You must
pay a price, ma'am, for his restoration--good again. The price is small,
and easy to be paid--dear ma'am, that's best of all."'
'What mockery is this?'
'Very likely, she may reply in those words. "No mockery at all," I
answer: "Madam, a person said to be your husband (identity is difficult
of proof after the lapse of many years) is in prison, his life in
peril--the charge against him, murder. Now, ma'am, your husband has been
dead a long, long time. The gentleman never can be confounded with him,
if you will have the goodness to say a few words, on oath, as to when he
died, and how; and that this person (who I am told resembles him in some
degree) is no more he than I am. Such testimony will set the question
quite at rest. Pledge yourself to me to give it, ma' am, and I will
undertake to keep your son (a fine lad) out of harm's way until you have
done this trifling service, when he shall be delivered up to you, safe
and sound. On the other hand, if you decline to do so, I fear he will be
betrayed, and handed over to the law, which will assuredly sentence him
to suffer death. It is, in fact, a choice between his life and death. If
you refuse, he swings.
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