A FRIEND'S APOLOGY FOR A FRIEND.--JACK DOWN AT THE BOTTOM OF DEEP ABYSS OF WOE.--HIS DESPAIR.--THE HOUR AND THE MAN!--WHERE IS THE WOMAN!--A SACRED SPOT.--OLD FLETCHER.--THE TOLL OF THE BELL.--MEDITATIONS ON EACH SUCCESSIVE STROKE.--A WILD SEARCH.--THE PRETTY SERVANT-MAID, AND HER PRETTY STORY.--THROWING GOLD ABOUT. Jack's strange revelation excited my deepest sympathy, but I did not see how it was possible for him to get rid of his difficulty. One way was certainly possible. He could easily get leave of absence and go home, for the sake of attending to his estates. Once in England, he could sell out, and retire from the army altogether, or exchange into another regiment. This was certainly possible physically; but to Jack it was morally impossible. Now, Jack has appeared in this story in very awkward circumstances, engaging himself right and left to every young lady that he fancied, with a fatal thoughtlessness, that cannot be too strongly reprehended. Such very diffusive affection might argue a lack of principle. Yet, after all, Jack was a man with a high sense of honor. The only difficulty was this, that he was too susceptible. All susceptible men can easily understand such a character. I'm an awfully susceptible man myself, as I have already had the honor of announcing, and am, moreover, a man of honor--consequently I feel strongly for Jack, and always did feel strongly for him. Given, then, a man of very great susceptibility, and a very high sense of honor, and what would he do? Why, in the first place, as a matter of course, his too susceptible heart would involve him in many tendernesses; and, if he was as reckless and thoughtless as Jack, he would be drawn into inconvenient entanglements; and, perhaps, like Jack, before he knew what he was about, he might find himself engaged to three different ladies, and in love with a fourth. In the second place, his high sense of honor would make him eager to do his duty by them all. Of course, this would be impossible. Yet Jack had done his best. He had offered immediate marriage to Miss Phillips, and had proposed an elopement to Number Three. This shows that his impulses led him to blind acts which tended in a vague way to do justice to the particular lady who happened for the time being to be in his mind. And so Jack had gone blundering on until at last he found himself at the mercy of the widow. The others had given him up in scorn. She would not give him up. He was bound fast. He felt the bond. In the midst of this his susceptibility drove him on further, and, instead of trying to get out of his difficulties, he had madly thrust himself further into them. And there he was--doomed--looking forward to the fateful Tuesday.