“I reached home an hour or two afterward. Nighthawk was sitting in the library, pale, and haggard, watching for me. “As I entered, he rose with an exclamation, extending his arms toward me, with an indescribable expression of joy. “I shrunk back, refusing his hand. “‘Do not touch that,’ I groaned, ‘there is blood on it!’ “He seized it, and kneeling down, kissed it. “‘Bloody or not, it is _your_ hand--the hand of my dear young master!’ “And the honest fellow burst into tears, as he covered my hand with kisses. “A month afterward, I was in Europe, amid the whirl and noise of Paris. I tried to forget that I was a murderer--but the shadow went with me!” XXVII. MOHUN TERMINATES HIS NARRATIVE. Mohun had spoken throughout the earlier portions of his narrative in a tone of cynical bitterness. His last words were mingled, however, with weary sighs, and his face wore an expression of the profoundest melancholy. The burnt-out cigar had fallen from his fingers to the floor; he leaned back languidly in his great arm-chair: with eyes fixed upon the dying fire, he seemed to go back in memory to the terrible scenes just described, living over again all those harsh and conflicting emotions. “So it ended, Surry,” he said, after a long pause. “Such was the frightful gulf into which the devil and my own passions pushed me, in that month of December, 1856. A hand as irresistible and inexorable as the Greek Necessity had led me step by step to murder--in intent if not in fact--and for years the shadow of the crime which I believed I had committed, made my life wretched. I wandered over Europe, plunged into a thousand scenes of turmoil and excitement--it was all useless--still the shadow went with me. Crime is a terrible companion to have ever at your elbow. The _Atra cura_ of the poet is nothing to it, friend! It is a fiend which will not be driven away. It grins, and gibbers, and utters its gibes, day and night. Believe me, Surry,--I speak from experience--it is better for this world, as well as the next, to be a boor, a peasant, a clodhopper with a clear conscience, than to hold in your hand the means of all luxury, and so-called enjoyment, and, with it, the consciousness that you are blood guilty under almost any circumstances.