Do not suppose me braver than I was. When I found myself standing in the prisoner's dock, the whole mass of staring faces seemed to whirl round and round before my eyes; I felt sick and cold; I had lost more strength than I thought. Everything present melted away into a sort of dream through which I fancied I heard you speaking, but could not distinguish any words; except these, the soft, still tenderness of which haunted me as freshly as if they had been only just uttered: "My dear Max! my dear Max!" By this I perceived that my mind was wandering, and must be recalled; so I forced myself to look round at the judge, jury, witness-box--in the which was one person sitting with his white head resting on his hand. I felt who it was. Did you know your father was subpoenaed here? If so, what a day this must have been for my poor child! Think not, though, that the sight of him added to my suffering. I had no fear of him or of anything now. Even public shame was less terrible than I thought; those scores of inquisitive eyes hardly stabbed so deep as in days past did many a kind look of your father's, many a loving glance of yours. The formalities of the court began, but I scarcely listened to them. They seemed to me of little consequence. As I said to Granton when he urged me to employ counsel, a man who only wants to speak the truth can surely manage to do it, in spite of the incumbrances of the law. It came to an end--the long, unintelligible indictment--and my first clear perception of my position was the judge's question:-- "How say you, prisoner at the bar, guilty, or not guilty?" I pleaded "guilty," as a matter of course. The judge asked several questions, and held a long discussion with the counsel for the crown, on what he termed "this very remarkable case," the purport of it was, I believe, to ascertain my sanity; and whether any corroboration of my confession could be obtained. It could not. All possible witnesses were long since dead, except your father. He still kept his position, neither turning towards me, nor yet from me,--neither compassionate nor revengeful, but sternly composed; as if his long sorrows had obtained their solemn satisfaction, and even though the end was thus, he felt relieved that it had come. As if he, like me, had learned to submit that our course should be shaped for us rather than by us; being taught that even in this world's events, the God of Truth will be justified before men; will prove that: those who, under any pretence, disguise or deny the truth, live not unto Him, but unto the father of lies. Is it not strange, that then and there I should have been calm enough to think of these things. Ay, and should calmly write of them now. But as I have told you, in a great crisis my mind always recovers its balance and becomes quiet. Besides, sickness makes us both clear-sighted and far-sighted; wonderfully so, sometimes.