He died on his way there.

    Thus it happened that he died on the road where he had performed his
    great deed.

A second unusual incident of that summer occurred in Hartford.  There had been a report of a strange man seen about the Clemens place, thought to be a prospecting burglar, and Clemens went over to investigate.  A little searching inquiry revealed that the man was not a burglar, but a mechanic out of employment, a lover of one of the house-maids, who had given him food and shelter on the premises, intending no real harm.  When the girl found that her secret was discovered, she protested that he was her fiance, though she said he appeared lately to have changed his mind and no longer wished to marry her.

The girl seemed heartbroken, and sympathy for her was naturally the first and about the only feeling which Clemens developed, for the time being.  He reasoned with the young man, but without making much headway.  Finally his dramatic instinct prompted him to a plan of a sort which would have satisfied even Tom Sawyer.  He asked Twichell to procure a license for the couple, and to conceal himself in a ground floor bath-room.  He arranged with the chief of police to be on hand in another room; with the rest of the servants quietly to prepare a wedding-feast, and finally with Lizzie herself to be dressed for the ceremony.  He had already made an appointment with the young man to come to, see him at a certain hour on a “matter of business,” and the young man arrived in the belief, no doubt, that it was something which would lead to profitable employment.  When he came in Clemens gently and quietly reviewed the situation, told him of the young girl’s love for him; how he had been sheltered and fed by her; how through her kindness to him she had compromised her reputation for honesty and brought upon her all the suspicion of having sheltered a burglar; how she was ready and willing to marry him, and how he (Clemens) was ready to assist them to obtain work and a start in life.

But the young man was not enthusiastic.  He was a Swede and slow of action.  He resolutely declared that he was not ready to marry yet, and in the end refused to do so.  Then came the dramatic moment.  Clemens quietly but firmly informed him that the wedding ceremony must take place; that by infesting his premises he had broken the law, not only against trespass, but most likely against house-breaking.  There was a brief discussion of this point.  Finally Clemens gave him five minutes to make up his mind, with the statement that he had an officer in waiting, and unless he would consent to the wedding he would be taken in charge.  The young man began to temporize, saying that it would be necessary for him to get a license and a preacher.  But Clemens stepped to the door of the bath-room, opened it, and let out Twichell, who had been sweltering there in that fearful place for more than an hour, it being August.  The delinquent lover found himself confronted with