e of man for woman. He bethought him how he could have
taught her out of the strange store of learning which his roving life
had won for him, how he could have confided to her his real name, and
perhaps purchased for her wealth and honour by reason of it. Yet, he
thought, she would not care for wealth and honour; she would prefer
a quiet life--a life of unassuming usefulness, a life devoted to good
deeds, to charity and love. He could see her--in his visions--reading by
a cheery fireside, wandering in summer woods, or lingering by the marge
of the slumbering mid-day sea. He could feel--in his dreams--her soft
arms about his neck, her innocent kisses on his lips; he could hear her
light laugh, and see her sunny ringlets float, back-blown, as she ran
to meet him. Conscious that she was dead, and that he did to her gentle
memory no disrespect by linking her fortunes to those of a wretch who
had seen so much of evil as himself, he loved to think of her as still
living, and to plot out for her and for himself impossible plans for
future happiness. In the noisome darkness of the mine, in the glaring
light of the noonday--dragging at his loaded wagon, he could see her
ever with him, her calm eyes gazing lovingly on his, as they had gazed
in the boat so long ago. She never seemed to grow older, she never
seemed to wish to leave him. It was only when his misery became too
great for him to bear, and he cursed and blasphemed, mingling for a
time in the hideous mirth of his companions, that the little figure fled
away. Thus dreaming, he had shaped out for himself a sorrowful comfort,
and in his dream-world found a compensation for the terrible affliction
of living. Indifference to his present sufferings took possession of
him; only at the bottom of this indifference lurked a fixed hatred of
the man who had brought these sufferings upon him, and a determination
to demand at the first opportunity a reconsideration of that man's
claims to be esteemed a hero. It was in this mood that he had intended
to make the revelation which he had made in Court, but the intelligence
that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his prepared speech had been usurped
by a passionate torrent of complaint and invective, which convinced no
one, and gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was decided that the
prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful scoundrel, whose only object
was to gain a brief respite of the punishment which he had so justly
earned. Against t