Jerrem and Adam were familiar names to Reuben now, and the men who bore them were often before his eyes and constantly in his thoughts. Prepared as Reuben had been for undergoing much awkwardness in delivering himself of the tale he had to tell, he found he had greatly underrated the pain and humiliation he actually felt when, through the interest of his friend, he found himself within the walls of Newgate and in the presence of Adam. Reuben was no coward, yet it needed all the strength of his strictly-disciplined mind to open up and lay bare before a rival's eyes those wounds which love had made and time had had no space to heal. He shrank from placing in front of Adam the picture of himself and Eve as they had stood in the days when, Adam all unknown, the balance of a happy future seemed trembling still within the hand of Fate; and he paused from time to time as he spoke, hoping some word or sign would make his task more easy; but Adam never spoke or turned aside his eyes, and under that fixed gaze Reuben was forced to tell his tale out to the end, constraining his pride to give out word for word what Eve had said in Adam's praise, and searing the green memory of his love by making his lips repeat those vows which she had told him bound her to another. At length the task was ended, the jealous rage, the mad revenge, was all confessed; and satisfied that, whatever guilt it might please Adam to lay to his charge, he had at least shown that Eve was free from any shadow of stain, Reuben paused, and the two so strangely linked stood looking at each other with envy, jealousy, distrust clouding their minds, while a chord of sympathy drew them together as they recognized a similitude in their actions which made each self-abasement uttered find an echo in its listener's breast. Proud, stern, unyielding to emotion as both these men had lived, it was not in them to take comfort in the shifts and excuses weaker natures find: the hearts that had refused pity for their neighbors would not entreat it because they themselves now stood in need. As they had judged their fellows so they arraigned themselves, and thus unwittingly rendered the first atonement man is called upon to make. The sight of Adam's strong, powerful form shaken and bowed down by the remorse he strove in vain to control moved Reuben strangely. The haggard pallor of his striking face, the sunken eyes, the untasted food, the unslept-in bed,--each told its tale of misery and woe, and opened out to Reuben a depth of despair his own experience hitherto had furnished him with no gauge to measure. What if with no further warning he fetched up Eve to Adam's aid? The thought would bear no hesitation: a thousand jealous "Noes" battled with the suggestion, but Reuben's better self resolved to have its way, and, seizing the opportunity of Adam's head being bent down in his arms, Reuben went swiftly out and along down to the keeper's room, where Eve had been left impatiently awaiting his return.