One day, after having heard a groan of anguish, Williams peers through the half-open door of a closet, and catches sight of Falkland in the act of opening the lid of a chest.  This incident fans his smouldering curiosity into flame, and he is soon after detected by his master in an attempt to break open the chest in the “Bluebeard’s chamber.”  Not without cause, Falkland is furiously angry, but for some inexplicable reason confesses to the murder, at the same time expressing his passionate determination at all costs to preserve his reputation.  He is tortured, not by remorse for his crime, but by the fear of being found out, and seeks to terrorise Williams into silence by declaring: 

“To gratify a foolishly inquisitive humour you have sold yourself.  You shall continue in my service, but can never share my affection.  If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, if ever you excite my jealousy or suspicion, expect to pay for it by your death or worse.”

From this moment Williams is helpless.  Turn where he will, the toils of Falkland encompass him.  Forester, Falkland’s half-brother, tries to persuade Williams to enter his service.  Williams endeavours to flee from his master, who prevents his escape by accusing him, in the presence of Forester, of stealing some jewellery and bank-notes which have disappeared in the confusion arising from an alarm of fire.  The plunder has been placed in Williams’ boxes, and the evidence against him is overwhelming.  He is imprisoned, and the sordid horror of his life in the cells gives Godwin an opportunity of showing “how man becomes the destroyer of man.”  He escapes, and is sheltered by a gang of thieves, whose leader, Raymond, a Godwinian theorist, listens with eager sympathy to his tale, which he regards as “only one fresh instance of the tyranny and perfidiousness exercised by the powerful members of the community against those who are less privileged than themselves.”  When a reward is offered for the capture of Williams, the thieves are persuaded that they must not deliver the lamb to the wolf.  After an old hag, whose animosity he has aroused, has made a bloodthirsty attack on him with a hatchet, Williams feels obliged to leave their habitation “abruptly without leave-taking.”  He then assumes beggar’s attire and an Irish brogue, but is soon compelled to seek a fresh disguise.  In Wales as in London, he comes across someone who has known Falkland, and is reviled for his treachery to so noble a master, and cast forth with ignominy.  He discovers that Falkland has hired an unscrupulous villain, Gines, to follow him from place to place, blackening his reputation.  Finally desperation drives him to accuse Falkland openly, though, after doing so, he praises the murderer, and loathes himself for his betrayal: 

“Mr. Falkland is of a noble nature ... a man worthy of affection and kindness ...  I am myself the basest and most odious of mankind.”

The inexorable persecutor in return cries at last: