know of it. He might think my brain was
softening, or something of the kind."

CHAPTER LVI.

HE lay in prison very ill, during the whole
interval between his committal for trial, and the
coming round of the Sessions. He had broken
two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs,
and he breathed with great pain and difficulty,
which increased daily. It was a consequence
of his hurt, that he spoke so low as to be scarcely
audible; therefore, he spoke very little. But, he
was ever ready to listen to me, and it became
the first duty of my life to say to him, and read
to him, what I knew he ought to hear.

Being far too ill to remain in the common
prison, he was removed, after the first day or so,
into the Infirmary. This gave me opportunities
of being with him that I could not otherwise
have had. And but for his illness he would
have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a
determined prison-breaker, and I know not what
else.

Although I saw him every day, it was for only
a short time; hence, the regularly recurring
spaces of our separation were long enough to
record on his face any slight changes that occurred
in his physical state. I do not recollect that I once
saw any change in it for the better; he wasted,
and became slowly weaker and worse, day by
day, from the day when the prison door closed
upon him.

The kind of submission or resignation that he
showed, was that of a man who was tired out.
I sometimes derived an impression, from his
manner or from a whispered word or two which
escaped him, that he pondered over the question
whether he might have been a better man under
better circumstances. But he never justified
himself by a hint tending that way, or tried to
bend the past out of its eternal shape.

It happened on two or three occasions in my
presence, that his desperate reputation was
alluded to by one or other of the people in
attendance on him. A smile crossed his face then,
and he turned his eyes on me with a trustful
look, as if he were confident that I had seen
some small redeeming touch in him, even so
long ago as when I was a little child. As to
all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I
never knew him complain.

When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers
caused an application to be made for the
postponement of his trial until the following
Sessions. It was obviously made with the assurance
that he could not live so long, and was refused.
The trial came on at once, and, when he was put
to the bar, he was seated in a chair. No
objection was made to my getting close to the
dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand
that he stretched forth to me.

The trial was very short and very clear. Such
things as could be said for him, were said—how
he had taken to industrious habits, and had
thriven lawfully and reputably. But, nothing
could unsay the fact that he had returned, and
was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It
was impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise
than find him Guilty.

At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt
from my terrible experience of that Sessions) to
devote a concluding day to the passing of
Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the
Sentence of Death. But for the indelible picture
that my remembrance now holds before me, I
could scarcely believe, even as I write these
words, that I saw two-and-thirty men and
women put before the Judge to receive that
sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-
thirty, was he; seated, that he might get breath
enough to keep life in him.

The whole scene starts out again in the vivid
colours of the moment, down to the drops of
April rain on the windows of the court, glittering
in the rays of April sun. Penned in the
dock, as I again stood outside it at the corner
with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty
men and women; some defiant, some stricken
with terror, some sobbing and weeping, some
covering their faces, some staring gloomily
about. There had been shrieks from among the
women convicts, but they had been stilled, and a
hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their
great chains and nosegays, other civic gewgaws
and monsters, criers, ushers, a great gallery full
of people—a large theatrical audience—looked
on, as the two-and-thirty and the Judge were
solemnly confronted. Then, the Judge addressed
them. Among the wretched creatures before
him whom he must single out for special
address, was one who almost from his infancy
had been an offender against the laws; who,
after repeated imprisonments and punishments,
had been at length sentenced to exile for a.
term of years; and who, under circumstances
of great violence and daring, had made his
escape and been re-sentenced to exile for
life. That miserable man would seem for a
time to have become convinced of his errors,
when far removed from the scenes of his old
offences, and to have lived a peaceable and honest
life. But, in a fatal moment, yielding to those
propensities and passions, the indulgence of which
had so long rendered him a scourge to society,
he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance,
and had come back to the country-where he was
proscribed. Being here presently denounced,
he had for a time succeeded in evading the
officers of Justice, but being at length seized
while in the act of flight, he had resisted them,
and had—he best knew whether by express design,
or in the blindness of his hardihood—caused the
death of his denouncer, to whom his whole career
was known. The appointed punishment for his
return to the land that had cast him out, being
Death, and his case being this aggravated case,
he must prepare himself to Die.

The sun was striking in at the great windows
of the court, through the glittering drops of rain
upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of
light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge,
banding both together, and perhaps reminding
some among the audience, how both were passing
on, with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment