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490 wealth, but, more precious far, of my lineage and blood—in—in the person of—of—"

Darrell paused, almost stifling, and became so pale that Alban started from his seat in alarm.

"It is nothing," resumed Darrell, faintly; "and ill or well, I must finish this subject now, so that we need not reopen it.

"I remained abroad, as you know, for some years. During that time two or three letters from Jasper Losely were forwarded to me; the latest in date more insolent than all preceding ones. It contained demands as if they were rights, and insinuated threats of public exposure, reflecting on myself and my pride—'He was my son-in-law after all, and if he came to disgrace the world should know the tie.' Enough. This is all I knew until the man who now, it seems, thrusts himself forward as Jasper Losely's friend or agent, spoke to me the other night atMrs. Haughton's. That man you have seen, and you say that he—"

"Represents Jasper's poverty as extreme; his temper unscrupulous and desperate; that he is capable of any amount of scandal and violence. It seems that though at Paris he has (Poole believes) still preserved the name of Hammond, yet that in England he has resumed that of Losely; seems, by Poole's date of the time on which he, Poole, made Jasper's acquaintance, to have done so after his baffled attempt on you at Fawley—whether in so doing he intimated the commencement of hostilities, or whether, as is more likely, the sharper finds it convenient to have one name in one country, and one in another, 'tis useless to inquire; enough that the identity between the Hammond who married poor Matilda and the Jasper Losely whose father was transported, that unscrupulous rogue has no longer any care to conceal. It is true that the revelation of this identity would now be of slight moment to a man of the world—as thick-skinned as myself, for instance; but to you it would be disagreeable—there is no denying that—and therefore, in short, when Mr. Poole advises a compromise, by which Jasper could be secured from want and yourself from annoyance, I am of the same opinion as Mr. Poole is."

"You are?"

"Certainly. My dear Darrell, if in your secret heart there was something so galling in the thought that the man who had married your daughter, though without your consent, was not merely the commonplace adventurer whom the world supposed, but the son of that poor dear—I mean, that rascal who was transported. Jasper, too, himself a cheat and a sharper—if this