Can you believe that
strange story of Darke? Is he not a weird personage? This narrative we
have just heard puts the finishing touch to his picture--the murderer
marries the daughter of his victim!"
"It is truly an extraordinary history altogether," I said, "and the
whole life of this man is now known to me, with a single exception."
"Ah! you mean--?"
"The period when you fought with him, and ran him through the body, and
threw him into that grave, from which Swartz afterward rescued him on
the morning of the 13th December, 1856."
Mohun looked at me with that clear and penetrating glance which
characterized him.
"Ah! you know that!" he said.
"I could not fail to know it, Mohun."
"True--and to think that all this time you have, perhaps, regarded me
as a criminal, Surry! But I am one--that is I was--in intent if not in
reality. Yes, my dear friend," Mohun added, with a deep sigh, his head
sinking upon his breast, "there was a day in my life when I was insane,
a simple madman,--and on that day I attempted to commit murder, and
suicide! You have strangely come to catch many glimpses of those past
horrors. On the Rappahannock the words of that woman must have startled
you. In the Wilderness my colloquy with the spy revealed more. Lastly,
the words of Darke on the night of Swartz's murder must have terribly
complicated me in this issue of horrors.
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