"I am thinking," and the captain spoke naturally, "I am thinking that I will take care of that young man. I find I know his people, or used to know them, rather. Dismiss that imbecile old woman," and having said so much he left the room and fled up the stairs seeing nothing but that name as it looked upon the page,—Walter Marshall.
He repeated it again and again, and in the tone with which he did so there was a peculiar tenderness, such as mothers are only supposed to feel toward their children.
"Walter Marshall,—my boy,—Ellen's and mine," and over the boy, which was Ellen's and his, the man, old before his time, bent down and wept great teardrops, which fell upon the white handsome face, which grew each moment more and more like the young girl wife, whose grave the broken-hearted husband had never looked upon.
"Why do you cry?" asked Walter, and the captain replied:
"I had a son once like you, and it makes me cry to see you here so sick. I am going to take care of you, too, and send that woman off."
"Oh! will you?" was Walter's joyful cry, "and will you stay until I find my father?"
"Yes, yes, I will stay with you always," and again Seth Marshall's lips touched those of his son.
"Isn't it funny for men to kiss men?" Walter asked, passing his hand over the spot. "I thought they only kissed women, girls like Jessie, and I don't kiss her now. I haven't since she was a little thing and gave me one of her curls. It's in my trunk, with a lock of mother's hair. Did you know mother, man?"
"Yes, yes, oh, Heaven, yes," and the man thus questioned fell upon his knees, and hiding his face in the bed-clothes, sobbed aloud.
His grief distressed Walter, who, without understanding it clearly, felt that he was himself in some way connected with it, and laying his hand upon the gray hair within his reach, he smoothed it caressingly, saying: