"Oh, yes! certainly as a friend."
"But he still makes his claim."
"No;—he says that he will make it no longer, that he acknowledges mamma as my father's widow, and me as my father's heir."
"That is generous,—if that is all."
"Very generous."
"And he does this without condition? There is nothing to be given to him to pay him for this surrender."
"There is nothing to give," she said, in that low, sweet, melancholy voice which was common to her always when she spoke of herself.
"You do not mean to deceive me, dear, I know; but there is a something to be given; and I am told that he has asked for it, or certainly will ask. And, indeed, I do not think that an earl, noble, but poverty-stricken, would surrender everything without making some counter claim which would lead him by another path to all that he has been seeking. Anna, you know what I mean."
"Yes; I know."
"Has he made no such claim."