"Torture shall not wrest it from me," answered his sister, firmly.
"What motive have you for concealment?" he demanded.
"A vow," she answered,—"a vow to my dead husband."
Sir Rowland looked at her for a moment, as if he meditated some terrible reply. He then arose, and, taking a few turns in the chamber, stopped suddenly before her.
"What has put it into your head that your son yet lives?" he asked.
"I have dreamed that I shall see him before I die," she rejoined.
"Dreamed!" echoed the knight, with a ghastly smile. "Is that all? Then learn from me that your hopes are visionary as their foundation. Unless he can arise from the bottom of the Thames, where he and his abhorred father lie buried, you will never behold him again in this world."
"Heaven have compassion on you, Rowland!" murmured his sister, crossing her hands and looking upwards; "you have none on me."
"I will have none till I have forced the villain's name from you!" he cried, stamping the floor with rage.
"Rowland, your violence is killing me," she returned, in a plaintive tone.