V.

The excitement of this interview soon overpowering Arthur, Philip,
in quitting the room with Mr. Beaufort, asked a conference with that
gentleman; and they went into the very parlour from which the rich man
had once threatened to expel the haggard suppliant. Philip glanced round
the room, and the whole scene came again before him. After a pause, he
thus began,--

"Mr. Beaufort, let the Past be forgotten. We may have need of mutual
forgiveness, and I, who have so wronged your noble son, am willing
to suppose that I misjudged you. I cannot, it is true, forego this
lawsuit."

Mr. Beaufort's face fell.

"I have no right to do so. I am the trustee of my father's honour and my
mother's name: I must vindicate both: I cannot forego this lawsuit. But
when I once bowed myself to enter your house--then only with a hope,
where now I have the certainty of obtaining my heritage--it was with the
resolve to bury in oblivion every sentiment that would transgress the
most temperate justice. Now, I will do more. If the law decide against
me, we are as we were; if with me--listen: I will leave you the lands
of Beaufort, for your life and your son's. I ask but for me and for mine
such a deduction from your wealth as will enable me, should my brother
be yet living, to provide for him; and (if you approve the choice, which
out of all earth I would desire to make) to give whatever belongs to
more refined or graceful existence than I myself care for,--to her whom
I would call my wife. Robert Beaufort, in this room I once asked you
to restore to me the only being I then loved: I am now again your
suppliant; and this time you have it in your power to grant my prayer.
Let Arthur be, in truth, my brother: give me, if I prove myself, as I
feel assured, entitled to hold the name my father bore, give me your
daughter as my wife; give me Camilla, and I will not envy you the lands
I am willing for myself to resign; and if they pass to any children,
those children will be your daughter's!"

The first impulse of Mr. Beaufort was to grasp the hand held out to
him; to pour forth an incoherent torrent of praise and protestation,
of assurances that he could not hear of such generosity, that what was
right was right, that he should be proud of such a son-in-law, and much
more in the same key. And in the midst of this, it suddenly occurred to
Mr. Beaufort, that if Philip's case were really as good as he said it
was, he could not talk so coolly of resi