He therefore sets about it, and engages in great expenses,
besides contracting the enmity of many persons, with whose interests he
interferes. A further complication is brought about by the secret
interference of the old Hospitaller, and Alice goes singing and dancing
through the whole, in a way that makes her seem like a beautiful devil,
though finally it will be recognized that she is an angel of light.
Middleton, half bewildered, can scarcely tell how much of this is due to
his own agency; how much is independent of him and would have happened
had he stayed on his own side of the water. By and by a further and
unexpected development presents the singular fact that he himself is the
heir to whatever claims there are, whether of property or rank,--all
centring in him as the representative of the eldest brother. On this
discovery there ensues a tragedy in the death of the present possessor of
the estate, who has staked everything upon the issue; and Middleton,
standing amid the ruin and desolation of which he has been the innocent
cause, resigns all the claims which he might now assert, and retires, arm
in arm with Alice, who has encouraged him to take this course, and to act
up to his character. The estate takes a passage into the female line, and
the old name becomes extinct, nor does Middleton seek to continue it by
resuming it in place of the one long ago assumed by his ancestor.
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