I fled from you: you pursued; you gained upon me; you remember how I was preserved. I dashed through the inebriated revellers who obstructed your path, and reached my own lodging, which was close at hand; for the same day on which I learned Isora's change of residence I changed my own in order to be near it. Did I feel joy for my escape? No: I could have gnawed the very flesh from my bones in the agony of my shame. "I could brave," I said, "I could threat, I could offer violence to the woman who rejected me, and yet I could not face the rival for whom I am scorned!" At that moment a resolution flashed across my mind, exactly as if a train of living fire had been driven before it. Morton, I resolved to murder you, and in that very hour! A pistol lay on my table; I took it, concealed it about my person, and repaired to the shelter of a large portico, beside which I knew that you must pass to your own home in the same street. Scarcely three minutes had elapsed between the reaching my house and the leaving it on this errand. I knew, for I had heard swords clash, that you would be detained some time in the street by the rioters; I thought it probable also that you might still continue the search for me; and I knew even that, had you hastened at once to your home, you could scarcely have reached it before I reached my shelter. I hurried on; I arrived at the spot; I screened myself and awaited your coming. You came, borne in the arms of two men; others followed in the rear; I saw your face destitute of the hue and aspect of life, and your clothes streaming with blood. I was horror-stricken. I joined the crowd; I learned that you had been stabbed, and it was feared mortally. I did not return home: no, I went into the fields, and lay out all night, and lifted up my heart to God, and wept aloud, and peace fell upon me,--at least, what was peace compared to the tempestuous darkness which had before reigned in my breast. The sight of you, bleeding and insensible,--you, against whom I had harboured a fratricide's purpose,--had stricken, as it were, the weapon from my hand and the madness from my mind. I shuddered at what I had escaped; I blessed God for my deliverance; and with the gratitude and the awe came repentance; and repentance brought a resolution to fly, since I could not wrestle with my mighty and dread temptation: the moment that resolution was formed, it was as if an incubus were taken from my breast. Even the next morning I did not return home: my anxiety for you was such that I forgot all caution; I went to your house myself; I saw one of your servants to whom I was personally unknown. I inquired respecting you, and learned that your wound had not been mortal, and that the servant had overheard one of the medical attendants say you were not even in danger.