United States or Hong Kong ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I said that I had not killed the marchese, who, on the contrary, had done his best to murder me twice; and that as for the count, who had slandered her vilely and deserved a felon's death, I had spared his life upon his retractation of his calumny. "I hope," I said in conclusion, "that he told you to whom he actually owed his life."
Once, when insulted, he sprang at his tormentor the captain of the ship and with his shackled hands knocked him down; and again he bit off the nail that fastened his handcuffs, and by these feats of strength and anger awed his guards into some show of respect. The method by which he saved himself from a felon's death in England was worthy the dignity of a veteran diplomat.
And these men whom he could not see around him in the darkness were discussing the expediency of hanging him while unconscious, against the morality of waiting for him to come to himself so he might have the felon's last appeal of prayer.
How poor, how slight, how insignificant William Losely the hanger-on of rural Thanes compared with that William Waife whose entrance into this house, you despite that felon's brand when you knew it was the martyr's glory, greeted with noble reverence; whom, when the mind itself was stricken down only the soul left to the wreck of the body you tended with such pious care as he lay on your father's bed!
"Is it possible?" faltered Waife, one hand in George's, the other extended in imploring appeal to Darrell "is it possible? I vindicated I cleared and yet no felon's dock for Jasper! the son not criminated by the father's acquittal! Tell me that! again again!" "It is so, believe me.
I could forego pleasure, travel, social intercourse, and even the companionship of the one being in whom all my hopes centred, but I could not, of my own volition, pass from the judge's bench to the felon's cell. There I struck the immovable, the impassable. I decided in one awful night of renunciation that I would send Oliver out of my life.
He was like a man suddenly thrust into a new world of freedom; he indulged in a physical manifestation of its exhilaration, drinking in a long, deep draught of the clover-scented air, until his great lungs sighed with the plethora. It seemed a lifetime that he had lived in the noisome atmosphere of a felon's cell.
"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think but I do not believe one word of it does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I. And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up were she thrice a felon's daughter.
'And then, dear grandfather, you will allow me to repay you, in a small measure, by my affection and care of your declining years, for all the anxiety you have endured in securing my interests. 'Not to me, young man, not to me. My lot on earth is cast. I am here a fugitive, in danger of a felon's doom.
Yet," said he, suddenly pausing, as his voice sank into a whisper, "assassination! in another hour perhaps; a deed irrevocable; a seal set upon two souls, the victim's and the judge's! Fetters and the felon's cord before me! the shouting mob! the stigma! no, no, it will not be the stigma; the gratitude, rather, of future times, when motives will be appreciated and party hushed!
Word Of The Day