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Edgar Huntley - or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker by Charles Brockden Brown
page 71 of 322 (22%)
ever before experienced. The occasion, accurately considered, was far
from justifying the ominous inquietudes which I then felt. How, then,
should I account for them?

Sarsefield probably enjoyed his usual slumber. His repose might not be
perfectly serene, but when he ruminated on impending or possible
calamities his tongue did not cleave to his mouth, his throat was not
parched with unquenchable thirst, he was not incessantly stimulated to
employ his superfluous fertility of thought in motion. If I trembled for
the safety of her whom I loved, and whose safety was endangered by being
the daughter of this miscreant, had he not equal reason to fear for her
whom he also loved, and who, as the sister of this ruffian, was
encompassed by the most alarming perils? Yet he probably was calm while
I was harassed by anxieties.

Alas! The difference was easily explained. Such was the beginning of a
series ordained to hurry me to swift destruction. Such were the primary
tokens of the presence of that power by whose accursed machinations I
was destined to fall. You are startled at this declaration. It is one to
which you have been little accustomed. Perhaps you regard it merely as
an effusion of frenzy. I know what I am saying. I do not build upon
conjectures and surmises. I care not, indeed, for your doubts. Your
conclusion may be fashioned at your pleasure. Would to Heaven that my
belief were groundless, and that I had no reason to believe my
intellects to have been perverted by diabolical instigations!

I could procure no sleep that night. After Sarsefield's departure I did
not even lie down. It seemed to me that I could not obtain the benefits
of repose otherwise than by placing my lady beyond the possibility of
danger.
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