alleged? Should I have dared
to ask for what reason I was thus subjected to an eternal penance?"

Saying this, I took out a copy of my letter, and laid it open upon the
table.

Mr. Falkland returned no immediate answer to my interrogations. Mr.
Forester turned to him, and said.

"Well, sir, what is your reply to this challenge of your servant?"

Mr. Falkland answered, "Such a mode of defence scarcely calls for a
reply. But I answer, I held no such conversation; I never used such
words; I received no such letter. Surely it is no sufficient refutation
of a criminal charge, that the criminal repels what is alleged against
him with volubility of speech, and intrepidity of manner."

Mr. Forester then turned to me: "If," said he, "you trust your
vindication to the plausibility of your tale, you must take care to
render it consistent and complete. You have not told us what was the
cause of the confusion and anxiety in which Robert professes to have
found you, why you were so impatient to quit the service of Mr.
Falkland, or how you account for certain articles of his property being
found in your possession."

"All that, sir," answered I, "is true. There are certain parts of my
story that I have not told. If they were told, they would not conduce to
my disadvantage, and they would make the present accusation appear still
more astonishing. But I cannot, as yet at least, prevail upon myself to
tell them. Is it necessary to give any particular and precise reasons
why I should wish to change the place of my residence? You all of you
know the unfortunate state of Mr. Falkland's mind. You know the
sternness, reservedness, and distance of his manners. If I had no other
reasons, surely it would afford small presumption of criminality that I
should wish to change his service for another.

"The question of how these articles of Mr. Falkland's property came to
be found in my possession, is more material. It is a question I am
wholly unable to answer. Their being found there, was at least as
unexpected to me as to any one of the persons now present. I only know
that, as I have the most perfect assurance of Mr. Falkland's being
conscious of my innocence--for, observe! I do not shrink from that
assertion; I reiterate it with new confidence--I therefore firmly and
from my soul believe, that their being there is of Mr. Falkland's
contrivance."

I no sooner said this, than I was again interrupted by an involuntary
exclamation from eve