Pelham — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

  CHAPTER LXXV.

  I BREATHED, But not the breath of human life; A serpent round my heartwas wreathed, And stung my very thought to strife.--The Giaour.

  "Thank Heaven, the most painful part of my story is at an end. You willnow be able to account for our meeting in the church-yard at------. Isecured myself a lodging at a cottage not far from the spot which heldGertrude's remains. Night after night I wandered to that lonely place,and longed for a couch beside the sleeper, whom I mourned in theselfishness of my soul. I prostrated myself on the mound; I humbledmyself to tears. In the overflowing anguish of my heart I forgot allthat had aroused its stormier passions into life. Revenge, hatred,--allvanished. I lifted up my face to the tender heavens: I called aloud tothe silent and placid air; and when I turned again to the unconsciousmound, I thought of nothing but the sweetness of our early love and thebitterness of her early death. It was in such moments that your footstepbroke upon my grief: the instant others had seen me,--other eyes hadpenetrated the sanctity of my regret,--from that instant, whatever wasmore soft and holy in the passions and darkness of my mind seemed tovanish away like a scroll. I again returned to the intense and witheringremembrance which was henceforward to make the very key and pivot of myexistence. I again recalled the last night of Gertrude's life; I againshuddered at the low murmured sounds, whose dreadful sense broke slowlyupon my soul. I again felt the cold-cold, slimy grasp of those wan anddying fingers; and I again nerved my heart to an iron strength, andvowed deep, deep-rooted, endless, implacable revenge.

  "The morning after the night you saw me, I left my abode. I went toLondon, and attempted to methodize my plans of vengeance. The firstthing to discover was Tyrrell's present residence. By accident I heardhe was at Paris, and, within two hours of receiving the intelligence, Iset off for that city. On arriving there, the habits of the gamblersoon discovered him to my search. I saw him one night at a hell. He wasevidently in distressed circumstances, and the fortune of the tablewas against him. Unperceived by him, I feasted my eyes on his changingcountenance, as those deadly and wearing transitions of feeling, only tobe produced by the gaming-table, passed over it. While I gazed upon him,a thought of more exquisite and refined revenge than had yet occurred tome flashed upon my mind. Occupied with the ideas it gave rise to, I wentinto the adjoining room, which was quite empty. There I seated myself,and endeavoured to develop more fully the rude and imperfect outline ofmy scheme.

  "The arch tempter favoured me with a trusty coadjutor in my designs. Iwas lost in a revery, when I heard myself accosted by name. I lookedup, and beheld a man whom I had often seen with Tyrrell, both at Spa and(the watering place, where, with Gertrude, I had met Tyrrell). He was aperson of low birth and character; but esteemed, from his love ofcoarse humour and vulgar enterprise, a man of infinite parts--a sortof Yorick--by the set most congenial to Tyrrell's tastes. By this unduereputation, and the levelling habit of gaming, to which he was addicted,he was raised, in certain societies, much above his proper rank: need Isay that this man was Thornton? I was but slightly acquainted withhim; however, he accosted me cordially, and endeavoured to draw me intoconversation.

  "'Have you seen Tyrrell?' said he, 'he is at it again; what's bred inthe bone, you know, etc.' I turned pale with the mention of Tyrrell'sname, and replied very laconically, to what purpose I forget. 'Ah! ah!'rejoined Thornton, eying me with an air of impertinent familiarity,'I see you have not forgiven him; he played you but a shabby trick at------; seduced your mistress, or something of that sort; he told me allabout it: pray, how is the poor girl now?'

  "I made no reply; I sank down and gasped for breath. All I had sufferedseemed nothing to the indignity I then endured. She--she--who had oncebeen my pride--my honour--life--to be thus spoken of--and--. I could notpursue the idea. I rose hastily, looked at Thornton with a glance whichmight have abashed a man less shameless and callous than himself, andleft the room.

  "That night, as I tossed restless and feverish on my bed of, thorns, Isaw how useful Thornton might be to me in the prosecution of the schemeI had entered into; and the next morning I sought him out, and purchased(no very difficult matter) both his secrecy and his assistance. My planof vengeance, to one who had seen and observed less of the varieties ofhuman nature than you have done, might seem far-fetched and unnatural;for while the superficial are ready to allow eccentricity as natural inthe coolness of ordinary life, they never suppose it can exist inthe heat of the passions,--as if, in such moments, anything was everconsidered absurd in the means which was favourable to the end. Were thesecrets of one passionate and irregulated heart laid bare, there wouldbe more romance in them than in all the fables which we turn from withincredulity and disdain, as exaggerated and overdrawn.

