His
vindictiveness got the better of his craft; but he knows as well as I do
that he never could succeed in disturbing the title of my poor dear Harry
Knollys; and I was not at all alarmed by his threats; and I told him so, as
coolly as I speak to you now.
'"Well, Monica," he said, "I have weighed you in the balance, and you are
not found wanting. For a moment the old man possessed me: the thought of
my children, of past unkindness, and present affliction and disgrace,
exasperated me, and I was mad. It was but for a moment--the galvanic spasm
of a corpse. Never was breast more dead than mine to the passions and
ambitions of the world. They are not for white locks like these, nor for
a man who, for a week in every month, lies in the gate of death. Will you
shake hands? _Here_--I _do_ strike a truce; and I _do_ forget and forgive
_everything_."
'I don't know what he meant by this scene. I have no idea whether he was
acting, or lost his head, or, in fact, why or how it occurred; but I am
glad, darling, that, unlike myself, I was calm, and that a quarrel has not
been forced upon me.'
When our turn came and we were summoned to the presence, Uncle Silas was
quite as usual; but Cousin Monica's heightened colour, and the flash of her
eyes, showed plainly that something exciting and angry had occurred.
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