yond or behind this there is no intelligible
principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct
instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate
in furtherance of good.

I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your question,
that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign to you
something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause for my
wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the condemned.
Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have misunderstood me
altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me mad. As it is, you will
easily perceive that I am one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp
of the Perverse.

It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more
thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the
means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their
accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading
some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that
occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally
poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit
of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and
ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent details. I need
not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room
candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making for the one which I there
found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the
Coroner's verdict was--"Death by the visitation of God."

Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The idea
of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the fatal
taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of a clew
by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect me of the
crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of satisfaction arose
in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute security. For a very long
period of time I was accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded
me more real delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from
my sin. But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the pleasurable
feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and
harassing thought. It harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get
rid of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed
with the