 often characterise that class. The lines
of her face were hard and rude, like that of persons accustomed to see without
sympathising in sights of misery. Her tone expressed her entire indifference;
she addressed me in English, and the voice struck me as one that I had heard
during my sufferings: -
    »Are you better now, sir?« said she.
    I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, »I believe I am; but if
it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am still alive to
feel this misery and horror.«
    »For that matter,« replied the old woman, »if you mean about the gentleman
you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you were dead, for I
fancy it will go hard with you! However, that's none of my business; I am sent
to nurse you, and get you well; I do my duty with a safe conscience; it were
well if every body did the same.«
    I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a speech
to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt languid, and
unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared
to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never
presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.
    As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew feverish;
a darkness pressed around me: no one was near me who soothed me with the gentle
voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The physician came and prescribed
medicines, and the old woman prepared them for me; but utter carelessness was
visible in the first, and the expression of brutality was strongly marked in the
visage of the second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the
hangman who would gain his fee?
    These were my first reflections; but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had
shown me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison to be
prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who had provided a
physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to see me; for, although he
ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of every human creature, he did not
wish to be present at the agonies and miserable ravings of a murderer. He came,
therefore, sometimes, to see that I was not neglected; but his
