"On our way, however, we happened to pass a churchyard where some workmen were engaged in removing a number of old tombstones from the crowded area. Even in my existing agitated condition, I could not help catching the name and date on one mouldering slab which a labourer had just placed upon the edge of the pavement. It ran something like this: 'Sacred to the memory of Amelia, second daughter of the late Sir Thomas Spragg, knight, and beloved wife of Henry McAlister, Esq., by whom this stone is erected. Died May 20, 1799, aged 44 years.' Though I had gathered already that my dear girl must probably have long been dead, yet the reality of the fact had not yet had time to fix itself upon my mind. You must remember, my dear sir, that I had but awaked a few days earlier from my long slumber, and that during those days I had been harassed and agitated by such a flood of incomprehensible complications, that I could not really grasp in all its fulness the complete isolation of my present position. When I saw the tombstone of one whom, as it seemed to me, I had loved passionately but a week or two before, I could not refrain from rushing to embrace it, and covering the insensible stone with my boiling tears. 'Oh, my Amelia, my Amelia,' I cried, 'I shall never again behold thee, then! I shall never again press thee to my heart, or hear thy dear lips pronounce my name!' "But the unfeeling wretches who had charge of me were far from being moved to sympathy by my bitter grief. 'Died in 1799,' said one of them with a sneer. 'Why, this madman's blubbering over the grave of an old lady who has been buried for about a hundred years!' And the workmen joined in their laughter as my gaolers tore me away to the prison where I was to spend the remainder of my days.