As I ended the last part of my story, I was speaking of that terrible evening wh

As I ended the last part of my story, I was speaking of that terrible evening when I played cards with a young gentleman called Glendinning. We were in the room of one of my friends at Oxford University. I had just realized that the young man, weak of mind and weakened by wine, had allowed me to win from him everything he owned. I was still trying to decide what I should do, when, as I said… The wide, heavy doors of the room were suddenly opened. Every light in the room went out; but I had seen that a stranger had entered; he was about my own height, and he was wearing a very fine, long coat. The darkness, however, was now complete; and we could only feel that he was standing among us. Then we heard him speak. In a soft, low, and never-to-be-forgotten voice, which I felt deep in my heart, he said: “Gentlemen, I am here only to do my duty. You cannot know the true character of the man who has tonight taken a large amount of money from Mr. Glendinning. Please have him take off his coat, and then look in it very carefully.” While he was speaking there was not another sound in the room. As he ended, he was gone. 19 Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller Can I — shall I — tell what I felt? Need I say that I was afraid, that I felt the sick fear of those who are judged forever wrong? Many hands held me. Lights were brought. My friends looked in my coat. In it they found all the high cards, the valuable cards needed to win in the game we had been playing. Secretly using these cards, I could have taken the money of anyone who played the game with me. Mr. Preston, in whose room we were, then said: “Mr. Wilson, this is yours.” He lifted from the floor a fine, warm coat, and said, “We shall not look in this to prove again what we have proved already. We have seen enough. You will understand, I hope, the need for you to leave the University. At the very least, you must leave my room, and leave it now.” Down in the dust though my spirit was, I might have tried to strike him for those word