"
"In this letter," says the Superior, slowly unfolding the
paper, "with the contents of which you are doubtless
acquainted, Monsieur----"
"I wrote it at M. Linders' dictation, Madame."
"Ah, exactly--in this letter then, I see that my brother wishes
me to take charge of his child. I confess that, after all that
has passed between us, I am at a loss to imagine on what
grounds he can found such a request."
"But--pardon me, Madame--" said Graham, "as your brother's only
surviving relative--so at least I understood him to say--you
surely become the natural guardian of his child."
"My brother and I renounced each other, and parted years ago,
Monsieur; were you at all intimate with him?"
"Not in the least," replied Graham; "I knew nothing, or next
to nothing, of him, till I attended him in his last illness;
it was by the merest accident that I became, in any way, mixed
up in his affairs."
"Then you are probably unaware of the character he bore,"
Therese Linders said, suddenly exchanging her air of cold
constraint for a voice and manner expressive of the bitterest
scorn; "he was a gambler by profession, a man of the most
reckless and dissipated life; he plunged by choice into the
lowest society he could find; he broke his mother's heart
before he was one-and-twenty; he neglected, and all but
deserted his wife; he ruined the lives of all who came in his
way--he was a man without principle or feeling, without
affection for any living being.
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