The old servant trembled with agitation, and grasped hold of the back of a chair. "Oh, Mr. Oscar, it is all over. My poor young master is gone."
Oscar sat down, seemingly unconscious what he did, and the red light came again into his cheeks.
"The very night after you left London, sir, those men drew him out again. Before he went, I spoke to him, trying to stop him, and he told me he was ruined and worse than ruined. He never came back. He has just followed in the steps of Mr. Claude Dalrymple, and has met with the same fate."
"Surely he has not destroyed himself?" breathed Oscar.
"He has; he has."
"But how? In what manner?"
"By drowning, sir. He jumped over Westminster Bridge right into the water during that same night. About two o'clock, they say. Oh, what distraction his poor mind must have been in, to urge him to such a death as that!"
Oscar rose and looked from the window. Cold as was his nature, the news could not fail to shock him—although he was the inheritor of the Grange.
"Has he been found?" he presently asked.
"No. Perhaps never will be. The officers say that not half the bodies that get into the Thames ever see the light again. But his fate is as sure and certain, sir, as though he had been found, and the drags are yet at work. Mr. Oscar, I'd rather it was my own death that had to be told of than his," added Reuben, breaking into sobs.