nt of
learning he had reached! Never did I see one whom Nature so emphatically
marked to be GREAT. I often wonder that his name has not long ere this
been more universally noised abroad: whatever he attempted was stamped
with such signal success. I have by me some scattered pieces of poetry
when a boy; they were given me by his poor father, long since dead; and
are full of a dim, shadowy anticipation of future fame. Perhaps, yet,
before he dies,--he is still young,--the presentiment will be realized.
You too know him, then?"

"Yes! I have known him. Stay--dare I ask you a question, a fearful
question? Did suspicion ever, in your mind, in the mind of any one, rest
on Aram, as concerned in the mysterious disappearance of my--of Clarke?
His acquaintance with Houseman who was suspected; Houseman's visit to
Aram that night; his previous poverty--so extreme, if I hear rightly;
his after riches--though they perhaps may be satisfactorily accounted
for; his leaving this town so shortly after the disappearance I refer
to;--these alone might not create suspicion in me, but I have seen the
man in moments of reverie and abstraction, I have listened to strange
and broken words, I have noted a sudden, keen, and angry susceptibility
to any unmeant excitation of a less peaceful or less innocent
remembrance. And there seems to me inexplicably to hang over his heart
some gloomy recollection, which I cannot divest myself from imagining to
be that of guilt."

Walter spoke quickly, and in great though half suppressed excitement;
the more kindled from observing that as he spoke, Summers changed
countenance, and listened as with painful and uneasy attention.

"I will tell you," said the Curate, after a short pause, (lowering his
voice)--"I will tell you: Aram did undergo examination--I was present at
it--but from his character and the respect universally felt for him, the
examination was close and secret. He was not, mark me, suspected of
the murder of the unfortunate Clarke, nor was any suspicion of murder
generally entertained until all means of discovering Clarke were found
wholly unavailing; but of sharing with Houseman, some part of the jewels
with which Clarke was known to have left the town. This suspicion of
robbery could not, however, be brought home, even to Houseman, and Aram
was satisfactorily acquitted from the imputation. But in the minds
of some present at that examination, a doubt lingered, and this doubt
certainly deeply wo