Chapter 21

Victor is brought before a calm magistrate; fishermen testify they found Clerval's strangled body on the beach and that Victor's boat was seen nearby, implicating him in the murder of his closest friend.

Justine dies on the scaffold despite all appeals; Victor can only watch in torment, proclaiming prophetically that his loved ones will weep again before destruction is satisfied.

Confronted with Henry Clerval's lifeless form, Victor gasps, cries out that his machinations have killed his dearest friend, and is carried from the room in violent convulsions.

Victor lies two months on the edge of death, raving that he is the murderer of William, Justine, and Clerval; he wakes to find himself in a prison cell, barely able to remember what happened.

Victor learns that the magistrate Kirwin has shown him extraordinary kindness—the best room, a physician, a nurse—though he rarely visits so as not to be present at the ravings of a supposed murderer.

Kirwin visits the despairing Victor and reveals that a friend has arrived; Victor, fearing the creature, recoils in horror—then melts with joy when he learns it is his father.

Victor's father arrives to find his son a shattered wreck; his presence is like a good angel, and gradually Victor's health returns, though he is absorbed by dark melancholy and images of Clerval's murdered face.

The grand jury rejects the murder charge upon proof Victor was in Orkney when Clerval died; Victor is freed, and he and his father sail from Ireland, Victor haunted by guilt and dosing himself with laudanum to sleep.