"Your father never told me, and I never asked," said my mother, simply.
But she was very different from me, I know. Very accomplished, very
beautiful, very highborn."

"For all that, my father was a lucky man to escape her. Pass on. What
did the Captain do?"

"Why, about that time your grandfather died; and shortly after an aunt,
on the mother's side, who was rich and saving, died, and unexpectedly
left each sixteen thousand pounds. Your uncle, with his share, bought
back, at an enormous price, the old castle and some land round it, which
they say does not bring him in three hundred a year. With the little
that remained, he purchased a commission in the army; and the brothers
met no more till last week, when Roland suddenly arrived."

"He did not marry this accomplished young lady?" "No! but he married
another, and is a widower."

"Why, he was as inconstant as my father, and I am sure without so good
an excuse. How was that?"

"I don't know. He says nothing about it."

"Has he any children?"

"Two, a son--By the by, you must never speak about him. Your uncle
briefly said, when I asked him what was his family, 'A girl, ma'am. I
had a son, but--'

"'He is dead,' cried your father, in his kind, pitying voice."