But,
besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill
my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the
inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for
sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have
confided the fatal secret. Yet, still, words like those I have
recorded would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer no
explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my
mysterious woe. Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression
of unbounded wonder, "My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My
dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again."
"I am not mad," I cried energetically; "the sun and the heavens, who
have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the
assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations.
A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have
saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not
sacrifice the whole human race."
The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were
deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and
endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as
possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in
Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my
misfortunes.
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