“He must do as other people do, my dear, and work for his living. He is strong enough.”
Alice saw that it was useless trying to move her uncle, and that if she persisted he would only get into a passion, and make what she had quite resolved to do the more difficult.
“Uncle Harry, you know that I quite think with you about Frank. Quite agree with you that he can never be to us what he formerly was, without he explains and expresses repentance and sorrow for the past; and if I know anything at all of Frank, if he could not, or would not, do it when you first wrote to him, and when he was comfortably off, he will not do it now.”
“I quite agree with you there, Alice.”
“Well, uncle, I don’t wish to influence you at all, but for the sake of old times, for the sake of the boy I loved as a girl, I will not let him want. I believe, uncle, that I have absolute control over my fortune?”
“Yes, Miss Heathcote,” her uncle said, coldly, “I am sorry to say that you have.”
“Oh, uncle,” Alice said, bursting into tears, “don’t speak so to me; you are the only person I have to love in the world, but I must help Frank.”
“Well, my dear,” the old man said, more kindly, “have your own way. ‘A wilful woman,’ you know; but mind, I don’t oppose you simply because I can’t. If I could, I would. I tell you that fairly; but if in spite of that you choose to have your own way, I shall not quarrel with you about it. I have had quarrelling enough in my time, God knows, and I am not going to quarrel with you.”
“Thank you, uncle,” Alice said, brightening up. “I am sorry I can’t do as you want me. I am really. But I cannot help it. I have fifty thousand pounds, haven’t I?”
“Yes, Alice.”