lence,--this
scene. Speak, cousin, dear cousin, speak!"

"Speak!" cried Madeline, finding voice at length, but in the sharp and
straining tone of wild terror, in which they recognized no note of
the natural music. The single word sounded rather as a shriek than an
adjuration; and so piercingly it ran through the hearts of all present
that the very officers, hardened as their trade had made them, felt as
if they would rather have faced death than answered that command.

A dead, long, dreary pause, and Aram broke it. "Madeline Lester," said
he, "prove yourself worthy of the hour of trial. Exert yourself; arouse
your heart; be prepared! You are the betrothed of one whose soul never
quailed before man's angry word. Remember that, and fear not!"

"I will not, I will not, Eugene! Speak, only speak!"

"You have loved me in good report; trust me now in ill. They accuse me
of a crime,--a heinous crime! At first I would not have told you the
real charge. Pardon me, I wronged you,--now, know all! They accuse me,
I say, of crime. Of what crime? you ask. Ay, I scarce know, so vague
is the charge, so fierce the accuser; but prepare, Madeline,--it is of
murder!"

Raised as her spirits had been by the haughty and earnest tone of Aram's
exhortation, Madeline now, though she turned deadly pale, though the
earth swam round and round, yet repressed the shriek upon her lips as
those horrid words shot into her soul.

"You!--murder!--you! And who dares accuse you?"

"Behold him,--your cousin!"

Ellinor heard, turned, fixed her eyes on Walter's sullen brow and
motionless attitude, and fell senseless to the earth. Not thus Madeline.
As there is an exhaustion that forbids, not invites repose, so when
the mind is thoroughly on the rack, the common relief to anguish is not
allowed; the senses are too sharply strung, thus happily to collapse
into forgetfulness; the dreadful inspiration that agony kindles,
supports nature while it consumes it. Madeline passed, without a
downward glance, by the lifeless body of her sister; and walking with a
steady step to Walter, she laid her hand upon his arm, and fixing on his
countenance that soft clear eye, which was now lit with a searching and
preternatural glare, and seemed to pierce into his soul, she said,

"Walter, do I hear aright? Am I awake? Is it you who accuse Eugene
Aram,--your Madeline's betrothed husband,--Madeline, whom you once
loved? Of what? Of crimes which death alone can punish. Awa