Page 616 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

him that I shall have the pleasure of breaking Mr. Dawes’s
spirit to-morrow morning at nine sharp.’
‘Maurice,’ said Sylvia, who had been listening to the con-
versation in undisguised alarm, ‘do me a favour? Do not
torment this man.’
‘What makes you take a fancy to him?’ asks her husband,
with sudden unnecessary fierceness.
‘Because his is one of the names which have been from
my childhood synonymous with suffering and torture,
because whatever wrong he may have done, his life-long
punishment must have in some degree atoned for it.’
She spoke with an eager pity in her face that transfig-
ured it. North, devouring her with his glance, saw tears in
her eyes. ‘Does this look as if he had made atonement?’ said
Frere coarsely, slapping the letter.
‘He is a bad man, I know, but—’ she passed her hand
over her forehead with the old troubled gesture—‘he can-
not have been always bad. I think I have heard some good
of him somewhere.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Frere, rising decisively. ‘Your fancies
mislead you. Let me hear you no more. The man is rebel-
lious, and must be lashed back again to his duty. Come,
North, we’ll have a nip before you start.’
‘Mr. North, will not you plead for me?’ suddenly cried
poor Sylvia, her self-possession overthrown. ‘You have a
heart to pity these suffering creatures.’
But North, who seemed to have suddenly recalled his
soul from some place where it had been wandering, draws
himself aside, and with dry lips makes shift to say, ‘I cannot

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