"The first part of my object was accomplished; and I had descended the back staircase to gain Mrs. Prime's premises, when I suddenly met Mrs. Ellis coming from the kitchen, with a bowl of gruel in her hand. She was acquainted with all the particulars of the accident, and had been a witness to my expulsion from the house. She stopped short on seeing me, gave a slight scream, dropped the bowl of gruel, and prepared to make her escape, as if from a wild beast, which I doubt not that I resembled; since wretchedness, fasting, suffering, and desperation must all have been depicted in my features. I placed myself in her path, and compelled her to stop and listen to me. But before my eager questions could find utterance, an outburst from her confirmed my worst fears.
"'Let me go!' she exclaimed. 'You villain! you will be putting my eyes out next!'
'Where is Emily?' I cried. 'Let me see her!'
"'See her!' replied she. 'You horrid wretch! No! she has suffered enough from you. She is satisfied herself now.'
'What do you mean?' shouted I, shaking the housekeeper violently by the shoulder, for her words seared my very soul, and I was frantic.
"'I mean that Emily will never see anybody again; and if she had a thousand eyes, you are the last person upon whom she would wish to look!'
"'Does Emily hate me, too?' burst from me then, in the form of a soliloquy rather than a question. The reply was ready, however. 'Hate you? Yes—more than that; she cannot find words bad enough for you! She mutters, even in her pain, 'Cruel!—wicked!' She shudders at the sound of your name; and we are all forbidden to speak it in her presence.' I waited to hear no more, but rushed out of the house. That moment was the crisis of my life. The thunderbolt had fallen upon and crushed me. My hopes, my happiness, my fortune, my good name, had gone before; but one solitary light had, until now, glimmered in the darkness. It was Emily's love. I had trusted in that—that only. It had passed away, and with it my youth, my faith, my hope of heaven.
"From that moment I ceased to be myself. Then fell upon me the cloud in which I have ever since been shrouded, and under which you have seen and known me. In that instant the blight had come, under the gnawing influence of which my happy laugh changed to the bitter smile; my frank and pleasant speech to tones of ill-concealed irony and sarcasm; my hair became prematurely grey, my features sharp and severe; my fellow-men, to whom I hoped to prove some day a benefactor, were henceforth the armed hosts of antagonists, with whom I would wage endless war—and the God whom I had worshipped—whom I had believed in, as a just and faithful friend and avenger—who was He?—where was He?—and why did He not right my cause? What direful and premeditated deed of darkness had I been guilty of that He should thus desert me? Alas!—I lost my faith in Heaven!
"I know not what direction I took on leaving Mr. Graham's house. I have no recollection of any of the streets through which I passed, though doubtless they were all familiar; but I paused not until, having reached the end of a wharf, I found myself gazing down into the deep water, longing to take one mad leap and lose myself in everlasting oblivion! But for this final blow, beneath which my manhood had fallen, I would have cherished my life, at least until I could vindicate its fair fame; I would never have left a blackened memory for men to dwell upon and for Emily to weep over. But now what cared I for my fellow-men! And Emily!—she had ceased to love, and would not mourn; and I longed for the grave. There are moments in human life when a word, a look, or a thought, may weigh down the balance in the scales of fate and decide a destiny.
"So it was with me. I was incapable of forming any plan for myself; but accident, as it were, decided for me. I was startled from the apathy into which I had fallen by the sudden splashing of oars in the water beneath, and in a moment a little boat was moored to a pier within a rod of the spot where I stood. I also heard footsteps on the wharf, and, turning, saw by the light of the moon, which was just appearing from behind a heavy cloud, a stout seafaring man, with a heavy pea-jacket under one arm and an old-fashioned carpet-bag in his left hand. He had a ruddy, good-humoured face, and as he was about to pass me and leap into the boat, where two sailors, with their oars dipped and ready for motion, were awaiting him, he slapped me on the shoulder, and exclaimed, 'Well, my fine fellow, will you ship with us?' I answered as readily in the affirmative; and, with one look in my face, and a glance at my dress, which seemed to assure him of my station in life and probable ability to make compensation for the passage, he said, in a laughing tone, 'In with you, then!'