“Then do you really think he regarded this claim as rightful and just?”
“I cannot tell that; at moments I have leaned to this impression; but many things dispose me to believe that he saw or suspected some flaw that invalidated the claim, but still induced him to silence the pretension by hush money.”
“And you yourself—”
“Don't ask me, my dear friend; do not ask me the question I see is on your lips. I have no courage to confess, even to you, through how many moods I pass every day I live. At moments I hope and firmly believe I rise above every low and interested sentiment, and determine I will do as I would be done by; I will go through this trial as though it were a matter apart from me, and in which truth and justice were my only objects. There are hours in which I feel equal to any sacrifice, and could say to this man:—There! take it; take all we have in the world. We have no right to be here; we are beggars and outcasts. And then—I can't tell how or why—it actually seems as if there was a real Tempter in one's nature, lying in wait for the moment of doubt and hesitation; but suddenly, quick as a flash of lightning, a thought would dart across my mind, and I would begin to canvass this and question that; not fairly, not honestly, mark you, but casuistically and cunningly; and worse, far worse than all this—actually hoping, no matter on which side lay the right, that we should come out victorious.”
“But have you not prejudiced your case by precipitancy? They tell me that you have given the others immense advantage by your openly declared doubts as to your title.”
“That is possible. I will not deny that I may have acted imprudently. The compromise to which I at first agreed struck me, on reflection, as so ignoble and dishonorable, that I rushed just as rashly into the opposite extreme. I felt, in fact, George, as though I owed this man a reparation for having ever thought of stifling his claim; and I carried this sentiment so far that Sedley asked me one day, in a scornful tone, what ill my family had done me, I was so bent on ruining them? Oh, my dear friend, if it be a great relief to me to open my heart to you, it is with shame I confess that I cannot tell you truthfully how weak and unable I often feel to keep straight in the path I have assigned myself. How, when some doubt of this man's right shoots across me, I hail the hesitation like a blessing from heaven. What I would do, what I would endure that he could not show his claim to be true, I dare not own. I have tried to reverse our positions in my own mind, and imagine I was he; but I cannot pursue the thought, for whenever the dread final rises before me, and I picture to myself our ruin and destitution, I can but think of him, as a deadly implacable enemy. This sacrifice, then, that I purpose to make with a pure spirit and a high honor, is too much for me. I have not courage for that I am doing; but I'll do it still!”
L'Estrange did his utmost to rally him out of his depression, assuring him that, as the world went, few men would have attempted to do what he had determined on, and frankly owning, that in talking over the matter with Julia, they were both disposed to regard his conduct as verging on Quixotism.
“And that is exactly the best thing people will say of it. I am lucky if they will even speak so favorably.”
“What's this,—a telegram?” cried L'Estrange, as the servant handed him one of those square-shaped missives, so charged with destiny that one really does not know whether to bless or curse the invention, which, annihilating space, brings us so quickly face to face with fortune.
“Read it, George; I cannot,” muttered Bramleigh, as he stood against a tree for support.