“Oh!”

“Well, sir! oh dear me!  I hope, your reverence, I shall never have to tell this story again, for it chokes me every time.”  And the man was unable to go on for a while.  “Well, sir, the poor thing it seems didn’t cry out as he had about the gas, he took it quite quiet—­that might have let them know, but some folk can see nothing till it is too late—­and he gave Hodges his hand to show he bore him no malice.  Eh dear! eh dear!  Would to Heaven I had never seen this wicked place!”

“Wicked place, indeed!” said Mr. Lacy solemnly.  “You make me almost dread to ask the result.”

“You shall see the result.  Evans!”

Evans opened cell 15, and he and Mr. Eden stood sorrowful aside while Mr. Lacy entered the cell.  The first thing he saw was a rude coffin standing upright by the window, the next a dead body lying stark upon a mattress on the floor.  The official uttered a cry like the scream of a woman!  “What is this?  How dare you bring me to such a place as this?”

“This is that Edward Josephs whose sufferings you have heard and pitied.”

“Poor wretch!  Heaven forgive us!  What, did he—­did he—?”

“He took one step to meet inevitable death—­he hanged himself that same night by his handkerchief to this bar.  Turn his poor body, Evans.  See, sir, here is Mr. Hawes’s mark upon his back.  These livid stripes are from the infernal jacket and helped to lash him into his grave.  You are ill.  Here! some wine from my flask!  You will faint else!”

“Thank you!  Yes, I was rather faint.  It is passed.  Mr. Eden, I find my life has been spent among words—­things of such terrible significance are new to me.  God forgive us! how came this to pass in England in the nineteenth century?  The ——­ scoundrel!”

“Kick him out of the jail, but do not swear; it is a sin.  By removing him from this his great temptation we may save even his blood-stained soul.  But the souls of his victims?  Oh, sir, when a good man is hurried to his grave our lamentations are natural but unwise; but think what he commits who hurries thieves and burglars and homicides unprepared before their eternal Judge.  In this poor boy lay the materials of a saint—­mild, docile, grateful, believing.  I was winning him to all that is good when I fell sick.  The sufferings I saw and could not stop—­they made me sick.  You did not know that when you let my discolored cheeks prejudice you against my truth.  Oh!  I forgive you, dear sir!  Yes, Heaven is inscrutable; for had I not fallen ill—­yes, I was leading you up to Heaven, was I not?  Oh, my lost sheep! my poor lost sheep!” And the faithful shepherd, at the bottom of whose wit and learning lay a heart simpler than beats in any dunce, forgot Hawes and everything else and began to mourn by the dead body of his wandering sheep.