  "Among the thousand schemes for retribution which had chased each otheracross my mind, the death of my victim was only the ulterior object.Death, indeed--the pang of one moment--appeared to me but very feeblejustice for the life of lingering and restless anguish to which histreachery had condemned me; but my penance, my doom, I could haveforgiven: it was the fate of a more innocent and injured being whichirritated the sting and fed the venom of my revenge. That revenge noordinary punishment could appease. If fanaticism can only be satisfiedby the rack and the flames, you may readily conceive a like unappeasablefury in a hatred so deadly, so concentrated, and so just as mine; and iffanaticism persuades itself into a virtue, so also did my hatred.

  "The scheme which I resolved upon was to attach Tyrrell more and moreto the gaming-table, to be present at his infatuation, to feast my eyesupon the feverish intensity of his suspense; to reduce him, stepby step, to the lowest abyss of poverty; to glut my soul with theabjectness and humiliation of his penury; to strip him of all aid,consolation, sympathy, and friendship; to follow him, unseen, to hiswretched and squalid home; to mark the struggles of the craving naturewith the loathing pride; and, finally, to watch the frame wear, the eyesink, the lip grow livid, and all the terrible and torturing progressof gnawing want to utter starvation. Then, in that last state, but notbefore, I might reveal myself; stand by the hopeless and succourlessbed of death; shriek out in the dizzy ear a name, which could treblethe horrors of remembrance; snatch from the struggling and agonizingconscience the last plank, the last straw, to which, in its madness, itcould cling, and blacken the shadows of departing life, by opening tothe shuddering sense the threshold of an impatient and yawning hell.

  "Hurried away by the unhallowed fever of these projects, I thoughtof nothing but their accomplishment. I employed Thornton, who stillmaintained his intimacy with Tyrrell, to decoy him more and more to thegambling-house; and, as the unequal chances of the public table werenot rapid enough in their termination to consummate the ruin even of animpetuous and vehement gamester like Tyrrell so soon as my impatiencedesired, Thornton took every opportunity of engaging him in privateplay, and accelerating my object by the unlawful arts of which he wasmaster. My enemy was every day approaching the farthest verge of ruin;near relations he had none,--all his distant ones he had disobliged;all his friends, and even his acquaintance, he had fatigued by hisimportunity or disgusted by his conduct. In the whole world there seemednot a being who would stretch forth a helping hand to save him from thetotal and penniless beggary to which he was hopelessly advancing. Out ofthe wrecks of his former property and the generosity of former friends,whatever he had already wrung had been immediately staked at thegaming-house and as immediately lost.

  "Perhaps this would not so soon have been the case, if Thornton had notartfully fed and sustained his expectations. He had been long employedby Tyrrell in a professional capacity, and he knew well all thegamester's domestic affairs: and when he promised, should things cometo the worst, to find some expedient to restore them, Tyrrell easilyadopted so flattering a belief.

  "Meanwhile I had taken the name and disguise under favour of which youmet me at Paris, and Thornton had introduced me to Tyrrell as a youngEnglishman of great wealth and still greater inexperience. The gamblergrasped eagerly at an ac
quaintance which Thornton readily persuaded himhe could turn to such account; and I had thus every facility of marking,day by day, how my plot thickened and my vengeance hastened to itstriumph.

  "This was not all. I said there was not in the wide world a being whowould have saved Tyrrell from the fate he deserved and was approaching.I forgot, there was one who still clung to him with affection, and forwhom he still seemed to harbour the better and purer feelings of lessdegraded and guilty times. This person (you will guess readily it wasa woman) I made it my especial business and care to wean away from myprey; I would not suffer him a consolation he had denied to me. I usedall the arts of seduction to obtain the transfer of her affections.Whatever promises and vows--whether of love or wealth--could effect weretried; nor, at last, without success: I triumphed. The woman becamemy slave. It was she who, whenever Tyrrell faltered in his course todestruction, combated his scruples and urged on his reluctance; it wasshe who informed me minutely of his pitiful finances, and assisted, toher utmost, in expediting their decay. The still more bitter treacheryof deserting him in his veriest want I reserved till the fittestoccasion, and contemplated with a savage delight.

