I told him that, whatever might be the meaning of his question, I would
answer him truly. I was the individual he mentioned.

As I uttered these words the old man rose from his seat. He was sorry
that fortune had been so unpropitious to him, as for him ever to have
set eyes upon me! I was a monster with whom the very earth groaned!

I entreated that he would suffer me to explain this new
misapprehension, as he had done in the former instance. I had no doubt
that I should do it equally to his satisfaction.

No! no! no! he would upon no consideration admit, that his ears should
suffer such contamination. This case and the other were very different.
There was no criminal upon the face of the earth, no murderer, half so
detestable as the person who could prevail upon himself to utter the
charges I had done, by way of recrimination, against so generous a
master.--The old man was in a perfect agony with the recollection.

At length he calmed himself enough to say, he should never cease to
grieve that he had held a moment's parley with me. He did not know what
was the conduct severe justice required of him; but, since he had come
into the knowledge of who I was only by my own confession, it was
irreconcilably repugnant to his feelings to make use of that knowledge
to my injury. Here therefore all relation between us ceased; as indeed
it would be an abuse of words to consider me in the light of a human
creature. He would do me no mischief; but, on the other hand, he would
not, for the world, be in any way assisting and abetting me.

I was inexpressibly affected at the abhorrence this good and benevolent
creature expressed against me. I could not be silent; I endeavoured once
and again to prevail upon him to hear me. But his determination was
unalterable. Our contest lasted for some time, and he at length
terminated it by ringing the bell, and calling up the waiter. A very
little while after, my conductors entered, and the other persons
withdrew.

It was a part of the singularity of my fate that it hurried me from one
species of anxiety and distress to another, too rapidly to suffer any
one of them to sink deeply into my mind. I am apt to believe, in the
retrospect, that half the calamities I was destined to endure would
infallibly have overwhelmed and destroyed me. But, as it was, I had no
leisure to chew the cud upon misfortunes as they befel me, but was under
the necessity of forgetting them, to guard against peril tha