I, the sole child of the murdered man, will forgive you
from the bottom of my soul."

Walter paused, unable to proceed.

Aram's brow worked; he turned aside; he made no answer; his head dropped
on his bosom, and his eyes were unmovedly fixed on the earth.

"Reflect," continued Walter, recovering himself, "Reflect! I have been
the mute instrument in bringing you to this awful fate, in destroying
the happiness of my own house--in--in--in breaking the heart of the
woman whom I adored even as a boy. If you be innocent, what a dreadful
memory is left to me! Be merciful, Aram! be merciful. And if this deed
was done by your hand, say to me but one word to remove the terrible
uncertainty that now harrows up my being. What now is earth, is man, is
opinion, to you? God only now can judge you. The eye of God reads your
heart while I speak, and in the awful hour when Eternity opens to
you, if the guilt has been indeed committed, think, oh think, how much
lighter will be your offence, if, by vanquishing the stubborn heart,
you can relieve a human being from a doubt that otherwise will make the
curse--the horror of an existence. Aram, Aram, if the father's death
came from you, shall the life of the son be made a burthen to him,
through you also?"

"What would you have of me? speak!" said Aram, but without lifting his
face from his breast.

"Much of your nature belies this crime.--You are wise, calm, beneficent
to the distressed. Revenge, passion,--nay, the sharp pangs of hunger,
may have urged to one deed; but your soul is not wholly hardened: nay, I
think I would so far trust you, that, if at this dread moment--the
clay of Madeline Lester scarce yet cold, woe busy and softening at your
breast, and the son of the murdered dead before you;--if at this moment
you can lay your hand on your heart, and say: 'Before God, and at peril
of my soul, I am innocent of this deed,' I will depart--I will believe
you, and bear, as bear I may, the reflection, that, in any way I have
been one of the unconscious agents of condemning to a fearful death an
innocent man! If innocent in this--how good! how perfect in all else!
But, if you cannot at so dark a crisis take that oath,--then! oh
then! be just--be generous, even in guilt, and let me not be haunted
throughout life by the spectre of a ghastly and restless doubt! Speak!
oh! speak!"

Well, well may we judge how crushing must have been that doubt in the
breast of one naturally bold and fiery,