Percival Nowell had gone farther than this, and had promised the attorney a handsome percentage upon anything that his father might be induced to leave him by Mr.Medler's influence.
The discussion lasted for a long time; Mr.Medler pushing on, stage by stage, in the favour of his secret client, anxious to see whether Jacob Nowell might not be persuaded to allow his son's name to take the place of his granddaughter, whom he had never seen, and who was really no more than a stranger to him, the attorney took care to remind him.

But on this point the old man was immovable.

He would leave his money to Marian, and to no one else.

He had no desire that his son should ever profit by the labours and deprivations of all those joyless years in which his fortune had been scraped together.

It was only as the choice of the lesser evil that he would consent to Percival's inheriting the property from his daughter, rather than it should fall into the hands of Mr.Holbrook.