It is only two years that I have been in England."
"This, then," said Middleton thoughtfully, "accounts for much that has
seemed so strange in the events through which we have passed; for the
knowledge of my identity and my half-defined purpose which has always
glided before me, and thrown so many strange shapes of difficulty in my
path. But whence,--whence came that malevolence which your father's
conduct has so unmistakably shown? I had done him no injury, though I
had suffered much."
"I have often thought," replied Alice, "that my father, though retaining
a preternatural strength and acuteness of intellect, was really not
altogether sane. And, besides, he had made it his business to keep this
estate, and all the complicated advantages of the representation of this
old family, secure to the person who was deemed to have inherited them.
A succession of ages and generations might be supposed to have blotted
out your claims from existence; for it is not just that there should be
no term of time which can make security for lack of fact and a few
formalities. At all events, he had satisfied himself that his duty was
to act as he has done."
"Be it so! I do not seek to throw blame on him," said Middleton.
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