Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/271

 repeated in vain—he had fled with the swiftness of a deer.

My own embarrassment, confusion, and terror, were inexpressible. His last words were incoherent; they denoted the tumult and vehemence of phrensy; they intimated his resolution to seek the presence of your wife. I had furnished a clue which could not fail to conduct him to her presence. What might not be dreaded from the interview! Clithero is a maniac; this truth cannot be c0ncealed. Your wife can with difficulty preserve her tranquillity when his image occurs to her remembrance; what must it be when he starts up before her in his neglected and ferocious guise, and armed with purposes, perhaps, as terrible as those which had formerly led him to her secret chamber and her bedside!

His meaning was obscurely conveyed; he talked of a deed for the performance of which his malignant fate had reserved him, which was to ensue their meeting, and which was to afford disastrous testimony of the infatuation which had led me hither.

Heaven grant that some means may suggest themselves to you of intercepting his approach! Yet I know not what means can be conceived. Some miraculous chance may befriend you; yet this is scarcely to be hoped; it is a visionary and fantastic base on which to rest our security.

I cannot forget that my unfortunate temerity has created this evil; yet who could foresee this consequence of my intelligence? I imagined that Clithero was merely a victim of erroneous gratitude, a slave of the errors of his education and the prejudices of his rank—that his understanding was deluded by phantoms in the mask of virtue and duty, and not, as you have streanuously [sic] maintained, utterly subverted.

I shall not escape your censure, but I shall likewise gain your compassion; I have erred, not through sinister or malignant intentions, but from the impulse of misguided, indeed, but powerful benevolence.

E. H.