Why I had vow’d, that I his life might save,
And he broke down before it.
Never more
May God permit me to behold again
A broken man! Alas, how pleaded he!
And pray’d me for my pardon o’er and o’er,
Till wellnigh I believed he heard me not;
And in the end sigh’d out: “It might be so,
My plan be wisest; nay, he would not yield
His manlier judgment, to fulfil my wish,