God has
punished me for this act of rebellion against His Divine Majesty, in
rejecting, as a thing of no value, the life He gave. I yield myself into
His hands, confident that His arm is stretched over His repentant
creature for good; whether I die upon the scaffold or end my days
peacefully in my bed, I can lay my hand upon my heart and say--'His will
be done.'"
For about an hour the good clergyman continued reading and praying with
the prisoner, and before he left him that evening, in spite of his
pre-conceived notions of his guilt, he was fully convinced of innocence.
Sadly and solemnly the hours passed on that brought the morning of his
execution, "with death-bed clearness, face to face." He had joined in
the sacred duties of the Sabbath; it was to him a day of peaceful
rest--a forestate of the quiet solemnity of the grave. In the evening he
was visited by Frederic Wildegrave, who had been too ill after the trial
to leave his bed before. He was pale, and wasted with sorrow and
disease, and looked more like a man going to meet death than the
criminal he came to cheer with his presence.
"My dear Anthony," said Frederic, taking his cousin's hand, "my heart
bleeds to see you thus. I have been sick; my spirit is weighed down with
sorrow, or we should have met sooner."
"You do indeed look ill," replied Anthony, examining, with painful
surprise, the altered face of his friend; "I much fear that I have been
the cause of this change.
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