“Some men might have derived comfort from the circumstances of _that_ crime. I could not. They might have said, ‘I was goaded, stung, driven, outraged, tempted beyond my strength, caught in a net of fire, from which there was but one method of exit--to burst out, trampling down every thing.’ Four words silenced all that sophistry--‘She was a woman!’ It was the face of that woman, as I saw it last on that stormy night by the lightning flashes, which drove me to despair. I, the son of the pure gentleman whose portrait is yonder--I, the representative of the Mohuns, a family which had acted in all generations according to the dictates of the loftiest honor--I, had put to death a woman, and that thought spurred me to madness! “Of _his_ death I did not think in the same manner. I had slain him in fair combat, body to body--and, however the law of God may stigmatize homicide, there was still that enormous difference. I had played my life against his, as it were--he had lost, and he paid the forfeit. But _the other_ was _murdered_! That fact stared me in the face. She had dishonored me; tricked me; attempted to poison, and then shoot me. _She_ had designed to murder _me_, and had set about her design deliberately, coolly, without provocation, impelled by the lust of gold only. She deserved punishment, but--she was a woman! I had not said ‘Go!’ either, in pointing to the gloomy path to death. I had said ‘Come!’--had meant to die too. I had not shrunk from the torrent in which I had resolved she should be borne away. I had gone into the boat with her; accompanied her on her way; devoted myself, too, to death, at the same moment. But all was useless. I said to myself a thousand times--‘at least they can not say that I was a coward, as well as a murderer. The last of the Mohuns may have blackened his escutcheon with the crime of murder--but at least he did not spare _himself_; he faced death with his victim.’ Useless, Surry--all useless! The inexorable Voice with which I fenced, had only one reply--one lunge--‘She was a woman!’ and the words pierced me like a sword-blade! “Let me end this, but not before I say that the dreadful Voice was _right_. As to the combat with Mortimer, I shall express no opinion. You know the facts, and will judge me. But the other act was a deadly crime. Gloss it over as you may, you can never justify murder. Use all the special pleading possible, and the frightful deed is still as black in the eyes of God and man as before. I saw that soon; saw it always; see it to-day; and pray God in his infinite mercy to blot out that crime from his book--to pardon the poor weak creature who was driven to madness, and attempted to commit that deadly sin.