from that mother with a sullen brow, or,
perhaps, even with a harsh and cutting repartee; and then he would
lock himself up in his room, and weep. But he allowed no witnesses of
this weakness. The lad was very proud. If any of the household passed
by as he quitted the saloon, and stared for a moment at his pale and
agitated face, he would coin a smile for the instant, and say even a
kind word, for he was very courteous to his inferiors, and all the
servants loved him, and then take refuge in his solitary woe.

Relieved by this indulgence of his mortified heart, Cadurcis looked
about him for resources. The rain was pouring in torrents, and the
plash of the troubled and swollen lake might be heard even at the
abbey. At night the rising gusts of wind, for the nights were always
clear and stormy, echoed down the cloisters with a wild moan to which
he loved to listen. In the morning he beheld with interest the savage
spoils of the tempest; mighty branches of trees strewn about,
and sometimes a vast trunk uprooted from its ancient settlement.
Irresistibly the conviction impressed itself upon his mind that, if
he were alone in this old abbey, with no mother to break that strange
fountain of fancies that seemed always to bubble up in his solitude,
he might be happy. He wanted no companions; he loved to be alone, to
listen to the winds, and gaze upon the trees and waters, and wander in
those dim cloisters and that gloomy gallery.

From the first hour of his arrival he had loved the venerable hall of
his fathers. Its appearance harmonised with all the associations of
his race. Power and pomp, ancestral fame, the legendary respect of
ages, all that was great, exciting, and heroic, all that was marked
out from the commonplace current of human events, hovered round him.
In the halls of Cadurcis he was the Cadurcis; though a child, he was
keenly sensible of his high race; his whole being sympathised with
their glory; he was capable of dying sooner than of disgracing them;
and then came the memory of his mother's sharp voice and harsh vulgar
words, and he shivered with disgust.

Forced into solitude, forced to feed upon his own mind, Cadurcis found
in that solitude each day a dearer charm, and in that mind a richer
treasure of interest and curiosity. He loved to wander about, dream of
the past, and conjure up a future as glorious. What was he to be? What
should be his career? Whither should he wend his course? Even at this
early ag