CHAPTER VI.
THE RETURN OF THE PORTFOLIO With that serious question the last of the leaves entrusted to me by the Lodger at the Mill came to an end.
I betray no confidence in presenting this copy of his confession.

Time has passed since I first read it, and changes have occurred in the interval, which leave me free to exercise my own discretion, and to let the autobiography speak for itself.
If I am asked what impression of the writer those extraordinary pages produced on me, I feel at a loss how to reply.
Not one impression, but many impressions, troubled and confused my mind.
Certain passages in the confession inclined me to believe that the writer was mad.

But I altered my opinion at the next leaf, and set him down as a man with a bitter humor, disposed to make merry over his own bad qualities.

At one time, his tone in writing of his early life, and his allusions to his mother, won my sympathy and respect.

At another time, the picture of himself in his later years, and the defiant manner in which he presented it, almost made me regret that he had not died of the illness which had struck him deaf.