“Answer my question, if you please. Is an impenitent sinner eternally punished? Do you believe that?”
“My Bible leaves me no other alternative.”
She paused for a while, evidently considering with special attention what she was about to say next.
“As a religious man,” she resumed, “would you be willing to make some sacrifice, rather than let a fellow-creature go—after a disgraceful death—to everlasting torment?”
“I know of no sacrifice in my power,” he said, fervently, “to which I would not rather submit than let you die in the present dreadful state of your mind.”
The Prisoner turned to me. “Is the person who watches me waiting outside?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be so kind as to call her in? I have a message for her.”
It was plain that she had been leading the way to the delivery of that message, whatever it might be, in all that she had said up to the present time. So far my poor powers of penetration helped me, and no further.
The warder appeared, and received her message. “Tell the woman who has come here with my little girl that I want to see the child.”