  "I was embarrassed in my scheme by two circumstances: first, Thornton'sacquaintance with you; and, secondly, Tyrrell's receipt (some timeafterwards) of a very unexpected sum of two hundred pounds, in returnfor renouncing all further and possible claim on the purchasers of hisestate. To the former, so far as it might interfere with my plansor lead to my detection, you must pardon me for having put a speedytermination: the latter threw me into great consternation; for Tyrrell'sfirst idea was to renounce the gaming-table, and endeavour to live uponthe trifling pittance he had acquired as long as the utmost economywould permit.

  "This idea Margaret, the woman I spoke of, according to my instructions,so artfully and successfully combated that Tyrrell yielded to hisnatural inclination, and returned once more to the infatuation of hisfavourite pursuit. However, I had become restlessly impatient for theconclusion to this prefatory part of my revenge; and, accordingly,Thornton and myself arranged that Tyrrell should be persuaded by theformer to risk all, even to his very last farthing, in a private gamewith me. Tyrrell, who believed he should readily recruit himself by myunskilfulness in the game, fell easily into the snare; and on the secondnight of our engagement, he not only had lost the whole of his remainingpittance, but had signed bonds owning to a debt of far greater amountthan he, at that time, could ever even have dreamt of possessing.

  "Flushed, heated, almost maddened with my triumph, I yielded to theexultation of the moment. I did not know you were so near,--I discoveredmyself,--you remember the scene. I went joyfully home: and for thefirst time since Gertrude's death I was happy; but there I imagined myvengeance only would begin; I revelled in the burning hope of markingthe hunger and extremity that must ensue. The next day, when Tyrrellturned round, in his despair, for one momentary word of comfort from thelips to which he believed, in the fond credulity of his heart, falsehoodand treachery never came, his last earthly friend taunted and desertedhim. Mark me, Pelham: I was by and heard her! But here my power ofretribution was to close: from the thirst still unslaked and unappeased,the cup was abruptly snatched. Tyrrell disappeared; no one knew whither.I set Thornton's inquiries at work. A week afterwards he brought me wordthat Tyrrell had died in extreme want, and from very despair. Will youcredit that, at hearing this news, my first sensations were only rageand disappointment? True, he had died, died in all the misery my heartcould wish, but I had not seen him die; and the death-bed seemed to merobbed of its bitterest pang.

  "I know not to this day, though I have often questioned him, whatinterest Thornton had in deceiving me by this tale: for my own part, Ibelieve that he himself was deceived; certain it is (for I inquired),that a person very much answering to Tyrrell's description had perishedin the state Thornton mentioned; and this might, therefore, in allprobability, have misled him.

  "I left Paris, and returned, through Normandy, to England (where Iremained some weeks); there we again met: but I think we did not meettill I had been persecuted by the insolence and importunity of Thornton.The tools of our passions cut both ways: like the monarch who employedstrange beasts in his army, we find our treacherous allies lessdestructive to others than ourselves. But I was not of a temper to brookthe tauntings or the encroachment of my own creature: it had been withbut an ill grace that I had endured his familiarity, when I absolutelyrequired his services; much less could I suffer his intrusion when thoseservices,--services not of love, but hire, were no longer necessary.Thornton, like all persons of his stamp, had a low pride, which I wasconstantly offending. He had mixed with men more than my equals in rankon a familiar footing, and he could ill brook the hauteur with which mydisgust at his character absolutely constrained me to treat him. It istrue that the profuseness of my liberality was such that the mean wretchstomached affronts for which he was so largely paid; but, with thecunning and malicious spite natural to him, he knew well how to repaythem in kind. While he assisted, he affected to ridicule, my revenge;and though he soon saw that he durst not, for his very life, breathea syllable openly against Gertrude or her memory, yet he contrived, bygeneral remarks and covert insinuations, to gall me to the very quickand in the very tenderest point. Thus a deep and cordial antipathy toeach other arose and grew and strengthened, till, I believe, like thefiends in hell, our mutual hatred became our common punishment.

