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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Mr. Scarborough's Family
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2004  [eBook #12234]
+Most recently updated: November 30, 2011
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Steven desJardins, Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D., and
+Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY
+
+BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE
+
+1883
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back
+more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain
+with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which
+led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say
+that these first four chapters of the book--though they may be thought
+to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents
+for their interest in a tale--are in this way only preliminary.
+
+The world has not yet forgotten the intensity of the feeling which
+existed when old Mr. Scarborough declared that his well-known eldest son
+was not legitimate. Mr. Scarborough himself had not been well known in
+early life. He had been the only son of a squire in Staffordshire over
+whose grounds a town had been built and pottery-works established. In
+this way a property which had not originally been extensive had been
+greatly increased in value, and Mr. Scarborough, when he came into
+possession, had found himself to be a rich man. He had then gone abroad,
+and had there married an English lady. After the lapse of some years he
+had returned to Tretton Park, as his place was named, and there had lost
+his wife. He had come back with two sons, Mountjoy and Augustus, and
+there, at Tretton, he had lived, spending, however, a considerable
+portion of each year in chambers in the Albany. He was a man who,
+through many years, had had his own circle of friends, but, as I have
+said before, he was not much known in the world. He was luxurious and
+self-indulgent, and altogether indifferent to the opinion of those
+around him. But he was affectionate to his children, and anxious above
+all things for their welfare, or rather happiness. Some marvellous
+stories were told as to his income, which arose chiefly from the
+Tretton delf-works and from the town of Tretton, which had been built
+chiefly on his very park, in consequence of the nature of the clay and
+the quality of the water. As a fact, the original four thousand a year,
+to which his father had been born, had grown to twenty thousand by
+nature of the operations which had taken place. But the whole of this,
+whether four thousand or twenty thousand, was strictly entailed, and Mr.
+Scarborough had been very anxious, since his second son was born, to
+create for him also something which might amount to opulence. But they
+who knew him best knew that of all things he hated most the entail.
+
+The boys were both educated at Eton, and the elder went into the Guards,
+having been allowed an intermediate year in order to learn languages on
+the Continent. He had then become a cornet in the Coldstreams, and had,
+from that time, lived a life of reckless expenditure. His brother
+Augustus had in the mean time gone to Cambridge and become a barrister.
+He had been called but two years when the story was made known of his
+father's singular assertion. As from that time it became unnecessary for
+him to practise his profession, no more was heard of him as a lawyer. But
+they who had known the young man in the chambers of that great luminary,
+Mr. Rugby, declared that a very eminent advocate was now spoiled by a
+freak of fortune.
+
+Of his brother Mountjoy,--or Captain Scarborough, as he came to be known
+at an early period of his life,--the stories which were told in the world
+at large were much too remarkable to be altogether true. But it was only
+too true that he lived as though the wealth at his command were without
+limit. For some few years his father bore with him patiently, doubling
+his allowance, and paying his bills for him again and again. He made up
+his mind,--with many regrets,--that enough had been done for his younger
+son, who would surely by his intellect be able to do much for himself.
+But then it became necessary to encroach on the funds already put by,
+and at last there came the final blow, when he discovered that Captain
+Scarborough had raised large sums on post-obits from the Jews. The Jews
+simply requested the father to pay the money or some portion of it,
+which if at once paid would satisfy them, explaining to him that
+otherwise the whole property would at his death fall into their hands.
+It need not here be explained how, through one sad year, these
+negotiations were prolonged; but at last there came a time in which Mr.
+Scarborough, sitting in his chambers in the Albany, boldly declared his
+purpose. He sent for his own lawyer, Mr. Grey, and greatly astonished
+that gentleman by declaring to him that Captain Scarborough was
+illegitimate.
+
+At first Mr. Grey refused altogether to believe the assertion made to
+him. He had been very conversant with the affairs of the family, and had
+even dealt with marriage settlements on behalf of the lady in question.
