Fortunately he was far too ill to be summoned as a witness.  His deposition alone could be taken, and that he framed with the utmost caution, and as briefly as was possible.  His wounded lung defended him from protracted inquiries.  Solomon himself had proposed the idea of a partnership in Wheal Danes, and his interest in the mine, the knowledge of which had suggested to Richard the place of his concealment, had evidently proved fatal to him.  That he should have broken his neck just as Richard had broken his ribs on such a quest was by no means extraordinary; but how he ever reached the spot where he was found at all, without the aid of a ladder, was inexplicable.  The line of evidence was smooth enough but for this ugly knot, and it troubled Richard much, though, as it happened, unnecessarily.  Had the place of the calamity been a gravel-pit at Highgate, it would have been guarded by constabulary, and all things preserved as they were until after the official investigation.  But Wheal Danes, from having been a deserted mine, had suddenly become the haunt of the curious and the morbid.  There was nothing more likely than that Solomon’s ladder had been carried off, and perhaps disposed of at a high price per foot as an interesting relic.  The presence of the half-extinguished torch that Richard had flung away in the second level (and which should by rights have been found in the third) was still more easily explained:  there were a score of such things now lying about the mine, which had been left there by visitors.  In short, an “active” coroner and an “intelligent” jury could have come to no other conclusion than that of “accidental death;” and they came to it accordingly.

Other comforters had arrived to the wounded man, before the receipt of that good news, in the persons of Harry and her son and Agnes.  There was a reason why all three should be now warmly attracted toward him, which, while it effectually worked his will in that way, gave him many a twinge.  They looked upon him, as did the rest of the world, as the man who had lost his life (for his wound was by this time pronounced to be fatal) to save his friend.  He told them that it was not so, and they did not believe him.  He had not the heart to tell them how matters really stood; but their praise pained him more than the agony of his wound, and he peremptorily forbade the subject to be alluded to.  This command was not difficult to obey.  Solomon’s death, although the awful character of it shocked them much, was, in reality, regretted neither by wife nor son:  such must be the case with every husband and father who has been a domestic tyrant, no matter how dutifully wife and son may strive to mourn:  his loss was a release, and his memory a burden that they very willingly put aside; and, in particular, his name was never mentioned before Agnes without strong necessity.