University of Virginia Library

8. EDGAR HUNTLY.
CHAPTER VIII.

Till now my mind had been
swayed by the urgencies of this occasion.
These reflections were excluded, which
rushed tumultuously upon me, the moment
I was at leisure to receive them.
Without foresight of a previous moment,
an entire change had been wrought in
my condition.

I had been oppressed with a sense of
the danger that flowed from the existence
of this man. By what means the
peril could be annihilated, and we be
placed in security from his attempts, no
efforts of mind could suggest. To devise

these means, and employ them with success,
demanded, as I conceived, the most
powerful sagacity and the firmest courage.
Now the danger was no more.
The intelligence in which plans of mischief
might be generated, was extinguished
or flown. Lifeless were the
hands ready to execute the dictates of
that intelligence. The contriver of enormous
evil, was, in one moment, bereft of
the power and the will to injure. Our
past tranquility had been owing to the
belief of his death. Fear and dismay
had resumed their dominion when the
mistake was discovered. But now we
might regain possession of our wonted
confidence. I had beheld with my own
eyes the lifeless corpse of our implacable
adversary. Thus, in a moment, had
terminated his long and flagitious career.
His restless indignation, his malignant
projects, that had so long occupied the
stage, and been so fertile of calamity,
were now at an end!

In the course of my meditations, the
idea of the death of this man had occurred,
and it bore the appearance of a desirable
event. Yet it was little qualified
to tranquilise my fears. In the long
catalogue of contingencies, this, indeed,
was to be found; but it was as little
likely to happen as any other. It could
not happen without a series of anterior
events paving the way for it. If his death
came from us, it must be the theme of
design. It must spring from laborious
circumvention and deep laid stratagems.

No. He was dead. I had killed him.
What had I done? I had meditated
nothing. I was impelled by an unconscious
necessity. Had the assailant been
my father the consequence would have
been the same. My understanding had
been neutral. Could it be? In a space

so short, was it possible that so tremendous
a deed had been executed? Was I
not deceived by some portentous vision?
I had witnessed the convulsions and last
agonies of Wyatte. He was no more,
and I was his destroyer!

Such was the state of my mind for
some time after this dreadful event. Previously
to it I was calm, considerate, and
self-collected. I marked the way that I
was going. Passing objects were observed.
If I adverted to the series of
my own reflections, my attention was not
seized and fastened by them. I could
disengage myself at pleasure, and could
pass, without difficulty, from attention
to the world within, to the contemplation
of that without.

Now my liberty, in this respect, was
at an end. I was fettered, confounded,
smitten with excess of thought, and laid
prostrate with wonder! I no longer

attended to my steps. When I emerged
from my stupor, I found that I had
trodden back the way which I had lately
come, and had arrived within sight of
the banker's boor. I checked myself,
and once more turned my steps homeward.

This seemed to be an hint for entering
into new reflections. The deed,
said I, is irretreivable. I have killed the
brother of my patroness, the father of
my love.

This suggestion was new. It instantly
involved me in terror and perplexity.
How shall I communicate the tidings?
What effect will they produce? My
lady's sagacity is obscured by the benevolence
of her temper. Her brother was
sordidly wicked. An hoary ruffian, to
whom the language of pity was as unintelligible
as the gabble of monkeys. His
heart was fortified against compunction,

by the atrocious habits of forty years:
he lived only to interrupt her peace, to
confute the promises of virtue, and convert
to rancour and reproach the fair
fame of fidelity.

He was her brother still. As an
human being, his depravity was never
beyond the health-restoring power of
repentance. His heart, so long as it
beat, was accessible to remorse. The
singularity of his birth had made her
regard this being as more intimately her
brother, than would have happened in
different circumstances. It was her obstinate
persuasion that their fates were
blended. The rumour of his death she
had never credited. It was a topic of
congratulation to her friends, but of
mourning and distress to her. That he
would one day reappear upon the stage,
and assume the dignity of virtue, was a

source of consolation with which she
would never consent to part.

