r's departure from Knaresbro' to Grassdale, and
immediately subsequent to the discovery at St. Robert's Cave, the
coroner's inquest had been held upon the bones so mysteriously and
suddenly brought to light. Upon the witness of the old woman at
whose house Aram had lodged, and upon that of Houseman, aided by some
circumstantial and less weighty evidence, had been issued that warrant
on which we have seen the prisoner apprehended.

With most men there was an intimate and indignant persuasion of Aram's
innocence; and at this day, in the county where he last resided, there
still lingers the same belief. Firm as his gospel faith, that conviction
rested in the mind of the worthy Lester; and he sought, by every means
he could devise, to soothe and cheer the confinement of his friend.
In prison, however (indeed after his examination--after Aram had made
himself thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstantial evidence which
identified Clarke with Geoffrey Lester, a story that till then he had
persuaded himself wholly to disbelieve) a change which, in the presence
of Madeline or her father, he vainly attempted wholly to conceal, and
to which, when alone, he surrendered himself with a gloomy
abstraction--came over his mood, and dashed him from the lofty height
of Philosophy, from which he had before looked down on the peril and the
ills below.

Sometimes he would gaze on Lester with a strange and glassy eye, and
mutter inaudibly to himself, as if unaware of the old man's presence; at
others, he would shrink from Lester's proffered hand, and start abruptly
from his professions of unaltered, unalterable regard; sometimes he
would sit silently, and, with a changeless and stony countenance, look
upon Madeline as she now spoke in that exalted tone of consolation which
had passed away from himself; and when she had done, instead of replying
to her speech, he would say abruptly, "Ay, at the worst you love me,
then--love me better than any one on earth--say that, Madeline, again
say that!"

And Madeline's trembling lips obeyed the demand.

"Yes," he would renew, "this man, whom they accuse me of murdering,
this,--your uncle,--him you never saw since you were an infant, a mere
infant; him you could not love! What was he to you?--yet it is dreadful
to think of--dreadful, dreadful;" and then again his voice ceased; but
his lips moved convulsively, and his eyes seemed to speak meanings that
defied words. These alterations in his bearin