In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell--that solemn and oracular memento--announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners--even those who had hitherto looked unmoved--pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the ennobling character of death. The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a name, long and fearfully known to me--the name of the Mysterious Tailor of High Holborn. Oh, how many thrilling recollections did this one name recal? The rencontre in the streets of London--the scene at the masquerade--the meeting at Bologne--the storm--the shipwreck--the sinking vessel--the appearance at that moment of _the man_ himself--the subsequent visions of mingled fever and insanity: all, all now swept across my mind, as for the last time I gazed on the remains of him who was powerless henceforth for ever. In a few minutes one little span of earth would keep down that strange form which seemed once endowed with ubiquity. That wild unearthly voice was mute; that wandering glance was fixed; a seal was set upon those lips which eternity itself could not remove. Yes, my Tormentor--my mysterious--omnipresent Tormentor was indeed gone; and in that one word, how much of vengeance was forgotten! I was roused from this reverie by the hollow sound of the clay as it fell dull and heavy on the coffin-lid. The poor sleeper beneath could not hear it, it is true; his slumber, henceforth, was sound; the full tide of human population pressing fast beside the spot where he lay buried, should never wake him more: no human sorrow should rack his breast, no dream disturb his repose; yet cold, changed, and senseless as he was, the first sound of the falling clods jarred strange and harsh upon my ear, as if it must perforce awake him. In this feverish state of mind I quitted the church-yard, and, on my road home, passed by the shop where I had first met with the deceased. It was altered--strangely altered--to my mind, revoltingly so. Its quaint antique character, its dingy spectral look were gone, and there was even a studied air of cheerfulness about it, as if the present proprietor were anxious to