“Whatever be the result of the trial,” said Walter, “I shall leave the country the moment it is finally over. If the prisoner be condemned, there is no hearth for me in my uncle’s home; if not, my suspicions may still remain, and the sight of each other be an equal bane to the accused and to myself. A voluntary exile, and a life that may lead to forgetfulness, are all that I covet.--I now find in my own person,” he added, with a faint smile, “how deeply Shakspeare had read the mysteries of men’s conduct. Hamlet, we are told, was naturally full of fire and action. One dark discovery quells his spirit, unstrings his heart, and stales to him for ever the uses of the world. I now comprehend the change. It is bodied forth even in the humblest individual, who is met by a similar fate--even in myself.” “Ay,” said the Earl, “I do indeed remember you a wild, impetuous, headstrong youth. I scarcely recognize your very appearance. The elastic spring has left your step--there seems a fixed furrow in your brow. These clouds of life are indeed no summer vapour, darkening one moment and gone the next. But my young friend, let us hope the best. I firmly believe in Aram’s innocence--firmly!--more rootedly than I can express. The real criminal will appear on the trial. All bitterness between you and Aram must cease at his acquittal; you will be anxious to repair to him the injustice of a natural suspicion: and he seems not one who could long retain malice. All will be well, believe me.” “God send it!” said Walter, sighing deeply. “But at the worst,” continued the Earl, pressing his hand in parting, “if you should persist in your resolution to leave the country, write to me, and I can furnish you with an honourable and stirring occasion for doing so.--Farewell.” While Time was thus advancing towards the fatal day, it was graving deep ravages within the pure breast of Madeline Lester. She had borne up, as we have seen, for some time, against the sudden blow that had shivered her young hopes, and separated her by so awful a chasm from the side of Aram; but as week after week, month after month rolled on, and he still lay in prison, and the horrible suspense of ignominy and death still hung over her, then gradually her courage began to fail, and her heart to sink. Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject, suspense is the one that most gnaws, and cankers into, the frame. One little month of that suspense, when it involves death, we are told, in a very remarkable work lately published by an eye-witness. [Note: See Mr. Wakefield’s work on ‘The Punishment of Death.’] is sufficient to plough fixed lines and furrows in the face of a convict of five-and-twenty--sufficient to dash the brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white. And this suspense--suspense of this nature, for more than eight whole months, had Madeline to endure!