Instantly she recovered, and stood erect. "But oh, David, there is another dreadful place, and another dear being besides you, dearest, that I think of night and day! The horrid castle jail--my dear, dear father! Oh, if this Lewis speaks truth, and if that strange boy--I only knew him as a boy, you know--who has power to ruin him, (_will_ surely ruin him!) will _indeed_ forgive him all he owes; will really become his son--his son-in-law, instead of his merciless creditor; oh! could I refuse _my_ part, shocking part though it be? I should not suffer long, David--I feel I should not." "And pray, what _kind_ of youth--_boy_ as you are pleased to call him--was this nabob then?" enquired her lover, apparently startled at learning the fact of her having had some previous knowledge of his powerful rival. "A youth! a mere child, when I last saw him," she answered. "I thought you had known all about him." "Nothing more than his name; how came you in his company?" "His father, living in India, was half-brother to our old squire, Fitzarthur of Talylynn. His mother dying, his widower father, whose health was broken up before, came over here, this being his native country, in hope of recovering it; but died at Talylynn, leaving one child, that little orphan boy, heir, after his half-uncle's death, to all this property. You have often heard me tell how like two brothers my dear father and _our_ old squire were always--though father was only a steward--how he used to have me at the great house, for a month at a time, where he had me taught by a lady who lived with him, before I went to school; and so I used often to see that little boy in black--very queer and sullen he was thought; but he had no playfellow, except an owl that he kept tame, I remember, and cried when he buried him in the garden,--the only time he was ever known to cry, he was so still and stern. It was _I_ caught him, then acting the sexton by himself, close by the high box hedge, under a great tree. I remember the spot now, and remember how angry I made him by laughing." "And you did wrong to laugh, if it was so serious to him." "Oh! but I did not know he was crying when I laughed, and _was_ sorry when I detected it. One thing was, the old gentleman was so jovial, and loved a good laugher, and was rather too fond of wine, and mostly out hunting, so that the poor boy had to find his own amusement. He seemed fond of me, but hated, he said, his uncle, and his hounds, and his ways, and every thing there but his own owl; so that nobody was sorry when he was fetched back to India, to be put in the where he was to make the fortune he has now made, I suppose."