ou the truth,' said he, in a
lower voice--'The watchman is about, and we must not be seen by him! I
have told Clarke that he may trust you, we are relatives!'

"Clarke, who seemed strangely credulous and indifferent, considering
the character of his associate,--but those whom fate destroys she first
blinds, made the same request in a careless tone, assigning the same
cause. Unwillingly, I opened the door and admitted them. We went up
to my chamber. Clarke spoke with the utmost unconcern of the fraud he
purposed, and with a heartlessness that made my veins boil, of the poor
victim his brutality had destroyed. All this was as iron bands round my
purpose. They stayed for nearly an hour, for the watchman remained some
time in that beat--and then Houseman asked me to accompany them a little
way out of the town. Clarke seconded the request. We walked forth; the
rest--why need I repeat? Houseman lied in the court; my hand struck--but
not the death-blow: yet, from that hour, I have never given that right
hand in pledge of love or friendship--the curse of memory has clung to
it.

"We shared our booty; mine I buried, for the present. Houseman had
dealings with a gipsy hag, and through her aid removed his share,
at once, to London. And now, mark what poor strugglers we are in the
eternal web of destiny! Three days after that deed, a relation who
neglected me in life, died, and left me wealth!--wealth at least to
me!--Wealth, greater than that for which I had...! The news fell on me
as a thunderbolt. Had I waited but three little days! Great God! when
they told me,--I thought I heard the devils laugh out at the fool who
had boasted wisdom! Tell me not now of our free will--we are but the
things of a never-swerving, an everlasting Necessity!--pre-ordered to
our doom--bound to a wheel that whirls us on till it touches the point
at which we are crushed! Had I waited but three days, three little
days!--Had but a dream been sent me, had but my heart cried within
me,--'Thou hast suffered long, tarry yet!' [Note: Aram has hitherto been
suffered to tell his own tale without comment or interruption. The chain
of reasonings, the metaphysical labyrinth of defence and motive, which
he wrought around his act, it was, in justice to him, necessary to
give at length, in order to throw a clearer light on his character--and
lighten, perhaps, in some measure the heinousness of his crime. No moral
can be more impressive than that which teaches how ma