Farewell. In that untried variety of Being which spreads beyond us, who
knows, but progressing from grade to grade, and world to world, our
souls, though in far distant ages, may meet again!--one dim and shadowy
memory of this hour the link between us, farewell--farewell!"

For the reader's interest we think it better (and certainly it is more
immediately in the due course of narrative, if not of actual events) to
lay at once before him the Confession that Aram placed in Walter's hands,
without waiting till that time when Walter himself broke the seal of a
confession, not of deeds alone, but of thoughts how wild and entangled--
of feelings how strange and dark--of a starred soul that had wandered
from, how proud an orbit, to what perturbed and unholy regions of night
and chaos! For me, I have not sought to derive the reader's interest from
the vulgar sources, that such a tale might have afforded; I have suffered
him, almost from the beginning, to pierce into Aram's secret; and I have
prepared him for that guilt, with which other narrators of this story
might have only sought to surprise.




CHAPTER VII.

THE CONFESSION.--AND THE FATE.


"In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages long ago betid:
And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,