'It was necessary that his wife's body should be removed from
the prison, without delay. He received the communication with
perfect calmness, and acquiesced in its propriety. Nearly all the
inmates of the prison had assembled to witness its removal; they
fell back on either side when the widower appeared; he walked
hurriedly forward, and stationed himself, alone, in a little railed
area close to the lodge gate, from whence the crowd, with an
instinctive feeling of delicacy, had retired. The rude coffin was
borne slowly forward on men's shoulders. A dead silence pervaded
the throng, broken only by the audible lamentations of the
women, and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the stone pavement.
They reached the spot where the bereaved husband stood:
and stopped. He laid his hand upon the coffin, and mechanically
adjusting the pall with which it was covered, motioned them
onward. The turnkeys in the prison lobby took off their hats as it
passed through, and in another moment the heavy gate closed
behind it. He looked vacantly upon the crowd, and fell heavily to
the ground.
'Although for many weeks after this, he was watched, night
and day, in the wildest ravings of fever, neither the consciousness
of his loss, nor the recollection of the vow he had made, ever left
him for a moment.
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