  "No sooner had I returned to England than I found him here awaiting myarrival. He favoured me with frequent visits and requests for money.Although not possessed of any secret really important affecting mycharacter, he knew well that he was possessed of one important tomy quiet; and he availed himself to the utmost of my strong and deepaversion even to the most delicate recurrence to my love to Gertrudeand its unhallowed and disastrous termination. At length, however, hewearied me. I found that he was sinking into the very dregs and refuseof society, and I could not longer brook the idea of enduring hisfamiliarity and feeding his vices.

  "I pass over any detail of my own feelings, as well as my outward andworldly history. Over my mind a great change had passed: I was no longertorn by violent and contending passions; upon the tumultuous sea a deadand heavy torpor had fallen; the very winds, necessary for health, hadceased:--I slept on the abyss without a surge."

  "One violent and engrossing passion is among the worst of allimmoralities, for it leaves the mind too stagnant and exhausted forthose activities and energies which constitute our real duties. However,now that the tyrant feeling of my mind was removed, I endeavouredto shake off the apathy it had produced, and return to the variousoccupations and businesses of life. Whatever could divert me from my owndark memories, or give a momentary motion to the stagnation of my mind,I grasped at with the fondness and eagerness of a child. Thus, youfound me surrounding myself with luxuries which palled upon my taste theinstant that their novelty had passed: now striving for the vanity ofliterary fame; now, for the emptier baubles which riches could procure.At one time I shrouded myself in my closet, and brooded over the dogmasof the learned and the errors of the wise; at another, I plunged intothe more engrossing and active pursuits of the living crowd which rolledaround me,--and flattered my heart, that amid the applause of senatorsand the whirlpool of affairs, I could lull to rest the voices of thepast and the spectre of the dead.

  "Whether these hopes were effectual, and the struggle not in vain,this haggard and wasting form, drooping day by day into the grave, candeclare; but I said I would not dwell long upon this part of my history,nor is it necessary. Of one thing only, not connected with the main partof my confessions, it is right, for the sake of one tender and guiltlessbeing, that I should speak.

  "In the cold and friendless world with which I mixed, there was a heartwhich had years ago given itself wholly up to me. At that time I wasignorant of the gift I so little deserved, or (for it was before I knewGertrude) I might have returned it, and been saved years of crime andanguish. Since then, the person I allu
de to had married, and, by thedeath of her husband, was once more free. Intimate with my family,and more especially with my sister, she now met me constantly; hercompassion for the change she perceived in me, both in mind and person,was stronger than even her reserve, and this is the only reason why Ispeak of an attachment which ought otherwise to be concealed: I believethat you already understand to whom I allude, and since you havediscovered her weakness, it is right that you should know also hervirtue; it is right that you should learn that it was not in her thefantasy or passion of a moment, but a long and secreted love; thatyou should learn that it was her pity, and no unfeminine disregard toopinion, which betrayed her into imprudence; and that she is, at thismoment, innocent of everything but the folly of loving me.

  "I pass on to the time when I discovered that I had been eitherintentionally or unconsciously deceived, and that my enemy yet lived!lived in honour, prosperity, and the world's blessings. The informationwas like removing a barrier from a stream hitherto pent into quiet andrestraint. All the stormy thoughts, feelings, and passions so longat rest rushed again into a terrible and tumultuous action. Thenewly-formed stratum of my mind was swept away; everything seemed awreck, a chaos, a convulsion of jarring elements; but this is a triteand tame description of my feelings; words would be but commonplace toexpress the revulsion which I experienced: yet, amidst all, there wasone paramount and presiding thought, to which the rest were as atomsin the heap,--the awakened thought of vengeance!-but how was it to begratified?

  "Placed as Tyrrell now was in the scale of society, every method ofretribution but the one formerly rejected seemed at an end. To that one,therefore, weak and merciful as it appeared to me, I resorted; you tookmy challenge to Tyrrell; you remember his behaviour: Conscience dothindeed make cowards of us all! The letter enclosed to me in his to youcontained only the commonplace argument urged so often by those who haveinjured us; namely, the reluctance at attempting our life after havingruined our happiness. When I found that he had left London my rage knewno bounds: I was absolutely frantic with indignation; the earthreeled before my eyes; I was almost suffocated by the violence--thewhirlpool--of my emotions. I gave myself no time to think,--I left townin pursuit of my foe.

