Page 359 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

lurked a fixed hatred of the man who had brought these
sufferings upon him, and a determination to demand at the
first opportunity a reconsideration of that man’s claims to
be esteemed a hero. It was in this mood that he had intend-
ed to make the revelation which he had made in Court, but
the intelligence that Sylvia lived unmanned him, and his
prepared speech had been usurped by a passionate torrent
of complaint and invective, which convinced no one, and
gave Frere the very argument he needed. It was decided that
the prisoner Dawes was a malicious and artful scoundrel,
whose only object was to gain a brief respite of the punish-
ment which he had so justly earned. Against this injustice
he had resolved to rebel. It was monstrous, he thought, that
they should refuse to hear the witness who was so ready to
speak in his favour, infamous that they should send him
back to his doom without allowing her to say a word in his
defence. But he would defeat that scheme. He had planned
a method of escape, and he would break from his bonds,
fling himself at her feet, and pray her to speak the truth for
him, and so save him. Strong in his faith in her, and with
his love for her brightened by the love he had borne to her
dream-image, he felt sure of her power to rescue him now,
as he had rescued her before. ‘If she knew I was alive, she
would come to me,’ he said. ‘I am sure she would. Perhaps
they told her that I was dead.’
Meditating that night in the solitude of his cell—his evil
character had gained him the poor luxury of loneliness—he
almost wept to think of the cruel deception that had doubt-
less been practised on her. ‘They have told her that I was

For the Term of His Natural Life