“How say you, prisoner at the bar, guilty, or not guilty?”
I pleaded “guilty,” as a matter of course. The judge asked several questions, and held a long discussion with the counsel for the crown, on what he termed “this very remarkable case,” the purport of it was, I believe, to ascertain my sanity; and whether any corroboration of my confession could be obtained. It could not. All possible witnesses were long since dead, except your father.
He still kept his position, neither turning towards me, nor yet from me,—neither compassionate nor revengeful, but sternly composed; as if his long sorrows had obtained their solemn satisfaction, and even though the end was thus, he felt relieved that it had come. As if he, like me, had learned to submit that our course should be shaped for us rather than by us; being taught that even in this world's events, the God of Truth will be justified before men; will prove that: those who, under any pretence, disguise or deny the truth, live not unto Him, but unto the father of lies.
Is it not strange, that then and there I should have been calm enough to think of these things. Ay, and should calmly write of them now. But as I have told you, in a great crisis my mind always recovers its balance and becomes quiet. Besides, sickness makes us both clear-sighted and far-sighted; wonderfully so, sometimes.
Do not suppose from this admission, that my health is gone or going; but, simply that I am, as I see in the looking-glass, a somewhat older and feebler man than my dear love remembers me a year ago. But I must hasten on.
The plea of guilty being recorded, no trial was necessary; the judge had only to pass sentence. I was asked whether, by counsel or otherwise, I wished to say anything in my own defence? And then I rose and told the whole truth.
Do not grieve for me, Theodora? The truth is never really terrible. What makes it so is the fear of man, and that was over with me; the torment of guilty shame, and that was gone too. I have had many a moment of far sharper anguish, more grinding humiliation than this, when I stood up and publicly confessed the sin of my youth, with the years of suffering which had followed—dare I say expiated it?
There is a sense in which no sin ever can be expiated, except in One Blessed Way;—yet, in so far as man can atone to man, I believed I had atoned for mine; I had tried to give a life for a life, morally speaking; nay, I had given it. But it was not enough; it could not he. Nothing less than the truth was required from me—and I here offered it. Thus, in one short half hour, the burthen of a lifetime was laid down for ever.
The judge—he was not unmoved,-so they told me afterwards—said he must take time to consider the sentence. Had the prisoner any witnesses as to character?
Several came forward. Among the rest, the good old chaplain, who had travelled all night from Liverpool, in order, he said, just to shake hands with me to-day—which he did, in open court—God bless him!