human
What is her number? the priest asked, while the governor by his side bent down and twitched at her coarse prison cloak, which she had drawn close round her shoulders and the lower part of her face, thereby probably to conceal the latter.
gpt
What is her number? Let us see,
human
muttered the chaplain, referring to the paper in his hand and, after that, to a small memorandum book he drew from beneath his cassock.
gpt
Then, after reading from the book for a few moments, he turned to the rejected suitor and said:
human
Young man, you do not lose much. She is almost the worst, if not the worst, of all in the list--she is----
gpt
She may reform--and--and--you see? She is beautiful.
human
I see, murmured the chaplain,
gpt
Oh as for that, the fellow stammered,
human
Precisely. Wherefore you helped yourself. Yet you were an innocent beside this woman whom you now seek to wed. An innocent! She was affianced to a rich man of illustrious family. On the day that was to witness their wedding, on that very day she jilted him and married an English vagabond--a swindler--who, report says, shortly deserted her. But before he did so, they inveigled the one who should have been her husband to their dwelling at night on some vile pretence, and then attempted to strangle him, she doing the deed herself with those hands, and he pointed to the thin white hands of the woman which held the coarse hood about her face. While he continued:
gpt
Her victim was found almost throttled at her feet--the exempts swore to it--part of his cravat was in her hand when they rushed in. My man, you are well free of the creature, even if you could by law have wedded her, which is doubtful. The brigand, her husband, may be still alive, plundering, robbing elsewhere.