“It accounts, I dare say, for the slight friction that so frequently arose between Betty and her father,—for we may as well continue to call him her father.”
“It does. I suppose when the child exhibited traits that annoyed or displeased Fred, he resented it and he couldn’t help showing it. He had a strong clannish feeling about the Varians and he was sensitive to many slight faults in Betty that Minna never gave any heed to.”
“It’s an interesting study in the relative values of heredity and environment.”
“Yes, it is; and it proves my own theory which is that their influences average about fifty-fifty. Many times heredity is stronger than environment, and often it’s the other way, but oftenest of all, as in this case, the one offsets the other. I know nothing of Betty’s real ancestry, but it must have been fairly good, or Fred never would have taken her at all.”
“And it was, of course, his clannish loyalty to his family name that would not let him leave the pearls to Betty.”
“Yes, they have always been left to a Varian and Fred couldn’t leave them to one who was really an outsider.”
“It also explains Mr Varian’s objections to Betty’s marriage.”
“Oh, it does! Poor man, what he must have suffered. He was a high-strung nature, impulsive and even impetuous, but of a sound, impeccable honesty that wouldn’t brook a shadow of wrong to any one.”
“I suppose what he had done troubled him more or less all his life.”
“I suppose so. Not his conscience,—I can see how he looked on his deed as right,—but he was bothered by circumstances,—and it was a difficult situation that he had created. The more I realize it, the sorrier I feel for my poor brother. To make his will was a perplexity! His lawyer has told me that when he left the pearls away from Betty, he said, ‘I must do it! I have to do it!’ in a voice that was fairly agonized. The lawyer couldn’t understand what he meant, but assumed it was some cloud on Betty’s birth. I daresay Fred was not bothered about his money, for he knew if he died first, Minna would provide for Betty. But the pearls he had to arrange for. Oh, well, Mr Wise, now then, viewed in the light of these revelations, where do we stand? Who killed my brother? Who killed the maid, Martha? Who kidnapped Betty and Mr North?”