.

.
THE END OF IT.
JOHN JAGO was brought before the magistrate, and John Jago was identified the next day.
The lives of Ambrose and Silas were, of course, no longer in peril, so far as human justice was concerned.

But there were legal delays to be encountered, and legal formalities to be observed, before the brothers could be released from prison in the characters of innocent men.
During the interval which thus elapsed, certain events happened which may be briefly mentioned here before I close my narrative.
Mr.Meadowcroft the elder, broken by the suffering which he had gone through, died suddenly of a rheumatic affection of the heart.

A codicil attached to his will abundantly justified what Naomi had told me of Miss Meadowcroft's influence over her father, and of the end she had in view in exercising it.

A life income only was left to Mr.Meadowcroft's sons.