You might have heard a pin drop in the apartment whilst the repentant rascal thus spoke; and when he ceased, Mrs. Allerton, unable to bear up against the tumultuous emotion which his words excited, sank without breath or sensation upon a sofa.  Assistance was summoned; and whilst the as yet imperfectly-informed servants were running from one to another with restoratives, I had leisure to look around.  The Widow Thorneycroft, who had dropped into a chair, sat gazing in bewildered dismay upon the stranger, who still held her lately-discovered niece-in-law in his arms; and I could see the hot perspiration which had gathered on her brow run in large drops down the white channels which they traced through the thick rouge of her cheeks.  But the reader’s fancy will supply the best image of this unexpected and extraordinary scene.  I cleared the house of intruders and visitors as speedily as possible, well assured that matters would now adjust themselves without difficulty.

And so it proved.  Martin was not sent to the hulks, though no question that he amply deserved a punishment as great as that.  The self-sacrifice, as he deemed it, which he at last made, pleaded for him, and so did his pretty-looking wife; and the upshot was, that the mistaken bride’s dowry was restored, with something over, and that a tavern was taken for them in Piccadilly—­the White Bear, I think it was—­where they lived comfortably and happily, I have heard, for a considerable time, and having considerably added to their capital, removed to a hotel of a higher grade in the city, where they now reside.  It was not at all surprising that the clergyman and others had been deceived.  The disguise, and Martin’s imitative talent, might have misled persons on their guard, much more men unsuspicious of deception.  The cast in the eyes, as well as a general resemblance of features, also of course greatly aided the imposture.

Of Mrs. Rosamond Allerton, I have only to say, for it is all I know, that she is rich, unwedded, and still splendidly beautiful, though of course somewhat passe compared with herself twenty years since.  Happy, too, I have no doubt she is, judging from the placid brightness of her aspect the last time I saw her beneath the transept of the Crystal Palace, on the occasion of its opening by the Queen.  I remember wondering at the time, if she often recalled to mind the passage in her life which I have here recorded.

THE ONE BLACK SPOT.

On the evening of a bleak, cold March day, in an early year of this century, a woman, scantily clad, led a boy about eight years old, along the high-road towards the old city of Exeter.  They crept close to the hedge-side to shelter themselves from the clouds of dust, which the sudden gusts of east wind blew in their faces.