“Oh Bessy, Bessy! what can I say, how can I ask you to forgive me? I have destroyed your life, Bessy, and yet I would have given mine to make you happy. When I think, Bessy, how happy we were, how bright and gay you were only a year ago and see what I have brought you to, I could die, Bessy—oh! how gladly—if I could recall the past and have never seen you. I see now how right you were, and how mad I have been—how miserably mad—to think that all the idle hands who were willing to spend their time in talking and drinking, and making speeches, were patriots ready to die for the cause of freedom. I have been a fool, Bessy, but, oh, that I could have my punishment alone! Why must I drag you down to misery too? Even had things been as I thought them, what right had I to devote myself, as I thought, to my country, and to sacrifice my wife? Oh, Bessy! you may forgive me, but I never can forgive myself.” Bessy, up to this time, had not spoken a word. Sometimes she had tried to stop her husband, but her own sobs had prevented her. “I do forgive you with all my heart, William. You did what you thought was right; you never meant to make me unhappy, you never thought——” and here she broke down again. “No, Bessy,” he said, sadly, “I never did think, but I ought to have thought. I was a dreamer, and I wilfully blinded myself. I have not even the satisfaction of knowing that I was ignorant. I knew you suffered, I knew you wanted bread, but I went on. Oh Bessy, Bessy! I have gone all wrong, but it is hard upon you. I was born to be a blight and a curse to you.” “No, no, William!” the wife broke out; “no, no, not that.” “Yes, Bessy, it is so. I know my brother and his wife are good people. They will take care of you, dear. I shall never see you again. Hear me out, darling. I only hope that it will not be for long. I am not strong, and I do not think I shall last many months. I hope not, I pray to God not. It is all I can do for you now, Bessy; to die and set you free. But you will think of me kindly, dear: think of me as I used to be before I went mad, as the William who courted you long ago. Will you promise me this, Bessy?” Bessy was crying too much to speak. “Oh! William,” she sobbed out at last; “you must not talk so, you will kill me. We are going to be happy yet. Yes, yes,” she said, as he shook his head in sad denial; “you don't know, you have not heard what I have to tell you. I am coming out to you, dear. In a little time, they tell me, they will let you out of prison to work with a farmer, and in a year I am to start to you; only a year, William, think of that. Mr. Maynard, God bless him, has given me the money, and in a year after you get out I shall be by your side. Think of it, William. And he said, too, there was no disgrace in being sent out for politics, and that some day you would get on and be well thought of again. Yes, it is all true, William, I am only come to say good-bye for a year.”