too well, you have never understood
me really. Now listen--once for all. Try and see our positions as they
are: perhaps then matters will go more pleasantly in the future for
you as well as for me."

Mr. Landale looked keenly at the speaker's face for a second, and then
without a word resumed his walk, while Sir Adrian by his side pursued
with quiet emphasis:

"When I returned, from the other world so to speak, at least from your
point of view (one which I fully understood), I found that this very
return was nothing short of a calamity for all that remained of my
kin. I had it in my power to reduce that misfortune to a great extent.
You loved the position--that worldly estimation, that fortune, all
those circumstances which, with perfect moral right, you had hitherto
enjoyed. They presented little attraction to me. Moreover, there were
many reasons, which I am quite aware you know, that made this very
house of mine a dismal dwelling for me. You see I have no wish to
give too generous a colour to my motives, too self-denying a character
to the benefits I conferred upon you. But, as far as you are
concerned, they were benefits. For them I received no gratitude; but
as I did not expect gratitude it matters little. I might, however,
have expected at least that you should be neutral, not directly
hostile to me----Pray let me finish" (in anticipation of a rising
interruption from his companion), "I shall soon have done, and you
will see that I am not merely recriminating. Hostile you have been,
and are now. So long as the position you assumed towards me only bore
on our own relations, I acquiesced: you had so much more to lose than
I could gain by resenting your hidden antagonism. I held you, so to
speak, in the hollow of my hand; I could afford to pass over it all.
Moreover, I had chosen my own path, which was nothing if not peaceful.
I say, you always were hostile to me; you have been so, more than ever
since the arrival of Cecile de Savenaye's children. You were, however,
grievously mistaken if you thought--I verily believe you did--that I
did not realise the true motives that prompted you to keep me away
from them.--I loved them as their mother's children; I love Molly with
a sort of love I myself do not understand, but deep enough for all its
strangeness. Yet I submitted to your reasoning, to your plausible
representations of the disastrous effects of my presence. I went back
to my solitude because it never entered my