Whether it was or not, nobody interrupted him. "Doctor Urquhart," he said, speaking loud enough for every one to hear, "what your sentence may be I know not, or whether you and I shall ever meet again until the day of judgment. If not, I believe that if we are to be forgiven our debts according as we forgive our debtors, I shall have to forgive you then. I prefer to do it now, while we are in the flesh, and it may comfort your soul. I, Henry Johnston's father, declare publicly that I believe what you did was done in the heat of youth, and has ever since been bitterly repented of. May God pardon you, even as I do this day." I did not see your father afterwards. He quitted the court directly after sentence was given--three months' imprisonment--the judge making a long speech previously; but I heard not a syllable. I heard nothing but your father's words--saw no one except himself, sitting there below me, with his hands crossed on his stick, and a stream of sunshine falling across his white hairs--Theodora--Theodora--I cannot write--it is impossible. Granton got admission to me for a minute, after I was taken back to prison. He told me that the "hard labour" was remitted, that there had been application made for commutation of the three months into one, but the judge declined. If I wished, a new application should be made to the Home Secretary. No, my love, suffer him not to do it. Let nothing more be done. I had rather abide my full term of punishment. It is only too easy. Do not grieve for me. Trust me, my child, many a peer puts on his robes with a heavier heart than I put on this felon's dress, which shocked Granton so much that he is sure to tell you of it. Never mind it--my clothes are not me, are they, little lady? Who was the man that wrote:--= ````"Stone walls do not a prison make, ````Nor iron bars a cage, ````Minds innocent--"= Am I innocent? No, but I am forgiven, as I believe, before God and man. And are not all the glories of heaven preparing, not for sinless but for pardoned souls? Therefore, I am at peace. This first night of my imprisonment is, for some things, as happy to me as that which I have often imagined to myself, when I should bring you home for the first time to my own fireside. Not even that thought, and the rush of thoughts that came with it, are able to shake me out of this feeling of unutterable rest: so perfect that it seems strange to imagine I shall ever go out of this cell to begin afresh the turmoil of the world--as strange as that the dead should wish to return again to life and its cares. But this as God wills.