Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/41

 hands hung at his side; his eyes were downcast, and he was motionless as a statue; my last words seemed scarcely to have made any impression on his sense. I had no need to provide against the possible suggestions of revenge—I felt nothing but the tenderness of compassion. I continued, for some time, to observe him in silence, and could discover no tokens of a change of mood. I could not forbear, at last, to express my uneasiness at the fixedness of his features and attitude.

"Recollect yourself—I mean not to urge you too closely. This topic is solemn, but it need not divest you of the fortitude becoming a man."

The sound of my voice startled him. He broke from me, looked up, and fixed his eyes upon me with an expression of affright; he shuddered and recoiled as from a spectre. I began to repent of my experiment. I could say nothing suitable to this occasion. I was obliged to stand a silent and powerless spectator, and to suffer this paroxysm to subside of itself. When its violence appeared to be somewhat abated, I resumed.

"I can feel for you. I act not thus in compliance with a temper that delights in the misery of others. The explanation that I have solicited is no less necessary for your sake than for mine. You are no stranger to the light in which I viewed this man: you have witnessed the grief which his fate occasioned, and the efforts that I made to discover and drag to punishment his murderer; you heard the execrations that I heaped upon him, and my vows of eternal revenge. You expect that, having detected the offender, I will hunt him to infamy and death: you are mistaken: I consider the deed as sufficiently expiated. I am no stranger to your gnawing cares—to the deep and incurable despair that haunts you, to which your waking thoughts are a prey, and from which sleep cannot secure you; I know the enormity of your crime, but I know not your inducements. Whatever they were, I see the consequences with regard to yourself; I see proofs of that remorse which must ever be attendant on guilt: this is enough. Why should the effects of our misdeeds be inexhaustible? Why should we be debarred from a