"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 heartbroken 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 LXXVI.
Hours elapsed, and the Captain had not returned home. I began to feel uneasy, and went forth in search of him, though I knew not whither to direct my steps. I thought it, however, at least probable, that he had not been able to resist visiting Lady Ellinor, so I went first to St James's Square. My suspicions were correct; the Captain had been there two hours before. Lady Ellinor herself had gone out shortly after the Captain left. While the porter was giving me this information, a carriage stopped at the door, and a footman, stepping up, gave the porter a note and a small parcel, seemingly of books, saying simply, "From the Marquis of Castleton." At the sound of that name I turned hastily, and recognised Sir Sedley Beaudesert seated in the carriage, and looking out of the window with a dejected, moody expression of countenance, very different from his ordinary aspect, except when the rare sight of a gray hair, or a twinge of the toothache, reminded him that he was no longer twenty-five. Indeed, the change was so great that I exclaimed, dubiously—"Is that Sir Sedley Beaudesert?" The footman looked at me, and touching his hat said, with a condescending smile,—"Yes, sir—now the Marquis of Castleton."
Then, for the first time since the young lord's death, I remembered Sir Sedley's expressions of gratitude to Lady Castleton, and the waters of Ems, for having saved him from "that horrible marquisate." Meanwhile, my old friend had perceived me, exclaiming,—
"What, Mr Caxton! I am delighted to see you. Open the door, Thomas. Pray come in, come in."
I obeyed; and the new Lord Castleton made room for me by his side.
"Are you in a hurry?" said he; "if so, shall I take you anywhere?—if not, give me half an hour of your time, while I drive to the City."