God is merciful, and will be your friend when every one else is taken from you." It was not the words of this touching little message from the dead which brought a gasp to Jeffreys' throat and sent the colour from his cheeks as he read it.

The writing, hasty and agitated as it was, was a hand he had seen before.

He had in his pocket an envelope, well-worn now, addressed to him months ago in the same writing, and as he held the two side by side he knew Raby had written both.
He quitted the garret hurriedly, and entered the room of a family of five who lived below him.
"Mrs Pratt," said he to the ragged woman who sat nursing her baby in the corner, "did you see who Trimble had with him when he died ?" "He's dead, then, sir"-- these fellow-lodgers of Jeffreys called him "sir" in spite of his misery.

"I knew that cough couldn't last.

My Annie's begun with it: she'll go too.