The eyes of the convict remained wide open, and fixed on the speaker’s face. And, still with that gaze full of horror, he sank at the officer’s feet.
He lay in the punishment-cell that night without sleeping, apparently without sense. And he lay there all the next day in darkness, quiet and silent, never tasting food.
The second morning, the warrant for his execution was read to him.
“I am glad of it!” was all his comment.
They put him back into his cell, no change being made in his fate on account of the child’s death. One had but to look into his face to see that his punishment was severe enough. One only request he made; that, after his death, the little lock of hair which Minnie had given him might be put into his breast, and buried with him. Then he set himself to prepare for death.
“She wanted me to be saved, and I will not disappoint her, if I can help it,” he said.
The chaplain of the prison and the warden’s family were Protestants; but Jeffries hated the chaplain, and he recollected having heard Minnie speak of a certain “splendid priest” in the town, who had once given her a picture of a lady with a baby in her arms, and a gold ring round her head. The child knew nothing of creeds, and had clung as trustingly, perhaps more trustingly, to the black-robed father, than to any of the clergymen who visited her father’s house.
For this priest Jeffries sent.
“I know nothing of God, nor of religion, sir,” he said. “But I have only a few days to live, and I want to repent, and make what atonement I can. I can say sincerely that I am sorry I have not lived a better life, and that I deserve all the punishment I have had. If God should refuse to forgive me, I will not blame him. But I think he will not. The God who made that little angel must be better than I can even conceive.”
Looking through the window into the street, on that first day he was returned to his cell, Jeffries saw the house that he had made desolate. He saw the closed blinds, and the mournful faces of those who came and went. He saw flowers brought. Later, carriages came, and a crowd slowly gathered. Then he fell on his knees before the grated door, and prayed. One glimpse, only one glimpse of the casket that held her!