+He knew Mr. Scarborough well,--or rather had not known him, but had heard
+much of him,--and therefore suspected him. Mr. Grey was a thoroughly
+respectable man, and Mr. Scarborough, though upright and honorable in
+many dealings, had not been thoroughly respectable. He had lived with
+his wife off and on, as people say. Though he had saved much of his
+money for the purpose above described, he had also spent much of it in a
+manner which did not approve itself to Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey had thoroughly
+disliked the eldest son, and had, in fact, been afraid of him. The
+captain, in the few interviews that had been necessary between them, had
+attempted to domineer over the lawyer, till there had at last sprung up
+a quarrel, in which, to tell the truth, the father took the part of the
+son. Mr. Grey had for a while been so offended as to find it necessary
+to desire Mr. Scarborough to employ another lawyer. He had not, however,
+done so, and the breach had never become absolute. In these
+circumstances Mr. Scarborough had sent for Mr. Grey to come to him at
+the Albany, and had there, from his bed, declared that his eldest son
+was illegitimate. Mr. Grey had at first refused to accept the assertion
+as being worth anything, and had by no means confined himself to polite
+language in expressing his belief. "I would much rather have nothing to
+do with it," he had said when Mr. Scarborough insisted on the truth of
+his statement.
+
+"But the evidence is all here," said Mr. Scarborough, laying his hand on
+a small bundle of papers. "The difficulty would have been, and the
+danger, in causing Mountjoy to have been accepted in his brother's
+place. There can be no doubt that I was not married till after Mountjoy
+was born."
+
+Mr. Grey's curiosity was roused, and he began to ask questions. Why, in
+the first place, had Mr. Scarborough behaved so dishonestly? Why had he
+originally not married his wife? And then, why had he married her? If,
+as he said, the proofs were so easy, how had he dared to act so directly
+in opposition to the laws of his country? Why, indeed, had he been
+through the whole of his life so bad a man,--so bad to the woman who had
+borne his name, so bad to the son whom he called illegitimate, and so
+bad also to the other son whom he now intended to restore to his
+position, solely with the view of defrauding the captain's creditors?
+
+In answer to this Mr. Scarborough, though he was suffering much at the
+time,--so much as to be considered near to his death,--had replied with
+the most perfect good-humor.
+
+He had done very well, he thought, by his wife, whom he had married
+after she had consented to live with him on other terms. He had done
+very well by his elder son, for whom he had intended the entire
+property. He had done well by his second son, for whom he had saved his
+money. It was now his first duty to save the property. He regarded
+himself as being altogether unselfish and virtuous from his point of
+view.
+
+When Mr. Grey had spoken about the laws of his country he had simply
+smiled, though he was expecting a grievous operation on the following
+day. As for marriage, he had no great respect for it, except as a mode
+of enabling men and women to live together comfortably. As for the
+"outraged laws of his country," of which Mr. Grey spoke much, he did not
+care a straw for such outrages--nor, indeed, for the expressed opinion
+of mankind as to his conduct. He was very soon about to leave the world,
+and meant to do the best he could for his son Augustus. The other son
+was past all hope. He was hardly angry with his eldest son, who had
+undoubtedly given him cause for just anger. His apparent motives in
+telling the truth about him at last were rather those of defrauding the
+Jews, who had expressed themselves to him with brutal audacity, than
+that of punishing the one son or doing justice to the other; but even of
+them he spoke with a cynical good-humor, triumphing in his idea of
+thoroughly getting the better of them.
+
+"I am consoled, Mr. Grey," he said, "when I think how probably it might
+all have been discovered after my death. I should have destroyed all
+these," and he laid his hands upon the papers, "but still there might
+have been discovery."
+
+Mr. Grey could not but think that during the last twenty-four years,--the
+period which had elapsed since the birth of the younger son,--no idea of
+such a truth had occurred to himself.
+
+He did at last consent to take the papers in his hands, and to read them
+through with care. He took them away with that promise, and with an
+assurance that he would bring them back on the day but one
+following--should Mr. Scarborough then be alive.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, who seemed at that moment to have much life in him,
+insisted on this proviso:--
+
+"The surgeon is to be here to-morrow, you know, and his coming may mean
+a great deal. You will have the papers, which are quite clear, and will
+know what to do. I shall see Mountjoy myself this evening. I suppose he
+will have the grace to come, as he does not know what he is coming for."
+
+Then the father smiled again, and the lawyer went.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, though he was very strong of heart, did have some
+misgivings as the time came at which he was to see his son. The
+communication which he had to make was certainly one of vital
+importance. His son had some time since instigated him to come to terms
+with the "family creditors," as the captain boldly called them.
