In the morning it was rumored here and there in the street that the
Judge was dead. A servant was sent from the house three doors away, by
Counsellor Traverse, to inquire at Judge Harbottle's hall door.

The servant who opened it was pale and reserved, and would only say that
the Judge was ill. He had had a dangerous accident; Doctor Hedstone had
been with him at seven o'clock in the morning.

There were averted looks, short answers, pale and frowning faces, and
all the usual signs that there was a secret that sat heavily upon their
minds and the time for disclosing which had not yet come. That time
would arrive when the coroner had arrived, and the mortal scandal that
had befallen the house could be no longer hidden. For that morning Mr.
Justice Harbottle had been found hanging by the neck from the banister
at the top of the great staircase, and quite dead.

There was not the smallest sign of any struggle or resistance. There had
not been heard a cry or any other noise in the slightest degree
indicative of violence. There was medical evidence to show that, in his
atrabilious state, it was quite on the cards that he might have made
away with himself. The jury found accordingly that it was a case of
suicide. But to those who were acquainted with the strange story which
Judge Harbottle had related to at least two persons, the fact that the
catastrophe occurred on the morning of March 10th seemed a startling
coincidence.

A few days after, the pomp of a great funeral attended him to the grave;
and so, in the language of Scripture, "the rich man died, and was
buried."