I sometimes
suspected not to be without his claims to veneration; or a confirmation,
perhaps an increase, of the calamities I had so long endured. Yet these
I preferred to a state of uncertainty. I desired to know the worst; to
put an end to the hope, however faint, which had been so long my
torment; and, above all, to exhaust and finish the catalogue of
expedients that were at my disposition. My mind was worked up to a state
little short of frenzy. My body was in a burning fever with the
agitation of my thoughts. When I laid my hand upon my bosom or my head,
it seemed to scorch them with the fervency of its heat. I could not sit
still for a moment. I panted with incessant desire that the dreadful
crisis I had so eagerly invoked, were come, and were over.

After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of
the magistrate to whom I had applied upon the subject. I had only two
hours' notice to prepare myself; Mr. Falkland seeming as eager as I to
have the question brought to a crisis, and laid at rest for ever. I had
an opportunity, before the examination, to learn that Mr. Forester was
drawn by some business on an excursion on the continent; and that
Collins, whose health when I saw him was in a very precarious state, was
at this time confined with an alarming illness. His constitution had
been wholly broken by his West Indian expedition. The audience I met at
the house of the magistrate consisted of several gentlemen and others
selected for the purpose; the plan being, in some respects, as in the
former instance, to find a medium between the suspicious air of a
private examination, and the indelicacy, as it was styled, of an
examination exposed to the remark of every casual spectator.

I can conceive of no shock greater than that I received from the sight
of Mr. Falkland. His appearance on the last occasion on which we met
had been haggard, ghost-like, and wild, energy in his gestures, and
frenzy in his aspect. It was now the appearance of a corpse. He was
brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by
the journey he had just taken. His visage was colourless; his limbs
destitute of motion, almost of life. His head reclined upon his bosom,
except that now and then he lifted it up, and opened his eyes with a
languid glance; immediately after which he sunk back into his former
apparent insensibility. He seemed not to have three hours to live. He
had kept his chamber for severa