But the prisoner’s brother, his only living relative, was very glad to be spared the disgrace of having a brother hanged for murder. He hurried Percy at once into a lunatic asylum. And none too soon, for the defeat of all his plans, and the tragic death of Elizabeth, the good soul who had so tenderly cared for him in his periods of dementia, so preyed on his mind that he soon became violently insane, and the paroxysms lasted so long that every remnant of reason left him. A padded cell became his permanent abode, and in the summer following his conviction he committed suicide, during a furious spell, by strangling himself to death with his bedclothes. And what of his widowed bride, who all this time had been enjoying herself abroad to the utmost extent that a lacerated heart and very slim purse would permit? Her humiliation at the hands of her beloved Percy had turned her love to hate, so she was rather glad than otherwise to learn of his disasters at home. “Had he sailed with me he would have escaped them all. He is well punished!” she thought maliciously. But while she lingered abroad a great cholera scare seized upon the Old World. The cholera broke out, and among the victims that were chronicled duly in the New York papers was Mrs. Seabright. * * * * * But in our haste to relate the end of the wicked characters of our story we have somewhat anticipated events. We must return therefore to the moment when Mr. Gardner, having finished the reading of the diary, stood looking around in silence on the interested throng. He had a dramatic surprise in store for them, and was preparing to unfold it. Looking around upon the judge and jury he observed: “Referring to the fiendish plot to ruin the good name of the supposed-to-be-dead Francis Murray, I have a very interesting story to relate.” And he told in a graphic manner the story of Francis Murray’s rescue at sea, and the interest taken in him by young Doctor Loring, his recognition by Emmett Harlow, and the surgical operation that had raised the patient from a living death to full life and consciousness again. How the great crowd hung on his words, how eagerly Mrs. Murray and Italy Vale bent forward to listen. Emmett Harlow and Professor Doepkin seemed quite nervous, too. The story sounded like a romance. Mr. Gardner paused for a few impressive moments, then continued: “Francis Murray, whose mother and friends mourned him as dead, was alive and well, and eager to go home. But think of his position! “By the story of the mysterious sailor he was proved dead and guilty of a great crime. The public had accepted the story, and cleared Mrs. Vale of the shadow of suspicion that had rested on her for years. She, too, believed in his guilt. What if he came back now and denied the sailor’s story, and proved his own innocence?