Some days have elapsed: we are in London, my father with us; and Roland
has permitted Austin to tell me his tale, and received through Austin
all that Vivian's narrative to me suggested, whether in extenuation of
the past or in hope of redemption in the future. And Austin has
inexpressibly soothed his brother. And Roland's ordinary roughness has
gone, and his looks are meek and his voice low. But he talks little,
and smiles never. He asks me no questions, does not to me name his son,
nor recur to the voyage to Australia, nor ask why it is put off, nor
interest himself, as before, in preparations for it,--he has no heart
for anything.

The voyage is put off till the next vessel sails, and I have seen Vivian
twice or thrice, and the result of the interviews has disappointed and
depressed me. It seems to me that much of the previous effect I had
produced is already obliterated. At the very sight of the great Babel,
--the evidence of the ease, the luxury, the wealth, the pomp; the strife,
the penury, the famine, and the rags, which the focus of civilization,
in the disparities of old societies, inevitably gathers together,--the
fierce, combative disposition seemed to awaken again; the perverted
ambition, the hostility to the world; the wrath, the scorn; the war with
man, and the rebellious murmur against Heaven. There was still the one
redeeming point of repentance for his wrongs to his father,--his heart
was still softened there; and, attendant on that softness, I hailed a
principle more like that of honor than I had yet recognized in Vivian.
He cancelled the agreement which had assured him of a provision at the
cost of his father's comforts. "At least there," he said, "I will
injure him no more!"