dismissed with a benediction, proceeded to their homes or to the evening trains which were to convey them out of the city. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXII. THE SUICIDE. In the Ashtabula “Telegraph” appeared the following article: ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE BRIDGE DISASTER. “Our community received another shock on Saturday last, hardly less severe than that of the news of the disaster itself. The announcement that Charles Collins, the Chief Engineer of the L. S. & M. S. road was dead, without any cause but that he was found lifeless in his bed, carried every one back in mind to the bridge calamity, and there was an intense eagerness for an explanation. The evening papers brought that explanation, but with it an increased effect upon the sensibilities of our citizens. He was, to be sure, found dead in his bed, but beside him were the implements telling the manner of death. He died by his own hand. The story of his death we abstract and condense from the Cleveland dailies, as follows: Mr. Collins’ assistant--Mr. I. C. Brewer, of the Toledo division, sought his presence at his office on Water street, on Saturday morning, but not finding him or hearing of him, passed over to his residence, and being informed by the colored man in charge that he was not there, determined to make an examination of the house for the settlement of the question--whether he was in the house. Upon passing through the house everything indicated order and quiet, but loneliness, until the bedroom was reached. Here he found the person of his search, dead, and in the first stages of decomposition, marked with blood, a revolver at hand, with which the deed was done, and the handle of another just showed from his pillow. The determined purpose that controlled him was shown by the means for making his destruction sure. A razor was also found upon the bed. It was found that the muzzle of the revolver had been placed in his mouth, and the direction of the ball was upward through the roof of the mouth, and out through the upper and back part of his head. The first shot seems to be the fatal and only one. [Illustration: CHARLES COLLINS.]