shudder thrill through his frame.

"Gentlemen," said Aram at last, mastering his emotions, and resuming some
portion of the remarkable dignity that characterized his usual bearing,
as he turned towards the officers of justice, "I call upon you to
discharge your duty. If this be a rightful warrant, I am your prisoner,
but I am not this man's. I command your protection from him!"

Walter had already released his gripe, and said, in a muttered voice,

"My passion misled me; violence is unworthy my solemn cause. God and
Justice--not these hands--are my avengers."

"Your avengers!" said Aram. "What dark words are these? This warrant
accuses me of the murder of one Daniel Clarke. What is he to thee?"

"Mark me, man!" said Walter, fixing his eyes on Aram's countenance.
"The name of Daniel Clarke was a feigned name; the real name was Geoffrey
Lester: that murdered Lester was my father, and the brother of him whose
daughter, had I not come to-day, you would have called your wife!"

Aram felt, while these words were uttered, that the eyes of all in the
room were on him; and perhaps that knowledge enabled him not to reveal by
outward sign what must have passed within during the awful trial of that
moment.

"It is a dreadful tale," he said, "if true,--dreadful to me, so nearly
allied to that family. But as yet I grapple with shadows."

"What! does not your conscience now convict you?" cried Walter,