On the corner was another entrance, and through it he saw a carriage pass. It was that way, he knew; and he would have followed the carriage, but a policeman touched him on the arm. "Got a permit?" Mistrial shook his head. Why should he have a permit? And, moved perhaps by the mute surprise his face expressed, the policeman explained that the ordinary pedestrian was allowed to cross only through the safeguards of the middle path. "I will get a cab," he reflected, and for his convenience he discerned one loitering across the way. This he entered, gave an order to the driver, and presently, after paying another toll, rolled off the stonework on to wood. He craned his neck. Just beyond, a column of stone rose inordinately to the lowering sky; he could see the water-front of the city; opposite was Brooklyn, and in front the lights of Staten Island glowed distantly and dim. The cab was moving slowly. He took some coin from his pocket, placed it on the seat, opened the door, and, stepping from the moving vehicle, looked at the driver. The latter, however, had not noticed him and was continuing his way leisurely over the bridge and on and into the night. Mistrial let him go undetained. He had work now to do, and it was necessary for him to do it quickly; at any moment another carriage might pass or some one happen that way. Beneath, far down, a barge was moving. He could see the lights; they approached the bridge and vanished within it. The railing, now, he saw was too high to vault, and moreover there was a bar above it that might interfere. He tossed his hat aside and clambered on the iron rail. "You'll get six months for that," some one was crying. But to the threat Mistrial paid no heed. He had crossed the rail, his hands relaxed, and just as he dropped straight down to the river below, he could see a policeman, his club uplifted, hanging over the fence, promising him the pleasures of imprisonment. Such was his last glimpse of earth. A multitude of lights danced before his eyes; every nerve in his body tingled; his ears were filled with sudden sounds; he felt himself incased in ice; then something snapped, and all was blank. The next day a rumor of the suicide was bruited through the clubs. "What do you think of it, Jones?" Yarde asked. The novelist plucked at his beard. There were times when he himself did not know what he thought. In this instance, however, he had already learned of the disaster that had overtaken the Dunellen estate, and weaving two and two sagaciously together, he answered with a shrug. "What do I think of it? I think he died like a man who knew how to live"--an epitaph which pleased him so much that he got his card-case out and wrote it down. THE END. By the same Author. A TRANSACTION IN HEARTS. EDEN. THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK. MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE. A TRANSIENT GUEST. THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION. THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISENCHANTMENT. Belford, Clarke & Co's New Books