There were here no aids to worship If the soul had not the spiritual faculty to soar upwards, leaving the things of sense behind, it must remain groveling.

The only sight that roused her imagination was the rector himself. He was of the school that is called Evangelical, a man who wore the black stole in church and the white tie out of it. He had never spoken of himself as a priest, but the fire of priesthood was in his soul. He was of those who through all the ages show the world that they "have been with Jesus."

When he prayed, he spoke to God face to face; when he preached, his love of souls made him passionately eloquent. Mr. Merridew frequently disapproved of him, found him excitable, over-ardent, but at these times Christina loved him. It was the priest in him that drew out her shrinking soul.

Often when he preached she made up her mind to seek him out, to lay her perplexities before him, to show him the queer little, troubled, restless thing that was her conscience. But how could she go? She wanted to find him in church in that official position that makes confidence possible. But in the vestry she would run against church-wardens and the like. No, she could not go there. She might, she reflected, seek him at the rectory, but that involved ringing the bell and meeting a servant. It would have something of the nature of a call about it, whereas she wanted an impersonal interview on some plane above the social.

Week after week passed and her marriage became more inevitable, yet she never had courage to seek out the rector. Had she known it he often grieved that he knew so little of his younger parishioners. He prepared them for confirmation at an age when

the self-consciousness of the hobbledehoy stage was upon them, and the simplicity of childhood had passed. For a short time he knew a little of them. They came to him one by one, and he sought earnestly to establish a spiritual relationship with them. Often by force of his essential priestliness he attained it for the half-hour of the interview. Then they were confirmed, and he lost touch with them. A shy smile in the street, a timid handclasp, a few polite answers to his questions-that was all he knew of the souls in his keeping, unless illness brought them in need of his ministry. Yet he passionately desired something better. His responsibility weighed him down. In the case of Christina, he would willingly have given counsel and help, but he only met her in her mother's drawingroom. He congratulated her, thinking what a nice, fresh, good girl she was, of that sane and happy type from which the rank of British matrons is recruited. She seemed so serene and orderly as she sat there doing some fine needlework while Mrs. Merridew talked. Mr. Merridew came in presently, all indignation about the growth of auricular confession in the Church of England.

"I'd never let a daughter of mine go to confession," he declared; "a girl ought to confess to her mother. Monkey-tricks!" He glared fiercely at Christina, who was listening attentively. The rector considered.

"Yet I believe it is helpful to many souls," he said; "there does . . . I often think it . . . seem some natural instinct in people that urges them to tell out what they are to some discreet person. You need not call it confession, but you will find that the Salvation Army and many other religious bodies encourage this disburdening of the soul."

"It's the thin edge of the wedge,"

said Mr. Merridew; "it means priestcraft and tyranny and nobody calling their souls their own. I should be very sorry to see any relation of mine going to confession."

"I see many dangers," the rector answered, "formality, a shelving of responsibility and the like, and yet I have to admit some considerable good in a voluntary confession."

He looked up and met Christina's eyes. A curious sense of looking into the girl's soul came over him. He wished he knew her better. Merridew was speaking.

But Mrs.

"We hope you will marry our Christina," she was saying. "I think she's too shy to ask you herself. The Friday before Whit Sunday we thought, for that gives her Mark the Whit week holiday."

"I shall be delighted," he answered, smiling at the girl. She dropped her eyes, flushed, and said, "Thank you," He went on to ask questions about her future home, and was told that Travis had received an excellent appointment in Westhampton-"not so very far away after all," said Mr. Merridew. "Oh! we shall see her very often," the mother answered.

Christina rose abruptly and left the

The

"She's an affectionate girl," he explained; "she can't bear the thought of leaving her mother and me. only girl, you see, rector. It's a dreadfu! parting to us all; but there, the Bible says it must be, and so we must make the best of it."

"She's a little overstrained," said Mrs. Merridew; "an engagement tries a girl very much. I'm sure I went to a skeleton, didn't I, papa?"

The rector rose to go.

"I suppose Miss Christina wouldn't care to come and ta'k over her future with me?" he asked diffidently; "sometimes young people like to consult a clergyman."

Mrs. Merridew shook his hand warmly.

"Thank you, rector, thank you, but really I think the child needs distraction. She's rather over-nervous just now. I go on the plan of keeping her busy with trifles and never talking of anything serious."

