Whereon I have every reason to be thankful, nay, it has been matter for a life's rejoicing that I was not proof against his kindness; but without more ado, sobbing over some parts of my tale, and whispering others, I told him my whole story from the first meeting with my temptress--so I may truly call her--to the final moment when, the money gone, and the ladder removed, I was rudely awakened, to find myself a prisoner. I told it, I have reason to believe, with feeling, and in words that carried conviction; the more as, though skilled in literary composition, and in writing secundum artem, I have little imagination. At any rate, when I had done, and quavered off reluctantly into a half coherent and wholly piteous appeal for mercy, I found my young judge gazing at me with a heat of indignation in cheek and eye, that strangely altered him.
"Good G----!" he cried, "what a Jezebel!" And in words which I will not here repeat, he said what he thought of her.
True as the words were (and I knew that, after what I had told him, nothing else was true of her), they forced a groan from me.
"Poor devil," he said at that. And then again, "Poor devil, it is a shame! It is a black shame, my lad," he continued warmly, "and I would like to see Madam at the cart-tail; and that is where I shall see her before all is done! I never heard of such a vixen! But for you," and on the word he paused and looked at me, "you did it, my friend, and I do not see your way out of it."
"Then must I hang?" I cried desperately.
He did not answer.
"My lord! My lord!" I urged, for I began to see whither he was tending, and I could have shrieked in terror, "you can do anything."
"I?" he said.
"You! If you would speak to the judge, my lord."
He laughed, without mirth. "He would whip you instead of hanging you," he said contemptuously.