Page 662 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

strange interview, had reached Sylvia’s ears. She had heard
gloomy hints of the punishments inflicted on him by her
husband’s order, and as—constantly revolving in her mind
was that last conversation with the chaplain—she wondered
at the prisoner’s strange fancy for a flower, her brain be-
gan to thrill with those undefined and dreadful memories
which had haunted her childhood. What was the link be-
tween her and this murderous villain? How came it that
she felt at times so strange a sympathy for his fate, and that
he— who had attempted her life—cherished so tender a re-
membrance of her as to beg for a flower which her hand had
touched?
She questioned her husband concerning the convict’s
misdoings, but with the petulant brutality which he invari-
ably displayed when the name of Rufus Dawes intruded
itself into their conversation, Maurice Frere harshly re-
fused to satisfy her. This but raised her curiosity higher.
She reflected how bitter he had always seemed against this
man—she remembered how, in the garden at Hobart Town,
the hunted wretch had caught her dress with words of as-
sured confidence—she recollected the fragment of cloth he
passionately flung from him, and which her affianced lov-
er had contemptuously tossed into the stream. The name
of ‘Dawes’, detested as it had become to her, bore yet some
strange association of comfort and hope. What secret lurked
behind the twilight that had fallen upon her childish mem-
ories? Deprived of the advice of North—to whom, a few
weeks back, she would have confided her misgivings—she
resolved upon a project that, for her, was most distasteful.

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