+
+"Seeing that I never owed a shilling in my life, or my father before me,
+it is odd that I should have family creditors," the father had answered.
+
+"The property has, then, at any rate," the son had said, with a scowl.
+
+But that was now twelve months since, before mankind and the Jews among
+them had heard of Mr. Scarborough's illness. Now, there could be no
+question of dealing on favorable terms with these gentlemen. Mr.
+Scarborough was, therefore, aware that the evil thing which he was about
+to say to his son would have lost its extreme bitterness. It did not
+occur to him that, in making such a revelation as to his son's mother he
+would inflict any great grief on his son's heart. To be illegitimate
+would be, he thought, nothing unless illegitimacy carried with it loss
+of property. He hardly gave weight enough to the feeling that the eldest
+son was the eldest son, and too little to the triumph which was present
+to his own mind in saving the property for one of the family. Augustus
+was but the captain's brother, but he was the old squire's son. The two
+brothers had hitherto lived together on fairly good terms, for the
+younger had been able to lend money to the elder, and the elder had
+found his brother neither severe or exacting. How it might be between
+them when their relations with each other should be altogether changed,
+Mr. Scarborough did not trouble himself to inquire. The captain by his
+own reckless folly had lost his money, had lost all that fortune would
+have given him as his father's eldest son. After having done so, what
+could it matter to him whether he were legitimate or illegitimate? His
+brother, as possessor of Tretton Park, would be able to do much more
+for him than could be expected from a professional man working for his
+bread.
+
+Mr. Scarborough had looked at the matter all round for the space of two
+years, and during the latter year had slowly resolved on his line of
+action. He had had no scruple in passing off his eldest-born as
+legitimate, and now would have none in declaring the truth to the world.
+What scruple need he have, seeing that he was so soon about to leave the
+world?
+
+As to what took place at that interview between the father and the son
+very much was said among the clubs, and in societies to which Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough was well known; but very little of absolute truth
+was ever revealed. It was known that Captain Scarborough left the room
+under the combined authority of apothecaries and servants, and that the
+old man had fainted from the effects of the interview. He had
+undoubtedly told the son of the simple facts as he had declared them to
+Mr. Grey, but had thought it to be unnecessary to confirm his statement
+by any proof. Indeed, the proofs, such as they were,--the written
+testimony, that is,--were at that moment in the hands of Mr. Grey, and to
+Mr. Grey the father had at last referred the son. But the son had
+absolutely refused to believe for a moment in the story, and had
+declared that his father and Mr. Grey had conspired together to rob him
+of his inheritance and good name. The interview was at last over, and
+Mr. Scarborough, at one moment fainting, and in the next suffering the
+extremest agony, was left alone with his thoughts.
+
+Captain Scarborough, when he left his father's rooms, and found himself
+going out from the Albany into Piccadilly, was an infuriated but at the
+same time a most wretched man. He did believe that a conspiracy had been
+hatched, and he was resolved to do his best to defeat it, let the effect
+be what it might on the property; but yet there was a strong feeling in
+his breast that the fraud would be successful. No man could possibly be
+environed by worse circumstances as to his own condition. He owed he
+knew not what amount of money to several creditors; but then he owed,
+which troubled him more, gambling debts, which he could only pay by his
+brother's assistance. And now, as he thought of it, he felt convinced
+that his brother must be joined with his father and the lawyer in this
+conspiracy. He felt, also, that he could meet neither Mr. Grey nor his
+brother without personally attacking them. All the world might perish,
+but he, with his last breath, would declare himself to be Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough, of Tretton Park; and though he knew at the moment
+that he must perish,--as regarded social life among his comrades,--unless
+he could raise five hundred pounds from his brother, yet he felt that,
+were he to meet his brother, he could not but fly at his throat and
+accuse him of the basest villany.
+
+At that moment, at the corner of Bond Street, he did meet his brother.
+
+"What is this?" said he, fiercely.
+
+"What is what?" said Augustus, without any fierceness. "What is up now?"
+
+"I have just come from my father."
+
+"And how is the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk.
+I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come
+to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as a cucumber."
+
+There was something in this which at once shook, though it did not
+remove, the captain's belief, and he said something as to the property.
