She might have had a different portion. She might have said the one little word her captors wanted her to say. She might have stretched out her hands for their five hundred golden guineas, and walked forth that moment a free woman. She might have seen her father’s fields restored to him and his business flourishing; and she, herself, the well-dowered daughter of the prosperous dairyman, would surely have found a husband—not too squeamish about the origin of his wife’s fortune—to keep her in comfort all the days of her life. She might have had all that most men hold most dear—as the price of a single word. She chose instead—what seemed certain death, and then torture of every description, both corporal and mental, until in the vile prison cell, the strong mind snapped, and the vigorous body broke. But the will, faithful to the end, never faltered. * * * * * The end of her story is told in a letter published by Dr. Madden in the _Nation_ of September 27th, 1851:— “Four years ago an appeal was made in the _Nation_ on behalf of Anne Devlin, which was in some small degree responded to—very, very inadequately, however. Afterwards we lost sight of her entirely. So it seems did others of her friends until it was too late. But last week, a gentleman who always took the warmest interest in this noble creature, was informed that she was still living in a miserable garret of No. 2 Little Elbow Lane, a squalid alley running from the Coombe to Pimlico. On this day week he sought that wretched abode, but she had died two days previously, and had been buried in Glasnevin on the preceding day. A young woman with an ill-fed infant in her arms, apparently steeped in poverty, but kindly-looking and well-mannered, in whose room Anne Devlin had lodged, said: ‘The poor creature, God help her, it was well for her she was dead. There was a coffin got from the Society for her, and she was buried the day before.’ To the enquiry, what complaint she had died of, the answer was—‘She was old and weak indeed, but she died mostly of want. She had a son, but he was not able to do much for her, except now and then to pay her lodging, which was fivepence a week. He lived away from her, and so did her daughter, who was a poor widow, and was hard enough set to get a living for herself. About ten or twelve days ago a gentleman (she believed of the name of Meehan) called there, and gave the old woman something. Only for this she would not have lived as long as she did. _She was very badly off, not only for food, but for bed-clothes. Nearly all the rags she had went at one time or another, to get her a morsel of bread._’”[102] Footnote 102: