CHAPTER IV.
The huge key grated in the lock. In the further corner of the cell, crouched Percy—his chin in his palms, his eyes bloodshot, and his face livid as death.
As Mary tottered through the door, Percy raised his head, and, with a stifled groan, fell at her feet. Pressing his lips to the hem of her robe, he waved her off with one hand, as if his touch were contamination. Mary’s arms were thrown about his neck, and the words, “I love you,” fell upon his doomed ear, like the far-off music of heaven. When Percy would have spoken, Mary laid her hand upon his mouth—not even to her, should he humiliate himself by confession. And so, in tears and silence, the allotted hour passed—He only, who made the heart, with its power to enjoy or suffer, knew with what agonizing intensity.
“Well, I’ve seen a great many pitiful sights in my day,” said the old jailor, as the carriage rolled away with Mary; “but never any thing that made my eyes water like the sight of that poor young cretur. Sometimes I think there ain’t no justice up above there, when I see the innocent punished that way with the guilty. I hope these things will all be made square in the other world; I can’t say they are clear to my mind here. I get good pay here, but I’d rather scull a raft than stay here to have my feelin’s hurt all the time this way. If I didn’t go in so strong for justice, I should be tempted, when I think of that young woman, to forget to lock that fellow’s cell some night. ‘Five years’ hard labor!’ ’Tis tough, for a gentleman born—well, supposing he got out? if he is a limb of the devil, as some folks say, he will break her heart over again some day or other. It would be a shorter agony to let her weep herself dead at once. God help her.”