expression, and manly in every movement, there was nothing in the habit
and appearance of Ralph, which, to the eye of those around, savored of
the murderer. There was nothing ruffianly or insincere. But, as the
testimony proceeded--when the degree of intimacy was shown which had
existed between himself and the murdered man--when they heard that
Forrester had brought him wounded and fainting to his home--had attended
him--had offered even to fight for him with Rivers; when all these facts
were developed, in connection with the sudden flight of the person so
befriended--on the same night with him who had befriended him--he having
a knowledge of the proposed departure of the latter-and with the finding
of the bloody dagger marked with the youth's initials--the feeling of
sympathy very perceptibly underwent a change. The people, proverbially
fickle, and, in the present instance justifiably so, veered round to the
opposite extreme of opinion, and a confused buzz around, sometimes made
sufficiently audible to all senses, indicated the unfavorable character
of the change. The witnesses were closely examined, and the story was
complete and admirably coherent. The presumptions, as they were coupled
together, were conclusive; and, when it was found that not a solitary
witness came forward even to say that the accused was a man of character
and good connections--a circumstance which could not materially affect
the testimony as it stood, but which, wanting, gave it additional
force--the unhappy youth, himself, felt that all was over.

A burning flush, succeeded by a deathlike paleness, came over his face
for a moment--construed by those around into a consciousness of guilt;
for, where the prejudices of men become active, all appearances of
change, which go not to affect the very foundation of the bias, are only
additional proofs of what they have before believed. He rested his head
upon his hands in deep but momentary agony. What were his feelings then?
With warm, pure emotions; with a pride only limited by a true sense of
propriety; with an ambition whose eye was sunward ever; with affections
which rendered life doubly desirable, and which made love a high and
holy aspiration: with these several and predominating feelings
struggling in his soul, to be told of such a doom; to be stricken from
the respect of his fellows; to forfeit life, and love, and reputation;
to undergo the punishment of the malefactor, and to live in memory only