"Would your brother ask my forgiveness?" said Mrs. Pendarrel. "Was there a word of the kind in Mildred's letter? No, Miss Trevethlan; forgiveness will never be asked, and never be granted. Why; do you not hate me yourself? You must have learned from infancy to detest my name. Was not Pendarrel pointed at as the destroyer of Trevethlan? Am not I the author of the desolation which has fallen upon your head? Truly, Miss Trevethlan, it might rouse your father's spirit from his grave, to feel that one of his children dwelt under the roof of one of mine."
"No, madam," Helen exclaimed, almost as vehemently as she was addressed—"a thousand times no. Not till lately did I know there was any difference."
"'Tis untrue!" said Esther. "'Tis nonsense. You were born to hate. You were bequeathed an inheritance of hate. You accepted it. Did not you send me with scorn from your doors? It was your turn then. It is mine now. Hate breeds hate."
"And on which side did it begin, if it were so?" Helen asked. "On ours? Madam, were we not treated as if hatred were indeed our only inheritance? Was not my brother insulted with an offer of charity? I speak his mind, and not my own, for I thought the offer was kind. But I see now that he was right."
"You will be glad to have the offer repeated ere long," said Esther bitterly.
"You wronged us then, madam," Helen said, "and you wrong us now. We, alone on the earth, young, mourning the only parent we had ever known, little likely were we to hate our nearest connections. Was hatred bequeathed to us? No, madam. I might deem our inherited feelings were far other, for this portrait was the last companion of our poor father. They found it upon his heart when he died."
Esther caught the miniature from Helen's hand, and gazed earnestly at it for some seconds. Then she pressed it to her lips in a kind of ecstacy.
"He loved me to the last," she murmured.
But the transport passed away as rapidly as it came. Melancholy, stern and dark, fell over Mrs. Pendarrel's brow. She clasped the miniature upon her bosom.
"Girl," she said, almost in a whisper, "you give me great joy and sorrow inexpressible. I have been desperately wronged. My life has been a blank. I cannot change on a sudden. I do not know what to think. Let me keep this portrait."