Bowed down to the earth by the weight of the misfortune which had just fallen upon his head,--crushed by unjust and unfounded suspicions,--and sinking beneath a sense of shame and degradation, which all his innocence did not deprive of a single pang,--Markham dragged himself away from the house in which he had passed so many happy hours, and where he left behind him all that he held dear in this life. He seated himself upon a mile-stone at a little distance from the count's mansion, to which he turned his eyes to take a last farewell of the place where Isabella resided. Lights were moving about in several rooms;--perhaps she was ill? Most assuredly she had heard the dread accusations which had issued from the lips of the Resurrection Man against her lover;--and she would haply believe them all? So thought Richard. Human language cannot convey an adequate idea of the heart-rending misery which the poor oppressed young man endured as he sate by the road-side, and pondered upon all that had just occurred. Shame upon shame--degradation upon degradation--mountain upon mountain rolled on his breast, as if he were a modern Titan, to crush him and keep him down--never more to rise;--this was now _his_ fate! At length, afraid of being left alone with his own thoughts, which seemed to urge him to end his earthly woes in the blood of a suicide, he rose from the cold stone, turned one last sorrowful and lingering glance towards the mansion in the distance, and then hurried along the road to Richmond as if he were pursued by bloodhounds. And not more fearful nor more appalling would those bloodhounds have been than the horrible and excruciating thoughts which haunted him upon his way, and of which he could not divest himself; so that at length a species of delirium seized upon him as he ran furiously onward, the mark of Cain appearing to burn like red-hot iron upon his brow, and a terrible voice thundering in his ear--"FREED CONVICT!" CHAPTER XLVII. ELIZA SYDNEY. The reader will remember that the events already related have brought us up to the close of 1838. Thus three years had elapsed since the memorable trial which resulted in the condemnation of Eliza Sydney to an imprisonment of twenty-four long months in Newgate; and a year had passed since her release from that dread abode. We therefore return to her again in December, 1838--about the same time that those incidents occurred which we detailed in the last few chapters. Probably to the surprise of the reader, we again find Eliza Sydney the mistress of the beautiful villa at Upper Clapton. Yes: on the evening when we once more introduce ourselves to her, she was sitting alone in the drawing-room of that home, reading by the side of a cheerful fire.