Her character was now known.
When the doom of exile was pronounced
upon him, she deemed it incumbent on
her to vindicate herself from aspersions
founded on misconceptions of her motives
in refusing her interference. The
manuscript, though unpublished, was
widely circulated. None could resist
her simple and touching eloquence, nor
rise from the perusal without resigning
his heart to the most impetuous impulses
of admiration, and enlisting himself
among the eulogists of her justice and
her fortitude. This was the only monument,
in a written form, of her genius.
As such it was engraven on my memory.
The picture that it described was the
perpetual companion of my thoughts.

Alas! It had, perhaps, been well for
me if it had been buried in eternal oblivion.
I read in it the condemnation of
my deed, the agonies she was preparing
to suffer, and the indignation that would
overflow upon the author of so signal a
calamity.

I had rescued my life by the sacrifice
of his. Whereas I should have
died. Wretched and precipitate coward!
What had become of my boasted gratitude?
Such was the zeal that I had vowed
to her. Such the services which it was
the business of my life to perform. I
had snatched her brother from existence.
I had torn from her the hope which she
so ardently and indefatigably cherished.
From a contemptible and dastardly regard
to my own safety I had failed in
the moment of trial, and when called
upon by heaven to evince the sincerity
of my professions.

She had treated my professions lightly.
My vows of eternal devotion she
had rejected with lofty disinterestedness.
She had arraigned my impatience of obligation
as criminal, and condemned every
scheme I had projected for freeing myself
from the burthen which her beneficence
had laid upon me. The impassioned and
vehement anxiety with which, in former
days, she had deprecated the vengeance of
her lover against Wiatte, rung in my ears.
My senses were shocked anew by the
dreadful sounds “Touch not my brother.
Wherever you meet with him, of whatever
outrage he be guilty, suffer him to
pass in safety. Despise me: abandon
me: kill me. All this I can bear even
from you, but spare, I implore you, my
unhappy brother. The stroke that deprives
him of life will not only have the
same effect upon me, but will set my
portion in everlasting misery.”

To these supplications I had been
deaf. It is true I had not rushed upon
him unarmed, intending no injury nor
expecting any. Of that degree of wickedness
I was, perhaps, incapable. Alas!
I have immersed myself sufficiently deep
in crimes. I have trampled under foot
every motive dear to the heart of honour.
I have shewn myself unworthy the society
of men.

Such were the turbulent suggestions
of that moment. My pace slackened.
I stopped and was obliged to support
myself against a wall. The sickness
that had seized my heart penetrated
every part of my frame. There was
but one thing wanting to complete my
distraction...My lady, said I, believed her
fate to be blended with that of Wiatte.
Who shall affirm that the persuasion is
a groundless one. She had lived and
prospered, notwithstanding the general

belief that her brother was dead. She
would not hearken to the rumour. Why?
Because nothing less than indubitable
evidence would suffice to convince her?
Because the counter-intimation flowed
from an infalible source? How can the
latter supposition be confuted? Has she
not predicted the event?

The period of terrible fulfilment has
arrived. The same blow that bereaved
him of life, has likewise ratified her
doom.

She has been deceived. It is nothing
more, perhaps, than a fond imagination
...It matters not. Who knows not the
cogency of faith? That the pulses of
life are at the command of the will? The
bearer of these tidings will be the messenger
of death. A fatal sympathy will
seize her. She will shrink, and swoon,
and perish at the news!

Fond and short-sighted wretch! This
is the price thou hast given for security.
In the rashness of thy thought thou
said'st, Nothing is wanting but his death
to restore us to confidence and safety.
Lo! the purchase is made. Havock
and despair, that were restrained during
his life, were let loose by his last sigh.
Now only is destruction made sure. Thy
lady, thy Clarice, thy friend, and thyself,
are, by this act, involved in irretreivable
and common ruin!

I started from my attitude. I was
scarcely conscious of any transition. The
interval was fraught with stupor and
amazement. It seemed as if my senses
had been hushed in sleep, while the
powers of locomotion were unconsciously
exerted to bear me to my chamber.
By whatever means the change
was effected, there I was...

I have been able to proceed thus far.
I can scarcely believe the testimony of
my memory that assures me of this. My
task is almost executed, but whence shall
I obtain strength enough to finish it?
What I have told is light as gossamer,
compared with the insupportable and
crushing horrors of that which is to
come. Heaven, in token of its vengeance,
will enable me to proceed. It
is fitting that my scene should thus
close.

