Explore "Devereux Book VI" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
POWERFUL, though not clearly developed in my own mind, was the motive which made me so strongly desire to preserve the /incognito/ during my interview with the Hermit. I have before said that I could not resist a vague but intense belief that he was a person whom I had long believed in the grave; and I had more than once struggled against a dark but passing suspicion that that person was in some measure -- mediately, though not directly -- connected with the mysteries of my former life. If both these conjectures were true, I thought it possible that the communication the Hermit wished to make might be made yet more willingly to me as a stranger than if he knew who was in reality his confidant. And, at all events, if I could curb the impetuous gushings of my own heart, which yearned for immediate disclosure, I might by hint and prelude ascertain the advantages and disadvantages of revealing myself.
I arrived at the well: the Hermit was already at the place of rendezvous, seated in the same posture in which I had before seen him. I made my reverence and accosted him.