Come what might, he would not deny Drusilla and her child. —“You have an uncle and a cousin, sir,” said the surgeon, finishing Alexander’s sentence, but not in the manner Alexander had first intended—“an uncle and a cousin, sir, who were warmly interested in your welfare. General Lyon and Mr. Hammond, sir! They in some manner received information of the intended duel; they hired a yacht and followed you here; but they arrived too late, they found you badly wounded and lying insensible on this bed. The cousin returned the same day to London; but the uncle remained here until you showed signs of consciousness and gave us hopes of recovery, when—being suddenly called away by important business, of I know not what nature, he too left the island. But before going he made an arrangement with Mr. Tredegar, by which the last-named gentleman was to write every day and keep the General advised of the state of his nephew. Mr. Tredegar kept his part of the compact, I know, until he also had to leave.” Alexander did not reply for some moments; and when he did it was merely to say: “I thank you for telling me this.” Alexander fell into deep thought. Here was another enlightenment. Here was another subject for self-reproach if not for deep remorse. The high-toned, tender-hearted old gentleman! The frank and kindly young man! How noble, pure and loving all their course had been during these family troubles, in comparison with his own! How they had always stepped in and saved himself and his victims from the worst consequences of his violent passions. But for General Lyon and Richard Hammond where would Drusilla now have been? Would she, could she have had the strength, when discarded by him to have struggled on, through her desolation, unsupported by their strong and tender manhood? Alick groaned and tossed, as he thought of these things. In fact he was beginning to see himself and others in a new light. It seemed to him now that he had wronged everybody who had been brought into close companionship and intimate relations with himself. First, he had wronged his cousin, Anna, his earliest betrothed, in leaving her for Drusilla; but that was the least of his offenses, since the betrothal had been neither his work nor Anna’s, nor yet agreeable to the one or the other. Next, he had wronged—most bitterly wronged—his young, fond, true wife, whose love and faith had never known the shadow of turning; and this he now felt to be his greatest sin. And he had wronged his uncle, the gallant old veteran, who had always cherished him with a father’s affection. He had wronged his other cousin, that frank, affectionate, “unlucky dog,” who was always ready to forgive and forget, and to be as fast friends as ever. He had wronged the noble Prince Ernest, by assaulting him like a bully, upon no provocation, and driving him into an unseemly duel. Good Heavens! when he came to reckon with himself, whom had he not wronged whenever he had had the power?