Helen was pleased to hear that Randolph was in correspondence with one whom she had liked in his visits to Hampstead, and also at the expression of his face, and the cheerful accent with which he spoke. But it was only one of the fluctuations of the barometer in a storm. He had exulted at first receiving the notice of action, because it gave him what he had wished for,--a personal quarrel with the Pendarrels. Before it he never felt quite satisfied with himself. He had his misgivings concerning his reception of that first letter of condolence. He desired a right to make reprisals on his own account. Anything that would render his union with Esther's daughter a greater triumph over herself, was acceptable to his perverse temper. But this froward feeling was short-lived. Randolph remembered Mildred's position, and reflected that if she loved him, as he believed, everything that widened the breach between him and her family would be a source of misery to herself. In the pursuit of his selfish revenge, he had entirely forgotten the suffering it would inflict upon his mistress. He was precluded from seeking her as the friend of those who should be dear to her; and it was not, surely, for him to exult in any exasperation of their hostility. And then he thought of the law-suit almost in despair. It seemed that Esther Pendarrel, not content with breaking his father's heart, and driving him to ruin, was proceeding after his death to defame his memory: pretending that, he had imposed upon his family by a fictitious marriage: seeking to have his children stripped of their name, and made infamous in the eyes of the world. The mother of her whom Randolph loved, was trying to degrade him to a position in which his alliance would be a disgrace. And his own mother, whom he only knew by that strange dream, yet regarded with the fondest affection, whose fame he had but recently declared he would defend with his life,--her good name was also to be sacrificed to satisfy the vengeance of this haughty woman. What! were these the things in which he had exulted? That the breach which his father had provided one means--dubious and remote indeed, but still a means of healing--should be rendered irremediable for ever! For who could pardon an attack like this? Of the action itself, and its consequences, Randolph took little heed. To think of it would only be to perplex himself concerning the precise artifice which was to be used at the trial: he was content to wait till it came. Nevertheless, he noted Helen's chance information respecting Michael Sinson's employment, but Griffith had already mentioned it to Mr. Winter.