If I have ever, since that fatal night, omitted to pray for your repentance before death--if I omitted, even then, anything which might tend to urge it on you when the horror of your crime was fresh--if, in our later meeting, I yielded to the dread that was upon me, and forgot to fall upon my knees and solemnly adjure you, in the name of him you sent to his account with Heaven, to prepare for the retribution which must come, and which is stealing on you now--I humbly before you, and in the agony of supplication in which you see me, beseech that you will let me make atonement.' 'What is the meaning of your canting words ?' he answered roughly.

'Speak so that I may understand you.' 'I will,' she answered, 'I desire to.

Bear with me for a moment more.
The hand of Him who set His curse on murder, is heavy on us now.

You cannot doubt it.

Our son, our innocent boy, on whom His anger fell before his birth, is in this place in peril of his life--brought here by your guilt; yes, by that alone, as Heaven sees and knows, for he has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, and that is the terrible consequence of your crime.' 'If you come, woman-like, to load me with reproaches--' he muttered, again endeavouring to break away.
'I do not.