-"

"Mr. Williams, I see my children returning from the fields, and coming
this way. The basest action you ever did was the obtruding yourself upon
them as an instructor. I insist that you see them no more. I command you
to be silent. I command you to withdraw. If you persist in your absurd
resolution of expostulating with me, you must take some other time."

I could continue no longer. I was in a manner heart-broken through the
whole of this dialogue. I could not think of protracting the pain of
this admirable woman, upon whom, though I was innocent of the crimes she
imputed to me, I had inflicted so much pain already. I yielded to the
imperiousness of her commands, and withdrew.

I hastened, without knowing why, from the presence of Laura to my own
habitation. Upon entering the house, an apartment of which I occupied, I
found it totally deserted of its usual inhabitants. The woman and her
children were gone to enjoy the freshness of the breeze. The husband was
engaged in his usual out-door occupations. The doors of persons of the
lower order in this part of the country are secured, in the day-time,
only with a latch. I entered, and went into the kitchen of the family.
Here, as I looked round, my eyes accidentally glanced upon a paper lying
in one corner, which, by some association I was unable to explain,
roused in me a strong sensation of suspicion and curiosity. I eagerly
went towards it, caught it up, and found it to be the very paper of the
WONDERFUL AND SURPRISING HISTORY OF CALEB WILLIAMS, the discovery of
which, towards the close of my residence in London, had produced in me
such inexpressible anguish.

This encounter at once cleared up all the mystery that hung upon my late
transactions. Abhorred and intolerable certainty succeeded to the doubts
which had haunted my mind. It struck me with the rapidity of lightning.
I felt a sudden torpor and sickness that pervaded every fibre of my
frame.

Was there no hope that remained for me? Was acquittal useless? Was there
no period, past or in prospect, that could give relief to my sufferings?
Was the odious and atrocious falsehood that had been invented against
me, to follow me wherever I went, to strip me of character, to deprive
me of the sympathy and good-will of mankind, to wrest from me the very
bread by which life must be sustained?

For the space perhaps of half an hour the agony I felt from this
termination to my tranquillity, and the expectation it excit