Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/44



" call upon me for a confession of my offences.—What a strange fortune is mine! That a human being, in the present circumstances, should make this demand, and that I should be driven by an irresistible necessity to comply with it!—that here should terminate my calamitous series!—that my destiny should call upon me to lie down and die, in a region so remote from the scene of my crimes—at a distance so great from all that witnessed and endured their consequences!

"You believe me to be an assassin—you require me to explain the motives that induced me to murder the innocent! While this is your belief, and this the scope of your expectations, you may be sure of my compliance: I could resist every demand but this.

"For what purpose have I come hither? Is it to relate my story? Shall I calmly sit here and rehearse the incidents of my life? Will my strength be adequate to this rehearsal? Let me recollect the motives that governed me when I formed this design: perhaps a strenuousness may be imparted by them, which otherwise I cannot hope to obtain. For the sake of those, I consent to conjure up the ghost of the past, and to begin a tale that, with a fortitude like mine, I am not sure that I shall live to finish.

"You are unacquainted with the man before you: the inferences which you have drawn with regard to my designs and my conduct, are a tissue of destructive errors. You, like others, are blind to the most momentous consequences of your own actions; you talk of imparting consolation—you boast the beneficence of your intentions—you set yourself to do me a benefit.—What are the effects of your misguided zeal and random efforts? They have brought my life to a miserable close; they have shrouded the last scene of it in blood; they have put the seal to my perdition.

"My misery has been greater than has fallen to the lot