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Rh solemnly, without regard to the exclamation, "that the action would be perfectly justifiable!"

"Villain!" exclaimed Paul, recoiling to the other end of the stone box—(for it was night)—in which they were cooped.

"But," pursued Augustus, who seemed soliloquizing, and whose voice, sounding calm and thoughtful, like Young's in the famous monologue in Hamlet, denoted that he heeded not the uncourteous interruption—"but opinion does not always influence conduct; and although it may be virtuous to murder the watchman, I have not the heart to do it. I trust, in my future history I shall not, by discerning moralists, be too severely censured for a weakness, for which my physical temperament is alone to blame!"

Despite the turn of the soliloquy, it was a long time before Paul could be reconciled to farther conversation with Augustus; and it was only from the belief, that the moralist had leaned to the jesting vein, that he at length resumed the consultation.

The conspirators did not, however, bring their scheme, that night, to any ultimate decision. The next day, Augustus, Paul, and some others of