of death, swaggering before the executioner, and
yielding with an obscene jest the divine spark infused into man by the
breath of a creating God. To punish the body is easily done; to save the
soul is the great thing to be laboured for and desired. 'All sin may be
forgiven,' said our blessed Saviour, but from the tribunal to the
scaffold the passage is too short,--time and opportunity are required to
repent and make atonement; this leisure you shall have. May God grant
that you turn it to the right purpose!"

The Schoolmaster remained utterly bewildered; for the first time in his
life a vague and confused dread of something more horrible far than
death itself crossed his guilty mind,--he trembled before the
suggestions of his own imagination.

Rodolph went on:

"Anselm Duresnel, I will not sentence you to the galleys, neither shall
you die--"

"Then do you intend sending me to hell? or what are you going to do with
me?"

"Listen!" said Rodolph, rising from his seat with an air of menacing
authority. "You have wickedly abused the great bodily strength bestowed
upon you,--I will paralyse that strength; the strongest have trembled
before you,--I will make you henceforward shrink in the presence of the
weakest of beings. Assassin! murderer! you have plunged God's creatures
into eternal night; your darkness shall commence even in this life.
Now--this very hour--your punishment shall be proportioned to your
crimes. But," added Rodolph, with an accent of mournful pity, "the
terrible judgment I am about to pronounce will, at least, leave the
future open to your efforts for pardon and for peace. I should be guilty
as you are were I, in punishing you, to seek only for vengeance, just as
is my right to demand it; far from being unrelenting as death, your
sentence shall bring forth good fruits for hereafter; far from
destroying your soul, it shall help you to seek its salvation. If, to
prevent you from further violating the commandments of your Maker, I for
ever deprive you of the beauties of this outer world, if I plunge you
into impenetrable darkness, with no other companion than the remembrance
of your crimes, it is that you may incessantly contemplate their
enormity. Yes, separated for ever from this external world, your
thoughts must needs revert to yourself, and your vision dwell internally
upon the bygone scenes of your ill-spent life; and I am not without hope
that such a mental and constantly presented picture will