for my safety. It was with difficulty I stammered
out an entreaty that he would instantly depart, or suffer me to do so.
He paid no regard to my request, but proceeded in a more impassioned
manner.

"What is it you fear? Have I not told you, you are safe? Has not one
in whom you more reasonably place trust assured you of it? Even if I
execute my purpose, what injury is done? Your prejudices will call it
by that name, but it merits it not. I was impelled by a sentiment that
does you honor; a sentiment, that would sanctify my deed; but, whatever
it be, you are safe. Be this chimera still worshipped; I will do nothing
to pollute it." There he stopped.

The accents and gestures of this man left me drained of all courage.
Surely, on no other occasion should I have been thus pusillanimous. My
state I regarded as a hopeless one. I was wholly at the mercy of this
being. Whichever way I turned my eyes, I saw no avenue by which I might
escape. The resources of my personal strength, my ingenuity, and my
eloquence, I estimated at nothing. The dignity of virtue, and the force
of truth, I had been accustomed to celebrate; and had frequently vaunted
of the conquests which I should make with their assistance.

I used to suppose that certain evils could never befall a being in
possession of a sound mind; that true virtue supplies us with energy
which vice can never resist; that it was always in our power to
obstruct, by his own death, the designs of an enemy who aimed at less
than our life. How was it that a sentiment like despair had now invaded
me, and that I trusted to the protection of chance, or to the pity of my
persecutor?

His words imparted some notion of the injury which he had meditated. He
talked of obstacles that had risen in his way. He had relinquished his
design. These sources supplied me with slender consolation. There was no
security but in his absence. When I looked at myself, when I reflected
on the hour and the place, I was overpowered by horror and dejection.

He was silent, museful, and inattentive to my situation, yet made no
motion to depart. I was silent in my turn. What could I say? I was
confident that reason in this contest would be impotent. I must owe my
safety to his own suggestions. Whatever purpose brought him hither, he
had changed it. Why then did he remain? His resolutions might fluctuate,
and the pause of a few minutes restore to him his first resolutions.

Yet was not this the man whom we ha