"
So saying, he departed, full of his generous intentions in favor of
Henry Wharton.
The sentence of the court was communicated, with proper tenderness, to
the prisoner; and after giving a few necessary instructions to the
officer in command, and dispatching a courier to headquarters with their
report, the remaining judges mounted, and rode to their own quarters,
with the same unmoved exterior, but with the consciousness of the same
dispassionate integrity, that they had maintained throughout the trial.
CHAPTER XXVII
Have you no countermand for Claudio yet,
But he must die to-morrow?
_--Measure for Measure._
A few hours were passed by the prisoner, after his sentence was
received, in the bosom of his family. Mr. Wharton wept in hopeless
despondency over the untimely fate of his son; and Frances, after
recovering from her insensibility, experienced an anguish of feeling to
which the bitterness of death itself would have been comparatively
light. Miss Peyton alone retained a vestige of hope, or presence of mind
to suggest what might be proper to be done under their circumstances.
The comparative composure of the good aunt arose in no degree from any
want of interest in the welfare of her nephew, but it was founded in a
kind of instinctive dependence on the character of Washington.
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