Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret.
(b) It is false itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself: it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth.
The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him. And, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost
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