You should have
left it buried forever. But now what do you mean to do?"
"To proclaim this catastrophe," replied Middleton. "It is the only
honest and manly way. What else can I do?"
"You can and ought to leave him on the wood-path, where he has fallen,"
said Alice, "and go yourself to take advantage of the state of things
which Providence has brought about. Enter the old house, the hereditary
house, where--now, at least--you alone have a right to tread. Now is the
hour. All is within your grasp. Let the wrong of three hundred years be
righted, and come back thus to your own, to these hereditary fields, this
quiet, long-descended home; to title, to honor."
Yet as the wild maiden spoke thus, there was a sort of mockery in her
eyes; on her brow; gleaming through all her face, as if she scorned what
she thus pressed upon him, the spoils of the dead man who lay at their
feet. Middleton, with his susceptibility, could not [but] be sensible of
a wild and strange charm, as well as horror, in the situation; it seemed
such a wonder that here, in formal, orderly, well-governed England, so
wild a scene as this should have occurred; that they too [two?] should
stand here, deciding on the descent of an estate, and the inheritance of
a title, holding a court of their own.
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