alse inscription struck off the tombstone with their own eyes.

They all left the house, and all joined the throng of villagers
collected round the grave, where the statuary's man was waiting for us.
In a breathless silence, the first sharp stroke of the steel sounded on
the marble. Not a voice was heard--not a soul moved, till those three
words, "Laura, Lady Glyde," had vanished from sight. Then there was a
great heave of relief among the crowd, as if they felt that the last
fetters of the conspiracy had been struck off Laura herself, and the
assembly slowly withdrew. It was late in the day before the whole
inscription was erased. One line only was afterwards engraved in its
place: "Anne Catherick, July 25th, 1850."

I returned to Limmeridge House early enough in the evening to take
leave of Mr. Kyrle. He and his clerk, and the driver of the fly, went
back to London by the night train. On their departure an insolent
message was delivered to me from Mr. Fairlie--who had been carried from
the room in a shattered condition, when the first outbreak of cheering
answered my appeal to the tenantry. The message conveyed to us "Mr.
Fairlie's best congratulations," and requested to know whether "we
contemplated stopping in the house." I sent back word that the only
object for which we had entered his doors was accomplished--that I
contemplated stopping in no man's house but my own--and that Mr.
Fairlie need not entertain the slightest apprehension of ever seeing us
or hearing from us again. We went back to our friends at the farm to
rest that night, and the next morning--escorted to the station, with
the heartiest enthusiasm and good will, by the whole village and by all
the farmers in the neighbourhood--we returned to London.

As our view of the Cumberland hills faded in the distance, I thought of
the first disheartening circumstances under which the long struggle
that was now past and over had been pursued. It was strange to look
back and to see, now, that the poverty which had denied us all hope of
assistance had been the indirect means of our success, by forcing me to
act for myself. If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what
would have been the result? The gain (on Mr. Kyrle's own showing) would
have been more than doubtful--the loss, judging by the plain test of
events as they had really happened, certain. The law would never have
obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have
ma