treated me so cruelly, robbing me at a single blow of my wife and my
fortune? I know that I did wrong in concealing my marriage, but I was
driven to it by fear of my father. Ah! if you had seen him as I saw
him, you would have known that they were right to call him 'Devil
Caresfoot.'" He checked himself, and then went on--"He forced me into
the engagement with Miss Lee, and announced it without my consent. Now
I am ruined--everything is taken from me."

"You have your little daughter, and all the entailed estate--at least,
so I am told."

"My little daughter!--I never want to see her face; she killed her
mother. If it had been a boy, it would have been different, for then,
at any rate, that accursed George would not have got my birthright. My
little daughter, indeed! don't enumerate her among my earthly
blessings."

"It is rather sad to hear you talk like that of your child; but, at
any rate, you are not left in want. You have one of the finest old
places in the county, and a thousand a year, which to most men would
be riches."

"And which to me," answered Philip, "is beggary. I should have had
six, and I have got one. But look you here, Fraser, I swear before
God----"

"Hush! I cannot listen to such talk."

"Well, then, before anything you like, that, while I live, I will
never rest one single moment until I get my own back again. It may