I had no motive to exaggerate or dress out in false colours.

What I sought to conceal, I was careful to exclude entirely, that a lame or defective narrative might awaken no suspicions.
The allusion to incidents at Toledo confounded and bewildered all my thoughts.

I still held the paper he had given me.

So far as memory could be trusted, it was the same which, an hour after I had received it, I burnt, as I conceived, with my own hands.

How Ludloe came into possession of this paper; how he was apprised of incidents, to which only the female mentioned and myself were privy; which she had too good reason to hide from all the world, and which I had taken infinite pains to bury in oblivion, I vainly endeavoured to conjecture..