h the
whole of this conversation; but now it became more harsh and tempestuous
than ever. "How now, rascal!" cried he. "You want to leave me, do you?
Who told you that I wished to part with you? But you cannot bear to live
with such a miserable wretch as I am! You are not disposed to put up
with the caprices of a man so dissatisfied and unjust!"

"Oh, sir! do not talk to me thus! Do with me any thing you will. Kill me
if you please."

"Kill you!" [Volumes could not describe the emotions with which this
echo of my words was given and received.]

"Sir, I could die to serve you! I love you more than I can express. I
worship you as a being of a superior nature. I am foolish, raw,
inexperienced,--worse than any of these;--but never did a thought of
disloyalty to your service enter into my heart."

Here our conversation ended; and the impression it made upon my youthful
mind it is impossible to describe. I thought with astonishment, even
with rapture, of the attention and kindness towards me I discovered in
Mr. Falkland, through all the roughness of his manner. I could never
enough wonder at finding myself, humble as I was by my birth, obscure as
I had hitherto been, thus suddenly become of so much importance to the
happiness of one of the most enlightened and accomplished men in
England. But this consciousness attached me to my patron more eagerly
than ever, and made me swear a thousand times, as I meditated upon my
situation, that I would never prove unworthy of so generous a protector.

CHAPTER IV.

Is it not unaccountable that, in the midst of all my increased
veneration for my patron, the first tumult of my emotion was scarcely
subsided, before the old question that had excited my conjectures
recurred to my mind, Was he the murderer? It was a kind of fatal
impulse, that seemed destined to hurry me to my destruction. I did not
wonder at the disturbance that was given to Mr. Falkland by any
allusion, however distant, to this fatal affair. That was as completely
accounted for from the consideration of his excessive sensibility in
matters of honour, as it would have been upon the supposition of the
most atrocious guilt. Knowing, as he did, that such a charge had once
been connected with his name, he would of course be perpetually uneasy,
and suspect some latent insinuation at every possible opportunity. He
would doubt and fear, lest every man with whom he conversed harboured
the foulest suspicion against him.