in vain I sought, by wine, by converse, by human voices, human kindness,
to fly the ghost that had been raised from the grave of time. I soon
returned to my own thoughts. I resolved to wrap myself once more in the
solitude of my heart. But let me not repeat what I have said before,
somewhat prematurely, in my narrative. I resolved--I struggled in vain,
Fate had ordained, that the sweet life of Madeline Lester should wither
beneath the poison tree of mine. Houseman sought me again, and now came
on the humbling part of crime, its low calculations, its poor defence,
its paltry trickery, its mean hypocrisy! They made my chiefest penance! I
was to evade, to beguile, to buy into silence, this rude and despised
ruffian. No matter now to repeat how this task was fulfilled; I
surrendered nearly my all, on the condition of his leaving England for
ever: not till I thought that condition already fulfilled, till the day
had passed on which he should have left England, did I consent to allow
Madeline's fate to be irrevocably woven with mine. Fool that I was, as if
laws could bind us closer than love had done already.

"How often, when the soul sins, are her loftiest feelings punished
through her lowest! To me, lone, rapt, for ever on the wing to unearthly
speculation, galling and humbling was it indeed, to be suddenly called
from the eminence of thought, to barter, in pounds and pence, for life,
and with one like Houseman. These are the curses that deepen the tragedy
of life, by grinding down our pride. But I wander back to what I have
before said. I was to marry Madeline,--I was once more poor, but want did
not rise before me; I had succeeded in obtaining the promise of a
competence from one whom you know. For that I had once forced from my
kind, I asked now, but not with the spirit of the beggar, but of the just
claimant, and in that spirit it was granted. And now I was really happy;
Houseman I believed removed for ever from my path; Madeline was about to
be mine: I surrendered myself to love, and blind and deluded, I wandered