Cross Purposes

Weeks passed and still William Edgerton was a resident of M---,
and a constant guest at our little cottage. He had, in this time,
effectually broken up the harmony and banished the peace which
had previously prevailed there. The unhappy young man pursued the
same insane course of conduct which had been productive of so much
bitterness and trouble to us all before; and, under the influence
of my evil demon, I adopted the same blind policy which had already
been so fruitful of misery to myself and wife. I gave them constant
opportunities together. I found my associates, and pursued my
pastimes--pastimes indeed--away from home. Poetry and song were
given up--we no longer wandered by the river-side, and upon the
green heights of our sacred hill. My evenings were consumed in dreary
rambles, alone with my own evil thoughts, and miserable fancies,
or consumed with yellow-eyed watching, from porch or tree, upon
those privacies of the suspected lovers, in which I had so shamefully
indulged before. I felt the baseness of this vocation, but I had
not the strength to give it up. I know there is no extenuation for
it.

I know that it was base! base! base! It is a point of conscience
with me, not only to declare the truth, but to call things by the
truest and most characteristic names. Let me do my understanding
the justice to say that, even when I practised the meanness, I was
not ignorant--not insensible of its character. It was the strength
only--the courage to do right, and to forbear the wrong--in which
I was deficient. It was the blind heart, not the unknowing head to
which the shame was attributable, though the pang fell not unequally
upon heart and head.