Across the gloomy passage, as the candle now flared--and now was dulled--
by quick fits and starts,--Houseman, after this brief conference,
reconducted the Student. And as Aram turned from the door, he flung his
arms wildly aloft, and exclaimed in the voice of one, from whose heart a
load is lifted--"Now, now, for Madeline. I breathe freely at last."

Meanwhile, Houseman turned musingly back, and regained his room,
muttering, "Yes--yes--my business here is also done! Competence and
safety abroad--after all, what a bugbear is this conscience!--fourteen
years have rolled away--and lo! nothing discovered! nothing known! And
easy circumstances--the very consequence of the deed--wait the remainder
of my days:--my child, too--my Jane--shall not want--shall not be a
beggar nor a harlot."

So musing, Houseman threw himself contentedly on the chair, and the last
flicker of the expiring light, as it played upward on his rugged
countenance--rested on one of those self-hugging smiles, with which a
sanguine man contemplates a satisfactory future.

He had not been long alone, before the door opened; and a woman with a
light in her hand appeared. She was evidently intoxicated, and approached
Houseman with a reeling and unsteady step.

"How now, Bess? drunk as usual. Get to bed, you she shark, go!"

"Tush, man, tush! don't talk to your betters," said the woman, sinking
into a chair; and her situation, disgusting as it was, could not conceal
the rare, though somewhat coarse beauty of her face and person.