He confessed the murder of Ailsie Dunbar; but he denied that the crime had been premeditated, as it had been made to appear at the trial. He killed her in a fit of passion, he said; and he had never known an hour's peace since. Remorse for the crime and terror for its consequences had made his life wretched. His master, Lord Vincent, he said, had been an eye-witness to the murder; but had withheld himself from denouncing him, because he wanted to use the power he had thus obtained to compel him to enter a conspiracy against Lady Vincent. And here followed a full account of the plot and its execution. Frisbie went on to say that nothing but the terrors of death induced him to become a party to that base conspiracy against the honor of a noble lady, and that he had suffered almost as much remorse for his crimes against Lady Vincent as for his murder of Ailsie Dunbar. All this Mr. Godfree took down in short-hand from the lips of the conscience-stricken man. And then, as Frisbie expressed the desire to spend the remainder of the night in devotion, Mr. Godfree decided to remain with him. He read aloud to the convict portions of Scripture suited to his sad case; he prayed fervently with him for the pardon of his sins; and then he sang for him a consoling hymn. Oh, strangely sounded that sacred song arising in the deep silence of the condemned cell. So the night passed there. But how did it pass in the viscount's cell? Sleeplessly, anxiously, wretchedly, until long after midnight, when he fell asleep. He was awakened by a sound of sawing, dragging, and hammering, that seemed to be in the prison yard beneath his windows. It continued a long time, and effectually banished slumber from his weary eyes. What could they be doing at that unusual hour? he asked himself. And he crept from his bed and peeped through the grated window. But the night was over-clouded and deeply dark from that darkness that precedes the dawn. He could see nothing, but he could hear the sound of voices amid the noise of work; although the words, at the distance his window was from the ground, were inaudible. He lay down again no wiser than he had risen up. After an hour or two the noise ceased, and he dropped into that sleep of prostration that more resembles worn-out nature's swooning than healthy slumber. CHAPTER XLVII. THE EXECUTION. What shall he be, ere night?--Perchance a thing O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing. --_Byron_. It was broad daylight when the viscount was again awakened, and this time by the solemn tolling of the prison bell. He sprang out of bed and looked out of the window and recoiled in horror. There in the angle of the prison yard stood the gallows, grimly painted black. That was what the carpenters had been at work on all night.