“This part of Julia's letter is very curious,” said she, turning to the last page. “They were stopping at a little inn, one night, where Pracontal and Longworth arrived, and George, by a mere accident, heard Pracontal declare that he would have given anything to have known you personally; that he desired, above everything, to be received by you on terms of friendship, and even of kindred; that the whole of this unhappy business could have been settled amicably, and, in fact, he never ceased to blame himself for the line into which his lawyer's advice had led him, while all his wishes tended to an opposite direction.” “But Sedley says he has accepted the arrangement, and abandoned all claim in future.” “So he has, and it is for that he blames himself. He says it debars him from the noble part he desired to take.” “I was no part to this compromise, Nelly; remember that. I yielded to reiterated entreaty a most unwilling assent, declaring, always, that the law must decide the case between us, and the rightful owner have his own. Let not Mr. Pracontal imagine that all the high-principled action is on his side; from the very first, I declared that I would not enjoy for an hour what I did not regard undisputably as my own. You can bear witness to this, Nelly. I simply assented to the arrangement, as they called it, to avoid unnecessary scandal. What the law shall decide between us, need call forth no evil passions or ill-will. If the fortune we had believed our own belongs to another, let him have it.” The tone of high excitement in which he spoke plainly revealed how far a nervous temperament and a susceptible nature had to do with his present resolve. Nelly had seen this before, but never so fully revealed as now. She knew well the springs which could move him to acts of self-sacrifice and devotion, but she had not thoroughly realized to herself that it was in a paroxysm of honorable emotion he had determined to accept the reverse of fortune, which would leave him penniless in the world.