“I see of course you know her best, but if she should want a little talk with me, I shall be at her service any time at my house or here."

The door closed behind him. Christina peeping through her window saw him go.

"Oh! if only I dared run after him," she whispered.

Dickens died suddenly; both left an unfinished story in course of or partly ready for publication (as also did R. L. Stevenson). Thackeray left of Denis Duval enough to make about

6. The Problem of Edwin Drood. By Sir William Robertson Nicoll. (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1912.)

7. The Mystery in the Drood Family. By Montagu Saunders. (Cambridge University Press. 1914.)

8. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. With Introduction by G. K. Chesterton. "Everyman's Library." (London: J. M. Dent and Co. Ltd. 1915.)

three and a half numbers of his usual instalment of a novel in the Cornhill Magazine. Dickens had issued three of his monthly "green leaves"—as he calls them out of the twelve agreed for of Edwin Drood, and left just enough for three more prepared in proof or manuscript.

But here the strange parallel changes into a stranger contrast. About the intended story of Denis Duval there is no room for any great doubt, nor can anyone ever have felt excited about it. About Weir of Hermiston there is more doubt, but little scope for dispute. But as to The Mystery of Edwin Drood a keen dispute began on the very day that it was made known that the story could never be finished. And now, forty-six years afterwards, when the book is out of copyright, we have a succession of books, many of them by very distinguished men, as well as many very ably conducted debates in magazines, most of the disputants positively asserting that their own solution of the Mystery is the only one conceivable. Sir W. R. Nicoll has no less than six pages of bibliography of the subject up to 1912, now much increased. There is no parallel to it in the case of any other work of fiction in the world.

It is not my object in the present article to put forward any new theory as to the intended ending, or as to who Mr. Datchery really is. Indeed it would be difficult to find any character in the book, except those in whose company he has actually appeared, with whom that gentleman has not been identified-unless it be Miss Twinkleton or Mr. Honeythunder. I simply propose to state the different solutions that have been proposed, and to show how far each of these is possible. I rely most of all on the existent indications in the book itself; secondly, on such external evidence as remains; and,

thirdly, on the parallels with other works of Dickens as showing a probable inclination or reluctance presumably to be found in his mind. This last is obviously of a much more subjective character than the other two, and, as will be seen, sometimes leads people to directly opposite convictions. It must therefore only be used as at best fortifying conclusions already suggested by the direct evidence.

es

Now the "mystery," it is agreed, resolves itself mainly into two points. First, had Jasper really murdered Edwin, as he, admittedly, believed he had done? Secondly, who was Datchery? There are several important subordinate questions; pecially what was to be the function of the betrothal-ring, and what connection "Princess Puffer" had with Jasper's previous life. But these are concerned more with the discovery of the mystery than with its existence. It is better to keep the main questions distinct.

I.

WAS EDWIN REALLY MURDERED OR NOT?

Here we come to a most remarkable conflict of opinion among those who have both studied the question thoroughly and know their Dickens well. Forster, Mr. J. C. Walters, and Sir W. R. Nicoll say positively that he was; Proctor and Mr. Lang, equally decidedly, that he was not. Dr. Jackson and Mr. Saunders, with wiser caution, believe that he was murdered, but allow that both theories are admissible.

The possibility of this curious divergence about the very heart of the "mystery" itself is caused by the fact that the book gives no certain indication whatever. Every word in it has been pondered by commentators eager to find props to their own

theories, but nothing can be quoted in evidence. Edwin in Chapter xiv simply disappears. There is not a single word in all the subsequent part which is not just as applicable to the murder if Jasper only supposed that he had accomplished it, as if he really had done so. Edwin's watch and pin, which were caught in the weir, had been taken, but that would equally have been done if Edwin had merely been stunned. Hence our commentators have to fall back on their inner consciousness as to what Dickens would have been sure to do-whether Edwin, as they say, was "marked" for life or death. It is amusing to see how exactly the judgment on this question of taste corresponds with what each writer takes to be the plot. To Mr. Proctor "there are touches in the chapters of Edwin Drood preceding Edwin's disappearance which show anyone who understands Dickens' manner and has an ear for the music of his words, that Edwin Drood is not actually to be killed." To Mr. Walters, on the contrary, Edwin “is entirely uninteresting. . . . He is certainly not of the class that either Dickens or his readers would care to survive." Here we are in the thick of the Higher Criticism.

