“Prisoner at the bar, I am no longer able to treat you as being innocent of the dreadful crime laid to your charge. You have been convicted by a jury of this city, after a lengthy and most painful investigation, followed by a defense which was in every respect worthy of the man. The jury has convicted you, and the law leaves me no discretion, and I must pass the sentence of the law: “The court doth order you to be taken from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that your body be afterward buried within the precincts of the prison in which you shall be confined after your conviction. And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!” [Illustration: Copyright by Bassano, London. JUSTICE FITZ-JAMES STEPHEN. Who presided at the trial of Mrs. Maybrick.] Utterly stunned I was removed from the court to Walton Jail, there to be confined until this sentence of the law should be carried into effect. The mob, as the Liverpool public was styled by the press, before they had heard or read a word of the defense had hissed me when I entered the court; and now, that they had heard or read the evidence, cheered me as I drove away in the prison-van, and hissed and hooted the judge, who with difficulty gained his carriage. IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH In all the larger local English prisons there is one room, swept and ready, the sight of which can not fail to stir unwonted thoughts. The room is large, with barred windows, and contains only a bed and a chair. It is the last shelter of those whom the law declares to have forfeited their lives. Near by is a small brick building in the prison-yard, that has apparently nothing to connect it with the room; yet they are joined by a sinister suggestion. For nearly three terrible weeks I was confined in this cell of the condemned, to taste the bitterness of death under its most appalling and shameful aspect. I was carefully guarded by two female warders, who would gladly have been spared the task. They might not read nor sleep; at my meals, through my prayers, during every moment of agony, they still watched on and rarely spoke. Many have asked me what my feelings were at that awful time. I remember little in the way of details as to my state of mind. I was too overwhelmed for either analytic or collective thought. Conscious of my innocence, I had no fear of physical death, for the love of my Heavenly Father was so enveloping that death seemed to me a blessed escape from a world in which such an unspeakable travesty of justice could take place; while I petitioned for a reconsideration of the verdict, it was wholly for the sake of my mother and my children.