, may meet again!--one dim and shadowy
memory of this hour the link between us, farewell--farewell!"

For the reader's interest we think it better (and certainly it is more
immediately in the due course of narrative, if not of actual events)
to lay at once before him the Confession that Aram placed in Walter's
hands, without waiting till that time when Walter himself broke the
seal of a confession, not of deeds alone, but of thoughts how wild and
entangled--of feelings how strange and dark--of a starred soul that had
wandered from, how proud an orbit, to what perturbed and unholy regions
of night and chaos! For me, I have not sought to derive the reader's
interest from the vulgar sources, that such a tale might have afforded;
I have suffered him, almost from the beginning, to pierce into Aram's
secret; and I have prepared him for that guilt, with which other
narrators of this story might have only sought to surprise.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CONFESSION.--AND THE FATE.

"In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of woful ages long ago betid:
And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell them the lamentable fall of me."
--Richard II.

"I was born at Ramsgill, a little village in Netherdale. My family had
originally been of some rank; they were formerly lords of the town of
Aram, on the southern banks of the Tees. But time had humbled these
pretensions to consideration; though they were still fondly cherished by
the heritors of an ancient name, and idle but haughty recollections.
My father resided on a small farm, and was especially skilful in
horticulture, a taste I derived from him. When I was about thirteen,
the deep and intense Passion that has made the Demon of my life, first
stirred palpably within me. I had always been, from my cradle, of a
solitary disposition, and inclined to reverie and musing; these
traits of character heralded the love that now seized me--the love of
knowledge. Opportunity or accident first directed my attention to the
abstruser sciences. I poured my soul over that noble study, which is the
best foundation of all true discovery; and the success I met with soon
turned my pursuits into more alluring channels. History, poetry, the
mastery of the past, the spell that admits us into the visionary
world, took the place which lines and numbers had done before. I bec