I will not speak of the trial, the condemnation, or the agony I felt, when I learned that my father was doomed to expiate his crime by solitary confinement for ten long years. Could Ernest have averted this fate from him, for my sake he would have done it; but the majesty of the law was supreme, and no individual effort could change its just decree. My affections were not wounded, for I never could recall his image without personal repugnance, but my mother's remembrance was associated with him;--I remembered her dying injunctions,--her prophetic dream. I thought of the heaven which he had forfeited, the God whose commandments he had broken, the Saviour whose mercy he had scorned. I wanted to go to him,--to minister to him in his lonely cell,--to try to rouse him to a sense of his transgressions,--to lead him to the God he had forsaken, the Redeemer he had rejected, the heaven from which my mother seemed stretching her spirit arms to woo him to her embrace. "My mother dreamed that I drew him from a black abyss," said I to Ernest; "she dreamed that I was the guardian angel of his soul. Let me go to him,--let me fulfil my mission. I shudder when I look around me in these palace walls, and think that a parent groans in yonder dismal tombs." "_I_ will go," replied Ernest; "I will tell him your filial wish, and if I find you can do him good, I will accompany you there." "I _can_ do him good,--I can pity and forgive him,--I can talk to him of my mother, and that will lead him to think of heaven. 'I was sick and in prison and ye came unto me.' Oh, thus our Saviour said, identifying himself with the sons of ignominy and sorrow. Go, and if you find his heart softened by repentance, pour balm and oil into the wounds that sin has made. Go, and let me follow." CHAPTER XLI. "And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness. "I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were rejected fiercely, disdainfully,--he rejected them all." "Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?" "He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,--alone I will suffer,--alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more convinced that he is an impostor." "But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the curse clings to me. He _is_,--he must be my father."