"Yes. Edith is dead," she said, with sudden emotion. "And in her last days she spoke to me kindly of you."
He made no comment. She resumed:
"I desire, if I can—and if you will allow me—to recall to you the years when we were cousins and friends together—blotting out all that has happened since. If you remember—twenty years ago, when you and your wife arrived to settle here, I then came to ask you to bury the feud between us, and to let us meet again at least as neighbours and acquaintances. You refused. Then came the breakdown of your marriage. I was honestly sorry for it."
He smiled. She was quite conscious of the mockery in the smile; but she persevered.
"And now, for many years, I have not known—nobody here has known, whether your wife was alive or dead. Suddenly, a few days ago, she and your daughter arrived at Duddon, to ask me to help them."
"Precisely. To make use of you, in order to bring pressure to bear on me!
I do not mean to lend myself to the proceeding!"
Victoria flushed.
"In attempting to influence me, Mrs. Melrose, I assure you, had no weapon
whatever but her story. And to look at her was to see that it was true.
She admits—most penitently—that she was wrong to leave you—"
"And to rob me! You forget that."
Victoria threw back her head. He remembered that scornful gesture in her youth.
"What did that matter to you? In this house!"