I have already stated that Talbot was of high aristocratic family; and this marriage being wished for by the parents of both parties, they had given it out as being finally settled to take place on the return of Talbot to England.  In the last letter, the father had yielded to his entreaties in favour of Clara; only requesting him not to be precipitate in offering himself, as he wished to find some excuse for breaking off the match; and, above all, he fatally enjoined profound secrecy till the affair was arranged.  Here, then, was everything explained.  Indeed, before I had read these letters, my mind did not need this damning proof of his innocence and my guilt.

Just as I had finished reading, the gens d’armes entered my room, and, with the officers of justice, led me away to prison.  I walked mechanically.  I was conducted to a small building in the centre of a square.  This was a cachot, with an iron-grated window on each of its four sides, but without glass.  There was no bench, or table, or anything but the bare walls and the pavement.  The wind blew sharply through.  I had not even a great-coat; but I felt no cold or personal inconvenience, for my mind was too much occupied by superior misery.  The door closed on me, and I heard the bolts turn.  There was not an observation made on either part, and I was left to myself.

“Well,” said I, “Fate has now done its worst, and Fortune will be weary at last of tormenting a wretch that she can sink no lower!  Death has no terrors for me; and, after death—!” But, even in my misery, I scarcely gave a thought to what might happen in futurity.  It might occasionally have obtruded itself on my mind, but was quickly dismissed:  I had adopted the atheistical creed of the French Revolution.

“Death is eternal sleep, and the sooner I go to sleep the better!” thought I. The only point that pressed itself on my mind was the dread of a public execution.  This my pride revolted at; for pride had again returned, and resumed its empire, even in my cachot.

As the day dawned, the noise of the carts and country people coming into the square with their produce, roused me from my reverie, for I had not slept.  The prison was surrounded by all ages and all classes, to get a sight of the English murderer; and the light and the air were stopped out of each window by human faces pressed against the bars.  I was gazed at as a wild beast; and the children, as they sat on their mothers’ shoulders to look at me, received a moral lesson and a warning at my expense.

As a tiger, in his cage, wearies the eye by incessantly walking and turning, so I paced my den; and if I could have reached one of the impertinent gazers, through the slanting aperture and three foot wall, I should have throttled him.  “All these people,” said I, “and thousands more, will witness my last moments on the scaffold!”

Stung with this dreadful thought, with rage I searched in my pockets for my penknife, to relieve me at one from my torments and apprehensions; and had I found it, I should certainly have committed suicide.  Fortunately I had left it at home, or it would have been buried, in that moment of frenzy, in the carotid artery; for as well as others, I knew exactly where to find it.