In America I spent a few months, the remembrance of which I would gladly blot from my memory. Money came to me fast from gambling, and as quickly went. All the time I was restless, fearful, ill at ease and sick at heart. I had never heard one single word of how my disappearance might have afflicted those I left behind. I knew not whether you really thought me dead, or whether my secret had oozed out. At length I determined, with tears of penitence, to return, to confess all, to purchase back the miniature from Williams with money I had won. And, with this resolve, I started back to England. On arriving, I took up a newspaper, and you may judge the terror I felt as I read the account of Williams's awful death with the miniature upon him. It staggered me, but it did not melt my heart. I interpreted it that my plans were frustrated, as I found that Dr. Brier had obtained possession of the miniature. I dared not remain in the country, for fear of discovery and of identification with the crime of Williams; but I could not tear myself away until I had once more visited the neighborhood of the dear old school-house. I cannot think without emotion of that moonlight night when I lay down beside the marble pillar which tender hearts had caused to be placed there, "In loving memory of D.M." Oh, my father, how true it is that "the way of transgressors is hard!" I thought my heart would break as I lay there on the cold earth and wept the bitterest tears I ever shed. If I could but have caught sight of Dr. Brier, or felt the motherly touch of Mrs. Brier's hand upon my shoulder,--if I could but have heard the ring of Howard's or Martin's voice in the play-ground, I felt as if the evil within me would have taken flight and I should have risen up a regenerated man. But I was alone. Dead! dead! And I went away with my heart cold and sad, and my future all dark and purposeless. A twelvemonth ago I fell in with some Shetlanders who were about to start on a whaling cruise, and, as the expedition promised plenty of adventure and excitement, I joined them. Three months after we left Shetland, we were fast in the ice. For nine months and more we have been almost starving, and have had to endure bodily suffering in other respects of a most severe kind. I have written the foregoing part of my story at intervals, and I would now bring it to a conclusion, for the ice is breaking up, and we have before us our last chance.