malice against me has reached even to this!
Will nothing but my life content you?"

"Is the desire of execution on my father's murderer but the wish of
malice?" retorted Walter; though his heart yet well-nigh misgave him as
to the grounds on which his suspicion rested.

Aram smiled, as half in scorn, half through incredulity; and, shaking
his head gently, moved on without further words.

The three old women, who had remained in listening astonishment at the
foot of the stairs, gave way as the men descended; but the one who so
long had been Aram's solitary domestic, and who, from her deafness, was
still benighted and uncomprehending as to the causes of his seizure,
though from that very reason her alarm was the greater and more
acute, she, impatiently thrusting away the officers, and mumbling some
unintelligible anathema as she did so, flung herself at the feet of a
master whose quiet habits and constant kindness had endeared him to her
humble and faithful heart, and exclaimed,--

"What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you? O master,
God bless you! God shield you! I shall never see you, who was my only
friend--who was every one's friend--any more!"

Aram drew himself from her, and said, with a quivering lip to Rowland
Lester,--

"If her fears are true--if--if I never more return hither, see that
her old age does not starve--does not want." Lester could not speak for
sobbing, but the request was remembered. And now Aram, turning aside his
proud head to conceal his emotion, beheld open the door of the room so
trimly prepared for Madeline's reception: the flowers smiled upon him
from their stands. "Lead on, gentlemen," he said quickly. And so Eugene
Aram passed his threshold!

"Ho, ho!" muttered the old hag whose predictions in the morning had
been so ominous,--"ho, ho! you'll believe Goody Darkmans another time!
Providence respects the sayings of the ould. 'T was not for nothing the
rats grinned at me last night. But let's in and have a warm glass.
He, he! there will be all the strong liquors for us now; the Lord is
merciful to the poor!"

As the little group proceeded through the valley, the officers first,
Aram and Lester side by side, Walter, with his hand on his pistol and
his eye on the prisoner, a little behind, Lester endeavored to cheer the
prisoner's spirits and his own by insisting on the madness of the charge
and the certainty of instant acquittal from the magistrate to whom they
were bo