the holy refrain--

"Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."

CHAPTER LIII.

Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight,
the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as
he had fortitude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred
meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional
horrors.

Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his
mother's wrongs,--on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I
knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.

"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."

When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance
expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for
I saw that his heart was full.

"I cannot take you _there_, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered.
"If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He
told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his
sufferings."

"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier
to go hand in hand, though we do tread a thorny path? I have heard of
women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the
doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and
remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful
and suffering son of Adam,--angels of compassion, following with lowly
hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not
so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fortitude, though
you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But,
Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much
dreaded? Does _he_ look more wretched than you feared?"

"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once noble
man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very
personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had
prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a
sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the
dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being
in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but
smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My God! Gabriella, I
never realized before what _accursed_ meant."