At other times the confidence, which had before flowed with the most
plenteous tide, began to ebb; I was, as I had already been, watchful,
inquisitive, suspicious, full of a thousand conjectures as to the
meaning of the most indifferent actions. Mr. Falkland, who was most
painfully alive to every thing that related to his honour, saw these
variations, and betrayed his consciousness of them now in one manner,
and now in another, frequently before I was myself aware, sometimes
almost before they existed. The situation of both was distressing; we
were each of us a plague to the other; and I often wondered, that the
forbearance and benignity of my master was not at length exhausted, and
that he did not determine to thrust from him for ever so incessant an
observer. There was indeed one eminent difference between his share in
the transaction and mine. I had some consolation in the midst of my
restlessness. Curiosity is a principle that carries its pleasures, as
well as its pains, along with it. The mind is urged by a perpetual
stimulus; it seems as if it were continually approaching to the end of
its race; and as the insatiable desire of satisfaction is its principle
of conduct, so it promises itself in that satisfaction an unknown
gratification, which seems as if it were capable of fully compensating
any injuries that may be suffered in the career. But to Mr. Falkland
there was no consolation. What he endured in the intercourse between us
appeared to be gratuitous evil. He had only to wish that there was no
such person as myself in the world, and to curse the hour when his
humanity led him to rescue me from my obscurity, and place me in his
service.

A consequence produced upon me by the extraordinary nature of my
situation it is necessary to mention. The constant state of vigilance
and suspicion in which my mind was retained, worked a very rapid change
in my character. It seemed to have all the effect that might have been