"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."
"Yes,—yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"
"No,—no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."
"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered. "I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of law. Curse on the sordid fear"—
"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband, coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious curse?"
Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite walls.
St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.
"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair? What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of humanity!"
He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!
"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and persuade;—but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will you not help me?"