He tore down the staircase as he spoke, closely followed by the landlord and the doctor. The waiters and chambermaids, who were hanging about the passages discussing the awful event that had occurred, made way respectfully for him as he appeared, and looked after the bereaved bridegroom with melancholy interest. But Frederick might have passed through the ranks of a regiment at that moment without perceiving them. There was but one idea in his brain--to get as quickly as he could to the side of his beloved. He had heard distinctly what the doctor said, but he did not realise that Jenny was dead--that she would never speak to him, nor smile at him, nor kiss him any more. The drive to the public-house was performed in mournful silence, and when they reached it they were at once taken through the bar to a back room, where on a table was placed, just as she had been found, all that was left of sweet Jenny Walcheren. Her chip hat, so fresh and pretty in the morning, was still attached to her hair, by a long pin with a butterfly at the end of it, but it was crushed and forced back upon her head by the awful fall she had sustained. Her white dress had been decently composed about her young limbs; she might have almost have deceived one into the belief that she was sleeping, except for the purple lips which were drawn off the white teeth, and a dark blue bruise over the right eye, where her temple had struck the cruel rocks. But Frederick saw nothing but that he had regained his wife, and falling on her body, covered it with kisses, imploring her by every fond entreaty he could frame, to open her eyes once more and look at him, and to unclose her bruised and livid lips and speak his name. At last his madness calmed down a little, leaving a dull despair behind it, when he turned to the doctor and said,-- ‘Tell me, for mercy’s sake, how did it happen?’ ‘We are as much in the dark as you are, my dear young friend,’ replied Dr M‘Coll, ‘all we know is, that two Deal boatmen, Jackson and Barnes by name, went to the lower beach after their boats, which are drawn up there, at five this afternoon, and found the poor lady lying under the cliffs, over which there is no doubt she must have fallen, but how, there is nothing to tell. They did not know her name, so carried her here and sent for me. But I could do nothing. She must have been dead for two or three hours before I saw her. When I was convinced of that, I set inquiries on foot, to find out who she was, and they soon led me to the Castle Warden Hotel.’ ‘It wasn’t easy to mistake her,’ interposed Mr Cameron, whose own eyes were suspiciously red; ‘the prettiest bride, as everyone says, we have had in the hotel for the last twelve month.’ ‘Don’t, don’t,’ said Frederick, in a voice of the keenest pain. ‘Doctor, how shall we take her back? She shall not lie here! I must take her to the hotel at once.’