CHAPTER XV. THE ULTERIOR PROJECT. It may be asked why I wished Priscilla to return with me, against her will, since I had no passion for her, and respected the honor of her husband. I wished it partly from spite, and partly because it was necessary to my purpose. She had induced me, or had had more influence to induce me than any one else, to embark in a cause which I loathed, and which at the same time I felt myself totally unable to abandon, and I wished to make her suffer with me. Then, again, I could do nothing without an accomplice, and that accomplice a woman. I travelled abroad in the character of a simple American gentleman, not as a mesmerizer, a magician, or one who commands invisible powers. Nobody abroad, or even at home, ever suspected me, unless it was good old Mr. Cotton, of any thing of the sort. In all cases when the mysterious force was to be exerted, as long as she was connected with me, I employed Priscilla as my agent. I gave her my orders, which she, without exciting any suspicion against her or myself, seldom failed to execute to the letter. Even after her own views and feelings began to change, and she felt the slavery and degradation of her position, she dared not disobey me. She stood in awe of my power, and knew well the merciless punishment that awaited her. Often, often has she begged me, with tears and in the deepest agony, to undo my spell over her, and to let her go free. I would not. Had she not declared her spirit eternally wedded to mine? The truth is, I was half afraid to undo the spell, and emancipate her. She knew too many of my secrets, might expose me, and defeat all my plans; and once freed from me, once restored to the empire of reason, she would feel herself bound in conscience to do so; and when a woman once takes it into her head to act from conscience, she is, whether she have a good or a false conscience, as unmanageable as if she were in love. She is as headstrong under conscience as under passion, and of course absolutely uncontrollable, because in either case she uses her reason simply in the service of her feelings. Then, again, I did not like accepting a new accomplice.