Hamlyn?"

"She is with me," replied Harry.

"And--am _I_ the cause?" continued Alice, feeling as if her fears were
confirmed.

"Not at all. She has not fathomed the truth yet, with all her
penetration, though she may have some suspicion of it. Eliza wants to
bend me to her will in the matter of the house, and I won't be bent. Old
Peveril wishes to resign the lease of Peacock Range to me; I wish to
take it from him, and Eliza objects. She says Peveril promised her the
house until the seven years' lease was out, and that she means to keep
him to his bargain."

"Do you quarrel?"

"Quarrel! no," laughed Harry Carradyne. "I joke with her, rather than
quarrel. But I don't give in. She pays me some left-handed compliments,
telling me that I am no gentleman, that I'm a bear, and so on; to which
I make my bow."

Alice West was gazing straight before her, a troubled look in her eyes.
"Then you see that I _am_ the remote cause of the quarrel, Harry. But
for thinking of me, you would not care to take the house on your own
hands."

"I don't know that. Be very sure of one thing, Alice: that I shall not
stay an hour longer under the roof here if my uncle disinherits me. That
he, a man of indomitable will, should be so long making up his mind is a