His mother after waiting some time for her son to resume, at last said:
"Charles, if your choice were left you, which of the two, Adelpha or Cora, would you wed?"
Charles, smiling, answered:
"Mother, it is not for one living within the shadow of the scaffold to think of marriage."
"Charles, can you really think your case so serious?"
"I do mother. I know it."
"Oh, Charles, surely they will not condemn you! They have no proof. You are innocent."
"I am innocent, mother; but that is no reason that evidence will not be produced against me."
"Yet it will be false."
"False, of course; yet many have been hung on testimony false as Satan himself."