"Shrewdly said indeed. I felicitate you on the evident result of the
maxim. And so Darrell has no home,--no wife and no children?"

"He has long been a widower; he lost his only son in boyhood, and his
daughter--did you never hear?"

"No, what?"

"Married so ill--a runaway match--and died many years since, without
issue."

"Poor man! It was these afflictions, then, that soured his life, and
made him the hermit or the wanderer?"

"There," said Lionel, "I am puzzled; for I find that, even after his
son's death and his daughter's unhappy marriage and estrangement from
him, he was still in Parliament and in full activity of career. But
certainly he did not long keep it up. It might have been an effort to
which, strong as he is, he felt himself unequal; or, might he have known
some fresh disappointment, some new sorrow, which the world never
guesses? What I have said as to his family afflictions the world knows.
But I think he will marry again. That idea seemed strong in his own mind
when we parted; he brought it out bluntly, roughly. Colonel Morley is
convinced that he will marry, if but for the sake of an heir."

VANCE.--"And if so, my poor Lionel, you are ousted of--"

LIONEL (quickly interrupting).--"Hush! Do not say, my dear Vance, do not
you say--you!--one of those low, mean things which, if said to me even by