My fancy began to be infected with
the errors of my understanding. The
mood into which my mind was plunged
was incapable of any propitious intermission.
All within me was tempestuous
and dark. My ears were accessible
to no sounds but those of shrieks and
lamentations. It was deepest midnight,
and all the noises of a great metropolis
were hushed. Yet I listened as if to

catch some strain of the dirge that was
begun. Sable robes, sobs and a dreary
solemnity encompassed me on all sides.
I was haunted to despair by images of
death, imaginary clamours, and the train
of funeral pageantry. I seemed to have
passed forward to a distant era of my
life. The effects which were to come
were already realized. The foresight
of misery created it, and set me in the
midst of that hell which I feared.

From a paroxysm like this the worst
might reasonably be dreaded, yet the
next step to destruction was not suddenly
taken. I paused on the brink of the
precipice, as if to survey the depth of
that phrensy that invaded me; was able
to ponder on the scene, and deliberate,
in a state that partook of calm, on the
circumstances of my situation. My mind
was harrassed by the repetition of one
idea. Conjecture deepened into certainty.

I could place the object in no
light which did not corroborate the
persuasion that, in the act committed, I
had ensured the destruction of my lady.
At length my mind, somewhat relieved
from the tempest of my fears, began to
trace and analize the consequences
which I dreaded.

The fate of Wiatte would inevitably
draw along with it that of his sister. In
what way would this effect be produced?
Were they linked together by a sympathy
whose influence was independent
of sensible communication? Could she
arrive at a knowledge of his miserable
end by other than verbal means? I had
heard of such extraordinary co-partnerships
in being and modes of instantaneous
intercourse among beings locally
distant. Was this a new instance of
the subtlety of mind? Had she already

endured his agonies, and like him already
ceased to breathe.

Every hair bristled at this horrible
suggestion. But the force of sympathy
might be chimerical. Buried in sleep,
or engaged in careless meditation, the
instrument by which her destiny might
be accomplished, was the steel of an
assassin. A series of events, equally
beyond the reach of foresight, with those
which had just happened, might introduce,
with equal abruptness, a similar
disaster. What, at that moment, was
her condition? Reposing in safety in
her chamber, as her family imagined.
But were they not deceived? Was she
not a mangled corse? Whatever were
her situation, it could not be ascertained,
except by extraordinary means, till the
morning. Was it wise to defer the scrutiny
till then? Why not instantly investigate
the truth?

These ideas passed rapidly through
my mind. A considerable portion of
time and amplification of phrase are
necessary to exhibit, verbally, ideas contemplated
in a space of incalculable brevity.
With the same rapidity I conceived
the resolution of determining the truth
of my suspicions. All the family, but
myself, were at rest. Winding passages
would conduct me, without danger of
disturbing them, to the hall from which
double staircases ascended. One of these
led to a saloon above, on the east side
of which was a door that communicated
with a suit of rooms, occupied by the
lady of the mansion. The first was an
antichamber, in which a female servant
usually lay. The second was the lady's
own bed-chamber. This was a sacred
recess, with whose situation, relative to
the other apartments of the building, I
was well acquainted, but of which I

knew nothing from my own examination,
having never been admitted into it.

Thither I was now resolved to repair.
I was not deterred by the sanctity of the
place and hour. I was insensible to all
consequences but the removal of my
doubts. Not that my hopes were balanced
by my fears. That the same tragedy
had been performed in her chamber and
in the street, nothing hindered me from
believing with as much cogency as if my
own eyes had witnessed it, but the reluctance
with which we admit a detestable
truth.

To terminate a state of intolerable
suspense, I resolved to proceed forthwith
to her chamber. I took the light and
paced, with no interruption, along the
galleries. I used no precaution. If I
had met a servant or robber, I am not
sure that I should have noticed him.
My attention was too perfectly engrossed

to allow me to spare any to a casual
object. I cannot affirm that no one observed
me. This, however, was probable
from the distribution of the dwelling.
It consisted of a central edifice and two
wings, one of which was appropriated to
domestics, and the other, at the extremity
of which my apartment was placed,
comprehended a library, and rooms for
formal, and social, and literary conferences.
These, therefore, were deserted
at night, and my way lay along these.
Hence it was not likely that my steps
would be observed.

