That mournful voice was still in my ears; but the consciousness of danger, the sense of triumph, the selfishness of happiness, out-clamored it! Destined as it was to return in after-years in tones that always seemed more piteous and more laden with pain and bitterness as that miserable night receded further and further back into the darkness of the past, it came upon me the next morning with something of a feeling of asperity and antagonism. There was yet the risk that the dwarf might re-appear, and as every thing concerning his rights and his probable mode of proceeding was vague and uncertain, we were much more occupied in thinking of our own security, than of his sufferings or wrongs. Indeed, under the influence of the feelings that actuated us then, we were strongly impressed with the conviction that the wrongs were all on our side, and that whatever he might have suffered, was nothing more than a measure of just punishment for having inflicted them. People who do a wrong seldom have any difficulty in finding out excuses and justifications for it. We certainly had abundant ground to complain of the conduct of poor Mephistophiles. We were not aware that in those moments of irritation and revenge we exaggerated his faults, and palliated our own. We could see every thing he had done that was harsh, or disagreeable, or unjust; we could see nothing we had done ourselves that was not forced upon us in self-defense, and capable of vindication. We had acted all throughout, upon a necessity he had woven round us like a net. We were, in fact, the victims, and he was the cool, crafty, heartless tempter and persecutor. We did all we could to forget the brief gleam of humanity he had betrayed the evening before. What was that, weighed against years of oppression and cruelty? And even if we were inclined to admit that it showed his character in rather a better light, it came too late to be entitled to any consideration from us. If he had been capable of such manly feelings, why did he not exhibit them sooner? But the truth was, we affected not to believe in the genuineness of his emotions. He was such an habitual mimic, that he could assume any mood that suited the occasion, and nobody could tell whether he was in earnest or not, which warranted us in supposing that the whole of that wild burst of passionate reproaches, apparently welling up out of baffled and imploring love, might have been put on like any other piece of cunning gesticulation.