The reader will doubtless conclude that, now at least, having satisfactorily settled his demands, I had done with my Tormentor for ever.  This inference is in part correct.  I followed up my vocation with an energy strangely contrasted with my recent indifference, was early and late in the schools, and for three months pursued this course with such ardour, that my adventures with the Mysterious Tailor, though not forgotten, were yet gradually losing their once powerful hold on my imagination.  This was precisely the state of my feelings, when early one autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles’s Church, on my way to—­Hospital.  I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive; no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened, that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud on my brain, for which I could in no way account.  As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally.  I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency.  In this condition I reached Saint Giles’s Church.  A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell—­that solemn and oracular memento—­announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place.  The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel.  This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard.  And now the interest began in reality to deepen.  As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners—­even those who had hitherto looked unmoved—­pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave.  Such is the ennobling character of death.

The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton.  At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a name, long and fearfully known to me—­the name of the Mysterious Tailor of High Holborn.  Oh, how many thrilling recollections did this one name recal?  The rencontre in the streets of London—­the scene at the masquerade—­the meeting at Bologne—­the storm—­the shipwreck—­the sinking vessel—­the appearance at that moment of the man himself—­the subsequent