in my hair."

"Has for a bath," Snoggin interposed, "they're not to be 'ad in this
ward of the prison; but I dussay Hemmy will git you a little hoil for
your 'air."

The Prisoned One laughed loud and merrily. "My guardian understands
me not, pretty one--and thou? what sayest thou? From those dear lips
methinks--plura sunt oscula quam sententiae--I kiss away thy tears,
dove!--they will flow apace when I am gone, then they will dry, and
presently these fair eyes will shine on another, as they have beamed on
poor George Barnwell. Yet wilt thou not all forget him, sweet one. He
was an honest fellow, and had a kindly heart for all the world said--"

"That, that he had," cried the gaoler and the girl in voices gurgling
with emotion. And you who read! you unconvicted Convict--you murderer,
though haply you have slain no one--you Felon in posse if not in
esse--deal gently with one who has used the Opportunity that has failed
thee--and believe that the Truthful and the Beautiful bloom sometimes in
the dock and the convict's tawny Gabardine!

*****

In the matter for which he suffered, George could never be brought to
acknowledge that he was at all in the wrong. "It may be an error of
judgment," he said to the Venerable Chaplain of the gaol, "but it is no
crime. Were it Crime, I should feel Remorse. Where there is no remorse,
Crime cannot exist. I am not sorry: therefore, I am innocent. Is the
proposition a fair one?"

The excellent Doctor admitted that it was not to be contested.

"And wherefore, sir, should I have sorrow," the Boy resumed, "for
ridding the world of a sordid worm;* of a man whose very soul was dross,
and who never had a feeling for the Truthful and the Beautiful? When I
stood before my uncle in the moonlight, in the gardens of the ancestral
halls of the De Barnwells, I felt that it was the Nemesis come to
overthrow him. 'Dog,' I said to the trembling slave, 'tell me where
thy Gold is. THOU hast no use for it. I can spend it in relieving the
Poverty on which thou tramplest; in aiding Science, which thou knowest
not; in uplifting Art, to which thou art blind. Give Gold, and thou art
free.' But he spake not, and I slew him."

"I would not have this doctrine vulgarly promulgated," said the
admirable chaplain, "for its general practice might chance to do harm.
Thou, my son, the Refined, the Gentle, the Loving and Beloved, the
Poet and Sage, urged by what I cannot but think a grievous error, hast
appeared as