Darrell gently kissed his young kinsman's forehead, and, extricating
himself from Lionel's clasp, paced the room, and spoke on while pacing
it.

"I made, then, a promise; it is not kept. No child of mine survives to
be taught reverence to my father's grave. My wedded life was not happy:
its record needs no words. Of two children born to me, both are gone.
My son went first. I had thrown my life's life into him,--a boy of
energy, of noble promise. 'T was for him I began to build that baffled
fabric, 'Sepulchri immemor.' For him I bought, acre on acre, all the
land within reach of Fawley,-lands twelve miles distant. I had meant to
fill up the intervening space, to buy out a mushroom earl whose woods and
cornfields lie between. I was scheming the purchase, scrawling on the
county map, when they brought the news that the boy I had just taken back
to school was dead,--drowned bathing on a calm summer eve. No, Lionel.
I must go on. That grief I have wrestled with,--conquered. I was
widowed then. A daughter still left,--the first-born, whom my father had
blest on his death-bed. I transferred all my love, all my hopes, to her.
I had no vain preference for male heirs. Is a race less pure that runs
on through the female line? Well, my son's death was merciful compared
to--" Again Darrell stopped, again hurried on. "Enough! all is
forgiven in the grave! I was then still in the noon of man's life, free
to form new ties. Another grief that I cannot tell you; it is not all
conquered yet. And by that grief the last verdure of existence was so
blighted that--that--in short, I had no heart for nuptial altars, for the
social world. Years went by. Each year I said, 'Next year the wound
will be healed; I have time yet.' Now age is near, the grave not far;
now, if ever, I must fulfil the promise that cheered my father's death-
bed. Nor does that duty comprise all my motives. If I would regain
healthful thought, manly action, for my remaining years, I must feel that