“I tried to persuade him that without knowing, seeing, hearing this Frenchman, it would not be easy to imagine such an action proceeding from a sane man, but that his exalted style of talk and his inflated sentimentality made the thing credible. He wants to belong to a family, to be owned and accepted as some one's relative. The man is dying of the shame of his isolation.
“'Let him marry.'”
“'So he means, and I hear to Bramleigh's widow, Lady Augusta.'”
“He laughed heartily at this and said, 'It's the only encumbrance on the property.' And now, Mr. Bramleigh, you are to judge, if you can; is this the offer of generosity, or is it the crafty proposal of a beaten adversary? I don't mean to say it is an easy point to decide on, or that a man can hit it off at once. Consult those about you; take into consideration the situation you stand in and all its dangers; bethink you what an adverse verdict may bring if we push them to a trial; and even if the proposal be, as Mr. Attorney thinks, the cry of weakness, is it wise to disregard it?”
“Would you have laid such a proposal before my father, Sedley?” said Bramleigh, with a scarcely perceptible smile.
“Not for five hundred pounds, sir.”
“I thought not.”
“Ay, but remember your father would never have landed us where we stand now, Mr. Bramleigh.”
Augustus winced under this remark, but said nothing.
“If the case be what you think it, Sedley,” said he at last, “this is a noble offer.”