'Lady Myrtle is too good a woman to sow discord in a family,' he said, 'between a child and her parents. And it was impossible for us to approve of the apportionment of her property she proposed, knowing that there exist at this very time those who have a claim on her, who most thoroughly deserve the restoration of what should have been theirs always; who have suffered, indeed, already only too severely for the sin and wrong-doing of another.'
Jacinth started, and the lines of her face hardened again.
'I thought it was that,' she exclaimed. 'Those people—they are at the bottom of it, then.'
'Jacinth!' said her mother.
'I beg your pardon, mamma,' said the girl quickly. 'It must sound very strange for me to speak like that; but, you don't know how I have been teased about these Harpers. And mamma, Lady Myrtle doesn't look upon them as you and papa do, so why should you expect me to do so? Do you suppose she will leave them anything she would have left us—me?'
'Very likely not,' said Colonel Mildmay.
'Then for everybody's sake, why not have left things as Lady Myrtle meant? I—we, I mean,' and Jacinth's face crimsoned, 'could have been good to them; it would have been better for them in the end.'
'Do you suppose they would have accepted help—money, to put it coarsely—from strangers?' said Colonel Mildmay. 'It is not help they should have, but actual practical restoration of what should be theirs. And even supposing our decision does them no good, can't you see, Jacinth, that anything else would be wrong?'
'No,' said Jacinth, 'I don't see it.'
'Then I am sorry for you,' said her father coldly.