a state of mind more wearing and more
wearisome than remorse. He had no remorse; but the evildoer who can hold
that avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower torture of incessantly
doing the evil deed again and doing it more efficiently. In the
defensive declarations and pretended confessions of murderers, the
pursuing shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie they
tell. If I had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I would have
made this and this mistake? If I had done it as alleged, should I have
left that unguarded place which that false and wicked witness against me
so infamously deposed to? The state of that wretch who continually finds
the weak spots in his own crime, and strives to strengthen them when
it is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doing
the deed a thousand times instead of once; but it is a state, too, that
tauntingly visits the offence upon a sullen unrepentant nature with its
heaviest punishment every time.

Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and his
vengeance, and thinking how he might have satiated both in many better
ways than the way he had taken. The instrument might have been better,
the spot and the hour might have been better chosen. To batter a man
down from behind in the dark, on the brink of a river, was well enough,
but he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned and
seized his assailant; and so, to end it before chance-help came, and
to be rid of him, he had been hurriedly thrown backward into the river
before the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be done
again, it must not be so done. Supposing his head had been held down
under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had been truer.
Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Suppose
this way, that way, the other way. Suppose anything but getting
unchained from the one idea, for that was inexorably impossible.

The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or no change in
their master's face, for it always wore its slowly labouring expression.
But, as he heard his classes, he was always doing the deed and doing it
better. As he paused with his piece of chalk at the black board before
writing on it, he was thinking of the spot, and whether the water was
not deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a little
lower down. He had half a mind to draw a line or two upon the board, and
show himself wh