itself. Aubrey, child of my adoption and of my earthly
hopes, those schemes require carnal instruments, and work, even through
Mammon, unto the goal of righteousness. What I have done is just before
God and man. I have wrested a weapon from the hand of an enemy, and
placed it in the hand of an ally. I have not touched one atom of this
wealth, though, with the same ease with which I have transferred it from
Morton to Gerald, I might have made my own private fortune. I have not
touched one atom of it; nor for you, whom I love more than any living
being, have I done what my heart dictated. I might have caused the
inheritance to pass to you. I have not done so. Why? Because then I
should have consulted a selfish desire at the expense of the interests
of mankind. Gerald is fitter to be the tool those interests require than
you are. Gerald I have made that tool. You, too, I have spared the pangs
which your conscience, so peculiarly, so morbidly acute, might suffer
at being selected as the instrument of a seeming wrong to Morton.
All required of you is silence. If your wants ever ask more than your
legacy, you have, as I have, a claim to that wealth which your pleasure
allows Gerald to possess. Meanwhile, let us secure to you that treasure
dearer to you than gold."

If Montreuil did not quite blind me by speeches of this nature, my
engrossing, absorbing passion required little to make it cling to any
hope of its fruition. I assented, therefore, though not without
many previous struggles, to Montreuil's project, or rather to its
concealment; nay, I wrote some time after, at his desire and his
dictation, a letter to you, stating feigned reasons for my uncle's
alteration of former intentions, and exonerating Gerald from all
connivance in that alteration, or abetment in the fraud you professed
that it was your open belief had been committed. This was due to Gerald;
for at that time, and for aught I know, at the present, he was perfectly
unconscious by what means he had attained his fortune: he believed
that your love for Isora had given my uncle offence, and hence your
disinheritance; and Montreuil took effectual care to exasperate him
against you, by dwelling on the malice which your suspicions and your
proceedings against him so glaringly testified. Whether Montreuil really
thought you would give over all intention of marrying Isora upon your
reverse of fortune, which is likely enough from his estimate of
your character; or whet