It comes rather hard upon you, Val, I
allow; but, you see, if you had acted generously, not to say honourably,
towards me in the first instance, you'd have had the advantage of my
experience. As it is, you have been working in the dark. However, things
are not so bad as they might be. You might have married some ugly old
harridan for the sake of this Haygarth estate; you have secured a pretty
and amiable wife, and you mustn't be downhearted if you find yourself,
from a financial point of view, most outrageously sold."
The Captain could not refrain from a laugh as he contemplated his young
friend's surprise. The laugh degenerated into a fit of coughing, and it
was some little time before the enfeebled Horatio was ready to resume the
interrupted conversation. In this pause Valentine had leisure to face
this new position. There was for the moment a sharp sense of
disappointment. It is not possible for humanity to be quite indifferent
to a hundred thousand pounds. So much of the "light and sweetness" of
life is attainable for that sum,--such pleasures, of the purest and
noblest, are in the power of the possessor. But in this moment Valentine
fully realized the fact that he had never taken the idea of this fortune
into his mind--never made it part and parcel of himself, to be plucked
out of his heart with anguish, and to leave a bleeding wound in the place
where it had grown.
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