How he loathed himself as he thought of it all. Oh! if he could only undo the past. Young as he was, ruin seemed staring him in the face. He had squandered his handsome allowance; his debts were heavy. He had heard his grandfather say that of all things he abhorred gambling; and yet he knew he was a gambler. Only the preceding night he had staked a large sum and had lost; and that very morning he had appealed to Erle to save him from the consequences of his own rashness. As he rode on, his thoughts seemed to grow tangled and confused. His life was a failure; how was he to go on living? All these years he had fed on husks, and the taste was bitter in his mouth. Oh! if he could make a clean breast of it all. And then he repeated drearily that it was too late. His reins were hanging loosely on his horse's neck. His high-spirited little mare had been following her own will for more than an hour now, and had relapsed into a walk, as Percy roused himself to see where he was. He found himself on a bridge with the river on either side of him. He was miles away from Belgrave House; and for the moment he was perplexed, and drew up to ask a boy who was loitering on the footpath what bridge it was. There was a steamer passing; and a little lad had clambered on the parapet to see it go by. Either he overbalanced himself or grew giddy, but, to Percy's horror, there was a sharp scream, and the next moment the child had disappeared. In an instant Percy was off his horse, and, with the agility of a practiced athlete, had swung himself on the parapet. Yes, he could see the eddy where the child had sunk; and in another moment he had dived into the dark water. "It was a plucky thing to do, sir," observed a navvy who had seen the whole proceeding, and who afterward retailed it to Erle Huntingdon; "I don't know as ever I saw a pluckier thing in my life. Ay, and the poor young gentleman would have done it too, for any one could see he knew what he was about; for he dived in straight after the child; and then, that dratted steamer--you will excuse me, sir, but one's feelings are strong--what must it do but back to pick up the child; and the poor fellow, he must have struck his head against it, for he went down again. Oh, yes, the child was all right, and the young gentleman would have been all right too, but for that nasty blow; it stunned him, you see." Yes, it had stunned him; the young ill-spent life was over. Did he call upon his God for succor as he went down into his watery grave? Who knows what cry went up to heaven? The old epitaph that was engraved on the tomb of a notorious ill-liver speaks quaintly of hope in such cases, "Betwixt the saddle and the ground He mercy sought and mercy found." and Raby quoted them softly to Crystal as she wept over the fate of her unhappy lover.