ot unwise; to avoid it, I
say I offered to bribe this man to leave the country. I sold my pittance
to oblige him to it. I bound him thereto by the strongest ties. Nay,
so disinterestedly, so truly did I love Madeline, that I would not wed
while I thought this danger could burst upon me. I believed that, before
my marriage day, Houseman had left the country. It was not so, Fate
ordered otherwise. It seems that Houseman came to Knaresbro' to see
his daughter; that suspicion, by a sudden train of events, fell on him,
perhaps justly; to skreen himself he has sacrificed me. The tale seems
plausible; perhaps the accuser may triumph. But, Madeline, you now
may account for much that may have perplexed you before. Let me
remember--ay--ay--I have dropped mysterious words--have I not? have I
not?--owning that danger was around me--owning that a wild and terrific
secret was heavy at my breast; nay, once, walking with you the evening
before, before the fatal day, I said that we must prepare to seek
some yet more secluded spot, some deeper retirement; for, despite my
precautions, despite the supposed absence of Houseman from the country
itself, a fevered and restless presentiment would at some times intrude
itself on me. All this is now accounted for, is it not, Madeline? Speak,
speak!"

"All, love all! Why do you look on me with that searching eye, that
frowning brow?"

"Did I? no, no, I have no frown for you; but peace, I am not what I
ought to be through this ordeal."

The above narration of Aram's did indeed account to Madeline for much
that had till then remained unexplained; the appearance of Houseman at
Grassdale,--the meeting between him and Aram on the evening she walked
with the latter, and questioned him of his ill-boding visitor; the
frequent abstraction and muttered hints of her lover; and as he
had said, his last declaration of the possible necessity of leaving
Grassdale. Nor was there any thing improbable, though it was rather in
accordance with the unworldly habits, than with the haughty character of
Aram, that he should seek, circumstanced as he was, to silence even the
false accuser of a plausible tale, that might well strike horror and
bewilderment into a man much more, to all seeming, fitted to grapple
with the hard and coarse realities of life, than the moody and secluded
scholar. Be that as it may, though Lester deplored, he did not blame
this circumstance, which after all had not transpired, nor seemed likel