od's soothing and purifying angels of the
soul--speak to me most tenderly and most happily, at such times as
these.

It is when the rain falls, and wind and sea arise together--when,
sheltered among the caverns in the side of the precipice, I look out
upon the dreary waves and the leaping spray--that I feel the unknown
dangers which hang over my head in all the horror of their uncertainty.
Then, the threats of my deadly enemy strengthen their hold fearfully on
all my senses. I see the dim and ghastly personification of a fatality
that is lying in wait for me, in the strange shapes of the mist which
shrouds the sky, and moves, and whirls, and brightens, and darkens in a
weird glory of its own over the heaving waters. Then, the crash of the
breakers on the reef howls upon me with a sound of judgment; and the
voice of the wind, growling and battling behind me in the hollows of the
cave, is, ever and ever, the same thunder-voice of doom and warning in
my ear.

Does this foreboding that Mannion's eye is always on me, that his
footsteps are always secretly following mine, proceed only from the
weakness of my worn-out energies? Could others in my situation restrain
themselves from fearing, as I do, that he is still incessantly watching
me in secret? It is possible. It may be, that his terrible connection
with all my sufferings of the past, makes me attach credit too easily to
the destroying power which he arrogates to himself in the future. Or
it may be, that all resolution to resist him is paralysed in me, not so
much by my fear of his appearance, as by my uncertainty of the time when
it will take place--not so much by his menaces themselves, as by the
delay in their execution. Still, though I can estimate fairly the value
of these considerations, they exercise over me no lasting influence of
tranquillity. I remember what this man _has_ done; and in spite of
all reasoning, I believe in what he has told me he will yet do. Madman
though he may be, I have no hope of defence or escape from him in any
direction, look where I will.

But for the occupation which the foregoing narrative has given to my
mind; but for the relief which my heart can derive from its thoughts of
Clara, I must have sunk under the torment of suspense and suspicion
in which my life is now passed. My sister! Even in this self-imposed
absence from her, I have still found a means of connecting myself
remotely with something that she loves. I have taken, as th