so generous a
protector.
 

                                   Chapter IV

Is it not unaccountable that, in the midst of all my increased veneration for my
patron, the first tumult of my emotion was scarcely subsided, before the old
question that had excited my conjectures recurred to my mind, Was he the
murderer? It was a kind of fatal impulse that seemed destined to hurry me to my
destruction. I did not wonder at the disturbance that was given to Mr. Falkland
by any allusion however distant to this fatal affair. That was as completely
accounted for from the consideration of his excessive sensibility in matters of
honour, as it would have been upon the supposition of the most atrocious guilt.
Knowing as he did, that such a charge had once been connected with his name, he
would of course be perpetually uneasy, and suspect some latent insinuation at
every possible opportunity. He would doubt and fear, lest every man with whom he
conversed harboured the foulest suspicions against him. In my case he found that
I was in possession of some information more than he was aware of, without its
being possible for him to decide to what it amounted, whether I had heard a just
or unjust, a candid or calumniatory tale. He had also reason to suppose that I
gave entertainment to thoughts derogatory to his honour, and that I did not form
that favourable judgment which the exquisite refinement of his ruling passion
made indispensible to his peace. All these considerations would of course
maintain in him a state of perpetual uneasiness. But, though I could find
nothing that I could consider as justifying me in persisting in the shadow of a
doubt, yet, as I have said, the uncertainty and restlessness of my
contemplations would by no means depart from me.
    The fluctuating state of my mind produced a contention of opposite
principles that by turns usurped dominion over my conduct. Sometimes I was
influenced by the most complete veneration for my master; I placed an unreserved
confidence in his integrity and his virtue, and implicitly surrendered my
understanding for him to set it to what point he pleased. At other times the
confidence, which had before flowed with the most plenteous tide, began to ebb;
I was, as I had already been, watchful, inquisitive, suspicious, full of a
thousand conjectures as to the meaning of the most indifferent actions. Mr.
Falkland, who was most painfully alive to every thing that related to his
honour, saw these variations, and betrayed his consciousness of them now in one
manner and now in another, frequently before I was myself aware, sometimes
almost before they existed. The situation of both was distressing; we