In spite of all, Roland could never forget the tenderness with which the young nurse had watched over the wounded man, nor the love--genuine for the hour, though not drawn from the feelings which withstand the wear and tear of life--that lips so beautiful had pledged him in the bygone days. These thoughts must have come perpetually between his feelings and his judgment, to embitter still more his position--to harass still more his heart. And if, by the strength of that sense of duty which made the force of his character, he could have strung himself to the fulfilment of the threat, humanity, at all events, compelled him to delay it--his wife promised to be again a mother. Blanche was born. How could he take the infant from the mother's breast, or abandon the daughter to the fatal influences from which only, by so violent an effort, he could free the son? No wonder, poor Roland! that those deep furrows contracted thy bold front, and thy hair grew gray before its time! Fortunately, perhaps, for all parties, Roland's wife died while Blanche was still an infant. She was taken ill of a fever--she died delirious, clasping her boy to her breast, and praying the saints to protect him from his cruel father. How often that deathbed haunted the son, and justified his belief that there was no parent's love in the heart which was now his sole shelter from the world, and the "pelting of its pitiless rain." Again I say, poor Roland!--for I know that, in that harsh, unloving disrupture of such solemn ties, thy large generous heart forgot its wrongs; again didst thou see tender eyes bending over the wounded stranger--again hear low murmurs breathe the warm weakness which the women of the south deem it no shame to own. And now did it all end in those ravings of hate, and in that glazing gaze of terror! CHAPTER LXXXVII. THE PRECEPTOR.