what is in your power is, I fear
me, so little as not to counterbalance the advantages I should lose in
quitting my companions. I expect to net some three hundreds before I
leave these parts."

"Some three hundreds!" repeated Aram recoiling; "that were indeed beyond
me. I told you when we last met that it is only by an annual payment I
draw the little wealth I have."

"I remember it. I do not ask you for money, Eugene Aram; these hands can
maintain me," replied Houseman, smiling grimly. "I told you at once the
sum I expected to receive somewhere, in order to prove that you need
not vex your benevolent heart to afford me relief. I knew well the sum
I named was out of your power, unless indeed it be part of the marriage
portion you are about to receive with your bride. Fie, Aram! what,
secrets from your old friend! You see I pick up the news of the place
without your confidence."

Again Aram's face worked, and his lip quivered; but he conquered his
passion with a surprising self-command, and answered mildly, "I do not
know, Houseman, whether I shall receive any marriage portion whatsoever:
If I do, I am willing to make some arrangement by which I could engage
you to molest me no more. But it yet wants several days to my marriage;
quit the neighbourhood now, and a month hence let us meet again.
Whatever at that time may be my resources, you shall frankly know them."

"It cannot be," said Houseman; "I quit not these districts without a
certain sum, not in hope, but possession. But why interfere with me?
I seek not my hoards in your coffer. Why so anxious that I should not
breathe the same air as yourself?"

"It matters not," replied Aram, with a deep and ghastly voice; "but when
you are near me, I feel as if I were with the dead; it is a spectre that
I would exorcise in ridding me of your presence. Yet this is not what
I now speak of. You are engaged, according to your own lips, in lawless
and midnight schemes, in which you may, (and the tide of chances runs
towards that bourne,) be seized by the hand of Justice."

"Ho," said Houseman, sullenly, "and was it not for saying that you
feared this, and its probable consequences, that you well-nigh stifled
me, but now?--so truth may be said one moment with impunity, and the
next at peril of life! These are the subtleties of you wise schoolmen,
I suppose. Your Aristotles, and your Zenos, your Platos, and your
Epicurus's, teach you notable distinctions, truly!"

"Peace!" sa