I proceeded to the hall. The principal
parlour was beneath her chamber.
In the confusion of my thoughts I mistook
one for the other. I rectified, as
soon as I detected my mistake. I ascended,
with a beating heart, the staircase.
The door of the antichamber was unfastened.

I entered, totally regardless of
disturbing the girl who slept within. The
bed which she occupied was concealed
by curtains. Whether she were there,
I did not stop to examine. I cannot
recollect that any tokens were given of
wakefulness or alarm. It was not till I
reached the door of her own apartment
that my heart began to falter.

It was now that the momentousness of
the question I was about to decide, rushed
with its genuine force, upon my apprehension.
Appaled and aghast, I had
scarcely power to move the bolt. If the
imagination of her death was not to be
supported, how should I bear the spectacle
of wounds and blood? Yet this
was reserved for me. A few paces
would set me in the midst of a scene, of
which I was the abhorred contriver.
Was it right to proceed? There were
still the remnants of doubt. My forebodings

might possibly be groundless.
All within might be safety and serenity.
A respite might be gained from the execution
of an irrevocable sentence. What
could I do? Was not any thing easy to
endure in comparison with the agonies
of suspense? If I could not obviate the
evil I must bear it, but the torments of
suspense were susceptible of remedy.

I drew back the bolt, and entered
with the reluctance of fear, rather than
the cautiousness of guilt. I could not
lift my eyes from the ground. I advanced
to the middle of the room. Not a
sound like that of the dying saluted my
ear. At length, shaking off the fetters
of hopelesness, I looked up....

I saw nothing calculated to confirm
my fears. Every where there reigned
quiet and order. My heart leaped with
exultation. Can it be, said I, that I have

been betrayed with shadows?....But this
is not sufficient....

Within an alcove was the bed that
belonged to her. If her safety were inviolate,
it was here that she reposed.
What remained to convert tormenting
doubt into ravishing certainty? I was
insensible to the perils of my present
situation. If she, indeed, were there,
would not my intrusion awaken her?
She would start and perceive me, at this
hour, standing at her bed-side. How
should I account for an intrusion so unexampled
and audacious? I could not
communicate my fears. I could not tell
her that the blood with which my hands
were stained had flowed from the wounds
of her brother.

My mind was inaccessible to such
considerations. They did not even modify
my predominant idea. Obstacles

like these, had they existed, would have
been trampled under foot.

Leaving the lamp, that I bore, on
the table, I approached the bed. I
slowly drew aside the curtain and beheld
her tranquilly slumbering. I listened,
but so profound was her sleep
that not even her breathings could be
overheard. I dropped the curtain and
retired.

How blissful and mild were the illuminations
of my bosom at this discovery.
A joy that surpassed all utterance succeeded
the fierceness of desperation. I
stood, for some moments, wrapt in delightful
contemplation. Alas! It was a luminous
but transient interval. The madness,
to whose black suggestions it
bore so strong a contrast, began now
to make sensible approaches on my
understanding.

True, said I, she lives. Her slumber
is serene and happy. She is blind to
her approaching destiny. Some hours
will at least be rescued from anguish
and death. When she wakes the phantom
that soothed her will vanish. The
tidings cannot be withheld from her.
The murderer of thy brother cannot
hope to enjoy thy smiles. Those ravishing
accents, with which thou hast used
to greet me, will be changed. Scouling
and reproaches, the invectives of thy
anger and the maledictions of thy justice
will rest upon my head.

What is the blessing which I made
the theme of my boastful arrogance?
This interval of being and repose is
momentary. She will awake but only
to perish at the spectacle of my ingratitude.
She will awake only to the consciousness
of instantly impending death.
When she again sleeps she will wake no

more. I her son, I, whom the law of
my birth doomed to poverty and hardship,
but whom her unsolicited beneficence
snatched from those evils, and
endowed with the highest good known
to intelligent beings, the consolations of
science and the blandishments of affluence;
to whom the darling of her life,
the offspring in whom are faithfully preserved
the linaments of its angelic
mother, she has not denied!....What is
the recompense that I have made? How
have I discharged the measureless debt
of gratitude to which she is entitled?
Thus!....

