"Though it has seemed right in the eyes of the All-wise Sovereign of the universe that I should be pronounced guilty before an earthly bar, I feel assured that He, in His own good time, will declare my innocence."
"Will that profit you aught, my son, when you are dust?"
"It will rescue my name from infamy, and give me a mournful interest in the memory of my friends."
"Poor lad, this is but a melancholy consolation; I wish I could believe you."
"What a monster of depravity you must think me, if you can imagine me guilty after what I have just said! Is truth so like falsehood, that a man of your holy calling cannot discern the difference? Do I look like a guilty man? Do I speak like a guilty man who knows that he has but a few days to live? If I were the wretch you take me for, should I not be overwhelmed with grief and despair? Would not the thought of death be insupportable? Oh! believe one who seeks not to live—who is contented to die, when I again solemnly declare my innocence."
"I have seen men, Anthony Hurdlestone, who, up to the very hour of their execution, persisted in the same thing and yet, after all their solemn protestations, owned at the last moment that their sentence was just, and that they merited death."
"And I too have merited death," said Anthony mournfully. "God is just."
The chaplain started; though but a few minutes before he had considered the prisoner guilty, yet it produced a painful feeling in his mind to hear him declare it.
"Is self-destruction murder?" asked Anthony with an anxious earnest glance.
"Aye, of the worst kind: for deep ingratitude to God, and contempt of his laws, are fearfully involved in this unnatural outrage."