He found, when the massive gates of that terrible prison closed behind him, that the consciousness of innocence will not afford entire consolation, in the dilemma in which unjust suspicions may involve the victim of circumstantial evidence. He scarcely knew in what manner to grapple with the difficulties that beset him;--he dared not contemplate the probability of a condemnation to some infamous punishment;--and he could scarcely hope for an acquittal in the face of the testimony that conspired against him. He recalled to mind all the events of his infancy and his boyish years, and contrasted his present position with that which he once enjoyed in the society of his father and Eugene. His brother?--aye--what had become of his brother?--that brother, who had left the paternal roof to seek his own fortunes, and who had made so strange an appointment for a distant date, upon the hill-top where the two trees were planted? Four years and four months had passed away since the day on which that appointment was made; and in seven years and eight months it was to be kept. They were then to compare notes of their adventures and success in life, and decide who was the more prosperous of the two,--Eugene, who was dependent upon his own resources, and had to climb the ladder of fortune step by step;--or Richard, who, placed by his father's love half-way up that ladder, had only to avail himself, it would have seemed, of his advantageous position to reach the top at his leisure? But, alas! probably Eugene was a miserable wanderer upon the face of the earth; perhaps he was mouldering beneath the sod that no parental nor fraternal tears had watered;--or haply he was languishing in some loathsome dungeon the doors of which served as barriers between him and all communion with his fellow-men! It was strange--passing strange that Eugene had never written since his departure; and that from the fatal evening of his separation on the hill-top all traces of him should have been so suddenly lost. Peradventure he had been frustrated in his sanguine expectations, at his very outset in life;--perchance he had terminated in disgust an existence which was blighted by disappointment? Such were the topics of Markham's thoughts as he walked up and down the large paved court-yard belonging to that department of the prison to which he had been consigned;--and, of a surety, they were of no pleasurable description. Uncertainty with regard to his own fate--anxiety in respect to his brother--and the dread that his prospects in this life were irretrievably blighted--added to a feverish impatience of a confinement totally unmerited--all these oppressed his mind.