uicide; but the gas was not yet turned on,
and if it had been, his prisoner was unaware that by blowing it out, and
placing the jet in his mouth, more than one in a similar strait to his
own has found escape from his prison woes forever.

"I'll bring you some supper presently," he added; and with a familiar
nod, good-naturedly intended for encouragement, he slammed the iron door
behind him.

That he should have become an object of pity and patronage to a man like
this would in itself have wounded Richard to the quick had he not been
devoured by far more biting cares, and even now it galled him. His
twenty years might possibly, then, by extremity of good luck, be
curtailed by five. By diligent execution of menial drudgery; by
performing to some overlooker's satisfaction his daily toil; by careful
obedience and subservience to these Jacks in office, themselves but
servants, and yet whose malice or ill-humor might cause them to report
him for the most trifling faults, or for none at all, and thereby
destroy even _this_ hope--he might be a free man in fifteen years! He
would, even then, he was told, be still a young man. But that he would
never be young again Richard was well aware. Within these last three
weeks--nay, within that last hour, he had already lived a life, and one
that had aged him beyond the power of years. High spirits, pleasure,
hopefulness, love, and all the attributes of youth, were dead within him
for evermore. For the future he was only to be strong and vigorous in a
will that could not have its way for fifteen years at earliest.

Through the grating of his narrow window a few rays of the setting sun
were streaming in, and fell upon the bare brown wall behind him. What a
flood of glory they were pouring on the woods of Crompton, now in their
autumn splendor--on the cliffs at Gethin--on the copse that hid the
Wishing Well--on the tower where he had first clasped Harry in his arms!
He saw them all, and the sunset hues upon them became suddenly
blood-red. He was once more at Gethin, and in imagination taking his
revenge upon old Trevethick, and for the moment he was almost happy.
"Pity on his gray hairs?" No, not he--though the gallows loomed before
him, though hell yawned for him, he would slake his thirst in the
life-blood of that perjured villain; and as for her, he would drag her
by the hair to look upon her father's corpse. Where was she? Ah, with
Solomon upon the castled rock; and see!--he had pushe