It was amazing with what spirit Mr. Trimblerigg--not being in running condition--had kept the pace; but he was a very spent man when he reached the narrow foot-bridge, and sped breathless to the crossing, his pursuers only a few yards behind. The tide was low: black glimmerings of mud stretched to right and left of him: he trod warily clutching at the hand-rail as he ran to stay the dizzying of his brain. Before he reached the end, a violent vibration told that his pursuers were now almost upon him; the bridge resounded to the weight and tread of a larger number than it was built for. Under Mr. Trimblerigg’s feet a plank started; the weight pressing it behind jerked it upwards. Somewhere with a sharp report a stay snapped, then another and another; and with a sense of general collapse going on behind him, from which he himself was immune, Mr. Trimblerigg felt himself precipitated through the air in a long gliding curve, up, out, forward, and down. A shallow mud-bank received him into its merciful embrace. He stumbled out of it unhurt, but in so dark a disguise, that all the mothers in the world would not have known him. Leaving his enemies behind in far worse plight, he staggered up to the door which had already opened to those sounds of break-neck disaster borne upon the quiet air. He saw Davidina standing dark against the light, and even in the desperation of his present condition he felt the shock of it, and shrank back from meeting her--not because of the mud which now encased him, but because of that other adornment, which he could explain so far less easily. But the relief he had longed for had already been brought about: the mere sight of her had made him a changed man; and though her greeting word, as she ran down the path to meet him was, ‘Jonathan, whatever is the matter?’ she made no further remark indicative of surprise. All about him the night was beautifully dark; there was no reflected light upon her face as she bent forward to kiss him. The shock of meeting her had done it. Mr. Trimblerigg had no longer anything to conceal. They cleaned him of the mud which smothered him. ‘You don’t _smell_ of drink,’ said Davidina, ‘but you look like it. What’s this Caroline has been telling me about your head? What’s wrong with it?’ And, at the word, what he had already begun suspiciously to hope, he became sure of. Heaven was no longer making him conspicuous. ‘What did she tell you?’ he inquired defensively. ‘There’s nothing the matter with my head that I know of.’ ‘Said you’d been striking sparks--having a vision that your head was a hayrick that had caught fire; and now she won’t tell me anything: says you’ve sworn her to secrecy.’ ‘She must have dreamed it!’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. He saw Caroline go white. ‘Dreamed it?’ exclaimed Davidina. ‘If she dreams things like that she wants a doctor.’ She did. On hearing that she must not believe the evidence of her senses, Caroline fainted. *