stained with murder. "Enjoy them while you may," I said, "but know that
sooner or later shall come a day when the blood that cries from earth
shall be heard in Heaven,--and /your/ blood shall appease it. Know, if
I seem to disobey the voice at my heart, I hear it night and day; and I
only live to fulfil at one time its commands."

I left him stunned and horror-stricken. I flung myself on my horse, and
cast not a look behind as I rode from the towers and domains of which I
had been despoiled. Never from that time would I trust myself to meet
or see the despoiler. Once, directly after I had thus braved him in his
usurped hall, he wrote to me. I returned the letter unopened. Enough
of this: the reader will now perceive what was the real nature of my
feelings of revenge; and will appreciate the reasons which throughout
this history will cause me never or rarely to recur to those feelings
again, until at least he will perceive a just hope of their
consummation.

I went with a quiet air and a set brow into the world. It was a time of
great political excitement. Though my creed forbade me the open senate,
it could not deprive me of the veiled intrigue. St. John found ample
employment for my ambition; and I entered into the toils and objects of
my race with a seeming avidity more eager and engrossing than their own.
In what ensues, you will perceive a great change in the character of my
memoirs. Hitherto, I chiefly portrayed to you /myself/. I bared open
to you my heart and temper,--my passions, and the thoughts which belong
to our passions. I shall now rather bring before you the natures and
the minds of others. The lover and the dreamer are no more! The
satirist and the observer; the derider of human follies, participating
while he derides; the worldly and keen actor in the human drama,--these
are what the district of my history on which you enter will portray me.