knowledge. Such however it was, as to admit neither of forgiveness nor
remission. This epoch was the crisis of my fate, dividing what may be
called the offensive part from the defensive, which has been the sole
business of my remaining years. Alas! my offence was short, not
aggravated by any sinister intention: but the reprisals I was to suffer
are long, and can terminate only with my life!

In the state in which I found myself, when the recollection of what I
had done flowed back upon my mind, I was incapable of any resolution.
All was chaos and uncertainty within me. My thoughts were too full of
horror to be susceptible of activity. I felt deserted of my intellectual
powers, palsied in mind, and compelled to sit in speechless expectation
of the misery to which I was destined. To my own conception I was like a
man, who, though blasted with lightning, and deprived for ever of the
power of motion, should yet retain the consciousness of his situation.
Death-dealing despair was the only idea of which I was sensible.

I was still in this situation of mind when Mr. Falkland sent for me. His
message roused me from my trance. In recovering, I felt those sickening
and loathsome sensations, which a man may be supposed at first to endure
who should return from the sleep of death. Gradually I recovered the
power of arranging my ideas and directing my steps. I understood, that
the minute the affair of the fire was over Mr. Falkland had retired to
his own room. It was evening before he ordered me to be called.

I found in him every token of extreme distress, except that there was an
air of solemn and sad composure that crowned the whole. For the present,
all appearance of gloom, stateliness, and austerity was gone. As I
entered he looked up, and, seeing who it was, ordered me to bolt the
door. I obeyed. He went round the room, and examined its other avenues.
He then returned to where I stood. I trembled in every joint of my
frame. I exclaimed within myself, "What scene of death has Roscius now
to act?"

"Williams!" said he, in a tone which had more in it of sorrow than
resentment, "I have attempted your life! I am a wretch devoted to the
scorn and execration of mankind!" There he stopped.

"If there be one being on the whole earth that feels the scorn and
execration due to such a wretch more strongly than another, it is
myself. I have been kept in a state of perpetual torture and madness.
But I can put an end to it and its cons