When within his chamber, he carefully fastened the door and placed

a packet in my hands.

"This is addressed to you," he said. "I found it on the table

with other papers, and seeing the address, and fearing that if the

jury laid eyes on it, they might insist on knowing its contents, I

thrust it into my pocket and said nothing about it there. Read it

at your leisure, while I smoke a cigar below."

He left me, and I opened the seal with a sense of misgiving and

apprehension for which I could not easily account. The outer packet

was addressed to myself. But the envelope contained several other

papers, one of which was addressed to his father; another--a small

billet, unsealed--bore the name of my wife upon it.

"That," I inly (sic) muttered, "she shall never read!"

An instant after, I trembled with a convulsive horror, as the demon

who had whispered in my ears so long, seemed to say, in mocking

accents:-"Shall not! Ha! ha! She can not! can not!" and then the fiend

seemed to chuckle, and I remembered the insuppressible anguish of

Othello's apostrophe, to make all its eloquence my own. I murmured

audibly:-"My wife! my wife! What wife?--I have no wife!

Oh, insupportable--oh, heavy hour!"

My eyes were blinded. My face sunk down upon the table, and a cold

shiver shook my frame as if I had an ague. But I recovered myself

when I remembered the wrongs I had endured--her guilt and the guilt

of Edgerton. I clutched the papers--brushed the big drops from my

forehead, and read.

"Clifford, I save you guiltless of my death. You would be less

happy were my blood upon your hands, for, though I deserve to die

by them, I know your nature too well--to believe that you would

enjoy any malignant satisfaction at the performance of so sad

a duty. Still, I know that this is no atonement. I have simply

ceased from persecuting you and the angelic woman, your wife. But

how shall I atone for the tortures and annoyances of the past,

inflicted upon you both? Never! never! I perish without hope of

forgiveness, though, here, alone with God, in the extreme of mortal

humility, I pray for it!

"Perhaps, you know all. From what escaped you this morning, it

would seem so. You knew of my madness when in C----; you know that

it pursued you here. Nothing then remains for me to tell. I might

simply say all is true; but that, in the confession of my guilt

and folly, each particular act of sin demands its own avowal, as

it must be followed by its own bitter agony and groan.

"My passion for your wife began soon after your marriage. Until

then I had never known her. You will acquit me of any deliberate

design to win her affections. I strove, as well as I could, to

suppress my own. But my education did not fit me for such a struggle.

The indulgence of fond parents had gratified all my wishes, and

taught me to expect their gratification. I could not subdue my

passions even when they were unaccompanied by any hopes. Without

knowing my own feelings, I approached your wife. Our tastes were

similar, and these furnished the legitimate excuse for frequently

bringing us together. The friendly liberality of your disposition

enlarged the privileges of the acquaintance, and, without meaning

it at first, I abused them. I sought your dwelling at unsuitable

periods. Unconsciously, I did so, just at those periods when you

were most likely to be absent. I first knew that my course was

wrong, by discovering the unwillingness which I felt to encounter

you. This taught me to know the true nature of my sentiments, but

without enforcing the necessity of subduing them. I did not seek

to subdue them long. I yielded myself up, with the recklessness

of insanity, to a passion whose very sweetness had the effect to

madden.




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