to be
precipitate in offering himself, as he wished to find some excuse for
breaking off the match; and, above all, he fatally enjoined profound
secrecy till the affair was arranged. Here, then, was everything
explained. Indeed, before I had read these letters, my mind did not
need this damning proof of his innocence and my guilt.

Just as I had finished reading, _the gens d'armes_ entered my room,
and, with the officers of justice, led me away to prison. I walked
mechanically. I was conducted to a small building in the centre of a
square. This was a _cachot_, with an iron-grated window on each of
its four sides, but without glass. There was no bench, or table, or
anything but the bare walls and the pavement. The wind blew sharply
through. I had not even a great-coat; but I felt no cold or personal
inconvenience, for my mind was too much occupied by superior misery.
The door closed on me, and I heard the bolts turn. There was not an
observation made on either part, and I was left to myself.

"Well," said I, "Fate has now done its worst, and Fortune will be
weary at last of tormenting a wretch that she can sink no lower! Death
has no terrors for me; and, after death--!" But, even in my misery,
I scarcely gave a thought to what might happen in futurity. It
might occasionally have obtruded itself on my mind, but was quickly
dismissed: I had adopted the atheistical creed of the French
Revolution.

"Death is eternal sleep, and the sooner I go to sleep the better!"
thought I. The only point that pressed itself on my mind was the dread
of a public execution. This my pride revolted at; for pride had again
returned, and resumed its empire, even in my _cachot_.

As the day dawned, the noise of the carts and country people coming
into the square with their produce, roused me from my reverie, for I
had not slept. The prison was surrounded by all ages and all classes,
to get a sight of the English murderer; and the light and the air were
stopped out of each window by human faces pressed against the bars. I
was gazed at as a wild beast; and the children, as they sat on their
mothers' shoulders to look at me, received a moral lesson and a
warning at my expense.

As a tiger, in his cage, wearies the eye by incessantly walking and
turning, so I paced my den; and if I could have reached one of the
impertinent gazers, through the slanting aperture and three foot
wall, I should have throttled him. "All these people," said I, "and
t