sman lay dead on the ground.

"My gun fell as it had been fired. 'Murderer,' I stammered out
slowly--the wood was as silent as a churchyard, and I could hear
plainly that I said 'murderer.' When I drew nearer, the man had died.
Long did I stand speechless before the corse, when a shrill burst of
laughter came as a relief. 'Will you keep counsel now, friend?' said
I, and boldly stepping up to the murdered man, I turned round his face
towards myself. His eyes were wide open. I was serious, and again
became suddenly still. An extraordinary feeling took possession of me.

"Hitherto I had sinned on account of my disgrace, but now something had
happened for which I had not yet atoned. An hour before, I think, no
man could have persuaded me that there was any thing under heaven worse
than myself, whereas, now I began to suspect that my condition an hour
before was, perhaps, an enviable one.

"God's judgments did not occur to me,--but I had a dim recollection of
sword and cord, and the execution of an infanticide which I saw while a
school-boy. There was something peculiarly terrible to me in the
thought that my life from this moment had become forfeit. More I do
not recollect. My first wish was that Robert was still living. I
endeavoured forcibly to recall to my mind all the wrong that the
deceased had done me during his life,--but strange to say, my memory
seemed to have perished. I could recall nothing of that, which a
quarter of an hour before had impelled me to madness. I did not
understand how I had been induced to commit this murder.

"I was yet standing by the corpse. The crack of some whips, and the
noise of carts, which were passing through the wood, brought me to my
senses. The deed had been committed scarcely a quarter of a mile from
the high road, and I was forced to think of my own safety.

"Unintentionally I strayed deeper into the wood. On the way, it struck
me that the deceased once possessed a watch. I needed money to reach
the border--and yet I lacked courage to return to the spot, where the
dead man lay. A thought of the devil and of an omnipotence of the
deity began to terrify me. However, I summoned all my audacity, and
resolved to set all hell at defiance. I returned to the place. I
found what I had expected, and also money amounting to rather more than
a dollar in a green purse. Just as I was about to put them both up, I
suddenly stopped, and began to reflect. It was no fit of