--long, long ago, before misery and
ill-treatment had altered her looks, and vice had changed his nature, and
she is leaning upon his arm, and looking up into his face with tenderness
and affection--and he does _not_ strike her now, nor rudely shake her
from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell her all he had forgotten in
that last hurried interview, and to fall on his knees before her and
fervently beseech her pardon for all the unkindness and cruelty that
wasted her form and broke her heart! The scene suddenly changes. He is
on his trial again: there are the judge and jury, and prosecutors, and
witnesses, just as they were before. How full the court is--what a sea
of heads--with a gallows, too, and a scaffold--and how all those people
stare at _him_! Verdict, 'Guilty.' No matter; he will escape.

The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open, and in an
instant he is in the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment
like the wind. The streets are cleared, the open fields are gained and
the broad, wide country lies before him. Onward he dashes in the midst
of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud and pool, bounding from
spot to spot with a speed and lightness, astonishing even to himself. At
length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit now; he will stretch
himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.

A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes, cold and wretched. The
dull, gray light of morning is stealing into the cell, and falls upon the
form of the attendant turnkey. Confused by his dreams, he starts from
his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty. It is but momentary. Every
object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or
mistake. He is the condemned felon again, guilty and despairing; and in
two hours more will be dead.

CHARACTERS

CHAPTER I--THOUGHTS ABOUT PEOPLE

It is strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man
may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any
single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save
himself; he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one
remembered him when he was alive. There is a numerous class of people in
this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom
nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first
instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment, and the
means of sub