? ? ? ? 'Good Lord, man, there's no occasion to say that. Left to her unconditionally! I think I see David Copperfield looking forward to any condition of any sort or kind, though it stared him point-blank in the face! Of course it was left to her unconditionally. But when she married again - when she took that most disastrous step of marrying you, in short,' said my aunt, 'to be plain - did no one put in a word for the boy at that time?'
? ? ? ? 'My late wife loved her second husband, ma'am,' said Mr. Murdstone, 'and trusted implicitly in him.'
? ? ? ? 'Your late wife, sir, was a most unworldly, most unhappy, most unfortunate baby,' returned my aunt, shaking her head at him. 'That's what she was. And now, what have you got to say next?'
? ? ? ? 'Merely this, Miss Trotwood,' he returned. 'I am here to take David back - to take him back unconditionally, to dispose of him as I think proper, and to deal with him as I think right. I am not here to make any promise, or give any pledge to anybody. You may possibly have some idea, Miss Trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. Your manner, which I must say does not seem intended to propitiate, induces me to think it possible. Now I must caution you that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all; if you step in between him and me, now, you must step in, Miss Trotwood, for ever.
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