Dick's voice failed suddenly; what use to torture the unhappy wife of the regicide with the story of his trial and condemnation?  He could not convey to her the intrepid composure, the exulting pride with which Harrison justified the deed for which he was arraigned.  Mrs. Harrison asked no question, she did not even answer his words; for a moment she doubted if she had heard him; but then she spoke: spoke with a calmness that startled him till he realized that she dreamt even yet that her husband might escape, and was too completely absorbed in devising schemes for his deliverance to have time to realize her own misery or measure her own powerlessness.