  "I found that--still addicted, though, I believed, not so madly asbefore, to the old amusements--he was in the neighbourhood of Newmarket,awaiting the races shortly to ensue. No sooner did I find his addressthan I wrote him another challenge, still more forcibly and insultinglyworded than the one you took. In this I said that his refusal was of noavail; that I had sworn that my vengeance should overtake him; and thatsooner or later, in the face of heaven and despite of hell, my oathshould be fulfilled. Remember those words, Pelham, I shall refer to themhereafter.

  "Tyrrell's reply was short and contemptuous: he affected to treat meas a madman. Perhaps (and I confess that the incoherence of my letterauthorized such suspicion) he believed I really was one. He concluded bysaying that if he received more of my letters, he should shelter himselffrom my aggressions by the protection of the law.

  "On receiving this reply, a stern, sullen, iron spirit entered into mybosom. I betrayed no external mark of passion; I sat down in silence;I placed the letter and Gertrude's picture before me. There, still andmotionless, I remained for hours. I remember well I was awakened from mygloomy revery by the clock, as it struck the first hour of the morning.At that lone and ominous sound, the associations of romance and dreadwhich the fables of our childhood connect with it rushed coldly andfearfully into my mind: the damp dews broke out upon my forehead andthe blood curdled in my limbs. In that moment I knelt down and voweda frantic and deadly oath--the words of which I would not now dare torepeat--that before three days expired, hell should no longer be cheatedof its prey. I rose,--I flung myself on my bed, and slept.

  "The next day I left my abode. I purchased a strong and swift horse;and, disguising myself from head to foot in a long horseman's cloak, Iset off alone, locking in my heart the calm and cold conviction that myoath should be kept. I placed, concealed in my dress, two pistols; myintention was to follow Tyrrell wherever he went, till we could findourselves alone, and without the chance of intrusion. It was then mydetermination to force him into a contest, and that no trembling of thehand, no error of the swimming sight, might betray my purpose, to placeus foot to foot, and the mouth of each pistol almost to the very templeof each antagonist. Nor was I deterred for a moment from this resolutionby the knowledge that my own death must be as certain as my victim's. Onthe contrary, I looked forward to dying thus, and so baffling the morelingering, but not less sure, disease which was daily wasting me away,with the same fierce, yet not unquiet delight with which men have rushedinto battle, and sought out a death less bitter to them than life.

  "For two days, though I each day saw Tyrrell, fate threw into my wayno opportunity of executing my design. The morning of the thirdcame,--Tyrrell was on the race-ground; sure that he would remain therefor some hours, I put up my wearied horse in the town, and, seatingmyself in an obscure corner of the course, was contented with watching,as the serpent does his victim, the distant motions of my enemy. Perhapsyou can recollect passing a man seated on the ground and robed in ahorseman's cloak. I need not tell you that it was I whom you passed andaccosted. I saw you ride by me; but the moment you were gone I forgotthe occurrence. I looked upon the rolling and distant crowd as a childviews the figures of the phantasmagoria, scarcely knowing if myeyes deceived me, feeling impressed with some stupefying and ghastlysensation of dread, and cherishing the conviction that my life was notas the life of the creatures that passed before me.

  "The day waned: I went back for my horse; I returned to the course, and,keeping at a distance as little suspicious as possible, followed themotions of Tyrrell. He went back to the town, rested there, repairedto a gaming-table, stayed in it a short time, returned to his inn, andordered his horse.

  "In all these motions I followed the object of my pursuit; and myheart bounded with joy when I at last saw him set out alone and in theadvancing twilight. I followed him till he left the main road. Now, Ithought, was my time. I redoubled my pace, and had nearly reached him,when some horsemen appearing, constrained me again to slacken my pace.Various other similar interruptions occurred to delay my plot. At lengthall was undisturbed. I spurred my horse, and was nearly on the heelsof my enemy, when I perceived him join another man: this was you; Iclenched my teeth and drew my breath, as I once more retreated to adistance. In a short time two men passed me, and I found that, owing tosome accident on the road, they stopped to assist you. It appears, byyour evidence on a subsequent event, that these men were Thornton andhis friend Dawson; at the time they passed too rapidly, and I was toomuch occupied in my own dark thoughts, to observe them: still I keptup to you and Tyrrell, sometimes catching the outlines of your figuresthrough the moon, light, at others (with the acute sense of anxiety),only just distinguishing the clang of your horses' hoofs on the stonyground. At last a heavy shower came on: imagine my joy when Tyrrell leftyou and rode off alone!