Cannot my guilt be extenuated? Is
there not a good that I can do thee?
Must I perpetrate unmingled evil? Is
the province assigned me that of an infernal
emisary, whose efforts are concentred
in a single purpose and that
purpose a malignant one? I am the

author of thy calamities. Whatever
misery is reserved for thee, I am the
source whence it flows. Can I not set
bounds to the stream? Cannot I prevent
thee from returning to a consciousness
which, till it ceases to exist, will not cease
to be rent and mangled?

Yes. It is in my power to screen
thee from the coming storm: to accelerate
thy journey to rest. I will do it....

The impulse was not to be resisted.
I moved with the suddenness of lightning.
Armed with a pointed implement
that lay....it was a dagger. As I set
down the lamp, I struck the edge. Yet
I saw it not, or noticed it not till I needed
its assistance. By what accident it came
hither, to what deed of darkness it had
already been subservient, I had no power
to inquire. I stepped to the table and
seized it.

The time which this action required
was insufficient to save me. My doom
was ratified by powers which no human
energies can counterwork....Need I go
father? Did you entertain any imagination
of so frightful a catastrophe? I am
overwhelmed by turns with dismay and
with wonder. I am prompted by turns
to tear my heart from my breast, and
deny faith to the verdict of my senses.

Was it I that hurried to the deed?
No. It was the dæmon that possessed
me. My limbs were guided to the bloody
office by a power foreign and superior
to mine. I had been defrauded, for a
moment, of the empire of my muscles.
A little moment for that sufficed.

If my destruction had not been decreed
why was the image of Clarice so
long excluded? Yet why do I say long?
The fatal resolution was conceived, and
I hastened to the execution, in a period

too brief for more than itself to be viewed
by the intellect.

What then? Were my hands embrued
in this precious blood? Was it to
this extremity of horror that my evil
genius was determined to urge me? Too
surely this was his purpose; too surely I
was qualified to be its minister.

I lifted the weapon. Its point was
aimed at the bosom of the sleeper. The
impulse was given....

At the instant a piercing shriek was
uttered behind me, and a stretched-out
hand, grasping the blade, made it swerve
widley from its aim. It descended, but
without inflicting a wound. Its force was
spent upon the bed.

O! for words to paint that stormy
transition! I loosed my hold of the dagger.
I started back, and fixed eyes of
frantic curiosity on the author of my
rescue. He that interposed to arrest my

deed, that started into being and activity
at a moment so pregnant with fate, without
tokens of his purpose or his coming
being previously imparted, could not, me-thought,
be less than divinity.

The first glance that I darted on this
being corroborated my conjecture. It
was the figure and the linaments of
Mrs. Lorimer. Neglegently habited in
flowing and brilliant white, with features
bursting with terror and wonder,
the likeness of that being who was
stretched upon the bed, now stood before
me.

All that I am able to conceive of angel
was comprised in the moral constitution
of this woman. That her genius had
overleaped all bounds, and interposed to
save her, was no audacious imagination.
In the state in which my mind then was
no other belief than this could occupy the
first place.

My tongue was tied. I gazed by turns
upon her who stood before me, and her
who lay upon the bed, and who, awakened
by the shriek that had been uttered, now
opened her eyes. She started from her
pillow, and, by assuming a new and more
distinct attitude, permitted me to recognize
Clarice herself!

Three days before, I had left her,
beside the bed of a dying friend, at a
solitary mansion in the mountains of
Donnegal. Here it had been her resolution
to remain till her friend should
breathe her last. Fraught with this persuasion;
knowing this to be the place
and hour of repose of my lady, hurried
forward by the impetuosity of my own
conceptions, deceived by the faint gleam
which penetrated through the curtain
and imperfectly irradiated features which
bore, at all times, a powerful resemblance

to those of Mrs. Lorimer, I had rushed
to the brink of this terrible precipice!

Why did I linger on the verge?
Why, thus perilously situated, did I not
throw myself headlong? The steel was
yet in my hand. A single blow would
have pierced my heart, and shut out
from my remembrance and foresight the
past and the future?

