He loved nature--he had spent his life among her scenes. Nothing of her visited him now, save a star or two that rose above the prison wall into the slip of sky his window commanded; they were the faintest stars in heaven, and often were shrouded by clouds and mist. Thus doubly imprisoned, his body barred by physical impediments--his soul shut up in itself--he became, in the energetic language of genius, the cannibal of his own heart. Without a vent for any, thoughts revolved in his brain with the velocity and action of a thousand mill-wheels, and would not be stopped. Now a spasm of painful emotion covered his brow with a cold dew--now self-contempt made every portion of himself detestable in his own eyes--now he felt the curse of God upon him, weighing him down with heavy, relentless burden; and then again he was assailed by images of freedom, and keen longings for the free air. "If even, like Mazeppa, I might seek the wilds, and career along, though death was the bourn in view, I were happy!" These wild thoughts crossed him, exaggerated into gasping desire to achieve such a fate, when the sights and sounds of a prison gathered thick around, and made the very thought of his fellow-creatures one of disgust and abhorrence. Thus sunk in gloom, far deeper internally than in outward show--warring with remorse and the sense of unmerited injury--vanquished by fate, yet refusing to yield, nature had reached the acme of suffering. He grew to be careless of the result of his trial, and to neglect the means of safety. He pondered on self-destruction--though that were giving the victory to his enemies. He looked round him; his cell appeared a tomb. He felt as if he had passed out of life into death; strange thoughts and images flitted through his mind, and the mortal struggle drew to a close--when, on a day, his prison-door opened, and Elizabeth stepped within the threshold. To see the beloved being we long for inexpressibly, and believe to be so far--to hear the dear voice, whose sweet accent we imagined to be mute to us for ever--to feel the creature's very soul in real communion with us, and the person we dote on visible to our eyes, such are moments of bliss, which the very imperfections of our finite nature render immeasurably dear. Falkner saw his child, and felt no longer imprisoned. She was freedom and security. Looking on her sweet face, he could not believe in the existence of evil. Wrongs and wo, and a torturing conscience, melted and fled away before her; while fresh-springing happiness filled every portion of his being. CHAPTER XLII Elizabeth arrived at the moment of the first painful crisis of Falkner's fate. The assizes came on--busy faces crowded into his cell, and various consultations took place as to the method of his defence; and here began a series of cares, mortifications, and worse anxieties, which brought home to the hearts of the sufferers the horrors of their position.