"It was necessary that Treve should go to college," said Mrs. Ryle, quite sharply.
"I am not saying anything to the contrary," George quietly answered. "It was right that he should go--as you wished it."
"I shall live--I hope I shall live--I pray that I may live--to see Trevlyn lawful possessor of the Hold. A gentleman's education was essential to him: hence I sent him to Oxford."
George made no reply. Mrs. Ryle felt vexed. She knew George disapproved her policy in regard to Trevlyn, and charged him with it now. George would not deny it.
"What I think unwise is your having led Treve to build hopes upon succeeding to Trevlyn Hold," he said.
"Why?" she haughtily asked. "He will come into it."
"He has far more right to it than he who is looked upon as its successor--Cris Chattaway," she said, with flashing eyes. "You know that."
George could have answered that neither of them had a just right to it, whilst Rupert Trevlyn lived; but Rupert and his claims had been so completely ignored by Mrs. Ryle, as by others, that his advancing them would have been waived away as idle talk. Mrs. Ryle resumed, her voice unsteady. It was most rare that she suffered herself to speak of these past grievances; but when she did, her vehemence mounted to agitation.
"When my boy was born, the news that Joe Trevlyn's health was failing had come home to us. I knew the Squire would never leave the property to Maude, and I expected that my son would inherit. Was it not natural that I should do so?--was it not his right?--I was the Squire's eldest daughter. I had him named Trevlyn; I wrote a note to my father, saying he would not now be at fault for a male heir, in the event of poor Joe's not leaving one----"
"He did leave one," interrupted George, speaking impulsively.
"Rupert was not born then, and his succession was afterwards barred by my father's will. Through deceit, I grant you: but I had no hand in that deceit. I named my boy Trevlyn; I regarded him as the heir; and when the Squire died and his will was opened, it was found he had bequeathed all to Chattaway. If you think I have ever once faltered in my hope--my resolve--to see Trevlyn some time displace the Chattaways, you do not know much of human nature."