Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker/Chapter 8
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 tranquillise 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 result 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 rancour 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 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 burden 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 shown 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 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 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 saidst—'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 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 realised— 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 frenzy 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 ensured 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 subtilty 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 corpse? 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 suite of rooms occupied by the lady of the mansion. The first was an antechamber, 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 a 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 antechamber 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 not 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 car. At length, shaking off the fetters of h0pelessness, 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. Then 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 recompence that I have made?—how have I discharged the measureless debt of gratitude to which she is entitled? Thus
"'Cannot my guilt he 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: 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 enquire. 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.
"Oh 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 the 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 recognise Clarice herself!
"Three days before, I had left her beside the bed of a dying friend, at a solitary mansion in the mountains of Donegal: 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 the 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 terminate 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, wrapped her bosom and face in the bedclothes, 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 for ever 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 for ever.
"At length Mrs. Lorimer, 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 Mrs. Lorimer, with new vehemence: 'Oh, 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! Oh, cursed chance, that hindered thee from killing me also! Dead!—then is the omen fulfilled!—then am I undone! lost for ever!'
"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 re-appearance 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 for ever: 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, and 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 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 for ever 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 made no part of my contemplations; I was not embarrassed by the choice of expedients for trammelling up the visible consequences, and for eluding suspicion. The idea of abjuring my country, and flying for ever from the hateful scene, partook, to my apprehension, of the vast, the boundless, and the 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 farther; 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 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 to 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 enforce it.
"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."