  "I passed you, and followed my enemy as fast as my horse would permit;but it was not equal to Tyrrell's, which was almost at its full speed.However, I came, at last, to a very steep and almost precipitousdescent. I was forced to ride slowly and cautiously; this, however, Ithe less regarded, from my conviction that Tyrrell must be obligedto use the same precaution. My hand was on my pistol with a grasp ofpremeditated revenge, when a shrill, sharp, solitary cry broke on myear.

  "No sound followed: all was silence. I was just approaching towardsthe close of the descent, when a horse without its rider passed me.The shower had ceased, and the moon broke from the cloud some minutesbefore; by its light I recognized the horse rode by Tyrrell; perhaps, Ithought, it has thrown its master, and my victim will now be utterly inmy power. I pushed hastily forward in spite of the hill, not yet whollypassed. I came to a spot of singular desolation: it was a broad patchof waste land, a pool of water was on the right, and a remarkable andwithered tree hung over it. I loo
ked round, but saw nothing of lifestirring. A dark and imperfectly developed object lay by the side of thepond; I pressed forward: merciful God! my enemy had escaped my hand, andlay in the stillness of death before me!"

  "What!" I exclaimed, interrupting Glanville, for I could contain myselfno longer, "it was not by you then that Tyrrell fell?" With thesewords, I grasped his hand; and, excited as I had been by my painful andwrought-up interest in his recital, I burst into tears of gratitude andjoy. Reginald Glanville was innocent: Ellen was not the sister of anassassin!

  After a short pause, Glanville continued:

  "I gazed upon the upward and distorted face, in a deep and sickeningsilence; an awe, dark and undefined, crept over my heart: I stoodbeneath the solemn and sacred heavens, and felt that the hand of Godwas upon me; that a mysterious and fearful edict had gone forth; thatmy headlong and unholy wrath had, in the very midst of its fury, beenchecked, as if but the idle anger of a child; that the plan I had laidin the foolish wisdom of my heart had been traced, step by step, by anall-seeing eye, and baffled in the moment of its fancied success by aninscrutable and awful doom. I had wished the death of my enemy: lo! mywish was accomplished,--how, I neither knew nor guessed; there, a stilland senseless clod of earth, without power of offence or injury, he laybeneath my feet: it seemed as if, in the moment of my uplifted arm, theDivine Avenger had asserted His prerogative,--as if the angel whichhad smitten the Assyrian had again swept forth, though against a meanervictim; and while he punished the guilt of a human criminal, had set aneternal barrier to the vengeance of a human foe!

  "I dismounted from my horse, and bent over the murdered man. I drew frommy bosom the miniature, which never forsook me, and bathed the lifelessresemblance of Gertrude in the blood of her betrayer. Scarcely had Idone so, before my ear caught the sound of steps; hastily I thrust, as Ithought, the miniature in my bosom, remounted, and rode hurriedly away.At that hour, and for many which succeeded to it, I believe that allsense was suspended. I was like a man haunted by a dream, and wanderingunder its influence! or as one whom a spectre pursues, and for whoseeye the breathing and busy world is but as a land of unreal forms andflitting shadows, teeming with the monsters of darkness and the terrorsof the tomb.

  "It was not till the next day that I missed the picture. I returned tothe spot; searched it carefully, but in vain; the miniature could notbe found: I returned to town, and shortly afterwards the newspapersinformed me of what had subsequently occurred. I saw, with dismay, thatall appearances pointed to me as the criminal, and that the officersof justice were at that moment tracing the clew which my cloak and thecolor of my horse afforded them. My mysterious pursuit of Tyrrell, thedisguise I had assumed, the circumstance of my passing you on the roadand of my flight when you approached, all spoke volumes against me.A stronger evidence yet remained, and it was reserved for Thornton toindicate it; at this moment my life is in his hands. Shortly after myreturn to town, he forced his way into my room, shut the door, boltedit, and, the moment we were alone, said, with a savage and fiendish grinof exultation and defiance, 'Sir Reginald Glanville, you have many atime and oft insulted me with your pride, and more with your gifts: nowit is my time to insult and triumph over you; know that one word of minecould sentence you to the gibbet.'

