In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

How did I wonder at the ingenuity with which, without any clue, he had unravelled, as it were with my own fingers, all my secret. He had watched all my motions—all my looks—all my words. He had suffered not a glance—not a whisper to escape him. With the assistance of his mother, who, herself, in disguise had sold them, he had carried on the affair of the pictures—he discovered who had bought them, and conjecturing for what purpose, he defied me to produce them. He described the involuntary terrors which my face had exhibited on approaching the spot upon which we stood—how the same emotion, so exhibited, had led him to suspect that the rock to which he pointed had also some connexion with the transaction. The facts gathered from the conversations with the family, leading to the final, and, as he thought, conclusive proof, in reference to the jewelry, he next dwelt upon; and, with a brief but compact summary, he so concentrated the evidence, that, though strictly speaking, still inconclusive, there was not an individual present but was persuaded of my guilt. “And now,” said he, “there is but one more witness for examination , and this is the rock of which I have spoken. I am persuaded that the body of Emily Andrews lies there. The expression of Faber’s eye— the whole look with which he surveyed the chasm, could not have come from nothing. That rock, in some way or other, is associated with his crime. I have made arrangements for its examination and we shall soon judge.” Placing a little ivory whistle to his lips, a shrill sound went through the forest, and after the lapse of a moment, a sudden flash illuminated, and a loud explosion shook the earth around us. We proceeded to the spot, and when the smoke had cleared away, a shout from those who traversed the fragments, torn from the fissure which had been split by gunpowder, announced the discovery of the victim, and in her hands—conclusive evidence against me—torn from my bosom without my knowledge, while in the last convulsions of death,—lay the large brooch, the loss of which had given me so much concern at the time, and, on its back, chased finely in the gold setting, were the initials of my name. There was no longer any doubt—they seized upon and dragged me to prison. CHAPTER XVIII. He came to me in my dungeon—he, my accuser—my enemy—my friend. In the first emotions of my wrath, I would have strangled him CHAPTER XVII 57 Simms-MFaber final pages:Layout 1 4/10/08 11:51 AM Page 57 if I could, and I shook my chains in his face, and I muttered savage curses and deep threats in his ears. He stood patiently and unmoved. His hands were clasped, and his eyes were dim, and for a while he had no language, no articulation. “Think not,” at last he spoke—“think not I have come to this work with a feeling of satisfaction. I have suffered more agony in its progress than I can well describe or you understand—I will not attempt it. If you cannot, from what you know of my character, conceive the grief and sickness of heart which must have come over me, during the long period and regular and frequent succession of hours, in which I was required to play the hypocrite—I cannot teach it you. I come not for this. I come to ask your forgiveness—to implore your better opinion—and that you may attribute to a necessity which gave me no other alternatives than death or shame, the whole of this painful episode in my life!” He was a noble creature, and so I could not but think at that very moment; but, I was of the earth, earthy! I was a thing of comprehensive malignity, and my impulses were perpetually warring with the suggestions of my better reason. I may not wonder at my madness, though even then I knew it to be such. “My blood be upon your head—my ignominy be yours—the curses of all of mine be on you—may all things curse you. Talk of my being a murderer, are you less so? Have you not hurried me to death— to a shameful death—dishonoring myself, dishonoring my family, when, probably, I might have atoned for the error of my youth...

Share