CHAPTER LXXXV.

PISISTRATUS.--How came you to know we had stayed in the town?

VIVIAN.--Do you think I could remain where you left me? I wandered out--wandered hither. Passing at dawn through yon streets, I saw the ostlers loitering by the gates of the yard, overheard them talk, and so knew you were all at the inn--all! (_He sighed heavily._)

PISISTRATUS.--Your poor father is very ill! O cousin, how could you fling from you so much love!

VIVIAN.--Love!--his!--my father's!

PISISTRATUS.--Do you really not believe, then, that your father loved you?

VIVIAN.--If I had believed it, I had never left him! All the gold of the Indies had never bribed me to leave my mother!

PISISTRATUS.--This is indeed a strange misconception of yours. If we can remove it, all may be well yet. Need there now be any secrets between us? (_persuasively._) Sit down, and tell me all, cousin.

After some hesitation, Vivian complied; and by the clearing of his brow, and the very tone of his voice, I felt sure that he was no longer seeking to disguise the truth. But, as I afterwards learned the father's tale as well as now the son's, so, instead of repeating Vivian's words, which--not by design, but by the twist of a mind habitually wrong--distorted the facts, I will state what appears to me the real case, as between the parties so unhappily opposed. Reader, pardon me if the recital be tedious. And if thou thinkest that I bear not hard enough on the erring hero of the story, remember that he who recites judges as Austin's son must judge of Roland's.