nstantaneous convulsion,
and he staggered to a chair. In about three minutes he recovered.

"Yes," said he, "I am still alive. I shall live for days, and months,
and years; the power that made me, of whatever kind it be, can only
determine how long. I live the guardian of my reputation. That, and to
endure a misery such as man never endured, are the only ends to which I
live. But, when I am no more, my fame shall still survive. My character
shall be revered as spotless and unimpeachable by all posterity, as long
as the name of Falkland shall be repeated in the most distant regions of
the many-peopled globe."

Having said this, he returned to the discourse which more immediately
related to my future condition and happiness.

"There is one condition," said he, "upon which you may obtain some
mitigation of your future calamity. It is for that purpose that I have
sent for you. Listen to my proposal with deliberation and sobriety.
Remember, that the insanity is not less to trifle with the resolved
determination of my soul, than it would be to pull a mountain upon your
head that hung trembling upon the edge of the mighty Apennine!

"I insist then upon your signing a paper, declaring, in the most solemn
manner, that I am innocent of murder, and that the charge you alleged at
the office in Bow-street is false, malicious, and groundless. Perhaps
you may scruple out of a regard to truth. Is truth then entitled to
adoration for its own sake, and not for the sake of the happiness it is
calculated to produce? Will a reasonable man sacrifice to barren truth,
when benevolence, humanity, and every consideration that is dear to the
human heart, require that it should be superseded? It is probable that I
may never make use of this paper, but I require it, as the only
practicable reparation to the honour you have assailed. This is what I
had to propose. I expect your answer."

"Sir," answered I, "I have heard you to an end, and I stand in need of
no deliberation to enable me to answer you in the negative. You took me
up a raw and inexperienced boy, capable of being moulded to any form you
pleased. But you have communicated to me volumes of experience in a very
short period. I am no longer irresolute and pliable. What is the power
you retain over my fate I am unable to discover. You may destroy me; but
you cannot make me tremble. I am not concerned to enquire, whether what
I have suffered flowed from you by design or otherwise; whether