If you could have heard the desecration of your name which followed! Old Mr. Pym, Roderick’s father, that pinched old man like a sick weasel, got up and said he should oppose your will, which was evidently drawn up when you were of unsound mind. At this I started up, and said that I should defend it. You had never been of unsound mind. Mr. Mervyn proposed that discussions, if any, should be postponed. I said, “Certainly.” This conversation made me feel all anger. Then Mr. Pym proposed a private interview with me. I said: “Yes; will you please come into the drawing-room?” We went. I drew up the blinds, then stood with my back to the light, facing him. He offered me a chair. I declined. No man who has accused you of having been of unsound mind shall be invited to seat himself in this, your, house if I can prevent it. He stared at me, I stared at him. He began a speech, muddling the words and clearing his throat. Then he accused me of being in league with _him_—to have influenced you to disinherit Roderick. I said: “Excuse me; but I fail to understand what my cousin Roderick has to do with the matter.” He told me that you had made Roderick your heir in a previous will, and that you had intended us to marry. I laughed. That made him very angry. He stamped about the room, said many things I could not understand; but finished off by saying that “everything was exactly as he expected,” which was plain enough. I said what I felt, for I was really sorry for him. I said: “I am glad of that. It seems to me that what one expects so seldom happens.” Just then Mrs. Mervyn came in, looking quite frightened. (How frightened—or rather timid—these believers in all sorts of unseen extraordinary things are!) He and she looked at each other; then he went out, and she came to me and said: “My darling, this is dreadful for you, I am sure! But I know he meant it well.” I said: “He!—who?” “Your poor, dear father!” she said. How dared she defend you, and to me! I said: “My father was above ordinary men. He knew—he could see farther than we short-sighted mortals.” She seemed a little chidden, and I was glad. Then she asked me if I would see—_him_. “I can see, poor fellow! that he had no idea of this, he seems quite overwhelmed,” she said. The white-hot shame of that scorched me. I stood there and—oh, father!—suffered an agony, to describe which there are no words—no words! She called him “poor fellow!” Pityingly, she said “he had no idea of that, that he was quite overwhelmed.” Oh! my shame, my shame! And I never dreamt that I was good enough for him. I had never aspired, never should have aspired to being even his friend, much less his wife. Your goodness in overrating your child has covered her with a pall—a pall of shame—under which she will lie buried till the end of time—if, indeed, there should be such a thing as the end of time—which seems absurd.