are so carefully timed that he is rarely absent from the daily services. He is a favourite with his landlady, Mrs. Tope, and to mothers with marriageable daughters he must appear a very eligible young bachelor. Who could dream that a man of twenty-six, refined, highly educated, and agreeable, should seek his private recreation in an opium den? Eight or nine months pass away, and at the point where the story closes Jasper is to all appearance still safe and prosperous. But already the avengers are upon his track, and we shall find it possible from the indications given in the book to show that there were at least six persons designed to have a share in the final capture. The first mind in which suspicion lodges is clearly that of Mr. Grewgious, and he has taken his impressions of Jasper from Rosa and from Helena Landless. From his interview with Rosa in chapter ix. he learned that the young bride-elect wished to have nothing to do with Jasper. ‘I don’t like Mr. Jasper to come between us,’ she said, ‘in any way.’ After the murder, when Grewgious comes to Jasper’s rooms he has already seen Rosa and Helena Landless, and the latter must have told him of the persecution to which Rosa has been subjected. When Jasper utters a terrible shriek and falls to the ground in a swoon, his companion stands by the fire, warming his hands, and looking curiously at the prostrate figure. He refuses to eat with Jasper, and treats him from that time onwards as ‘a brigand and wild beast in combination.’ He keeps a personal watch on his movements in Staple Inn, and it is doubtless with his connivance and support that Datchery goes to Cloisterham. Are not these significant words of Grewgious in chapter xxi. to Rosa and Crisparkle: ‘When one is in a difficulty, or at a loss, one never knows in what direction a way out may chance to open. It is a business principle of mine, in such a case, not to close up any direction, but to keep an eye on every direction that may present itself. I could relate an anecdote in point, but that it would be premature.’ In that last sentence may not Grewgious refer to the plan for sending Datchery to Cloisterham? When the novel breaks off, Grewgious is working against Jasper, but only on strong suspicion. If Rosa had reported to him Jasper’s exact words in her final interview with him, that suspicion may have been heightened to certainty. The part allotted to him in the ultimate crisis is that of identifying the remains of Edwin, now hardly distinguishable otherwise, owing to the action of quicklime in the Sapsea tomb, by means of the ring which was on the young man’s person at the time of his murder, and which possessed invincible powers to hold and drag. After giving the ring to Edwin Mr. Grewgious had said ‘Her ring. Will it come back to me? My mind hangs about her ring very uneasily to-night. But this is explainable. I have had it so long, and I have prized it so much. I wonder—’