iend if James did not keep his promise?
I said to myself that the greatest punishment that could befall a man
who was an accomplice in aiding another to escape, was imprisonment in
turn; thus, admitting this hypothesis, once free, although compelled to
hide myself, I had sufficient resources at my disposal not to quit
England before having, in my turn, liberated Sidney. What more can I say
to you? The instinct of life, the fear of death, doubtless obscured my
judgment, troubled my discernment. I accepted, for I believed everything
Sidney said to me. Alas! why was I so insane?"

"Insane? Faith, you would have been insane had you not accepted!" cried
Croustillac.

"Who, indeed, would have hesitated in your place?" added Angela.

"No, no, I tell you that I should not have accepted; my heart, if not my
head, should have revolted at this deceptive thought. But what did I
know. A strange fatality, perhaps a frightful egotism, pushed me on. I
accepted. I pressed Sidney in my arms, I took his clothes, and I said to
him, 'To-morrow!' with the conviction that I should see him the
following day. I left my cell; the jailer escorted me to the gate;
thanks to my resemblance to Sidney, he noticed nothing wrong, and led me
in haste by a secret road as far as a door of the Tower. I was free! I
forgot to tell you that Sidney had informed me of a house in the city
where I could wait for him safely, for he would return, he said, to me
the following day, in order to plan our departure. At last I found, at
this house in the city, the precious stones I had confided to Sidney on
my departure from Holland, the value of which was enormous. Wrapped up
in his mantle, a mantle which you wear to-day, and which has remained
sacred to me, I directed my steps toward the city. I rapped at the door;
an old woman opened it, and leading me into a secluded chamber, she gave
into my hands the iron casket, the key of which Sidney had handed me. I
found there my precious stones. Broken with fatigue, for the sleepless
hours I had passed were frightful, I fell into a slumber. For the first
time since my sentence to death, I sought sleep without saying to myself
that the scaffold awaited me on my awakening. When I arose the following
day it was broad daylight; a bright sun penetrated between my curtains.
I raised them; the sky was clear; it was a radiant summer day. Oh! I
felt such rapturous joy and such inexpressible happiness. I had seen my
open tomb, and I s