200
y-obstinate youth! Know at least the cause of my importunity. Know at least the depth of my infatuation and the enormity of my guilt.
"The bills--surrender them to me, and save yourself from persecution and disgrace. Save the woman whom you wish to benefit, from the blackest imputations; from hazard to her life and her fame; from languishing in dungeons; from expiring on the gallows!
"The bills--oh, save me from the bitterness of death! Let the evils to which my miserable life has given birth terminate here and in myself. Surrender them to me, for----"
There he stopped. His utterence was choked by terror. Rapid glances were again darted at the windows and door. The silence was uninterrupted, except by far-off sounds, produced by some moving carriage. Once more he summoned resolution, and spoke:--
"Surrender them to me--for--they are forged!
"Formerly I told you, that a scheme of forgery had been conceived. Shame would not suffer me to add, that my scheme was carried into execution. The bills were fashioned, but my fears contended against my necessities, and forbade me to attempt to exchange them. The interview with Lodi saved me from the dangerous experiment. I enclosed them in that volume, as the means of future opulence, to be used when all other and less hazardous resources should fail.
"In the agonies of my remorse at the death of Watson, they were forgotten. They afterwards recurred to recollection. My wishes pointed to the grave; but the stroke that should deliver me from life was suspended only till I could hasten hither, get possession of these papers, and destroy them.
"When I thought upon the chances that should give them an owner; bring them into circulation; load the innocent with suspicion; and lead them to trial, and, perhaps, to death, my sensations were fraught with agony; earnestly as I panted for death, it was necessarily deferred till I had gained possession of and destroyed these papers.
"What now remains? You have found