The monster, in terror, had fled the premises for ever! I should be behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark dead disturbed me but little

Taken from the ending part of the short story "The Black cat" by Edgar Allen Poe, the lines tell of the alcoholic protagonist's happiness in finding that the cat responsible for the incidental murder of his wife is nowhere to be seen in his house anymore.

Explanation:

Edgar Allen Poe's short story "The Black Cat" tells the story of an unnamed protagonist who is an alcoholic. His drunken act of killing his pet cat Pluto and then later on even his accidental murder of his wife leads to the situation he is in the start of he story - convicted to death.

The given excerpt is form the ending part of the story where he had successfully walled in his wife's corpse. He could't find the cat, he second pet cat, who had been the initial cause of the act. The lines show just how relieved he was to see that he could no longer find "the monster" in is house. But with this admission, he seems to be implying that he was free of the moral obligations in he society in general. This speech gave him he all clear in the murderous act, but which will in fact, return to haunt him and bring him to justice.