  "He then minutely summed up the evidence against me, and drew fromhis pocket the threatening letter I had last written to Tyrrell. Youremember that therein I said my vengeance was sworn against him, andthat, sooner or later, it should overtake him. 'Couple,' said Thornton,coldly, as he replaced the letter in his pocket,--'couple these wordswith the evidence already against you, and I would not buy your life ata farthing's value.'

  "How Thornton came by this paper, so important to my safety, I know not:but when he read it I was startled by the danger it brought upon me;one glance sufficed to show me that I was utterly at the mercy of thevillain who stood before me; he saw and enjoyed my struggles.

  "'Now,' said he, 'we know each other: at present I want a thousandpounds; you will not refuse it me, I am sure; when it is gone, I shallcall again; till then you can do without me.' I flung him a check forthe money, and he departed.

  "You may conceive the mortification I endured in this sacrifice of prideto prudence; but those were no ordinary motives which induced me tosubmit to it. Fast approaching to the grave, it mattered to me butlittle whether a violent death should shorten a life to which a limitwas already set, and which I was far from being anxious to retain: butI could not endure the thought of bringing upon my mother and my sisterthe wretchedness and shame which the mere suspicion of a crimeso enormous would occasion them; and when my eye caught all thecircumstances arrayed against me, my pride seemed to suffer a lessmortification even in the course I adopted than in the thought of thefelon's gaol and the criminal's trial,--the hoots and execrations of themob, and the death and ignominious remembrance of the murderer.

  "Stronger than either of these motives was my shrinking and loathingaversion to whatever seemed likely to unrip the secret history of thepast. I sickened at the thought of Gertrude's name and fate being baredto the vulgar eye, and exposed to the comment, the strictures, theridicule of the gaping and curious public. It seemed to me, therefore,but a very poor exertion of philosophy to conquer my feelings ofhumiliation at Thornton's insolence and triumph, and to console myselfwith the reflection that a few months must rid me alike of his exactionsand my life.

  "But, of late, Thornton's persecutions and demands have risen to sucha height that I have been scarcely able to restrain my indignation andcontrol myself into compliance. The struggle is too powerful for myframe: it is rapidly bringing on the fiercest and the last contest Ishall suffer, before 'the wicked shall cease from troubling, and theweary be at rest.' Some days since I came to a resolution, which I amnow about to execute: it is to leave this country and take refuge on theContinent. There I shall screen myself from Thornton's pursuit and thedanger which it entails upon me; and there, unknown and undisturbed, Ishall await the termination of my disease.

  "But two duties remained to me to fulfil before I departed; I have nowdischarged them both. One was due to the warmhearted and noble being whohonoured me with her interest and affection,--the other to you. I wentyesterday to the former; I sketched the outline of that history whichI have detailed to you. I showed her the waste of my barren heart, andspoke to her of the disease which was wearing me away. How beautiful isthe love of woman! She would have followed me over the world,--receivedmy last sigh, and seen me to the rest I shall find at length; and thiswithout a hope, or thought of recompense, even from the worthlessness ofmy love.

  "But enough!--of her my farewell has been taken. Your suspicions I haveseen and forgiven; for they were natural: it was due to me to removethem; the pressure of your hand tells me that I have done so; but I hadanother reason for my confessions. I have worn away the romance of myheart, and I have now no indulgence for the little delicacies and pettyscruples which often stand in the way of our real happiness. I havemarked your former addresses to Ellen, and, I confess, with greatjoy; for I know, amidst all your worldly ambition and the encrustedartificiality of your exterior, how warm and generous is your realheart,--how noble and intellectual is your real mind: and were my sistertenfold more perfect than I believe her, I do not desire to find onearth one more deserving of her than yourself. I have remarked yourlate estrangement from Ellen; and while I guessed, I felt that, howeverpainful to me, I ought to remove, the cause: she loves you--thoughperhaps you know it not--much and truly; and since my earlier life hasbeen passed in a selfish inactivity, I would fain let it close with thereflection of having served two beings whom I prize so dearly, and thehope that their happiness will commence with my death.

  "And now, Pelham, I have done; I am weak and exhausted, and cannot bearmore--even of your society, now. Think over what I have last said,and let me see you again to-morrow: on the day after, I leave Englandforever."