It was quite true—and the fact was never lost sight of by her, for she rarely argued crookedly, as Luigi habitually did—that, but for the interest taken by Verinder in her case, in all probability she would never have become aware that she was daughter-in-law to Sir Gilbert Clare. Yet, granting that point to the full, it was impossible for her to forget that it was wholly owing to his influence and persuasions that she had been lured into that career of fraud and double-dealing which, in her case, had ended in irremediable disaster. From her present knowledge of Sir Gilbert Clare she felt convinced that, had she have gone to him at first, as she had proposed to do, and told him the simple truth, far from turning his back upon her, he would have welcomed her as his son’s widow, and have settled on her a liberal allowance, which would have been hers to the last day of her life. It made her hate her uncle when she thought of all that she had lost through weakly yielding to the glittering temptation he had so persistently dangled before her. Little by little she had wormed out of Luigi all the particulars of the Brussels episode, and she rightly argued that if Verinder had never introduced his nephew to the gaming-table the series of unfortunate events which resulted therefrom, and culminated in the discovery of Luigi in the strong-room, would never have come to pass. It was clearly the Captain and he alone who was to blame. He had called upon her twice since their return to town, but her reception of him had been of the coldest; and when, on the occasion of his second visit, his request for a trifling loan of ten pounds was met by a distinct refusal, he perceived that his wisest course would be to keep away from his niece till time should in some measure have softened her rancour against him.