“My reasoning took this shape. My daughter is a puny thing—there is no probability of her surviving to even girlhood. What does it matter if the baby is betrothed to her brother? As for De Ladron, if he ever returns from the new world, how is he to recognize his boy, grown out of remembrance, if the child does not die—he seems pining away rapidly—before that time. Hernan Ladron I never saw again; but his infant grew strong and healthy in our change of climate, and this vexed me hourly. I had felt sure the weakly thing could not live, or the exchange would not have been made; and now, he was growing up a quiet, mild boy—pah! it made me sick to think he believed himself my son, as did all the world beside. The sense of this contrast pushed from my brain all other concern. I cursed the grasping folly which had tempted me to barter a gallant fellow, like my own boy, for an estate and this whey-faced child. However, he should go to war with me, and be cured of his girlishness. But when, at St. Quentin, he fled before the first charge of the French, cowering at my stirrup, I was frantic with rage and shame. I had no love for the boy; his very existence was a daily threat of exposure, and I beat him, as you all saw, with my sword hilt, to drive him a second time into the fight. What followed, too, you all knew. But, until this day, no mortal has learnt the yearning pity that mastered my passions and filled my breast with remorse. I believe my first resolution was to confess my infamy and restore the heir his wealth and name; but I waited until he should recover, and when I saw he was likely to remain an idiot, I changed my mind.” “Don Augustino, you would have been less dishonored by confessing your dishonor,” cried our knight, here. “You proved yourself, in the sight of Heaven, a greater coward than your reputed son.” “Sir,” replied the other, hotly, flushing red, “you forget I am your equal in point of rank, if not virtue, and wear a sword. You tax my forbearance heavily.” “A horse in meadow neighs louder than a horse under saddle,” answered Padilh. “Overlook the reproach, Don Augustino, and pass on.” “I set some value on your friendship, and will not consent to lose it for a hard word honestly spoken,” Inique said, not very contentedly.