“Slightly; and deposed that he had been spending the night with Eugene Aram; that on leaving Aram’s house, he met Clarke, and wondering that he the latter, an invalid, should be out at so late an hour, he walked some way with him, in order to learn the cause; but that Clarke seemed confused, and was reserved, and on his guard, and at last wished him good-b’ye abruptly, and turned away. That he, Houseman, had no doubt he left the town that night, with the intention of defrauding his creditors, and making off with some jewels he had borrowed from Mr. Elmore.”
“But, Aram? was this suspicious, nay, abandoned character—this Houseman, intimate with Aram?”
“Not at all; but being distantly related, and Houseman being a familiar, pushing sort of a fellow, Aram could not, perhaps, always shake him off; and Aram allowed that Houseman had spent the evening with him.”
“And no suspicion rested on Aram?”
The host turned round in amazement.—“Heavens above, no! One might as well suspect the lamb of eating the wolf!”
But not thus thought Walter Lester; the wild words occasionally uttered by the Student—his lone habits—his frequent starts and colloquy with self, all of which had, even from the first, it has been seen, excited Walter’s suspicion of former guilt, that had murdered the mind’s wholesome sleep, now rushed with tenfold force upon his memory.
“But no other circumstance transpired? Is this your whole ground for suspicion; the mere circumstance of Houseman’s being last seen with Clarke?”
“Consider also the dissolute and bold character of Houseman. Clarke evidently had his jewels and money with him—they were not left in the house. What a temptation to one who was more than suspected of having in the course of his life taken to plunder! Houseman shortly afterwards left the country. He has never returned to the town since, though his daughter lives here with his wife’s mother, and has occasionally gone up to town to see him.”
“And Aram—he also left Knaresbro’ soon after this mysterious event?”
“Yes! an old Aunt at York, who had never assisted him during her life, died and bequeathed him a legacy, about a month afterwards. On receiving it, he naturally went to London—the best place for such clever scholars.”