nother sort of comfort.

"My friend," he said one day, "it is too plain to me now that you are
dying. Write to the procurator and tell him so. In some cases men have
been allowed to go home to die."

A wild hope seized on poor Sigismund; he sat down to the little table in
his cell and wrote a letter to the procurator--a letter which might
almost have drawn tears from a flint. Again and again he passionately
asserted his innocence, and begged to know on what evidence he was
imprisoned. He began to think that he could die content if he might
leave this terrible cell, might be a free agent once more, if only for a
few days. At least he might in that case clear his character, and
convince Gertrude that his imprisonment had been all a hideous mistake;
nay, he fancied that he might live through a journey to England and see
her once again.

But the procurator would not let him be set free, and refused to believe
that his case was really a serious one.

Sigismund's last hope left him.

The days and weeks dragged slowly on, and when, according to English
reckoning, New Year's Eve arrived, he could scarcely believe that only
seventeen weeks ago he had actually been with Gertrude, and that disgrace
and imprisonment had seemed things that could never come near him, and
death had been a far-away possibility, and life had been full of bliss.

As I watched him a strong desire seized me to revisit the scenes of which
he was thinking, and I winged my way back to England, and soon found
myself in the drowsy, respectable streets of Muddleton.

It was New Year's Eve, and I saw Mrs. O'Reilly preparing presents for her
grandchildren, and talking, as she tied them up, of that dreadful
Nihilist who had deceived them in the summer. I saw Lena Houghton, and
Mr. Blackthorne, and Mrs. Milton-Cleave, kneeling in church on that
Friday morning, praying that pity might be shown "upon all prisoners and
captives, and all that are desolate or oppressed."

It never occurred to them that they were responsible for the sufferings
of one weary prisoner, or that his death would be laid at their door.

I flew to Dulminster, and saw Mrs. Selldon kneeling in the cathedral at
the late evening service and rigorously examining herself as to the
shortcomings of the dying year. She confessed many things in a vague,
untroubled way; but had any one told her that she had cruelly wronged her
neighbour, and helped to bring an innocent man to shame, and pris