Lady Arden felt much comforted by the firmness of her son;—his views were her own; though within the walls of a prison, and surrounded with every practical proof of the peril in which he stood, she could not look at Alfred, his lofty carriage, the nobleness of his brow, and force her imagination to associate with him the idea of a condemned criminal—it seemed a thing impossible! "No!" she haughtily exclaimed, "acquitted he must be, but how have they dared to accuse him?"
Alfred now explained the hitherto unexpressed fears, which he had so long entertained, respecting his brother's state of mind, and went into all the particulars of his late return to Arden, and subsequent death. As he drew up in array the extraordinary circumstances, inexplicable to any one but himself, on which the accusation against him was founded, Lady Arden felt a pang of terror paralyse her heart, but as his simple explanations followed, she would exclaim, "Is not that sufficient? Is not that sufficient?"
"In the mouth of an impartial witness, such explanations would be all-sufficient," he replied, "but remember I am the person accused."
"Accused!" she repeated, then gazed with a mother's rapturous love, on the guileless expression of his parted lip, as to comfort her he tried to smile, she fondly poured forth expressions of endearment.
"Alfred, my child! my mild, my innocent, my beautiful Alfred! my gentle, my affectionate, my noble Alfred!" She paused, and, by the working of her features, terrible thoughts seemed to pass in view before her.
"Oh, impossible!" she suddenly exclaimed, clasping him with convulsive agony to her breast, "quite impossible! But if they are so mad," she added, in a hurried tone of subdued agony, "they shall saw these arms asunder before they take him from me!" He was too much affected to reply. Again she looked at him in silence for a time, then added, almost fiercely,
"There must be means, and I will find them! What! allow them to murder him! No—no—I rave, my son. Dreams of horror belong to these walls——but I have no fears—no fears—no fears—I say I have no fears—it is quite, quite impossible!" Even while reiterating that she had no fears, her voice had faltered, and now she burst into a passion of tears, which the effort to brave her feelings quickly changed to an hysterical affection.
This became so serious, and lasted so long, that she was obliged to be carried home, and conveyed to bed, where the kindhearted Mrs. Dorothea, took the post of friendship beside her pillow.
Yet this was, by no means, the most agonizing period of this season of trial. The situation was too novel to be comprehended in its full extent. There was, as yet, more of incredulous amazement, and of proud defiance of the accuser, than of despair or even of apprehension in the feelings both of Lady Arden and of Alfred. They were both at present more indignant that such an outrage had been offered, and that submission to insulting and degrading forms was still necessary, than seriously alarmed as to future consequences.