"To Blanche?" "No, no; 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 forever! Boy, would you have him live to dishonor 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 awe- stricken, "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 heart-broken 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 V.