tant expectation that they might turn up.

Well, now they had turned up. Was he at once to make way for them, as
Tatham clearly took for granted?--to advise Melrose to tear up his newly
made will, and gracefully surrender his expectations as Melrose's heir to
this girl of twenty-one? By no means!

What is the claim of birth in such a case, if you come to that? Look at
it straight in the face. A child is born to a certain father; is then
torn from that father against his will, and brought up for twenty years
out of his reach. What claim has that child, when mature, upon the
father--beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision--unless
he chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? None whatever. The father
has lived his life, and accumulated his fortune, without the child's
help, without the child's affection or tendance. His possessions are
morally and legally his own, to deal with as he pleases.

In the course of life, other human beings become connected with him,
attached to him, and he to them. Natural claims must be considered and
decently satisfied--agreed! But for the disposal of a man's
superfluities, of such a fortune as Melrose's, there is no law--there
ought to be no law; and the English character, as distinct from the
French, has decided that there shall be no law. "If his liking, or his
caprice even," thought Faversham passionately, "chooses to make me his
heir, he has every right to give, and I to accept. I am a stranger to
him; so, in all but the physical sense, is his daughter. But I am not a
stranger to English life. My upbringing and experience--even such as they
are--are better qualifications than hers. What can a girl of twenty,
partly Italian, brought up away from England, hardly speaking her
father's tongue, do for this English estate, compared to what I could
do--with a free hand, and a million to draw on? Whom do I wrong by
accepting what a miraculous chance has brought me--by standing by it--by
fighting for it? No one--justly considered. And I will fight for
it--though a hundred Tathams call me adventurer!"

So much for the root determination of the man; the result of weeks of
excited brooding over wealth, and what can be done with wealth, amid
increasing difficulties and problems from all sides.

His determination indeed did not protect him from the attacks of
conscience; of certain moral instincts and prepossessions, that is,
natural to a man of his birth and environment.

The mind