I accounted myself wholly and irrevocably damned, Be God never so clement, surely here was something for which even His illimitable clemency could find no pardon.
I had come to Fifanti's house as a student of humanities and divinities; all that I had learnt there had been devilries culminating in this hour's work.

And all through no fault of that poor, mean, ugly pedant, who indeed had been my victim--whom I had robbed of honour and of life.
Never man felt self-horror as I felt it then, self-loathing and self-contempt.

And then, whilst the burden of it all, the horror of it all was full upon me, a soft hand touched my shoulder, and a soft, quivering voice murmured urgently in my ear: "Agostino, we must go; we must go." I plucked away my hands, and showed her a countenance before which she shrank in fear.
"We ?" I snarled at her.

"We ?" I repeated still more fiercely, and drove her back before me as if I had done her a bodily hurt.
O, I should have imagined--had I had time in which to imagine anything--that already I had descended to the very bottom of the pit of infamy.

But it seems that one more downward step remained me; and that step I took.