With such a force was all this borne in upon me, and with such sufficiency, that after the first pang was spent I went near to rejoicing that things were as they were, and that I was to die, haply before sunset.

It was become such a world as did not seem worth a man's while to live in: a world of vainness, of hollowness, of meanness, of nothing but illusions.

The knowledge that I was about to die, that I was about to quit all this, seemed to have torn some veil from my eyes, and to have permitted me to recognize the worthless quality of what I left.

Well may it be that such are but the thoughts of a man's dying moments, whispered into his soul by a merciful God to predispose him for the wrench and agony of his passing.
I had been a half-hour in my cell when the door was opened to admit Castelroux, whom I had not seen since the night before.

He came to condole with me in my extremity, and yet to bid me not utterly lose hope.
"It is too late to-day to carry out the sentence," said he, "and as to-morrow will be Sunday, you will have until the day after.