t, who had by this time returned, before
me. The following is an exact copy of it, with the exception that the
intervals which I have marked with dots,.... were filled with erasures
and blots, and that every word seemed to have been traced by a hand
smitten with palsy:--

"From my Death-place, _Midnight._

"Dear Madam--No, beloved friend--mother, let me call you.... Oh kind,
gentle mother, I am to die ... to be killed in a few hours by cruel
men!--I, so young, so unprepared for death, and yet guiltless! Oh never
doubt that I am guiltless of the offence for which they will have the
heart to hang me.... Nobody, they say, can save me now; yet if I could
see the lawyer.... I have been deceived, cruelly deceived, madam--buoyed
up by lying hopes, till just now the thunder burst, and I--oh God!.... As
they spoke, the fearful chapter in the Testament came bodily before
me--the rending of the vail in twain, the terrible darkness, and the
opened graves!.... I did not write for this, but my brain aches and
dazzles.... It is too late--too late, they all tell me! ... Ah, if these
dreadful laws were not so swift, I might yet--but no; _he_ clearly proved
to me how useless.... I must not think of that.... It is of my nephew, of
your Henry, child of my affections, that I would speak. Oh, would that
I.... But hark!--they are coming.... The day has dawned ... to me the day
of judgment!...."

This incoherent scrawl only confirmed my previous suspicions, but it was
useless to dwell further on the melancholy subject. The great axe had
fallen, and whether justly or unjustly, would, I feared, as in many, very
many other cases, never be clearly ascertained in this world. I was
mistaken. Another case of "uttering forged Bank-of-England notes, knowing
them to be forged," which came under our cognizance a few months
afterwards, revived the fading memory of Jane Eccles's early doom, and
cleared up every obscurity connected with it.

The offender in this new case, was a tall, dark-complexioned, handsome
man, of about thirty years of age, of the name of Justin Arnold. His lady
mother, whose real name I shall conceal under that of Barton, retained us
for her son's defence, and from her, and other sources, we learned the
following particulars:--

Justin Arnold was the lady's son by a former marriage. Mrs. Barton, a
still splendid woman, had, in second nuptials, espoused a very wealthy
person, and from time to time had covertly supplied Justin Arno