The singular being who had so
disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak;
and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party, with
the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the
one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left the
apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning ere
dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent,
in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.
_I fled in vain._ My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and
proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as
yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris, ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain!--at
Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too--at
Berlin--and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I _not_ bitter cause to
curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at
length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very
ends of the earth _I fled in vain._
And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I
demand the questions, "Who is he?--whence came he?--and what are his
objects?" But no answer was there found.
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