"If I die even the death of the felon, it is beyond the power of fate to
separate us for long. It is but a pang, and we are united again for ever;
for ever in that far and shadowy clime, where the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest.' Were it not for Madeline's dear
sake, I should long since have been over weary of the world. As it is,
the sooner, even by a violent and unjust fate, we leave a path begirt
with snares below and tempests above, the happier for that soul which
looks to its lot in this earth as the least part of its appointed doom."

In discourses like this, which the nature of his eloquence was peculiarly
calculated to render solemn and impressive, Aram strove to prepare his
friends for the worst, and perhaps to cheat, or to steel, himself. Ever
as he spoke thus, Lester or Ellinor broke on him with impatient
remonstrance; but Madeline, as if imbued with a deeper and more mournful
penetration into the future, listened in tearless and breathless
attention. She gazed upon him with a look that shared the thought he
expressed, though it read not (yet she dreamed so) the heart from which
it came. In the words of that beautiful poet, to whose true nature, so
full of unuttered tenderness--so fraught with the rich nobility of love-
-we have begun slowly to awaken,

"Her lip was silent, scarcely beat her heart.
Her eye alone proclaimed 'we will not part!'
Thy 'hope' may perish, or thy friends may flee.
Farewell to life--but not adieu to thee!"
--[Lara]

They arrived at noon at the house of Mr. Thornton, and Aram underwent his
examination. Though he denied most of the particulars in Houseman's