"Be sure you do so," Mr. Lovel said sternly; and then, with a sudden passion and inconsistency that startled his daughter, he went on: "Yes, I have sold Arden—every acre. Not a rood of the land that has belonged to my race from generation to generation since Edward IV. was king, is left to me. And I have planted myself here—here at the very gates of my lost home—so that I may drain the bitter cup of humiliation to the dregs. The fools who call themselves my friends think, that because I can endure to live here, I am indifferent to all I have lost; that I am an eccentric bookworm—an easy-going philosophical recluse, content to dawdle away the remnant of my days amongst old books. It pleases me to let them think so. Why, there is never a day that yonder trader's carriage, passing my windows, does not seem to drive over my body; not a sound of a woodman's axe or a carpenter's hammer in the place that was mine, that does not go straight home to my heart!"
"O, papa, papa!"
"Hush, girl! I can accept pity from no one—from you least of all."
"Not from me, papa—your own child?"
"Not from you; because your mother's reckless extravagance was the beginning of my ruin. I might have been a different man but for her. My marriage was fatal, and in the end, as you see, has wrecked me."
"But even if my mother was to blame, papa—as she may have been—I cannot pretend to deny the truth of what you say, being so completely ignorant of our past history—you cannot be so cruel as to hold me guilty?"
"You are too like her, Clarissa," Mr. Lovel answered, in a strange tone. "But I do not want to speak of these things. It is your fault; you had no right to talk of Arden. That subject always raises a devil in me."
He paced the room backwards and forwards for a few minutes in an agitated way, as if trying to stifle some passion raging inwardly.
He was a man of about fifty, tall and slim, with a distinguished air, and a face that must once have been very handsome, but perhaps, at its best, a little effeminate. The face was careworn now, and the delicate features had a pinched and drawn look, the thin lips a half-cynical, half-peevish expression. It was not a pleasant countenance, in spite of its look of high birth; nor was there any likeness between Marmaduke Lovel and his daughter. His eyes were light blue, large and bright, but with a cold look in them—a coldness which, on very slight provocation, intensified into cruelty; his hair pale auburn, crisp and curling closely round a high but somewhat narrow forehead.
He came back to the breakfast-table presently, and seated himself in his easy-chair. He sipped a cup of coffee, and trifled listlessly with a morsel of dried salmon.