372 The Condemned Ceil. (Oor. 
The unskilfulness with which he set about his task ensured. his de- 
tection: in the second attempt he made he was taken and.imprisoned; 
he was tried, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be executed. At: the 
period of which I now speak he was in the same room with the,.others 
destined to a similar fate; but upon him the effect of the surrounding 
circumstances was extraordinary as well as dreadful: for he was impressed 
from the beginning with a belief that his life would not be forfeited.| The 
Jenity which so many confirmed offenders had experienced, the small 
amount of crime he had committed, his previous character, his. distress, 
all combined to strengthen that opinion, and it became: stronger,and 
deeper as all rational hope declined. The following day was now (fixed 
for his execution, but still he believed that his life would be spared—the 
sands of his existence were rapidly dropping, and still, though he might 
have counted them, he insisted with a desperate infatuation on believing: 
that years of life were yet before him. With a smile, which was full of 
horror, he dismissed the exhortations of the clergyman, recommending 
to his care the other culprits who really had need of them; and to\ every 
other suggestion he either turned a deaf ear, or received them with. an: 
incredulous shake of the head ; adding occasionally as he strode about in 
feverish anxiety, “It is quite impossible; they will not, they cannot, 
they dare not commit so needless, so useless an injustice!” It was 
evident to all of cooler reason who observed him that he had nourished 
this fatal belief until it had taken the place of his judgment, and in this 
belief until the morrow, until the very preparations for his death had 
begun, he resolutely continued. 
At the desk near the lower end of the room.a young man was engaged: 
in writing a letter. He was pale and looked ‘ill, but his: features were 
handsome, and his clothes. made in the extreme of fashion hanging 
over him, stood a young woman dressed in a splendid) but: awkward: 
manner; her clothes were of a very expensive description, but tawdry, ' 
and unsuitable, for the weather and the time of day. » When she looked 
up I recognized one of those unfortunate women whom “the dangerous | 
gift. of beauty” has brought to the most fatal destruction:' The appear- 
ance of these two. persons in this place of unmixed-wretchedness, and 
among people upon whom privations and confinement had fixed their 
hard and degrading stamp, formed a distressing contrast; and a sense of 
the ridiculous which intruded itself among the other sensations to which’ 
the scene gave rise, made. it horrible. The young man, whose fate at 
this period made some noise in the town, was an artist of respectable 
talents; he had been long pursuing dishonest courses, and at length, 
being engaged in a, burglary; he was sentenced to death. The female’. 
had shared his short-lived prosperity, and now, with a rare fidelity, clave 
to him in his lost fortunes; when all the world besides had’ abandoned’ 
him. This instance of the power of that passion which rules the world’ 
struck me as being infinitely more remarkable than many of those proofs’ 
of, female affection which are cited as: heroic.» Here were two persons 
whose lives had been base and profligate to the last degree ; that) of the 
woman too vile to be thought upon—and, yet: that) holy and srnetoa 
passion which neither vice, nor, crime, nor misery could extinguish, now 
seemed as it were to triumph overall : and in the very hour when it was 
the turn of the more hateful qualities te have uncontrolled sway when - 
every inducement, even the opinion of the world—of that world by which 
she was abandoned—was in favour of her deserting this man, she was’ 
impelled by the unaided, irresistible power of her affection to comfort him 
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