lusion.

To this faint chance I now attached myself with a last effort of
desperation. Some clew might possibly be found in these papers to guide
my search, and my whole thoughts were now bent upon obtaining them.
With this object I sat down and wrote a few most respectful lines to the
minister, stating the nature of my request, and humbly excusing myself
for the intrusion on his attention. A week passed over,--a week of
almost starvation,--and yet no reply reached me. I now wrote again more
pressingly than before, adding that my circumstances did not admit
of delay, and that if, by any mischance, the papers had been lost or
mislaid, I still would entreat his Excellency's kindness to--I believe
I said recall what he could remember of these documents, and thus supply
the void left by their loss. This letter shared the same fate as my
former one. I wrote a third time, I knew not in what terms, for I wrote
late at night, after a day of mad and fevered impatience. I had fasted
for nigh two entire days. An intense thirst never ceased to torture me;
and as I wandered wildly here and there, my state alternated between
fits of cold shuddering, and a heat that seemed to be burning my very
vitals. The delusions of that terrible interval were, doubtless, the
precursors of actual madness. I bethought me of every torture I had ever
heard of,--of all the sufferings martyrdom had ever borne, but to which
death came at last as the comforter; but to me no such release seemed
possible. I felt as though I had done all that should invoke it.
"Want--sickness--suffering--despair,--are these not enough," I asked
myself,--"must guilt and self-murder be added to the terrible list?"
And it was, I remember, with a kind of triumphant pride I determined
against this. "If mankind reject me," said I,--"if they make of me an
outcast and a victim, on them shall lie all the shame and all the sin.
Enough for me the misery,--I will not have the infamy of my death!"

I have said I wrote a third letter; and to make sure of its coming to
hand, I walked with it to Hounslow. The journey occupied me more than
half the night, for it was day when I arrived. I delivered it into the
hands of a servant, and, saying that I should wait for the answer, I
sat down upon a stone bench beside the door. Overcome with fatigue,
and utterly exhausted, I fell off asleep,--a sound and, strange to say,
delicious sleep, with calm and pleasant dreams. From this I was aroused
by a