File:Lightwood at Last.jpg

Stone's illustration for Book 4, "A Turning," Chapter 12, "The Passing Shadow," appeared in the October, 1865, instalment.

The moment realized brings together the Rokesmiths and Mortimer Lightwood, a meeting that John Rokesmith and the novelist have both endeavoured to put off for as long as possible. The London street scene captured in the thirty-eighth illustration is established at the very opening of the chapter.

Quite by chance, as they are in the city to "make some purchases" (656), Bella and John Rokesmith encounter Mortimer Lightwood on the street, a coincidence which leads to the revelation that John had originally used the alias "Julius Handford" when he arrived in London, and that he is therefore a "person of interest" in the murder of John Harmon. As a result of this revelation, John's reason for having avoided Mortimer, even to the point of refusing to attend the wedding of Eugene Wrayburn and Lizzie Hexam, is now apparent. Bella, of course, is surprised, so that this incident, a year into their marriage, becomes a test of faith for the Rokesmiths. Thus, the trial of Bella — of her renunciation of the quest for wealth instead of love — enters its final phase. The passage and accompanying illustration should mark a moment of high drama: the exposure of John Rokesmith's double identity. And yet, despite the fact that the scene prepares us for Rokesmith's being none other than John Harmon — a fact not known even to Rokesmith's wife, and certainly not to Mortimer Lightwood, who has every reason to suspect Bella's husband of having played some sort of role in Harmon's drowning — the picture is hardly dramatic. Bella smiles enquiringly at her husband, and he in turn smiles at the well-dressed passenger on the sidewalk, neither betraying by their expressions the momentous nature of the meeting. By his posture — leaning back on his walking stick with his right hand, Mortimer is evidently surprised to encounter "Handford" after the latter's being missing for so long. However, Bella should register more than just mild curiosity in her face as her husband will now have to reveal the cause of his absolutely refusing to come into contact with Lightwood face to face.

However, the reader's interest naturally lies in seeing the expressions of the young men. Stone has hidden Lightwood's, so that the reader must construct it for himself. John's expression, however, betrays not the slightest apprehension at meeting the man whom he has for so long avoided. Verisimilitude is created by the hansom cab speeding along the thoroughfare in the background, the rough pavement, the gas lamp (left), and the house-fronts and multiple chimneys that establish the place of meeting as "The City," to which Bella has come up from Blackheath to shop with her husband. Perhaps his evident lack of apprehension should alert the reader to the fact that Rokesmith has nothing to fear on either hand: his wife loves him for who he is, not for his inherited wealth; and he cannot be prosecuted for Harmon's murder because he is Harmon himself, as we are about to learn.