Then the warden turned to the visitor, and told him that the hour had come for locking up the prison for the night.
Mr. Berners went back to his wife and took an affectionate leave of her.
She let him go, with even less of opposition than on the preceding evening, for it seemed as if her fitful rise towards sensibility had reacted in a deeper fall into apathy.
Lyon Berners returned to his desolate home. Among all who were affected by the condemnation of Sybil Berners, there was none who suffered such agony of mind as that which nearly drove her husband to frenzy. If Sybil's terrible trials and unspeakable sorrows had resulted in a mild and merciful insanity, that vailed her mind from any knowledge of the deep horrors of her position, Lyon's utter anguish of spirit had stung him to a state of desperation that incited the wildest schemes and the most violent remedies.
As he lay tossing in his sleepless bed each night, he felt tempted to go and seek out that band of outlaws, and to bribe them to the half of his fortune to make a night attack upon the prison, and forcibly rescue his beloved wife.
There was, however, a serious objection to this plan; for besides its unlawfulness and its uncertainty of success, it was impracticable, from the fact that no one—not even the most experienced thief-catchers—had been able to find the lost clue to the retreat of the robbers. Since their flight from the ruined house, four months previous, they had never been heard of.
Sometimes, as Sybil's husband lay groaning in anguish on his pillow, he was strongly tempted to procure some drug that would give her a quick and easy death, and save her from the horrors to come.
But Lyon Berners resisted this dark temptation to commit a deadly sin.
More frequently still, when his agony seemed greater than he could bear, he would feel a desperate desire to put a period to his own wretched existence.
But then came the devoted spirit that whispered for her sake he must live and suffer, as long as she should have to live and suffer.