to pass unjust judgment upon me. I suppose I'll be hung. But what of that. ‘Good men must not obey the laws too well,’ said Emerson, which of course means that good men must pay the penalty of their disobedience to those unjust laws. But what's the penalty after all? The worst they can do is take one's life. And what is the life of a proletariat? Only a life of drudgery, anxiety, poverty, and anguish; a life of death, for all life's noblest pleasure are denied us, and what we call our life is but one ceaseless round of toiling bondage to our fellows who whip and starve us to a welcome grave. Hallo! who's this?”
It was the turnkey who entered and announced that a visitor was waiting an interview with the prisoner. Holdfast was removed to the visiting place, a sort of bird-cage, with strong iron bars between the prisoner and the visitor, and wire work all round it to prevent friends from passing anything through to the unfortunate occupants. Looking through the bars, Harry instantly recognised who it was, and a sort of painful joy flitted across his troubled, though sanguine, features. It was a pale young woman, trembling with emotion, and striving hard to thrust back the bitter tears that come to solace woman in despair.
“Hypatia” said Harry, “is it you?”
“Yes, my poor friend, it is. What can I do for you?”
“Nothing, Hypatia, nothing.”
There was a silence—a painful silence such as one almost fancies one can hear. These two brave spirits, male and female, stood looking in each other's faces. Oh! that the foes of humanity could have seen that look. Oh, that the cold heart of a Shylock might have been there to have withered under the burning intellectual glances.
“Harry, I must do something for you,” said Hypatia at last. “I cannot, dare not, stand idly by, and see these human tigers take your life. I cannot part with you. To know and understand each other as you and I have done for these long years is to be united in a bond whose strength no earthly priest or lawyer could conceive. I would not die for you, as lovers do in lackadaisy tales. For one to live without the other would be death to that one that remained. No, Harry rather than die to save your life, I'd kill the fiend who took that life and kill off all his kind.”
Here the turnkey rudely interrupted the conversation and said it must be confined to family matters.
“Harry,” continued Hypatia, “listen while I tell you something. Since your committal, I have had a proposal of salvation offered out to me. Ugh! how it infuriates me to think of it! That fiend, that human and licentious monster, Grindall, has dared to promise me your perfect freedom if I will sate his lust with holy matrimony. As though Love's passion could he bought and sold! As though a woman could become a prostitute in marriage e'en though it save her lover's life. No, Harry, I resented the insult. I struck him. He called the servants and ordered my arrest. But I was a match for the tyrant, and he well knew it. I told him that if he laid a hand upon me, the injury would cost him his life. I told him, too, that scores, aye hundreds of victims of his past wrong-doing were waiting at his gate to help me should I call upon them.
