"I will be godfather to thy little first one, and I will settle on him
ten thousand pounds before he cuts his first tooth," said Gustave
decisively.
CHAPTER VI.
BEYOND THE VEIL.
Diana and her husband did not linger long at Brighton; they went back to
town in time to see the last of that old wayfarer whose troubled journey
came to so peaceful an ending. It was a very calm haven in which this
battered old privateer lay at anchor after life's tempestuous course; but
to the Captain himself it seemed a hard thing that he should not have
been permitted one brief cruise upon that summer sea which danced so
gaily beneath the keel of the Lenobles' prosperous bark.
"We have shared adversity, my love," he said sadly, when he talked with
his daughter in the last few days; "but your prosperity I am to have no
share in. Well, I suppose I have no right to complain. My life has been
an erring one; but poverty is the most vicious companion that a man can
consort with. If I had come into six or seven thousand a year, I might
have been as starch in my notions as a bishop; but I have been obliged to
live, Diana--that was the primary necessity, and I learnt to accommodate
myself to it."
That he had erred, the Captain was very ready to acknowledge. That he had
sinned deeply, and had much need to repent himself of his iniquity, he
was very slow to perceive.
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