“To what good?” he cried, “to what good?”
“To no good. Have you forgotten her, that you ask that? I told her, if she had asked to see you, to get your forgiveness——”
“Silence!” cried Mr. Mannering, lifting his thin hand as if with a threat.
“But she had not courage. She wanted only, she said, her own flesh and blood to stand by her grave.”
Mannering made again a gesture with his hand, but no reply.
“She has left everything of which she died possessed—a considerable, I may say a large fortune—to her only child.”
“I refuse her fortune!” cried Mannering, bringing down his clenched hand on the table with a feverish force that made the room ring.
“You will not be so pitiless,” said the visitor; “you will not pursue an unfortunate woman, who never in her unhappy life meant any harm.”
“In her unhappy life!—in her pursuit of a happy life at any cost, that is what you mean.”
“I will not argue. She is dead. Say she was thoughtless, fickle. I can’t tell. She did only what she was justified in doing. She meant no harm.”