"And you gave up your fortune to him?" said Earle, with a sudden keen glance at her.
She colored. "I did not feel that it was my fortune," she answered, "but rather his. Surely his father must have believed him dead, else he would never have made such a disposition of his property."
"That was my impression—that he believed him dead. But it is difficult to speak with certainty about a man so peculiar and so reticent as my uncle. You will, perhaps, pardon me for saying that, since he had left you his fortune, I do not think you were bound to resign it all."
"I suppose," said Marion, somewhat coldly, "that I was not bound to resign any of it: I had, no doubt, a legal right to keep whatever the law did not take from me. But I am not so mercenary as you believe. I could not keep what I did not believe to be rightfully mine."
Despite pride, her voice trembled a little over the last words; and Earle was immediately filled with self-reproach to think that he had wounded her.
"So far from believing you mercenary," he said gravely, "I think that you have acted with extraordinary generosity,—a generosity carried, indeed, beyond prudence. Forgive me for alluding to the subject. I only regret that my uncle's intentions toward you have been so entirely frustrated."
"I have the recollection of his great kindness," she said, hurriedly. "I know that he desired to help me, therefore I felt it right to keep something. I did not leave myself penniless."
"You would have been wrong if you had done so," remarked Earle; "but it would have been better still if you had kept a fair amount of the fortune."
"Oh, no!" she replied; "for I had no claim to any of it—no claim, I mean, of relationship. I was a stranger to your uncle, and I only kept such an amount as it seemed to me a kind-hearted man might give to a stranger who had wakened his interest. Mr. George Singleton was very kind, too. He wished me to keep more, but I would not."
"I understand how you felt," said Earle; "and I fear I should have acted in the same manner myself, so I really cannot blame you. I only think it a pity."