!
oh, the lightning! how it looks into the heart and exposes all its secrets
to the eye of Deity! What a flash was that! Come! to the cave! to the
cave!"

With the concluding words his quiet ceased, and he struggled as if exerting
himself to do something very hastily. A moment more and a short, frightened
cry, escaped his lips, and he sunk back, as if dead. It was plain that he
was re-living and re-enacting the day, and its scenes; and in this
condition he remained for some time; then his insanity took a wilder and
wider range, recalling the past, and exposing the future of his life and
designs. He raved and cajoled, commanded and persuaded by times; was now
quiet, and, anon, in a fever of excitement, or rage. After one of his quiet
moods, he slowly aroused and addressed himself in this manner:

"That oath! it was a great mistake, this worst blunder I have made. In
spite of myself it will haunt me. And the curse! that awful curse! Gods!
will it never cease ringing in my ears! night and day, sleeping and waking
it never leaves me! I see her now! How weird-like her prophetic looks! How
like the sentence of doom are her words, as, with flashing eye and
quivering lip, she says: 'As you have wilfully, voluntarily, and wickedly
called it down upon your own head, may the curse of God rest upon you in
this world and the world to come.' Gods and demons! if their should be 'a
world to come!'--How her words burn into my heart! and, worst of all, they
are proving a reality! I am accused! my 'plans of villainy' do fail, and I
_am_ a 'vagabond upon the face of the earth!' But I'll not endure it
longer! I'll shake myself from these haunting fears! aye, and I'll prove
them false! I'll do it if all the curses of the universe rise up before me!
Avaunt, ye specters! I'll be a man despite your efforts to frighten me by
your grim presence!"

Again, in another strain, he broke forth with this development of his
inward thoughts.

"Heigh, ho! I am on the track now, and nothing can save her! Oh, but I'll
be sweetly revenged! I'll teach the proud minx to insult a Durant! Won't
she be humbled, though! ha! ha! ha! How she will struggle and beg for
mercy! But will I pity her? Yes, 'as the wolf the lamb!' Oh, if I but
possessed her now!"

And again:

"Proud as ever! Never mind, I'll bring her down! I'll wreathe that lofty
brow with shame! I'll strike her through her lover! To save _him_ at the
stake she'll yield! I'll revel in her charms, and