On entering the parlor two figures were visible; one that of a tall, pale, emaciated, gentlemanly person of about forty, who lay on the sofa languidly smoking a cigar, more apparently to assuage pain than for the purpose of mere enjoyment. The other was a portly gray-haired man, apparently about fifty, and also of gentlemanly appearance. He was standing with his back to the fireplace--one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other holding a tumbler, which he raised to his lips as Vice entered, and having drained it, requested him to replenish it. 'T was the third tumbler of strong brandy and water which he had despatched that evening; and his restless and excited eye, and voluble utterance, testified to the influence of what he had been drinking. On Vice's retiring, this gentleman began to address Mr. Aubrey in a rapid and somewhat incoherent strain--telling him of the "accident" which had that morning befallen him; for that Vice had laid his rough hand upon him just as he was embarking in an Indiaman, off Blackwall, to bid farewell to this "cursed country" forever. This man had been a great merchant in the city; and, for a series of years, universally respected. He had married a fashionable wife; and their ambition and absurd extravagance, combined with losses unquestionably originating in a want of confidence on the part of his mercantile connections, occasioned solely by his ostentation, irregularities, and inattention to business, drove him to gambling speculations. Unfortunate there, he took to courses of downright dishonesty; availing himself of his character and power as trustee, executor, and otherwise, to draw out of the funds, from time to time, very large sums of money, to the utter ruin of some twenty or thirty unfortunate families, whose deceased relatives had quitted life with implicit confidence in his integrity. The guilty splendor thus secured him lasted for some few years, when an accident set him suddenly wrong;--a beautiful girl, for whom he was sole trustee, and every farthing of whose fortune he had appropriated to his own purposes, applied to him for the immediate settlement of her property. The next morning he had stopped payment; Mincing Lane was in a ferment--astonishment prevailed at the Exchange. Who could have thought it! said everybody. He was nowhere to be seen or heard of--but at length intelligence of his movements having been obtained by one of his numerous distracted victims, led to his apprehension in the way which has been already mentioned. Of all this, Mr. Aubrey, of course, could know nothing--but, nevertheless, he was somewhat struck with the man's countenance and manner; but with what awful interest would Mr. Aubrey have regarded him, had he known that the miserable being before him had determined upon self-destruction--and that within two days' time he would actually accomplish his frightful purpose!--For he was found in bed, a ghastly object, with his head almost severed from his body.