thousand forms of one of the hundred branches of that disorder known by the familiar collective title of insanity. It was a mild and harmless type of the disease--a species of melancholia. The friends of the unfortunate gentleman were anxious to discover, and perhaps secretly watch over, him; at the worst, place him under gentle and temporary restraint. As he was known to be a man of high and honourable ambition--very likely to obtain and worthily fill a seat in Parliament, unless his prospects were marred--publicity, scandal, or gossip, on the subject of his bereavement, was to be deprecated. I accepted this engagement, and I thought it desirable to let the solicitor know of the previous retainer given me by Mr. Percival, so that he might re-state the facts to the physician, who would thereby gain some insight into the secret of the gentleman's misfortune. We had no clue to Mr. Percival's whereabouts. Certain facts led us to imagine he had not left this country; but I put myself in communication with the French and Belgian police, as the best mode of tracing him if he had crossed the sea. I had all the provincial papers filed at Peele's and Deacon's Coffee-houses critically scanned, so that if any harm befell him I should hear of it. This was a precaution I added to the usual police inquiry through the _Hue and Cry_.