“Repentant!” exclaimed the youth, grasping the withered hand of the old knight, in the intensity of his emotions, “did he repent the wrong he had done my mother?”
“As surely as he died.”
“May God forgive him, then,” said the seaman, clasping his hands together and bursting into tears, “as I forgive him.”
“Amen! amen!” cried the knight, “for he was mine ancient friend, the comrade of my boyhood, before he did that thing; and I, too, have something to forgive to him.”
“You, Sir Miles, you!—what can you have to forgive?”
“Tell me first, tell me—how are you named?”
“Durzil,” answered the youth, “Durzil, Nothing!” he added, very bitterly, “my country, and my country’s law give me no other name, but only Durzil—its enemies have named me Bras-de-fer!”
“Then mark me, Durzil; as he of whom you are sprung, of whom you are named, was my first friend, so was your mother my first love; and she returned my love, till he, my sometime confidant, did steal her from me, and made his paramour, whom I had made my wife.”
“Great God!” exclaimed the young man, struck with consternation; “then it must, it must have been so—it was you who slew my—my father!”
“Young man, I never lied.”