ve no
secrets from him, and to secure his acquiescence in its concealment from
all others.

And here I must a little digress from the chronological course of my
explanatory narrative to inform the reader that when Lady Ellinor had
her interview with Roland, she had been repelled by the sternness of his
manner from divulging Vivian's secret. But on her first attempt to sound
or conciliate him, she had begun with some eulogies on Trevanion's new
friend and assistant, Mr. Gower, and had awakened Roland's suspicions of
that person's identity with his son,--suspicions which had given him a
terrible interest in our joint deliverance of bliss Trevanion. But so
heroically had the poor soldier sought to resist his own fears, that
on the way he shrank to put to me the questions that might paralyze the
energies which, whatever the answer, were then so much needed. "For,"
said he to my father, "I felt the blood surging to my temples; and if I
had said to Pisistratus, 'Describe this man,' and by his description I
had recognized my son, and dreaded lest I might be too late to arrest
him from so treacherous a crime, my brain would have given way,--and so
I did not dare!"

I return to the thread of my story. From the time that Vivian confided
in Lady Ellinor, the way was cleared to his most ambitious hopes; and
though his acquisitions were not sufficiently scholastic and various to
permit Trevanion to select him as a secretary, yet, short of sleeping at
the house, he was little less intimate there than I had been.

Among Vivian's schemes of advancement, that of winning the hand and
heart of the great heiress had not been one of the least sanguine. This
hope was annulled when, not long after his intimacy at her father's
house, she became engaged to young Lord Castleton. But he could not see
Miss Trevanion with impunity (alas! who, with a heart yet free, could be
insensible to attractions so winning?). He permitted the love--such love
as his wild, half-educated, half-savage nature acknowledged--to creep
into his soul, to master it; but he felt no hope, cherished no scheme
while the young lord lived. With the death of her betrothed, Fanny
was free; then he began to hope,--not yet to scheme. Accidentally he
encountered Peacock. Partly from the levity that accompanied a false
good-nature that was constitutional with him, partly from a vague idea
that the man might be useful, Vivian established his quondam associate
in the service of Trev