in your momentary cessation from persecutions; not in your absence from
this spot alone; you must quit the country--you must never return to it--
your home must be cast, and your very grave dug in a foreign soil. Are
you prepared for this? If not, I can say no more; and I again cast myself
passive into the arms of Fate."

"You ask," said Houseman, whose fears were allayed by Aram's address,
though, at the same time, his dissolute and desperate nature was subdued
and tamed in spite of himself, by the very composure of the loftier mind
with which it was brought in contact: "You ask," said he, "no trifling
favour of a man--to desert his country for ever; but I am no dreamer, to
love one spot better than another. I should, perhaps, prefer a foreign
clime, as the safer and the freer from old recollections, if I could live
in it as a man who loves the relish of life should do. Show me the
advantages I am to gain by exile, and farewell to the pale cliffs of
England for ever!"

"Your demand is just," answered Aram; "listen, then. I am willing to coin
all my poor wealth, save alone the barest pittance wherewith to sustain
life; nay, more, I am prepared also to melt down the whole of my possible
expectations from others, into the form of an annuity to yourself. But
mark, it will be taken out of my hands, so that you can have no power
over me to alter the conditions with which it will be saddled. It will be
so vested that it shall commence the moment you touch a foreign clime;
and wholly and for ever cease the moment you set foot on any part of
English ground; or, mark also, at the moment of my death. I shall then
know that no farther hope from me can induce you to risk this income;
for, as I should have spent my all in attaining it, you cannot even
meditate the design of extorting more. I shall know that you will not
menace my life; for my death would be the destruction of your fortunes.