dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different relations
of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what was right
--in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but that
which the world supplied; his religion was decorum--his sense of honour
was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world was the
sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered every
purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was invisible, the
dial was mute--a piece of brass and nothing more.

It is just to Robert Beaufort to assure the reader that he wholly
disbelieved his brother's story of a private marriage. He considered
that tale, when heard for the first time, as the mere invention (and a
shallow one) of a man wishing to make the imprudent step he was about to
take as respectable as he could. The careless tone of his brother when
speaking upon the subject--his confession that of such a marriage there
were no distinct proofs, except a copy of a register (which copy Robert
had not found)--made his incredulity natural. He therefore deemed
himself under no obligation of delicacy or respect, to a woman through
whose means he had very nearly lost a noble succession--a woman who had
not even borne his brother's name--a woman whom nobody knew. Had Mrs.
Morton been Mrs. Beaufort, and the natural sons legitimate children,
Robert Beaufort, supposing their situation of relative power and
dependence to have been the same, would have behaved with careful and
scrupulous generosity. The world would have said, "Nothing can be
handsomer than Mr. Robert Beaufort's conduct!" Nay, if Mrs. Morton had
been some divorced wife of birth and connections, he would have made very
different dispositions in her favour: he would not have allowed the
connections to call him shabby. But here he felt that, all circumstances
considered, the world, if it spoke at all (which it would scarce think it
worth while to do), would be on his side. An artful woman--low-born,