The moment of insanity had gone
by, and I was once more myself. Instead
of regarding the act which I had
mediatated as the dietate of compassion
or of justice, it only added to the sum
of my ingratitude, and gave wings to the
whirlwind that was sent to bear me to
perdition.

Perhaps I was influenced by a sentiment
which I had not leisure to distribute
into parts. My understanding was, no
doubt, bewildered in the maze of consequences

which would spring from my act.
How should I explain my coming hither
in this murderous guise, my arm lifted
to destroy the idol of my soul, and the
darling child of my patroness? In what
words should I unfold the tale of Wiatte,
and enumerate the motives that terminated
in the present scene? What penalty
had not my infatuation and cruelty
deserved? What could I less than turn
the dagger's point against my own bosom?

A second time, the blow was thwarted
and diverted. Once more this beneficent
interposer held my arm from the perpetration
of a new iniquity. Once more
frustrated the instigations of that dæmon,
of whose malice a mysterious destiny had
consigned me to be the sport and the
prey.

Every new moment added to the sum
of my inexpiable guilt. Murder was

succeeded, in an instant, by the more
detestable enormity of suicide. She, to
whom my ingratitude was flagrant in
proportion to the benefits of which she
was the author, had now added to her
former acts, that of rescuing me from
the last of mischiefs.

I threw the weapon on the floor.
The zeal which prompted her to seize
my arm, this action occasioned to subside,
and to yield place to those emotions
which this spectacle was calculated to
excite. She watched me in silence, and
with an air of ineffable solicitude. Clarice,
governed by the instinct of modesty,
wrapt her bosom and face in the bed-clothes,
and testified her horror by vehement,
but scarcely articulate exclamations.

I moved forward, but my steps were
random and tottering. My thoughts
were fettered by reverie, and my gesticulations

destitute of meaning. My
tongue faltered without speaking, and I
felt as if life and death were struggling
within me for the mastery.

My will, indeed, was far from being
neutral in this contest. To such as I,
annihilation is the supreme good. To
shake off the ills that fasten on us by
shaking off existence, is a lot which the
system of nature has denied to man. By
escaping from life, I should be delivered
from this scene, but should only
rush into a world of retribution, and be
immersed in new agonies.

I was yet to live. No instrument of
my deliverance was within reach. I
was powerless. To rush from the presence
of these women, to hide me forever
from their scrutiny, and their upbraiding,
to snatch from their minds all traces of
the existence of Clithero, was the scope
of unutterable longings.

Urged to flight by every motive of
which my nature was susceptible, I
was yet rooted to the spot. Had the
pause been only to be interrupted by me,
it would have lasted forever.

At length, the lady, clasping her
hands and lifting them, exclaimed, in a
tone melting into pity and grief:

Clithero! what is this? How came
you hither and why?

I struggled for utterance: I came to
murder you. Your brother has perished
by my hands. Fresh from the commission
of this deed, I have hastened
hither, to perpetrate the same crime
upon you.

My brother! replied the lady, with
new vehemence, O! say not so! I have
just heard of his return from Sarsefield
and that he lives.

He is dead, repeated I, with fierceness:
I know it. It was I that killed him.

Dead! she faintly articulated, And
by thee Clithero? O! cursed chance
that hindered thee from killing me also!
Dead! Then is the omen fulfilled!
Then am I undone! Lost forever!

Her eyes now wandered from me,
and her countenance sunk into a wild and
rueful expression. Hope was utterly extinguished
in her heart, and life forsook
her at the same moment. She sunk upon
the floor pallid and breathless....

How she came into possession of this
knowledge I know not. It is possible
that Sarsefield had repented of concealment,
and, in the interval that passed
between our separation and my encounter
with Wiatte, had returned, and informed
her of the reappearance of this
miscreant

Thus then was my fate consummated.
I was rescued from destroying her by a
dagger, only to behold her perish by the
tidings which I brought. Thus was
every omen of mischief and misery fulfilled.
Thus was the enmity of Wiatte,
rendered efficacious, and the instrument
of his destruction, changed into the executioner
of his revenge.

