many seconds. It was five minutes, perhaps--or, at the most, ten--from
the moment he came into the room to that when I finished him and was
caught red-handed. And I--what a long agony!

Oh, that I might once more dream a "true dream," and see my dear people
once more! But it seems that I have lost the power of dreaming true
since that fatal night. I try and try, but it will not come. My dreams
are dreadful; and, oh, the _waking_!

* * * * *

After all, my life hitherto, but for a few happy years of childhood, has
not been worth living; it is most unlikely that it ever would have been,
had I lived to a hundred! Oh, Mary! Mary!

* * * * *

And penal servitude! Better any death than that. It is good that my
secret must die with me--that there will be no extenuating
circumstances, no recommendation to mercy, no commutation of the swift
penalty of death.

"File, file... File sa corde au bourreau!"

By such monotonous thoughts, and others as dreary and hopeless,
recurring again and again in the same dull round, I beguiled the
terrible time that intervened between Ibbetson's death and my trial at
the Old Bailey.

It all seems very trivial and unimportant now--not worth