“And what did he say?”
“Shook his head mournfully, and reasoned in this manner: 'He has no pecuniary necessities, has no oppressive toils, and has never had any disappointment of heart. There is nothing to make him behave so, and look so, but guilt—GUILT!'”
I repeated the last word with an entire change in the tone of my voice. Light, lively, and playful before, I spoke that single word with a stern solemnity, and, bending toward him, my eye keenly traversed the mazes of his countenance.
“HE HAS IT!” I thought to myself, as his head drooped forward, and his whole frame shuddered momentarily.
“But”—here my tones again became lively and playful—I even laughed—“I told the old man that I fancied I could hit the nail more certainly on the head. In short, I said I could pretty positively say what was the cause of your conduct and condition.”
“Ah!” and, as he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort to rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon the floor in visible emotion.
“Yes! I told him—was I not right?—that a woman was at the bottom of it all!”
He started to his feet. His face was averted from me.
“Ha! was I not right? I knew it! I saw through it from the first; and, though I did not tell the old man THAT, I was pretty sure that you were trespassing upon your neighbor's grounds. Ha! what say you? Was I not right? Were you not stealing to forbidden places—playing the snake, on a small scale, in some blind man's Eden? Ha! ha! what say you to that? I am right, am I not? eh?”
I clapped him on the shoulder as I spoke. His face had been half averted from me while I was speaking; but now it turned upon me, and his glance met mine, teeming with inquisitive horror.