Such is the tale of my crimes. It is
not for me to hope that the curtain of oblivion
will ever shut out the dismal spectacle.
It will haunt me forever. The
torments that grow out of it, can terminate
only with the thread of my existence,
but that I know full well will never end.
Death is but a shifting of the scene, and
the endless progress of eternity, which, to
the good, is merely the perfection of felicity,
is, to the wicked, an accumulation
of woe. The self-destroyer is his own
enemy. this has ever been my opinion.

Hitherto it has influenced my action.
Now, though the belief continues, its
influence on my conduct is annihilated.
I am no stranger to the depth of that
abyss, into which I shall plunge. No matter.
Change is precious for its own sake.

Well: I was still to live. My abode
must be somewhere fixed. My conduct
was henceforth the result of a perverse
and rebellious principle. I banished myself
forever from my native soil. I vowed
never more to behold the face of my
Clarice, to abandon my friends, my
books, all my wonted labours, and
accustomed recreations.

I was neither ashamed nor afraid. I
considered not in what way the justice of
the country would affect me. It merely
made no part of my contemplations. I
was not embarrassed by the choice of
expedients, for trammeling up the visible
consequences and for eluding suspicion.

The idea of abjuring my country,
and flying forever from the hateful scene,
partook, to my apprehension, of the vast,
the boundless, and strange: of plunging
from the height of fortune to obscurity
and indigence, corresponded with my
present state of mind. It was of a piece
with the tremendous and wonderful
events that had just happened.

These were the images that haunted
me, while I stood speechlessly gazing at
the ruin before me. I heard a noise from
without, or imagined that I heard it. My
reverie was broken, and my muscular
power restored. I descended into the
street, through doors of which I possessed
one set of keys, and hurried by
the shortest way beyond the precincts of
the city. I had laid no plan. My conceptions,
with regard to the future, were
shapeless and confused. Successive incidents
supplied me with a clue, and

suggested, as they rose, the next step to
be taken.

I threw off the garb of affluence, and
assumed a beggar's attire. That I had
money about me for the accomplishment
of my purposes was wholly accidental. I
travelled along the coast, and when I
arrived at one town, knew not why I
should go further; but my restlessness
was unabated, and change was some relief.
I at length arrived at Belfast. A vessel
was preparing for America. I embraced
eagerly the opportunity of passing into a
new world. I arrived at Philadelphia.
As soon as I landed I wandered hither,
and was content to wear out my few
remaining days in the service of Inglefield.

I have no friends. Why should I
trust my story to another? I have no
solicitude about concealment; but who is
there who will derive pleasure or benefit

from my rehearsal? And why should I
expatiate on so hateful a theme? Yet now
have I consented to this. I have confided
in you the history of my disasters. I am
not fearful of the use that you may be disposed
to make of it. I shall quickly set
myself beyond the reach of human tribunals.
I shall relieve the ministers of law
from the trouble of punishing. The
recent events which induced you to summon
me to this conference, have likewise
determined me to make this disclosure.

I was not aware, for some time, of my
perturbed sleep. No wonder that sleep
cannot soothe miseries like mine: that I
am alike infested by memory in wakefulness
and slumber. Yet I was anew distressed
at the discovery that my thoughts
found their way to my lips, without my
being conscious of it, and that my steps

wandered forth unknowingly and without
the guidance of my will.

The story you have told is not incredible.
The disaster to which you allude
did not fail to excite my regret. I can
still weep over the untimely fall of youth
and worth. I can no otherwise account
for my frequenting this shade than by
the distant resemblance which the death
of this man bore to that of which I was
the perpetrator. This resemblance occurred
to me at first. If time were able
to weaken the impression which was produced
by my crime, this similitude was
adapted to revive and inforce them.

The wilderness, and the cave to
which you followed me, were familiar
to my sunday rambles. Often have I
indulged in audible griefs on the cliffs
of that valley. Often have I brooded
over my sorrows in the recesses of that
cavern. This scene is adapted to my

temper. Its mountainous asperities supply
me with images of desolation and
seclusion, and its headlong streams lull
me into temporary forgetfulness of mankind.

I comprehend you. You suspect me
of concern in the death of Waldegrave.
You could not do otherwise. The conduct
that you have witnessed was that
of a murderer. I will not upbraid you
for your suspicions, though I have
bought exemption from them at an
high price.