Page:Adventures of Susan Hopley (Volume 1).pdf/231

216 and, but for the disgrace and horror of a public execution, he would have preferred death.

As he sauntered forwards in this mood, he kept almost insensibly bending his steps towards the river"there," thought he, as his eye glanced on the broad expanse, "there is a quiet bed where a man might sleep;"but then rose again the thought of his poor wifeit was so cowardly to desert herto leave her to weather the storm alone. But on the other hand, would she not ratherwould she not rather know him dead, and at rest, than see him dragged a prisoner from his home? Than behold him a culprit at the bar, a criminal at the scaffold! "If we could only escape togetherbut the thing's impossible without money and wouldn't this be the next best alternative for her interest, as well as for myself? She'd be deeply grievedbut time alleviates all grief when it's unaccompanied by remorse and how much better it were, than to drag her from her home, her country, her friends, to pass her life in an exile of poverty and wretchedness, with a husband disgraced and broken hearteda criminal escaped from justice!" Thus he reasoned, and every glance of the river