"No; you are like a lamb that gives itself up to the slaughterer. I have been with one lawyer or the other all day, and the end of it is that there is no use on earth in your going to London to-morrow, nor, as far as I can see, for another week to come. The two lawyers together have referred the case to counsel for opinion,—for an amicable opinion as they call it. From what they all say, Margaret, it seems to me clear that the matter will go against you."
"I have expected nothing else since Mr Slow spoke to me."
"But no doubt you can make a fight, as your friend says."
"I don't want to fight, John; you know that."
"Mr Slow won't let you give it up without a contest. He suggested a compromise,—that you and I should divide it. But I hate compromises." She looked up into his face but said nothing. "The truth is, I have been so wronged in the matter, the whole thing has been so cruel, it has, all of it together, so completely ruined me and my prospects in life, that were it any one but you, I would sooner have a lawsuit than give up one penny of what is left." Again she looked at him, but he went on speaking of it without observing her. "Think what it has been, Margaret! The whole of this property was once mine! Not the half of it only that has been called yours, but the whole of it! The income was actually paid for one half-year to a separate banking account on my behalf, before I was of age. Yes, paid to me, and I had it! My uncle Jonathan had no more legal right to take it away from me than you have to take the coat off my back. Think of that, and of what four-and-twenty thousand pounds would have done for me and my family from that time to this. There have been nearly thirty years of this robbery!"
"It was not my fault, John."
"No; it was not your fault. But if your brothers could pay me back all that they really owe me, all that the money would now be worth, it would come to nearly a hundred thousand pounds. After that, what is a man to say when he is asked to compromise? As far as I can see, there is not a shadow of doubt about it. Mr Slow does not pretend that there is a doubt. How they can fail to see the justice of it is what passes my understanding!"
"Mr Slow will give up at once, I suppose, if I ask him?"
"I don't want you to ask him. I would rather that you didn't say a word to him about it. There is a debt too from that man Rubb which they advise me to abandon."
In answer to this, Margaret could say nothing, for she knew well that her trust in the interest of that money was the only hope she had of any maintenance for her sister-in-law.