looking him sadly though firmly in the face. "There was a man--long years
since, in your childhood--whose plotting brain proved the ruin of himself
and many another; a man whose great designs made him a sort of potentate,
whose schemes became of national importance, and produced results even
upon the history of the country in which he acted. That man was my
father; a man who sought to do great things, and, like many who have had
similar aims, disregarded many small rights, strode over them, on his way
to effect a gigantic purpose. Among other men, your father was trampled
under foot, ruined, done to death, even, by the effects of his ambition."

"How is it possible!" exclaimed Middleton. "Was it Wentworth?"

"Even so," said Alice, still with the same sad calmness and not
withdrawing her steady eyes from his face. "After his ruin; after the
catastrophe that overwhelmed him and hundreds more, he took to flight;
guilty, perhaps, but guilty as a fallen conqueror is; guilty to such an
extent that he ceased to be a cheat, as a conqueror ceases to be a
murderer. He came to England. My father had an original nobility of
nature; and his life had not been such as to debase it, but rather such
as to cherish and heighten that self-esteem which at least keeps the
possessor of it from many meaner vices. He took nothing with him; nothing
beyond the bare means of flight, with the world before him, although
thousands of gold would not have been missed out of the scattered
fragments of ruin that lay around him. He found his way hither, led, as
you were, by a desire to reconnect himself with the place whence his
family had originated; for he, too, was of a race which had something to
do with the ancient story which has now been brought to a close. Arrived
here, there were circumstances that chanced to make his talents and
habits of business available to this Mr. Eldredge, a man ignorant and
indolent, unknowing how to make the best of the property that was in his