+Then there came questions and answers, in which the captain did not
+reveal the story which had been told to him, but the barrister did
+assert that he had as yet heard nothing as to anything of importance. As
+to Tretton, the captain believed his brother's manner rather than his
+words. In fact, the barrister had heard nothing as yet of what was to be
+done on his behalf.
+
+The interview ended in the two men going and dining at a club, where the
+captain told the whole story of his father's imagined iniquity.
+
+Augustus received the tale almost in silence. In reply to his brother's
+authoritative, domineering speeches he said nothing. To him it was all
+new, but to him, also, it seemed certainly to be untrue. He did not at
+all bring himself to believe that Mr. Grey was in the conspiracy, but he
+had no scruple of paternal regard to make him feel that this father
+would not concoct such a scheme simply because he was his father. It
+would be a saving of the spoil from the Amalekites, and of this idea he
+did give a hardly-expressed hint to his brother.
+
+"By George," said the captain, "nothing of the kind shall be done with
+my consent."
+
+"Why, no," the barrister had answered, "I suppose that neither your
+consent nor mine is to be asked; and it seems as though it were a farce
+ordered to be played over the poor governor's grave. He has prepared a
+romance, as to the truth or falsehood of which neither you nor I can
+possibly be called as witnesses."
+
+It was clear to the captain that his brother had thought that the plot
+had been prepared by their father in anticipation of his own death.
+Nevertheless, by the younger brother's assistance, the much-needed sum
+of money was found for the supply of the elder's immediate wants.
+
+The next day was the day of terror, and nothing more was heard, either
+then or for the following week, of the old gentleman's scheme. In two
+days it was understood that his death might be hourly expected, but on
+the third it was thought that he might "pull through," as his younger
+son filially expressed himself. He was constantly with his father, but
+not a word passed his lips as to the property. The elder son kept
+himself gloomily apart, and indeed, during a part of the next week was
+out of London. Augustus Scarborough did call on Mr. Grey, but only
+learned from him that it was, at any rate, true that the story had been
+told by his father. Mr. Grey refused to make any farther communication,
+simply saying that he would as yet express no opinion.
+
+"For myself," said Augustus, as he left the attorney's chambers, "I can
+only profess myself so much astonished as to have no opinion. I suppose
+I must simply wait and see what Fortune intends to do with me."
+
+At the end of a fortnight Mr. Scarborough had so far recovered his
+strength as to be able to be moved down to Tretton, and thither he went.
+It was not many days after that "the world" was first informed that
+Captain Scarborough was not his father's heir. "The world" received the
+information with a great deal of expressed surprise and inward
+satisfaction,--satisfaction that the money-lenders should be done out of
+their money; that a professed gambler like Captain Scarborough should
+suddenly become an illegitimate nobody; and, more interesting still,
+that a very wealthy and well-conditioned, if not actually respectable,
+squire should have proved himself to be a most brazen-faced rascal. All
+of these were matters which gave extreme delight to the world at large.
+At first there came little paragraphs without any name, and then, some
+hours afterward, the names became known to the quidnuncs, and in a short
+space of time were in possession of the very gentry who found themselves
+defrauded in this singular manner.
+
+It is not necessary here that I should recapitulate all the
+circumstances of the original fraud, for a gross fraud had been
+perpetrated. After the perpetration of that fraud papers had been
+prepared by Mr. Scarborough himself with a great deal of ingenuity, and
+the matter had been so arranged that,--but for his own declaration,--his
+eldest son would undoubtedly have inherited the property. Now there was
+no measure to the clamor and the uproar raised by the money-lenders. Mr.
+Grey's outer office was besieged, but his clerk simply stated that the
+facts would be proved on Mr. Scarborough's death as clearly as it might
+be possible to prove them. The curses uttered against the old squire
+were bitter and deep, but during this time he was still supposed to be
+lying at death's door, and did not, in truth, himself expect to live
+many days. The creditors, of course, believed that the story was a
+fiction. None of them were enabled to see Captain Scarborough, who,
+after a short period, disappeared altogether from the scene. But they
+were, one and all, convinced that the matter had been arranged between
+him and his father.
