'Knew that I was to supplant him!'

'Yes; we all knew it was a threat of your uncle; but we spared you
the knowledge, thinking that all might yet be accommodated, and never
expecting it would come on you in this sudden way.'

'Then I think I have been unfairly used,' cried Clara; 'I have been
brought here on false pretences. As if I would have come near the
place if I had known it!'

'A very false pretence that your grandmother must not be left alone
at eighty, by the child whom she brought up.'

'Oh, Louis! you want to tear me to pieces!'

'I have pity on my aunt; I have far more pity on your uncle.' Clara
stared at him. 'Here is a man who started with a grand heroic
purpose to redeem the estate, not for himself, but for her and his
brother; he exiles himself, he perseveres, till this one pursuit, for
which he denies himself home, kindred, wife or child, absorbs and
withers him up. He returns to find his brother dead; and the
children, for whom he sacrificed all, set against him, and rejecting
his favours.'

This was quite a new point of view to Clara. 'It is his own fault,'
she said.

'That a misfortune is by our own fault is no comfort,' said Louis.
'His apparent neglect, after all, arose from his absorption in the