neck till you are dead--"

"Can I see my priest,----may the priest come to me?" cried the prisoner,
fiercely; for not even the appalling solemnity of the moment could
repress the savage energy of his nature.

"Miserable man," said the judge, in a faltering accent, "I beseech you
to employ well the few minutes that remain to you in this world, and
carry not into the next that spirit of defiance by which you would brave
an earthly judgment-seat. And may God have mercy on your soul!"

CHAPTER XL. THE RETRIBUTION.

The sudden flash of intelligence by which young Frank was enabled to
connect the almost forgotten incidents of boyhood with the date and
the other circumstances of the murder, had very nearly proved fatal to
himself. His brain was little able to resist the influence of all these
conflicting emotions; and for some days his faculties wandered away in
the wildest and most incoherent fancies. It was only on the very morning
of the trial that he became self-possessed and collected. Then it was
that he could calmly remember every detail of that fatal night, and see
their bearing on the mysterious subject of the trial. At first Grounsell
listened to his story as a mere raving; but when Frank described with
minute accuracy the appearance of the spot--the old orchard, the stone
stair that descended into the garden, and the little door which opened
into the wood,--he became eagerly excited; and, anxious to proceed with
every guarantee of caution, he summoned two other magistrates to the
bedside to hear the narrative. We have already seen the event which
followed that revelation, and by which the guilt of the murderer was
established.

From hour to hour, as the trial proceeded, Frank received tidings from
the court-house. The excitement, far from injuring, seemed to rally and
re-invigorate him; and although the painful exposure of their domestic
circumstances was cautiously slurred over to his ears, it was plain to
see the indignant passion with which he heard of Nelly and Kate being
dragged before the public eye. It was, indeed, a day of deep and
terrible emotion, and when evening came he sank into the heavy sleep
of actual exhaustion. While nothing was heard in the sick-room save the
long-drawn breathings of the sleeper, the drawing-rooms of the hotel
were crowded with the gentry of the neighborhood, all eager to see and
welcome the Dalton's home again. If the old were pleased to meet with
the veteran Count St