The world would have said, "Nothing can be handsomer than Mr.Robert Beaufort's conduct!" Nay, if Mrs.Morton had been some divorced wife of birth and connections, he would have made very different dispositions in her favour: he would not have allowed the connections to call him shabby.

But here he felt that, all circumstances considered, the world, if it spoke at all (which it would scarce think it worth while to do), would be on his side.

An artful woman--low-born, and, of course, low-bred--who wanted to inveigle her rich and careless paramour into marriage; what could be expected from the man she had sought to injure--the rightful heir?
Was it not very good in him to do anything for her, and, if he provided for the children suitably to the original station of the mother, did he not go to the very utmost of reasonable expectation?
He certainly thought in his conscience, such as it was, that he had acted well--not extravagantly, not foolishly; but well.

He was sure the world would say so if it knew all: he was not bound to do anything.

He was not, therefore, prepared for Catherine's short, haughty, but temperate reply to his letter: a reply which conveyed a decided refusal of his offers--asserted positively her own marriage, and the claims of her children--intimated legal proceedings--and was signed in the name of Catherine Beaufort.