Hetty made an involuntary movement towards him, some
of the love that she had once lived in the midst of
was come near her again. She kept hold of Dinah’s
hand, but she went up to Adam and said timidly, “Will
you kiss me again, Adam, for all I’ve been so
wicked?”
Adam took the blanched wasted hand she put out to
him, and they gave each other the solemn unspeakable
kiss of a lifelong parting.
“And tell him,” Hetty said, in rather
a stronger voice, “tell him...for there’s
nobody else to tell him...as I went after him and couldn’t
find him...and I hated him and cursed him once...but
Dinah says I should forgive him...and I try...for
else God won’t forgive me.”
There was a noise at the door of the cell now—the
key was being turned in the lock, and when the door
opened, Adam saw indistinctly that there were several
faces there. He was too agitated to see more—even
to see that Mr. Irwine’s face was one of them.
He felt that the last preparations were beginning,
and he could stay no longer. Room was silently
made for him to depart, and he went to his chamber
in loneliness, leaving Bartle Massey to watch and
see the end.
The Last Moment
It was a sight that some people remembered better
even than their own sorrows—the sight in
that grey clear morning, when the fatal cart with
the two young women in it was descried by the waiting
watching multitude, cleaving its way towards the hideous
symbol of a deliberately inflicted sudden death.
All Stoniton had heard of Dinah Morris, the young
Methodist woman who had brought the obstinate criminal
to confess, and there was as much eagerness to see
her as to see the wretched Hetty.
But Dinah was hardly conscious of the multitude.
When Hetty had caught sight of the vast crowd in the
distance, she had clutched Dinah convulsively.
“Close your eyes, Hetty,” Dinah said,
“and let us pray without ceasing to God.”
And in a low voice, as the cart went slowly along
through the midst of the gazing crowd, she poured
forth her soul with the wrestling intensity of a last
pleading, for the trembling creature that clung to
her and clutched her as the only visible sign of love
and pity.
Dinah did not know that the crowd was silent, gazing
at her with a sort of awe—she did not even
know how near they were to the fatal spot, when the
cart stopped, and she shrank appalled at a loud shout
hideous to her ear, like a vast yell of demons.
Hetty’s shriek mingled with the sound, and they
clasped each other in mutual horror.
But it was not a shout of execration—not
a yell of exultant cruelty.
It was a shout of sudden excitement at the appearance
of a horseman cleaving the crowd at full gallop.
The horse is hot and distressed, but answers to the
desperate spurring; the rider looks as if his eyes
were glazed by madness, and he saw nothing but what
was unseen by others. See, he has something in
his hand—he is holding it up as if it were
a signal.
