watch, the hope, the manly anguish I had witnessed, and wept--I, not his
son to see; showed him the poverty and privation to which the father,
even at the last, had condemned himself, so that the son might have no
excuse for the sins that Want whispers to the weak. This and much more,
and I suppose with the pathos that belongs to all earnestness, I
enforced, sentence after sentence, yielding to no interruption,
overmastering all dissent, driving in the truth, nail after nail, as it
were, into the obdurate heart that I constrained and grappled to. And
at last the dark, bitter, cynical nature gave way, and the young man
fell sobbing at my feet and cried aloud, "Spare me, spare me! I see it
all now, wretch that I have been!"



CHAPTER VIII.


On leaving Vivian I did not presume to promise him Roland's immediate
pardon. I did not urge him to attempt to see his father. I felt the
time was not come for either pardon or interview. I contented myself
with the victory I had already gained. I judged it right that thought,
solitude, and suffering should imprint more deeply the lesson, and
prepare the way to the steadfast resolution of reform. I left him
seated by the stream, and with the promise to inform him at the small
hostelry, where he took up his lodging, how Roland struggled through his
illness.

On returning to the inn I was uneasy to see how long a time had elapsed
since I had left my uncle. But on coming into his room, to my surprise
and relief I found him up and dressed, and with a serene, though