"From what you know, do you deem a
formal vindication necessary? Can you harbour for a moment the belief of
my guilt?"

He shook his head with an air of acute anguish. "I have struggled," said
he, "to dismiss that belief. You speak before a judge who will profit by
any pretence to acquit you: who is ready to question his own senses when
they plead against you."

These words incited a new set of thoughts in my mind. I began to suspect
that Pleyel had built his accusations on some foundation unknown to me.
"I may be a stranger to the grounds of your belief. Pleyel loaded me
with indecent and virulent invectives, but he withheld from me the facts
that generated his suspicions. Events took place last night of which
some of the circumstances were of an ambiguous nature. I conceived that
these might possibly have fallen under his cognizance, and that, viewed
through the mists of prejudice and passion, they supplied a pretence
for his conduct, but believed that your more unbiassed judgment would
estimate them at their just value. Perhaps his tale has been different
from what I suspect it to be. Listen then to my narrative. If there be
any thing in his story inconsistent with mine, his story is false."

I then proceeded to a circumstantial relation of the incidents of the
last night. Wieland listened with deep attention. Having finished,
"This," continued I, "is the truth; you see in what circumstances an
interview took place between Carwin and me. He remained for hours in my
closet, and for some minutes in my chamber. He departed without haste or
interruption. If Pleyel marked him as he left the house, and it is
not impossible that he did, inferences injurious to my character might
suggest themselves to him. In admitting them, he gave proofs of less
discernment and less candor than I once ascribed to him."

"His proofs," said Wieland, after a considerable pause, "are different.
That he should be deceived, is not possible. That he himself is not the
deceiver, could not be believed, if his testimony were not inconsistent
with yours; but the doubts which I entertained are now removed. Your
tale, some parts of it, is marvellous; the voice which exclaimed against
your rashness in approaching the closet, your persisting notwithstanding
that prohibition, your belief that I was the ruffian, and your
subsequent conduct, are believed by me, because I have known you from
childhood, because a thousand instances have attested your vera