“Right! Yes, it was right! He cut off a fugitive wife and a rebellious daughter! Right! Yes, it was right! He did it, and he could have done no wrong! Therefore it was right! Right! Yes, it was right! Who dares to gainsay it?” she exclaimed, with her bosom heaving and her color rising.
“Ah! Miss Seabright, it is an ungracious task indeed to unveil before you the true character and hidden motives of your benefactor, of one whom you have always looked upon with affection and respect——”
“Stop!” exclaimed Garnet breathlessly, and pressing both hands upon her bosom, as was her custom when trying to repress an eruption of anger. “Stop! If you are about to breathe a syllable reflecting upon the memory of my godfather—hold! I will not hear a breath, believe me! A word that should wound his good name would transfix my own heart.”
“For your dear sake, Miss Seabright, I will respect the name of General Garnet; but for the dearer sake of justice I will plead the cause of his widow and daughter.”
“Of his widow and daughter! I am not—the Lord knows it!—ungrateful, ungenerous, or cruel. I will largely dower them both.”
“You will do no such thing, Miss Seabright! I trust there is too much latent nobility in your character to permit you to add such ‘insult’ to their ‘injury.’”
“Then what is it that you wish me to do?”
“What your conscience shall, after you understand the matter, dictate to be done. He who gave you the Mount Calm estate had no just right to do so. The whole of the estate came by his wife, and should descend to her daughter. It was held by her family, the Chesters, for two hundred years.”
“Well, I think two centuries quite long enough for any one family to hold any one landed estate. I think it quite time the property had passed into other hands,” said Miss Seabright firmly. Then she added: “Besides, my godfather must have had a legal right to the property, else he could not have conveyed it to me.”
“Miss Seabright, if you will permit me, for justice’s sake, I will tell you the whole history of the transaction by which General Garnet became legally possessed of the Mount Calm estate. It is right—it is necessary that you should know it.”