e his wife. But that was all over now. Even although he had
been set at liberty, all his hopes would have been in vain. It seemed
as though the facts of his life had mocked every hope, as though a grim
destiny had fore-ordained that everything he longed for and believed in
should mock him.

Since the last hour of the trial, when the judge had pronounced the
dread words which made his name a by-word and a shame, and held him up
for ever to the reproach of the world, he had been practically alone.
He knew nothing of the heart-pangs of others; nothing of great
determinations which alternated with wild despair; nothing of agonised
prayers, of sleepless nights, and of vain endeavours to prove his
innocence. He was a condemned man, alone in a condemned cell, waiting
for the last hour. For the first few hours after the final words had
been spoken he had a sort of gruesome pleasure in thinking of the
future. He fancied that some few days would elapse, during which his
case would be considered by the Home Secretary; and then this
highly-placed official, having no reason for showing him any special
mercy, would go through the formula necessary to his death. Then would
come the erecting of the scaffold, the symbol of disgrace and shame.
What the cross had been to the old Romans the scaffold was to the
modern Englishman. After that, under the grey, murky sky, he would be
led out, and the dread formula would be gone through. He would be
asked whether he had anything to say before the fatal act was
committed, after which the hangman would do his work.

Well, well, he would go through that as he had gone through all the
rest. It was a ghastly tragedy, a grim mockery, but he would bear it
like a stoic.

Presently, however, his feelings underwent a change. Memories of his
early days came back to him--his life in the workhouse, his schooldays,
when he took his place among the rest of the pauper boys, the learning
of a trade, and his work in the mine. Always his life had been
overhung with shadow, and yet he had enjoyed it. He had found pleasure
in fighting with difficulty, in overcoming what seemed insuperable
obstacles. He remembered the visits of the minister of Hanover Chapel,
and of what he had said to him. Yes, the incipient atheism of his
boyhood had become more pronounced as the years went by. His unbelief
had become more settled, and yet, and yet----

He called to mind the hour he had first seen Mary. How won