the gladness go out of her eyes
and the tears come there, when she crept away so humbly who had come
so--"

"Oh, peace! peace! peace! Blister your merciless tongue, haven't all
these thoughts tortured me enough without your coming here to fetch them
back again!"

Remorse! remorse! It seemed to me that it would eat the very heart out
of me! And yet that small fiend only sat there leering at me with joy
and contempt, and placidly chuckling. Presently he began to speak again.
Every sentence was an accusation, and every accusation a truth. Every
clause was freighted with sarcasm and derision, every slow-dropping word
burned like vitriol. The dwarf reminded me of times when I had flown at
my children in anger and punished them for faults which a little inquiry
would have taught me that others, and not they, had committed.
He reminded me of how I had disloyally allowed old friends to be traduced
in my hearing, and been too craven to utter a word in their defense.
He reminded me of many dishonest things which I had done; of many which I
had procured to be done by children and other irresponsible persons; of
some which I had planned, thought upon, and longed to do, and been kept
from the performance by fear of consequences only. With exquisite
cruelty he recalled to my mind, item by item, wrongs and unkindnesses I
had inflicted and humiliations I had put upon friends since dead, "who
died thinking of those injuries, maybe, and grieving over them," he
added, by way of poison to the stab.

"For instance," said he, "take the case of your younger brother, when you
two were boys together, many a long year ago. He always lovingly trusted
in you with a fidelity that your manifold treacheries were not able to
shake. He followed you about like a dog, content to suffer wrong and
abuse if he might only be with you; patient under these injuries so long
as it was your hand that inflicted them. The latest picture you have of
him in health and strength must be such a comfort to you! You pledged
your honor that if he would let you blindfold him no harm should come to
him; and then, giggling and choking over the rare fun of the joke, you
led him to a brook thinly glazed with ice, and pushed him in; and how you
did laugh! Man, you will never forget the gentle, reproachful look he
gave you as he struggled shivering out, if you live a thousand years!
Oh! you see it now, you see it now!"

"Beast, I have seen it a million times, an