veneration for my patron, the first tumult of my emotion was scarcely
subsided, before the old question that had excited my conjectures
recurred to my mind, Was he the murderer? It was a kind of fatal
impulse, that seemed destined to hurry me to my destruction. I did not
wonder at the disturbance that was given to Mr. Falkland by any
allusion, however distant, to this fatal affair. That was as completely
accounted for from the consideration of his excessive sensibility in
matters of honour, as it would have been upon the supposition of the
most atrocious guilt. Knowing, as he did, that such a charge had once
been connected with his name, he would of course be perpetually uneasy,
and suspect some latent insinuation at every possible opportunity. He
would doubt and fear, lest every man with whom he conversed harboured
the foulest suspicion against him. In my case he found that I was in
possession of some information, more than he was aware of, without its
being possible for him to decide to what it amounted, whether I had
heard a just or unjust, a candid or calumniatory tale. He had also
reason to suppose that I gave entertainment to thoughts derogatory to
his honour, and that I did not form that favourable judgment, which the
exquisite refinement of his ruling passion made indispensable to his
peace. All these considerations would of course maintain in him a state
of perpetual uneasiness. But, though I could find nothing that I could
consider as justifying me in persisting in the shadow of a doubt, yet,
as I have said, the uncertainty and restlessness of my contemplations
would by no means depart from me.

The fluctuating state of my mind produced a contention of opposite
principles, that by turns usurped dominion over my conduct. Sometimes I
was influenced by the most complete veneration for my master; I placed
an unreserved confidence in his integrity and his virtue, and implicitly
surrendered my understanding for him to set it to what point he pleased.