She knew not what to think, what image to conjure up. His words were free from all incoherence; before her, also, were the papers that would tell all--she turned from them with disgust; and then again she thought of Neville, his departure, his promised return, and what she could say to him. It was a hideous dream, but there was no awakening; she sat down, she took out the papers; the number of pages written in her father's hand seemed a reprieve; she should not hear all the dreadful truth in a few short, piercing words--there was preparation. For a moment she paused to gather her thoughts--to pray for fortitude--to hope that the worst was not there, but, in its stead, some venial error that looked like crime to his sensitive mind; and then--she began to read. CHAPTER XXVI FALKNER'S NARRATIVE "To palliate crime, and, by investigating motive, to render guilt less odious--such is not the feeling that rules my pen; to confer honour upon innocence, to vindicate virtue, and announce truth--though that offer my own name as a mark for deserved infamy--such are my motives. And if I reveal the secrets of my heart, and dwell on the circumstances that led to the fatal catastrophe I record, so that, though a criminal, I do not appear quite a monster, let the egotism be excused for her dear sake--within whose young and gentle heart I would fain that my memory should be enshrined without horror, though with blame. "The truth, the pure and sacred truth, will alone find expression in these pages. I write them in a land of beauty, but of desolation--in a country whose inhabitants are purchasing by blood and misery the dearest privileges of human nature--where I have come to die! It is night; the cooing aziolo, the hooting owl, the flashing fire-fly, the murmur of time-honoured streams, the moonlit foliage of the gray olive woods, dark crags, and rugged mountains, throwing awful shadows, and the light of the eternal stars--such are the objects around me. Can a man speak false in the silence of night, when God and his own heart alone keep watch! when conscience hears the moaning of the dead in the pauses of the breeze, and sees one pale, lifeless figure float away on the current of the stream! My heart whispers that before such witnesses the truth will be truly recorded; and my blood curdles, and my nerves, so firm amid the din of battle, shrink and shudder at the tale I am about to narrate. "What is crime? "A deed done injurious to others--forbidden by religion, condemned by morality, and which human laws are enacted to punish.