"Now, that is not fair, Vin!" she protested. "If I said things to you you did not like, what motive had I but your happiness? And now at this moment, if I re-open that subject, it is not the kind of comfort you apparently hope for that I am prepared to bring you, but something quite different. I should like to heal your mental ailment, once and for all, by convincing you of the truth." "Yes, I think we have heard something of that sort on previous occasions," he said, rather scornfully. "The truth as it is in George Morris! Well, I will tell you what would be more useful, more to the point, and more becoming. Before saying anything further about that old man and his granddaughter, I think you ought to go and seek them out, and go down on your knees to them, and ask their pardon—" "For what?" "For what you have already said of them—and suspected." "Really you try my patience too much!" she exclaimed, with some show of temper. "What have I said or suspected of them that was not amply justified by the account of them that your father offered to show you? Of course you wouldn’t look at it. Certainly not! Facts are inconvenient things, most uncomfortable things, where one’s prepossessions are involved. But I had no objection to looking at it—" "I suppose not!" said he. "And my eyes were not blinded: I could accept evidence when it was put before me." "Evidence!" he repeated. "You forget that I have been across the Atlantic since that precious document was compiled. I heard how that evidence had been got: I could see how it could be perverted to suit the malignant theories of a pack of detectives. And if I came back with any settled conviction, it was that you and one or two others—myself, too, in a way—could do no better than go and humble ourselves before that old man and that girl, and beg for their forgiveness, and their forgetfulness of the wrongs and insults we have put upon them." "Oh, this is beyond anything!" she cried—rather losing command of herself. "You drive me to speak plain. Everything your father and I could think of was tried to cure you of this mad infatuation—the most patient inquiry—expenditure of money—representations that would have convinced any sane person. Nothing was of any use. What was to be done next? Well, we could only buy up those honourable persons—who were not adventurers in any kind of way—oh, certainly not!—but all the same they were willing to be bought; and so, on payment of a substantial consideration, they agreed to pack up their traps and be off. What do you think of that? What do you say to that? Where was the old gentleman’s indomitable pride?—where was the girl’s pretended affection for you?—when they consented to take a good round sum of money and be off? How can you explain that away?" She regarded him with a certain defiance—for she was moved to anger by his obduracy. But if she expected him to wince under this sudden stab she was mistaken.