“Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just. My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. She has wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year, to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing. You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she sets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to England. I happen to know that you have it now.
“In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also, to hear no more of
“THOMAS HOYLE.
“P.S.—Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father's daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved.”
CHAPTER LVI
WITH HIS OWN SWORD
“What a most wonderful letter!” cried the Major, when, after several careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him. “He calls me a 'worthy old fool,' does he? Well, I call him something a great deal worse—an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a Radical! And because he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and live like that in a house of mine, and pay me no rent, and never even let me see him! Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing.”
“You forget that he is dead,” I answered, “and his poor mother with him. At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero—when you knew not who he was. Poor fellow, he is dead! And, in spite of all, I can not help being very sorry for him.”
“Yes, I dare say. Women always are. But you must show a little common-sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and your father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall have in all the county papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both; but none of the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that they can not read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsea has other things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say.”