He stood looking at me for a moment, and though my pride would not give way, my heart relented. "When I have justice--is that when I have my father's inheritance?" said Edgar, slowly, "that will not give me a father, or a mother, or a friend. I will need pity more, and not less, than now." He did not speak again, and I could not answer him; no, I could not answer his gentle words, nor open my heart to him again. A stranger, an unknown boy; and he was to take from my father his ancestral house, his lands, his very rank and degree! I clasped my hands and hardened my heart; let him have justice, I said within myself--justice--we would await it proudly, and obey it without a murmur; but we rejected the sympathy of our supplanter; let him, as we did, stand alone. But I could not help a wistful look after him as Edgar went away with his most unsuitable companion along the level, dark, long road to the village inn. My father stood with me at the door gazing after them, with a strange, fascinated eye, and when they passed into the distance out of our sight, he drew a long breath of relief, and, in a faint voice, bade me come in. I followed him to the library where lights were burning. The large, dim room looked chill and desolate as we entered it, and I saw a chair thrust aside from the table, where Saville had been sitting opposite my father. I stood beside him now, for he held my hand and would not let me go. He had been quite dignified and self-possessed when we parted with the strangers, but now his face relaxed into a strange ease and weariness. We were alone in the world, my father and I, but his thoughts were not often such as could be told to a girl like me; and I think I had never felt such a thrill of affectionate delight as now, when I saw him yield before me to his new trouble--when he took his child into his confidence, and suffered no veil of appearance to interpose between us. "Hester," he said, holding my hand lightly in his own; "I have heard all this story; the man is a relation, he tells me, of Brian's wife; and though I cannot understand how my brother should so have demeaned himself, yet the story, I cannot dispute, has much appearance of truth. I like to be prepared for the worst--Hester! I wish you to think of it. Do you understand at all what will happen to us if this be true?" "Scarcely, papa," said I. "Cottiswoode will be ours no longer; the rank and consideration we have been accustomed to, will be ours no longer," said my father, with a slight shudder. "Hester, do you hear what I say?" "Yes, I am thinking, papa," said I, "poverty, want--I know the words; but I do not know what they mean."