The singular being who had so disastrously
exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak; and none had
been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the exception
of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the one offered
me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left the apartment
with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning ere dawn of
day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a
perfect agony of horror and of shame.
I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation,
and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had
as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! --at
Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too --at Berlin
--and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse
him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length
flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of
the earth I fled in vain.
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