"I mean that her engagement to Captain Aylmer makes it unnecessary for you to suppose that she is in want of any pecuniary assistance. You told me once before that you would feel yourself called upon to see that she wanted nothing."
"But Captain Aylmer will look after that."
"I tell you what it is, Joe; I mean to settle the Belton property in such a way that she shall have it, and that he shan't be able to touch it. And it shall go to some one who shall have my name,--William Belton. That's what I want you to arrange for me."
"I mean now, at once. I won't take the estate from her. I hate the place and everything belonging to it. I don't mean her. There is no reason for hating her."
"My dear Will, you are talking nonsense."
"Why is it nonsense? I may give what belongs to me to whom I please."
"You can do nothing of the kind;--at any rate, not by my assistance. You talk as though the world were all over with you,--as though you were never to be married or have any children of your own."
"Nonsense, Will. Don't make such an ass of yourself as to suppose that you'll not get over such a thing as this. You'll be married and have a dozen children yet to provide for. Let the eldest have Belton Castle, and everything will go on then in the proper way."
Belton had now got the poker into his hands, and sat silent for some time, knocking the coals about. Then he got up, and took his hat, and put on his coat. "Of course I can't make you understand me," he said; "at any rate not all at once. I'm not such a fool as to want to give up my property just because a girl is going to be married to a man I don't like. I'm not such an ass as to give him my estate for such a reason as that;--for it will be giving it to him, let me tie it up as I may. But I've a feeling about it which makes it impossible for me to take it. How would you like to get a thing by another fellow having destroyed himself?"
"You can't help that. It's yours by law."
"Of course it is. I know that. And as it's mine I can do what I like with it. Well;--good-bye. When I've got anything to say, I'll write." Then he went down to his cab and had himself driven to the Great Western Railway Hotel.
Captain Aylmer had sent to his betrothed seventy-five pounds; the exact interest at five per cent. for one year of the sum which his aunt had left her. This was the first subject of which Belton thought when he found himself again in the railway carriage, and he continued thinking of it half the way down to Taunton. Seventy-five pounds! As though this favoured lover were prepared to give her exactly her due, and nothing more than her due! Had he been so placed, he, Will Belton, what would he have done? Seventy-five pounds might have been more money than she would have wanted, for he would have taken her to his own house,--to his own bosom, as soon as she would have permitted, and would have so laboured on her behalf, taking from her shoulders all money troubles, that there would have been no question as to principal or interest between them. At any rate he would not have confined himself to sending to her the exact sum which was her due. But then Aylmer was a cold-blooded man,--more like a fish than a man. Belton told himself over and over again that he had discovered that at the single glance which he had had when he saw Captain Aylmer in Green's chambers. Seventy-five pounds indeed! He himself was prepared to give his whole estate to her, if she would take it,--even though she would not marry him, even though she was going to throw herself away upon that fish! Then he felt somewhat as Hamlet did when he jumped upon Laertes at the grave of Ophelia. Send her seventy-five pounds indeed, while he was ready to drink up Esil for her, or to make over to her the whole Belton estate, and thus abandon the idea for ever of being Belton of Belton!