On the following evening Walter obtained entrance to Aram's cell: that
morning the prisoner had seen Lester; that morning he had heard of
Madeline's death. He had shed no tear; he had, in the affecting language
of Scripture, "turned his face to the wall;" none had seen his emotions;
yet Lester felt in that bitter interview, that his daughter was duly
mourned.

He did not lift his eyes, when Walter was admitted, and the young man
stood almost at his knee before he perceived him. He then looked up and
they gazed on each other for a moment, but without speaking, till Walter
said in a hollow voice: "Eugene Aram!"

"Ay!"

"Madeline Lester is no more."

"I have heard it! I am reconciled. Better now than later."

"Aram!" said Walter, in a tone trembling with emotion, and passionately
clasping his hands, "I entreat, I implore you, at this awful time, if it
be within your power, to lift from my heart a load that weighs it to the
dust, that if left there, will make me through life a crushed and
miserable man;--I implore you, in the name of common humanity, by your
hopes of Heaven, to remove it! The time now has irrevocably passed when
your denial or your confession could alter your doom; your days are
numbered, there is no hope of reprieve; I implore you then, if you were
led, I will not ask how or wherefore, to the execution of the crime for
the charge of which you die, to say, to whisper to me but one word of
confession, and I, the sole child of the murdered man, will forgive you
from the bottom of my soul."