Page 267 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

ed in his brain, made him grind his teeth with rage at his
own hard fate. Bound by the purest and holiest of ties—the
affection of a son to his mother—he had condemned him-
self to social death, rather than buy his liberty and life by
a revelation which would shame the gentle creature whom
he loved. By a strange series of accidents, fortune had as-
sisted him to maintain the deception he had practised. His
cousin had not recognized him. The very ship in which he
was believed to have sailed had been lost with every soul on
board. His identity had been completely destroyed—no link
remained which could connect Rufus Dawes, the convict,
with Richard Devine, the vanished heir to the wealth of the
dead ship-builder.
Oh, if he had only known! If, while in the gloomy pris-
on, distracted by a thousand fears, and weighed down by
crushing evidence of circumstance, he had but guessed that
death had stepped between Sir Richard and his vengeance,
he might have spared himself the sacrifice he had made. He
had been tried and condemned as a nameless sailor, who
could call no witnesses in his defence, and give no particu-
lars as to his previous history. It was clear to him now that
he might have adhered to his statement of ignorance con-
cerning the murder, locked in his breast the name of the
murderer, and have yet been free. Judges are just, but pop-
ular opinion is powerful, and it was not impossible that
Richard Devine, the millionaire, would have escaped the
fate which had overtaken Rufus Dawes, the sailor. Into his
calculations in the prison—when, half-crazed with love,
with terror, and despair, he had counted up his chances of

For the Term of His Natural Life