“Come, sister, come,” said Richard a little more gaily, “you will be fair with me at all events.  If I have the misfortune to be under that influence, so has he.  If it has a little twisted me, it may have a little twisted him too.  I don’t say that he is not an honourable man, out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is.  But it taints everybody.  You know it taints everybody.  You have heard him say so fifty times.  Then why should he escape?”

“Because,” said I, “his is an uncommon character, and he has resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard.”

“Oh, because and because!” replied Richard in his vivacious way.  “I am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to preserve that outward indifference.  It may cause other parties interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things may smoothly happen that are convenient enough.”

I was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him any more, even by a look.  I remembered my guardian’s gentleness towards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he had spoken of them.

“Esther,” Richard resumed, “you are not to suppose that I have come here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce.  I have only come to justify myself.  What I say is, it was all very well and we got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look into it, then it was quite another thing.  Then John Jarndyce discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don’t amend that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her.  Now, Esther, I don’t mean to amend that very objectionable course:  I will not hold John Jarndyce’s favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he has no right to dictate.  Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I must maintain my rights and Ada’s.  I have been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to.”

Poor dear Richard!  He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal.  His face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly.

“So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at issue openly than covertly.  I thank him for his goodwill and his protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine.  The fact is, our roads are not the same.  Under one of the wills in dispute, I should take much more than he.  I don’t mean to say that it is the one to be established, but there it is, and it has its chance.”

“I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard,” said I, “of your letter.  I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word.”