For whose sake?: A sequel to "Why did he wed her?"Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
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For whose sake?: A sequel to "Why did he wed her?"
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Bigamy -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction
But with the change in the seat of the disease—which, while it slowly
destroyed his lungs, completely relieved his brain—his mental faculties
were perfectly restored, with clear recollection of all that had
transpired, so that he knew his antecedents and his present surroundings
quite as well as our readers do. He knew also that he had no reason to
fear prosecution. His only fear—a secret one—was of death, “and after
death the judgment.”
He had not been prosecuted for any of his felonies, which, indeed, were
surrounded by such circumstances as admitted of their being ignored
rather than compounded.
All the documents by which he had seemed to secure a merely nominal
possession of the Haymore estate concerned the name of Randolph Hay, and
for all the law or the public knew, or need know, that name had been
claimed only by its real owner, the gentleman now in peaceable
possession of the Haymore estate, and never by the impostor who had
tried to take it.
So there was no legal obligation upon any one to bring a criminal
prosecution for fraud and forgery upon the dying malefactor.
And as to his heavier crimes of bigamy, robbery and attempted murder
which had been committed in the United States, there was not the least
likelihood that his surrender under the extradition treaty would ever be
demanded by that government to answer for them before an American
tribunal.
All whom he had so deeply injured, or tried to injure, had freely
forgiven him—all, that is to say, except Lamia Leegh, who in her bitter
humiliation was incapable of forgiving him.
The rector had to strive and pray for grace before he could pardon the
man who had wronged his daughter. But after this grace was given, James
Campbell spent many hours beside the bed of the dying man, reading to
him, praying with him, persuading him to repentance, exhorting him to
faith.
Gentleman Geff was despairing, and at times defiant in his despair.
“You needn’t talk to me, Mr. Campbell. I am as the devil made me. As I
‘have sown’ I ‘must reap.’ If there is anything that can give me
satisfaction now, it is that, after all, I have no blood on my
conscience. Bad as you may think me, I was never cut out for a murderer.
No, nor for a drunkard. Circumstances, temptation, opportunity—these
make destiny. I took to drink to drown remorse. I was a fool for feeling
it. Bah! how can a creature of destiny be responsible for anything he
does? Yet I am glad there is no blood on my hands.”
Mr. Campbell had spoken to Jennie, asking her if she could not overcome
her repugnance so far as to go in and speak to Montgomery, now that he
was in his senses.
But Jennie shuddered, as she replied:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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