If she remained in the house, there were only two courses before
her--to charge old Mazey with speaking under the influence of a drunken
delusion, or to submit to circumstances. Though she owed to the old
sailor her defeat in the very hour of success, his consideration for
her at that moment forbade the idea of defending herself at his
expense--even supposing, what was in the last degree improbable, that
the defense would be credited. In the second of the two cases (the
case of submission to circumstances), but one result could be
expected--instant dismissal, and perhaps discovery as well. What object
was to be gained by braving that degradation--by leaving the house
publicly disgraced in the eyes of the servants who had hated and
distrusted her from the first? The accident which had literally
snatched the Trust from her possession when she had it in her hand was
irreparable. The one apparent compensation under the disaster--in other
words, the discovery that the Trust actually existed, and that George
Bartram's marriage within a given time was one of the objects contained
in it--was a compensation which could only be estimated at its true
value by placing it under the light of Mr.
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