We turn therefore next to the external evidence. That, in the present case, is limited practically to two heads the consideration of the picture-cover must for the present be postponed—namely, first, the statements made, or understood to be made (an important qualification) by Dickens to Forster and others; and, secondly, the various titles for the book, which were always vary carefully weighed beforehand by Dickens himself.

First, let us take the statements. The chief of these is the one reported by Forster, which, if accepted as entirely accurate, and as intended by Dickens to be a summary, would leave

us with no mystery at all worth five minutes' discussion. It is clear that it has not generally been so accepted, or the numerous books on Edwin Drood would never have been written.

Forster's statement* needs the closest attention. It is that in a letter of August 6, 1869, Dickens wrote: "I have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work." Forster, however, must have instantly asked for the secret which was both incommunicable and would if disclosed destroy the interest of the book, for he goes on:

the story, I learned immediately afterwards, was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer's career by himself at the close. . . . The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him.

Now is it possible that anyone can think after reading the book, as Forster before it was written appears patiently to have accepted, that the very strong but incommunicable idea was simply Jasper's review of his career at the close? It is just about the same as if we were to say that the story of Oliver Twist rested on the very powerful scene of Fagin in the condemned cell. The conclusion which, I submit, is pointed to, is the very different one suggested by the words italicized above, that Dickens meant to keep his secret from Forster, as he did from everybody else. Possibly Forster had rubbed in too emphatically the overearly revelation of the main plot in Our Mutual Friend. In any case to have asked for the plot, after so strong an intimation that he must not do so, was indiscreet at best, and *Life, xi, 2.

Forster seems not to have been a model of discreetness. The reply seems to show a skeleton of facts, entirely borne out by the story as we have it, but to give no solution whatever of the "mystery." The latter part of the words above, it must be carefully noted, gives not ipsissima verba of Dickens, but what Forster “learned afterwards," and might have only indicated the attempted murder. That Jasper was in a condemned cell proves nothing, because according to Forster's own sketch, "Neville Landless was, I think, to have perished" (this is borne out by several points in the story) "in assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer." Indeed it is only possible by a murder of someone thrown down from the tower of the Cathedral-which in the case of Edwin himself is excluded-to explain Jasper's ejaculations in the opium den. "Look down, look down, you see what lies at the bottom there!" "Look at it. Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing it is. That must be real . . . and yet I never saw that before." So the argument about the condemned cell crumbles altogether away.

We may take it as one of the few quite certain points about the ending, that Jasper was to be found guilty of murder, and condemned to death. For not only have we the Forster sketch of the plot, which, as we shall see, needs some discounting, but Sir Luke Fildes (who, apparently, strongly believes that the murder was intended to have been really effected) was to have been taken by Dickens "to a condemned cell in Maidstone or some other gaol, in order that he might make a drawing." But the murder of Neville Landless, who by the agreement of nearly all commentators is to be got rid of-it is the only point in which they almost all

agree equally serves this purpose for the story. The proof therefore that Jasper was to die on the scaffold (or, more probably, in the condemned cell) is only, at best, corroborative evidence that the murder was that of Edwin Drood.

The latest interpreter, Mr. Saunders, contends with much plausibility that the "incommunicable idea" was that of Jasper unwittingly helping to convict himself by every step that he took to procure the destruction of Neville. His diary ends

I swear that I will fasten the crime of the murder of my dear dead boy upon the murderer; and, that I devote myself to his destruction.

This is really a valuable contribution, because for the first time it explains the point of the seemingly useless diary, and helps in explanation of the strange emphasis laid on Edwin's non-delivery of the ring.

Mr. Andrew Lang, who is supported by Mr. C. K. Shorter in The Sphere, then introduces a further complication. They both believe, and with some evidence, that Dickens changed his plot in the course of writing. This is a possibility which has seriously to be reckoned with. In the case of Great Expectations it, admittedly, was actually what was done. Bulwer Lytton and of all people in the worldThomas Carlyle objected to the natural and intended close which left Pip a solitary man, and Dickens substituted the hasty and banal reunion of Pip and Estella. "I have no doubt," Dickens wrote to Forster, "that the story will be more acceptable through the alteration." The almost universal desire of the British reading public for a happy ending was too strong for the artistic instincts of the author. So again, it has always been a moot point whether the monstrously impossible part of a miser