imposture, had elapsed since my meeting with the stranger at Wilmington.
Then my forlorn state had led me to the brink of suicide. A brief and
feverish respite had been afforded me, but now was I transported to the
verge of the same abyss.

"Amos Watson was the brother of the angel whom I had degraded and
destroyed. What but fiery indignation and unappeasable vengeance could
lead him into my presence? With what heart could I listen to his
invectives? How could I endure to look upon the face of one whom I had
loaded with such atrocious and intolerable injuries?

"I was acquainted with his loftiness of mind; his detestation of
injustice, and the whirlwind passions that ingratitude and villany like
mine were qualified to awaken in his bosom. I dreaded not his violence.
The death that he might be prompted to inflict was no object of
aversion. It was poverty and disgrace, the detection of my crimes, the
looks and voice of malediction and upbraiding, from which my cowardice
shrunk.

"Why should I live? I must vanish from that stage which I had lately
trodden. My flight must be instant and precipitate. To be a fugitive
from exasperated creditors, and from the industrious revenge of Watson,
was an easy undertaking; but whither could I fly, where I should not be
pursued by the phantoms of remorse, by the dread of hourly detection, by
the necessities of hunger and thirst? In what scene should I be exempt
from servitude and drudgery? Was my existence embellished with
enjoyments that would justify my holding it, encumbered with hardships
and immersed in obscurity?

"There was no room for hesitation. To rush into the stream before me,