According to my theory, which mainly rests on the unmistakable evidence of the cover drawn by Collins under Dickens’s directions, all “ends well.” Jasper comes to the grief he deserves: Helena, after her period of mourning for Neville, marries Crisparkle: Rosa weds her mariner. Edwin, at twenty-one, is not heart-broken, but, a greatly improved character, takes, to quote his own words, “a sensible interest in works of engineering skill, especially when they are to change the whole condition of an undeveloped country”— Egypt.

These conclusions are inevitable unless we either suppose Dickens to have arranged a disappointment for his readers in the tableau of Jasper and Drood, in the vault, on the cover, or can persuade ourselves that not Drood, but some other young man, is revealed by the light of Jasp............