Meanwhile Roland, after the first vain search, had yielded to the
indignation and disgust that had long rankled within him. His son had
thrown off his authority because it preserved him from dishonor. His
ideas of discipline were stern, and patience had been well-nigh crushed
out of his heart. He thought he could bear to resign his son to his
fate,--to disown him, and to say, "I have no more a son." It was in
this mood that he had first visited our house. But when, on that
memorable night in which he had narrated to his thrilling listeners the
dark tale of a fellow-sufferer's woe and crime,--betraying in the tale,
to my father's quick sympathy, his own sorrow and passion,--it did not
need much of his gentler brother's subtle art to learn or guess the
whole, nor much of Austin's mild persuasion to convince Roland that he
had not yet exhausted all efforts to track the wanderer and reclaim the
erring child. Then he had gone to London; then he had sought every spot
which the outcast would probably haunt; then had he saved and pinched
from his own necessities to have wherewithal to enter theatres and
gaming-houses, and fee the agencies of police; then had he seen the form
for which he had watched and pined, in the street below his window, and
cried, in a joyous delusion, "He repents!" One day a letter reached my
uncle, through his bankers, from the French tutor (who knew of no other
means of tracing Roland but through the house by which his salary had
been paid), informing him of his son's visit. Roland started instantly
for Paris. Arriving there, he could only learn of his son through the
police, and from them only learn that he had been seen in the company of
accomplished swindlers, who were already in the hands of justice, but
that the youth himself, whole there was nothing to criminate, had been
suffered to quit Paris, and had taken, it was supposed, the road to
England. Then at last the poor Captain's stout heart gave way. His son
the companion of swindlers! Could he be sure that he was not their