to bear a
conversation upon the subject, he communicated the change in his
feelings. Both startled and appalled was he at his son's reply.

"My father, would you mock me with this show of kindness, when it is
too late to profit by it? Know you not that she is now dying of
consumption? I was sure that _she_ was too delicate to endure the
steady occupation necessary for her support--and my presentiment has
been verified. Yes, Ida Lindsay is dying! I would have saved her--I
would have borne her to a more genial clime, where she might, perhaps,
have revived; but she refused to give me a right to be her guardian,
for it was against the will of my parent, without whose sanction, she
said, our union would never prosper."

He bowed his face, while for an instant his frame shook with emotion.
Hastily his father drew nearer to him, but he turned shudderingly
from those words of penitence and self-reproach, and dashing aside the
extended hand, rushed from the apartment.

It was, indeed, too true--Ida Lindsay was dying! The constant
confinement called for by her continued exertions to obtain a
livelihood, had proved too much for a constitution by no means
strong--and it was his anxiety for her failing health which had caused
the illness of Harry Sydney. Oh! what would not the erring father have
given for power to recall the past; but it was too late--too late! A
few hours after the interview with his son the intelligence of Ida's
death was received, and during the whole of the succeeding evening
Captain Sydney could plainly distinguish the sound of Harry's
footsteps as he wildly paced his chamber, and each echo sent a thrill
of remorse to his soul. Little did the repentant and sorrowing parent
then think it was the last time that footfall would ever resound in
his dwelling--for that night Harry Sydney departed from his home,
leaving no trace of his destination. Days, weeks, months passed on,
and the heart of his father grew dark with the anguish of despair, for
he felt most surely that he should behold his son no more. Whither the
latter had gone was a mystery he tried in vain to solve, though
sometimes he remembered Harry's predilection for a mariner's life, and
blighted as he had been in his affections, might he not now have
followed the yearnings of former times, as the only means of gaining
oblivion of his sorrows? So, night after night, Captain Sydney sat
alone at his deserted hearth--a father, and yet childless, with a hos