long already.
Without a jest, Etherington, you must be ruled by counsel in this
matter. I detect your hatred to this man in every line of your
letter, even when you write with the greatest coolness; even where
there is an affectation of gaiety, I read your sentiments on this
subject; and they are such as--I will not preach to you--I will not
say a good man--but such as every wise man--every man who wishes to
live on fair terms with the world, and to escape general
malediction, and perhaps a violent death, where all men will clap
their hands and rejoice at the punishment of the fratricide,--would,
with all possible speed, eradicate from his breast. My services
therefore, if they are worth your acceptance, are offered on the
condition that this unholy hatred be subdued with the utmost force
of your powerful mind, and that you avoid every thing which can
possibly lead to such a catastrophe as you have twice narrowly
escaped. I do not ask you to like this man, for I know well the deep
root which your prejudices hold in your mind; I merely ask you to
avoid him, and to think of him as one, who, if you do meet him, can
never be the object of personal resentment.

"On these conditions, I will instantly join you at your Spa, and
wait but your answer to throw myself into the post-chaise. I will
seek out this Martigny for you, and I have the vanity to think I
shall be able to persuade him to take the course which his own true
interest, as well as yours, so plainly points out--and that is, to
depart and make us free of him. You must not grudge a round sum of
money, should that prove necessary--we must make wings for him to
fly with, and I must be empowered by you to that purpose. I cannot
think you have any thing serious to fear from a lawsuit. Your father
threw out this sinister hint at a moment when he was enraged at his
wife, and irritated by his son; and I have little doubt that his
expressions were merely flashes of anger at the moment, though I see
they have made a deep impression on you. At all events, he spoke of
a preference to his illegitimate son, as something which it was in
his own power to give or to withhold; and he has died without
bestowing it. The family seem addicted to irregular matrimony, and
some left-handed marriage there may have been used to propitiate the
modesty,