"It is madness to think of it."
"Is there no chance of a respite?"
"I tell you it is madness, and worse than madness, to imagine such a thing as a pardon, a commutation, or even a respite for that wretch. The crime brought home to him was one of the darkest dye—the base assassination of the girl that loved and trusted and was true to him. To fancy any mercy possible for that miscreant, except it be the infinite, all-embracing, all-pardoning mercy of God, is simply frenzy."
"And the execution is to take place on Monday. The time is very short," said the viscount, falling into a reverie.
The lawyer began to speak of the viscount's own affairs; he mentioned several circumstances connected with the viscount's case that had become known to himself only through the testimony of certain witnesses on Frisbie's trial, and he wished to consult the viscount upon them.
But Lord Vincent seemed to act very strangely; he was absent-minded, stupid, distracted—in fact altogether unfit for consultation with his counsel.
And so, after a few unsuccessful attempts to rouse him, gain his attention, and fix it upon the subject at issue, the lawyer arose, said that he would call again the next morning, and bowed and left the cell.
The shame the viscount suffered was in the knowledge of the dishonorable facts relating to himself that had been brought to light on Frisbie's trial; the great dread he felt was that Frisbie, at the near approach of death, would open his heart and make a full confession; and his horrible certainty was that such a confession was all that was wanted to ensure his own conviction.
Again on this Thursday night he could not sleep, but paced the narrow limits of his cell the whole night through, in unutterable agony of mind. Never was the appalling vision of himself in the shameful prison garb, working in chains, pointed out as an interesting object and gazed at by curious strangers, so awfully vivid as upon this night.
The next morning, when his old servant Cuthbert entered the cell as usual, he was frightened at his master's dreadful looks.