He put his ear,
perhaps, to the crevice, but it caught the sound of nothing human. Had
I called, or made any token that denoted some one to be within, words
would have ensued; and as omnipresence was impossible, this discovery,
and the artless narrative of what had just passed, would have saved me
from his murderous invectives. He went into his chamber, and after some
interval, I stole across the entry and down the stairs, with
inaudible steps. Having secured the outer doors, I returned with less
circumspection. He heard me not when I descended; but my returning steps
were easily distinguished. Now he thought was the guilty interview at
an end. In what other way was it possible for him to construe these
signals?

How fallacious and precipitate was my decision! Carwin's plot owed its
success to a coincidence of events scarcely credible. The balance was
swayed from its equipoise by a hair. Had I even begun the conversation
with an account of what befel me in my chamber, my previous interview
with Wieland would have taught him to suspect me of imposture; yet, if
I were discoursing with this ruffian, when Pleyel touched the lock of my
chamber door, and when he shut his own door with so much violence, how,
he might ask, should I be able to relate these incidents? Perhaps he
had withheld the knowledge of these circumstances from my brother, from
whom, therefore, I could not obtain it, so that my innocence would have
thus been irresistibly demonstrated.

The first impulse which flowed from these ideas was to return upon my
steps, and demand once more an interview; but he was gone: his parting
declarations were remembered.

Pleyel, I exclaimed, thou art gone for ever! Are thy mistakes beyond
the reach of detection? Am I helpless in the midst of this snare?
The plotter is at hand. He even speaks in the style of penitence. He
solicits an interview which he promises shall end in the disclosure of
something momentous to my happiness. What can he say which will avail to
turn aside this evil? But why should his remorse be feigned? I have
done him no injury. His wickedness is fertile only of despair; and the
billows of remorse will some time overbear him. Why may not this event
have already taken place? Why should I refuse to see him?

This idea was present, as it were, for a moment. I suddenly recoiled
from it, confounded at that frenzy which could give even momentary
harbour to such a scheme; yet presently it returned. At length