foot of the stairs, gave way as the men descended; but the one who so
long had been Aram's solitary domestic, and who, from her deafness, was
still benighted and uncomprehending as to the causes of his seizure,
though from that very reason her alarm was the greater and more acute,
she, impatiently thrusting away the officers, and mumbling some
unintelligible anathema as she did so, flung herself at the feet of a
master whose quiet habits and constant kindness had endeared him to her
humble and faithful heart, and exclaimed,--

"What are they doing? Have they the heart to ill-use you? O master, God
bless you! God shield you! I shall never see you, who was my only
friend--who was every one's friend--any more!"

Aram drew himself from her, and said, with a quivering lip to Rowland
Lester,--

"If her fears are true--if--if I never more return hither, see that her
old age does not starve--does not want." Lester could not speak for
sobbing, but the request was remembered. And now Aram, turning aside his
proud head to conceal his emotion, beheld open the door of the room so
trimly prepared for Madeline's reception: the flowers smiled upon him
from their stands. "Lead on, gentlemen," he said quickly. And so Eugene
Aram passed his threshold!

"Ho, ho!" muttered the old hag whose predictions in the morning had
been so ominous,--"ho, ho! you'll believe Goody Darkmans another time!
Providence respects the sayings of the ould. 'T was not for nothing the
rats grinned at me last night. But let's in and have a warm glass. He,
he! there will be all the strong liquors for us now; the Lord is merciful
to the poor!"