'Yes, Itterdale,' interrupted the squire.
'Left him by old Jasper Honeyman, some fiftieth cousin of my mother's—this enabled him to live at ease, though not in affluence. He converted the estate into money, and, without any settled home, wandered from country to country as inclination led him.'
'Eu, I could never understand why he did not write to me,' cried the squire, 'especially as we were in the same box; he married for love a woman of high family; I, for something of the sort, a woman of no particular "family,"'—involuntarily glancing round at the door,—'and glorious fortune, so we both came under the ban; he knew it, and I am puzzled to this day to know why he remained silent.'
'I am afraid of telling you the cause,' said Eustace.
'Go on,' said the squire, clenching his fist, and flushing with indignation.
'Yes; he was wholly deceived by that man, who wrote, adjuring him to be patient, entreating him to communicate all his proceedings to him, mourning over the conduct of his unnatural relatives, and promising'—
'Now don't, pray don't!' said the squire; 'if you love me, don't!'
'At last came the announcement of the death of Sir Eustace, and of his will, by which you and my father were disinherited, and Parker's Dew, with all other property, was left to Sir Valary.'
'Eu,' said the squire, starting up, 'I never believed in that will. I saw my father not long before his death; he entirely forgave me, and told me it lay sore on his heart that he could not see Eu before he closed his eyes. I gathered from what he said—but he was too ill to talk much—that he had tried to get at him for years, but without success. That will was a forgery!' continued the squire, striking the table with a vehemence that made the glasses dance.
'My father did not think so. We were in Rome when we received the news, and he determined on returning to England, that he might see you and find the truth of what he had heard. I was then eighteen, and rejoiced in the prospect of seeing my own country—the only one in Europe that I had not visited; but after a three days' illness my father fell a victim to malaria, and I was so ill as to be reported dead.'