"I have indeed wronged myself--most wretchedly wronged myself, but not now; the wrong which I did to others has recoiled ten-fold upon my own head. I know full well thy meaning--thou wouldst say that kindly feelings are not wholly dead within this seared heart! But thou hast made but little progress in analyzing our moral structure, if thou dost not know that crime committed by one whose nature would lead to good, is the true source of that misery which surpasseth speech. "An intuitive villain, if there be such, or one become wholly corrupt, plunges from transgression to transgression, until his final ruin, without enduring any of that wretchedness which comes of a stain upon a tenderer conscience. Such a man has no conscience; it is seared or obliterated; but he of benevolent heart and virtuous impulses, wounds his guardian angel by the deed. The taint corrupts and sours the sweets of life into gall and bitterness. If that stain be but a single deed, and that, dark, damning and indelible, the perpetrator becomes as an angel of light in the companionship of hell. He may be likened to one who loses the power of sight, with all the other senses perfect. He hears what others see, but to him the grand medium of perception is dark and dismal, and the rhapsodies of others are his own damnation. There is but one hue to his atmosphere; it is the fearful red which only the blood of man can dye. In his case the language of scripture is fulfilled before its time. The moon is turned to blood, and the morning beam dispelleth not the horrid hue." Bacon thought any direction of his companion's thoughts preferable to his present mood, and therefore said "But she whom you supposed my mother--" "I know it all, my son," interrupted the Recluse; "I saw the marble features upon their last journey. For twenty years I have not envied mortal being, but I confess to thee, that there was something in the cessation from thought, suffering and action--and the sleep-like serenity of death for which I longed. Nevertheless, there is an awful mystery in that which seemeth so simple in itself. Mere lifeless clay, moulded by the hands of man into the same stamp, speaks not to man in the same language; it may indeed refresh the memory, but it stirreth not up the divinity within us. Who is he that looketh upon the features of the dead and looketh not up to the giver and recipient of life? I saw her mortal remains laid out in the midst of a camp, and the busy world faded away into indistinctness, while the God of the universe spoke in the person of the beautiful corse before me and said, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.'" As they steered their course uninterruptedly towards the source of the Powhatan, which they had entered as the sunbeams broke through the morning mists, Bacon threw himself down, and slept soundly, until he was aroused by the Recluse to inquire what direction their agents should give the vessel when they arrived within sight of the city.