University of Virginia Library

35. XXXV.
DELIVERANCE.

And now Abel Dane was summoned from the prison
workshop. In his bi-colored convict's cap and coat and
trousers, — one-half the man from head to heel blue,
the other half red; one side the hue of despondency,
the other the tint of shame, — forth he came, curious
to know what was wanted. Following the warden, he
crossed the prison-yard, ascended the steps he had
descended on his arrival thither, and entered once more
the room he had passed through when he left all hope
behind; — so changed, since then, that she who waited
for him there did not know him, but took him for some
other.

But he knew her in an instant. And at the first
sound of his voice, at a look out of those deep, glad
eyes, she recognized, in the grotesque wight before her,
the transformed manhood of Abel.

How they met; how she revealed to him the cause
of her coming, and put with her own hands into his the
governor's pardon; and he knew that he was raised
from the dead, and that she, his best-beloved was also
his deliverer; — I am aware what a moving scene

might be made of all this. But enough, — our story
draws to a close.

Abel was taken in charge by the warden for the last
time. The clothes he put off at his entrance into prison
were restored to him; and he left behind his convict's
costume, for the benefit of some sad successor. Then
he rejoined Eliza; and they quitted the prison together.

But it was all like a dream to him yet. Explanations
were needed to relieve his uncertainty and suspense.
And as they walked the street together, and he tasted
with her the sweet air of liberty, and knew that his
brief, terrible nightmare of prison life was indeed
shaken off, she told him how his redemption had been
achieved.

Abel was troubled. In the midst of his gratitude and
joy he was grieved for Faustina. She was his wife
still. “And I had hoped,” — he began.

“I know what you hoped,” Eliza tenderly replied.
“And I know — we all know — you have done everything
for her a hero and Christian could do. But in
vain. And, Abel, she is no longer your wife.”

“True! true!” said Abel. “By God's law, may-be,
she is not. But man's laws, — they are different, — I
must abide by them.”

He said this with a great sigh; hoping perhaps for
some word of comforting assurance from Eliza. She
too was agitated. She could hardly control her voice
to answer him.

“Yes, Abel. You must — you will be willing to submit,
I think. But the law, — human law, — what strange,
strange things it is sometimes made to do! Abel, I
have brought this to show you.” And she gave him the
governor's newspaper, putting her finger on the paragraph
his Excellency had pointed out to her.

Abel read as they walked the street. It was a notice
of divorces granted; among which was one to Faustina
Dane, from her husband, Abel Dane. “Cause —
state-prison.”

Grief and indignation convulsed him a moment.

“The injustice of it, Eliza! — I in prison for her
fault! — and this after all her promises! O Faustina!
selfish and impulsive! foolish and false! Thank Heaven,
it is she that has done this, and not I!”

So saying, with a deep breath of the pure electric air,
a sense of relief, a new sense of freedom, and of something
deeply and divinely great and glad, entered into
him. Eliza perceived it.

“Yes, Abel; it is better. And oh, is it not wonderful,
that God often makes those who would injure us
the agents of our good! Oh, let us trust him, let us
trust him always!”

But even as she spoke, a shadow as of a brooding
fatality fell upon them both. Not from the prison of
stone alone, but also from the bondage of a false marriage,
Abel saw himself, this day, as it were miraculously
delivered. And he could see how Tasso's meanness,
and Mrs. Apjohn's spite, and Faustina's perfidy, — how

all his misfortunes, even that which had seemed the
greatest, — had tended steadily, by sure degrees, to this
consummation. And here he was, a free man, superior
to disaster and disgrace, walking by the side of the
woman he loved, and to whom he owed his rescue;
and she, — her work was now done, and nothing remained
but for her to go and bless the husband who had
been so long waiting for her, in the home he had proffered,
and which she had promised to accept.