father is a man of great wealth. I never knew my mother; she must
have died when I was very young. When first I remember anything, I
was living in a great, lonely house, with my dear and faithful
Mistress Clarke. My father, even, was not there; he was--he is--a
soldier, and his duties lie aboard. But he came from time to time,
and every time I think he loved me more and more. He brought me
rarities from foreign lands, which prove to me now how much he must
have thought of me during his absences. I can sit down and measure
the depth of his lost love now, by such standards as these. I never
thought whether he loved me or not, then; it was so natural, that it
was like the air I breathed. Yet he was an angry man at times, even
then; but never with me. He was very reckless, too; and, once or
twice, I heard a whisper among the servants that a doom was over him,
and that he knew it, and tried to drown his knowledge in wild
activity, and even sometimes, sir, in wine. So I grew up in this
grand mansion, in that lonely place. Everything around me seemed at
my disposal, and I think every one loved me; I am sure I loved them.
Till about two years ago--I remember it well--my father had come to
England, to us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all
I had done. And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he
told me much that I had not known till then,--how dearly he had loved
my mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he
went on to say how he loved me better than any creature on earth, and
how, some day, he hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he
could hardly bear these long absences from his only child. Then he
seemed to change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I
was not to believe what he said; that there was many a thing he loved
better--his horse--his dog--I know not what.

"And 'twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to