University of Virginia Library

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 tranquillity 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 tranquillize 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 Wiatte.
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 door. I checked myself,
and once more turned my steps homeward.

This seemed to be a hint for entering into new reflections.
The deed, said I, is irretrievable. 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. A 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 rancor
and reproach the fair fame of fidelity.

He was her brother still. As a 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
rumor 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
a mong 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 honor. 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 rumor.
Why? Because nothing less than indubitable evidence would
suffice to convince her? Because the counter-intimation
flowed from an infallible 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 bet.
She will shrink, and swoon, and perish at the news!

Fond and short-sighted wretch! This is the price thoe
hast given for security. In the rashness of thy thought thoe
said'st, nothing is wanting but his death to restore us to
confidence and safety. Lo! the purchase is made. Havoc
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 irretrievable 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 clamors, and the
train of funeral pageantry. I seemed to have passed forwards
to a distant era of my life. The effects which were
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 phrenzy 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 harassed 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 insured the destruction of my lady.
At length my mind, somewhat relieved from the tempest of
my fears, began to trace and analyse 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

copartnerships 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 parlor 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. Appalled 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 hopelessness, 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 bedside. 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. Scowling 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 lineaments 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 emissary,
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 farther? 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
demon 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 imbrued 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
widely 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,
methought, be less than divinity.

The first glance that I darted on this being corroborated
my conjecture. It was the figure and lineaments of Mrs.
Lorimer. Negligently 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
meditated as the dictate 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 demon, 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 wo. The self
destroyer is his own enemy, this has ever been my opinion.
Hitherto it has influenced my actions. 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 labors, 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 sooth 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 enforce 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 a high price.