'Yes; but we will come to Bentley in a few minutes. I have enlarged to
you on your own cleverness. I must enlarge to you on your folly. What
folly! What was the end of all this to be, Ravengar? I have tried to put
myself in your place, and to follow your thoughts. You hate me. You
think I robbed you of a fortune, and that I helped to rob you of a
woman. You wished to buy my business, and add it to the roll of your
companies. And I deprived you of that triumph. Your hatred of me grew
and grew. Leading a solitary and narrow life, you allowed it to develop
into a species of monomania. I had come out on top once too often for
your peace of mind. In your opinion the world was too small to hold both
of us. Accordingly, you evolved your terrific campaign. My business was
to be seriously damaged. And I was to be murdered. And then you were to
get the concern cheap from my executors, and to float me dead since you
could not float me living. What folly, Ravengar! What stupendous folly!
Even if the fanciful and grotesque scheme had succeeded as far as my
death, it could not have succeeded beyond that point.'
'I don't know what you are chattering about, Owen, but you look as if
you expected me to ask, "Why?" Anything to oblige you. Why?'
'You would have known the reason had you lived long enough to read the
provisions of my will,' said Hugo.
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