passing forged bank-notes, the wrath of the people showed itself in
marking the shop for vengeance upon any favorable occasion offering
through fire or riots, and in the mean time in deserting it. These
things had been going on for some time when I awoke from my long
delirium; but the effect they had produced upon a weak and obstinate
and haughty government, or at least upon the weak and obstinate and
haughty member of the government who presided in the police
administration, was, to confirm and rivet the line of conduct which had
been made the object of popular denunciation. More energetically, more
scornfully, to express that determination of flying in the face of
public opinion and censure, four days before my awakening, Agnes had
been brought up to receive her sentence. On that same day (nay, it was
said in that same hour,) petitions, very numerously signed, and various
petitions from different ranks, different ages, different sexes, were
carried up to the throne, praying, upon manifold grounds, but all
noticing the extreme doubtfulness of the case, for an unconditional
pardon. By whose advice or influence, it was guessed easily, though
never exactly ascertained, these petitions were unanimously, almost
contemptuously rejected. And to express the contempt of public opinion
as powerfully as possible, Agnes was sentenced by the court,
reassembled in full pomp, order, and ceremonial costume, to a
punishment the severest that the laws allowed--viz. hard labor for ten
years. The people raged more than ever; threats public and private were
conveyed to the ears of the minister chiefly concerned in the
responsibility, and who had indeed, by empty and ostentatious talking,
assumed that responsibility to himself in a way that was perfectly
needless.

Thus stood matters when I awoke to consciousness: and this was the
fatal journal of the interval--interval so long as measured by my