"To Blanche?" "No, no--to the cousin I never saw." Roland turned pale, and, sinking down on a chair, faltered out--"To him--to my son!" "Yes; but I do not think it is news that will afflict you. Uncle, are you sure that my cousin is dead?" "What!--how dare you!--who doubts it? Dead--dead to me for ever! Boy, would you have him live to dishonour these gray hairs!" "Sir, sir, forgive me--uncle, forgive me: but, pray, go to see Lady Ellinor; for whatever she has to say, I repeat that I am sure it will be nothing to wound you." "Nothing to wound me--yet relate to _him_!" It is impossible to convey to the reader the despair that was in those words. "Perhaps," said I, after a long pause, and in a low voice--for I was awestricken--"perhaps--if he be dead--he may have repented of all offence to you before he died." "Repented!--ha, ha!" "Or, if he be not dead"-- "Hush, boy--hush!" "While there is life, there is hope of repentance." "Look you, nephew," said the Captain, rising and folding his arms resolutely on his breast--"look you, I desired that that name might never be breathed. I have not cursed my son yet; could he come to life--the curse might fall! You do not know what torture your words have given me, just when I had opened my heart to another son, and found that son in you! With respect to the lost, I have now but one prayer, and you know it--the heartbroken prayer--that his name never more may come to my ears!" As he closed these words, to which I ventured no reply, the Captain took long disordered strides across the room; and suddenly, as if the space imprisoned, or the air stifled him, he seized his hat, and hastened into the streets. Recovering my surprise and dismay, I ran after him; but he commanded me to leave him to his own thoughts, in a voice so stern, yet so sad, that I had no choice but to obey. I knew, by my own experience, how necessary is solitude in the moments when grief is strongest and thought most troubled. CHAPTER LXXVI.