"I grant it; but if I am apprehended, and to be hung for robbery?"

"It will be no longer an object to you, to care for my safety. Assuredly,
I comprehend this. But my interest induces me to wish that you be removed
from the peril of apprehension, and your interest replies, that if you
can obtain equal advantages in security, you would forego advantages
accompanied by peril. Say what we will, wander as we will, it is to this
point that we must return at last."

"Nothing can be clearer; and were you a rich man, Eugene Aram, or could
you obtain your bride's dowry (no doubt a respectable sum) in advance,
the arrangement might at once be settled."

Aram gasped for breath, and as usual with him in emotion, made several
strides forward, muttering rapidly, and indistinctly to himself, and then
returned.

"Even were this possible, it would be but a short reprieve; I could not
trust you; the sum would be spent, and I again in the state to which you
have compelled me now; but without the means again to relieve myself. No,
no! if the blow must fall, be it so one day as another."

"As you will," said Houseman; 'but--' Just at that moment, a long shrill
whistle sounded below, as from the water. Houseman paused abruptly--"That
signal is from my comrades; I must away. Hark, again! Farewell, Aram."

"Farewell, if it must be so," said Aram, in a tone of dogged sullenness;
"but to-morrow, should you know of any means by which I could feel
secure, beyond the security of your own word, from your future
molestation, I might--yet how?"