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This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the

threat of the fiend-"_I will be with you on your wedding-night!_"

Such was my sentence, and on that night would the daemon employ

every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of happiness

which promised partly to console my sufferings. On that night he

had determined to consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it

so; a deadly struggle would then assuredly take place, in which

if he were victorious I should be at peace and his power over me

be at an end. If he were vanquished, I should be a free man.

Alas! What freedom? Such as the peasant enjoys when his family

have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands

laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and

alone, but free. Such would be my liberty except that in my

Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas, balanced by those horrors

of remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death.