He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his
committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken
two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great
pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his
hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke
very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the
first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he
ought to hear.
Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after
the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities
of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for
his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a
determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else.
Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the
regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record
on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I
do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he
wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day
when the prison door closed upon him.
The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man
who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner
or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered
over the question whether he might have been a better man under better
circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that
way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.
It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate
reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on
him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with
a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small
redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child.
As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him
complain.
When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be
made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It
was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long,
and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the
bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting
close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he
stretched forth to me.