against my
recrimination, so long as I remained alive. As to the fact of Gines being
retained by him for this tremendous purpose, he by no means desired that it
should become generally known; but neither did he look upon the possibility of
its being known with terror. It was already too notorious for his wishes, that I
had advanced the most odious charges against him. If he regarded me with
abhorrence as the adversary of his fame, those persons who had had occasion to
be in any degree acquainted with our history, did not entertain less abhorrence
against me for my own sake. If they should at any time know the pains he exerted
in causing my evil reputation to follow me, they would consider it as an act of
impartial justice, perhaps as a generous anxiety to prevent other men from being
imposed upon and injured, as he had been.
    What expedient was I to employ for the purpose of counteracting the
meditated and barbarous prudence, which was thus destined in all changes of
scene to deprive me of the benefits and consolations of human society? There was
one expedient against which I was absolutely determined, disguise. I had
experienced so many mortifications and such intolerable restraint when I
formerly had recourse to it, it was associated in my memory with sensations of
such acute anguish, that my mind was thus far entirely convinced: Life was not
worth purchasing at so high a price! But, though in this respect I was wholly
resolved, there was another point that did not appear so material, and in which
therefore I was willing to accommodate myself to circumstances. I was contented,
if that would insure my peace, to submit to the otherwise unmanly expedient of
passing by a different name.
    But the change of my name, the abruptness with which I removed from place to
place, the remoteness and the obscurity which I proposed to myself in the choice
of my abode, were all insufficient to elude the sagacity of Gines, or the
unrelenting constancy with which Mr. Falkland incited my tormentor to pursue me.
Whithersoever I removed myself, it was not long before I had occasion to
perceive this detested adversary in my rear. No words can enable me to do
justice to the sensations which this circumstance produced in me. It was like
what has been described of the eye of omniscience pursuing the guilty sinner,
and darting a ray that awakens him to new sensibility, at the very moment that,
otherwise, exhausted nature would lull him into a temporary oblivion of the
reproaches of his conscience. Sleep fled from my eyes. No walls could hide me
from the discernment of this hated foe.