Of course she went now and again. She had no alternative
but to go, and yet, feeling that the house was his house, she was
most unwilling to enter it. Then grew within her a feeling, which
she could not analyse, that he had ill-used her. Of course she was
not entitled to his love. She would acknowledge to herself over and
over again that he had never spoken a word to her which could
justify her in expecting his love. But why had he not let her
alone? Why had he striven by his words and his society to make her
other than she would have been had she been left to the atmosphere
of her stepmother's home? Why had he spoken so strongly to her as
to that young man's love? And then she was almost angry with him
because, by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he was about to become,
as she thought, Squire of Bragton. Had he remained simply Mr.
Morton of Hoppet Hall it would still have been impossible. But this
exaltation of her idol altogether out of her reach was an added
injustice. She could remember, not the person, but all the recent
memories of the old Squire, the veneration with which he was named,
the masterdom which was attributed to him, the unequalled nobility
of his position in regard to Dillsborough. His successor would be
to her as some one crowned, and removed by his crown altogether
from her world.
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