.

As he was carried along the current of thought again changed, and he cast a
retrospect over the years of crime, which had made him an outlaw, and
brought him down to the gate of death. The dark picture shut out the light
of more pleasant memories, and his soul sunk back into the night of
darkness which the blackness of his crime had cast around it! Again he
groaned in anguish of spirit and closed his eyes, as if by so doing he
would shut out the phantoms of his evil deeds from his soul's vision.

The excitement of conflicting emotions threw him into a fever, and before
he reached his home, which was not till after night, he was delirious. A
broken hearted mother laid her soft hand affectionately upon his head, and
called his name in such endearing tones as only a mother's lips can
breathe; but he knew not that it was her, he felt only the touch of a
horrid specter, and heard but the mocking of fiends!

Then he raved and bid the ghostly phantoms begone! Oh, it was terrible to
witness his soul-disordered agony, and hear the awful words that fell from
his fevered lips!

"Why, in Satan's name," he said, "have you come to torment me with your
jeers and scoffs, ye minions of h----? Away with you! Back! back! I say, to
your black home in the pit!"

Then covering his eyes he lay and shuddered for a brief period, but soon
screamed out:

"Keep your forked tongues out of my face, you hissing devils!"

These paroxysms, upon the horrors of which we have no wish to dwell, lasted
all the night, but subsided about the dawn of morning. The last image
conjured up by his distempered fancy seemed to be one of Hadley:

"Oh, Hadley," he pleaded in piteous tones, "do not look upon me in that
way! Take from me those mournful eyes, oh, take them away! for that look
burns into my heart! Hadley! Hadley! have pity on me! and spare me! Am I
not tormented enough already?"

But we will not linger to depict this harrowing scene. When the fever
subsided he was weak as an infant. His mother asked him if he knew her, and
he whispered:

"Yes, oh, yes! God forgive me for bringing your 'grey hairs in sorrow to
the grave!' Oh, that I could die with your forgiveness graven upon my
heart; but I dare not hope--I dare not pray for it!"

"God bless you, my son! and forgive you as I do!" passionately exclaimed
the parent; and her heart was writhing with agony!

What a fearful thing it is to bow a parent's head with shame! to crush out
the joy from