y! It is not
you,--I know it is not. Say that I am mistaken,--that I am mad, if
you will. Come, Walter, relieve me; let me not abhor the very air you
breathe!"

"Will no one have mercy on me?" cried Walter, rent to the heart, and
covering his face with his hands. In the fire and heat of vengeance
he had not reeked of this. He had only thought of justice to a father,
punishment to a villain, rescue for a credulous girl. The woe, the
horror he was about to inflict on all he most loved: this had not struck
upon him with a due force till now!

"Mercy--you talk of mercy! I knew it could not be true!" said Madeline,
trying to pluck her cousin's hand from his face; "you could not have
dreamed of wrong to Eugene and--and upon this day. Say we have erred, or
that you have erred, and we will forgive and bless you even now!" Aram
had not interfered in this scene; he kept his eyes fixed on the cousins,
not uninterested to see what effect Madeline's touching words might
produce on his accuser. Meanwhile she continued: "Speak to me, Walter,
dear Walter, speak to me'. Are you, my cousin, my playfellow,--are you
the one to blight our hopes, to dash our joys, to bring dread and
terror into a home so lately all peace and sunshine, your own home, your
childhood's home? What have you done? What have you dared to do? Accuse
him! Of what? Murder! Speak, speak. Murder, ha! ha!--murder! nay, not
so! You would not venture to come here, you would not let me take your
hand, you would not look us, your uncle, your more than sisters, in
the face if you could nurse in your heart this lie,--this black, horrid
lie!"

Walter withdrew his hands, and as he turned his face said,--

"Let him prove his innocence. Pray God he do! I am not his accuser,
Madeline. His accusers are the bones of my dead father! Save these,
Heaven alone and the revealing earth are witness against him!"

"Your father!" said Madeline, staggering back,--"my lost uncle! Nay, now
I know indeed what a shadow has appalled us all! Did you know my uncle,
Eugene? Did you ever see Geoffrey Lester?"

"Never, as I believe, so help me God!" said Aram, laying his hand on his
heart. "But this is idle now," as, recollecting himself, he felt that
the case had gone forth from Walter's hands, and that appeal to him had
become vain. "Leave us now, dearest Madeline, my beloved wife that shall
be, that is! I go to disprove these charges. Perhaps I shall return
to-night. Delay not my acquittal, ev