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.