is
country's cause. His condition must, however, be a constant and trying
anxiety, and I beseech you, more particularly on your mother's
account, to keep us speedily informed of his progress. It is some
consolation to think that you are by his side, and it is only right
that you should remain at Constantinople so long as your brother is in
any danger.

"But do not, my dear boy, linger long in the East. We want you back
with us at home. This is your proper place--you who are our eldest
born, heir to the title and estates--you should be here at my side.
There are other urgent reasons why you should return. You know how
anxious we are that you should marry and settle in life. We are doubly
so now. Your brothers before this hateful war broke out made the
succession, humanly speaking, almost secure. But the chances of a
campaign are unhappily most uncertain. Anastasius has been struck
down; we may lose him, which Heaven forbid; a Russian bullet may rob
us any day of dear Hugo too. In such a dire and grievous calamity, you
alone--only one single, precious life--would remain to keep the title
in our line. Do not, I beseech you, suffer it to continue thus. Come
home; marry, my son; give us another generation of descendants, and
assure the succession.

"I have never made any secret of my wishes in this respect; but I have
never told you the real reasons for my deep anxiety. It was my
father's earnest hope--he inherited it from his father, as I have from
mine--that the title might never be suffered to pass to his brother
Anastasius's heirs. My uncle had married in direct opposition to his
father's orders, in an age when filial disobedience was deemed a very
heinous offence, and he was cut off with a shilling. I might say that
he deserved no better; but he did not long survive to bear the penalty
of his fault. He left a child--a daughter, however--to whom I would
willingly have lent a helping hand, but she spurned all my overtures
in a way that grieved me greatly, although I never openly complained.
That branch of the family has continued estranged from us; and I am
certainly indisposed to reopen communications with them.

"Yet the existence of that branch cannot be ignored. It might, at any
time, through any series of mishaps of a kind I hardly like to
contemplate, but, nevertheless, quite possible in this world of
cross-purposes and sudden surprises, become of paramount importance in
the family; for in point of seniority it