+
+There was one from whom better things were expected than to advance
+money on post-obits to a gambler at a rate by which he was to be repaid
+one hundred pounds for every forty pounds, on the death of a gentleman
+who was then supposed to be dying. For it was proved afterward that this
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had made most minute inquiries among the old squire's
+servants as to the state of their master's health. He had supplied forty
+thousand pounds, for which he was to receive one hundred thousand pounds
+when the squire died, alleging that he should have difficulty in
+recovering the money. But he had collected the sum so advanced on better
+terms among his friends, and had become conspicuously odious in the
+matter.
+
+In about a month's time it was generally believed that Mr. Scarborough
+had so managed matters that his scheme would be successful. A struggle
+was made to bring the matter at once into the law courts, but the
+attempt for the moment failed. It was said that the squire down at
+Tretton was too ill, but that proceedings would be taken as soon as he
+was able to bear them. Rumors were afloat that he would be taken into
+custody, and it was even asserted that two policemen were in the house
+at Tretton. But it was soon known that no policemen were there, and that
+the squire was free to go whither he would, or rather whither he could.
+In fact, though the will to punish him, and even to arrest him, was
+there, no one had the power to do him an injury.
+
+It was then declared that he had in no sense broken the law,--that no
+evil act of his could be proved,--that though he had wished his eldest
+son to inherit the property wrongfully, he had only wished it; and that
+he had now simply put his wishes into unison with the law, and had
+undone the evil which he had hitherto only contemplated. Indeed, the
+world at large rather sympathized with the squire when Mr. Tyrrwhit's
+dealings became known, for it was supposed by many that Mr. Tyrrwhit was
+to have become the sole owner of Tretton.
+
+But the creditors were still loud, and still envenomed. They and their
+emissaries hung about Tretton and demanded to know where was the
+captain. Of the captain's whereabouts his father knew nothing, not even
+whether he was still alive; for the captain had actually disappeared
+from the world, and his creditors could obtain no tidings respecting
+him. At this period, and for long afterward, they imagined that he and
+his father were in league together, and were determined to try at law
+the question as to the legitimacy of his birth as soon as the old squire
+should be dead. But the old squire did not die. Though his life was
+supposed to be most precarious he still continued to live, and became
+even stronger. But he remained shut up at Tretton, and utterly refused
+to see any emissary of any creditor. To give Mr. Tyrrwhit his due, it
+must be acknowledged that he personally sent no emissaries, having
+contented himself with putting the business into the hands of a very
+sharp attorney. But there were emissaries from others, who after a while
+were excluded altogether from the park.
+
+Here Mr. Scarborough continued to live, coming out on to the lawn in his
+easy-chair, and there smoking his cigar and reading his French novel
+through the hot July days. To tell the truth, he cared very little for
+the emissaries, excepting so far as they had been allowed to interfere
+with his own personal comfort. In these days he had down with him two or
+three friends from London, who were good enough to make up for him a
+whist-table in the country; but he found the chief interest in his life
+in the occasional visits of his younger son.
+
+"I look upon Mountjoy as utterly gone," he said.
+
+"But he has utterly gone," his other son replied.
+
+"As to that I care nothing. I do not believe that a man can be murdered
+without leaving a trace of his murder. A man cannot even throw himself
+overboard without being missed. I know nothing of his whereabouts,--
+nothing at all. But I must say that his absence is a relief to me.
+The only comfort left to me in this world is in your presence, and
+in those material good things which I am still able to enjoy."
+
+This assertion as to his ignorance about his eldest son the squire
+repeated again and again to his chosen heir, feeling it was only
+probable that Augustus might participate in the belief which he knew to
+be only too common. There was, no doubt, an idea prevalent that the
+squire and the captain were in league together to cheat the creditors,
+and that the squire, who in these days received much undeserved credit
+for Machiavellian astuteness, knew more than any one else respecting his
+eldest son's affairs. But, in truth, he at first knew nothing, and in
+making these assurances to his younger son was altogether wasting his
+breath, for his younger son knew everything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+Mr. Scarborough had a niece, one Florence Mountjoy, to whom it had been
+intended that Captain Scarborough should be married. There had been no
+considerations of money when the intention had been first formed, for
+the lady was possessed of no more than ten thousand pounds, which would
+have been as nothing to the prospects of the captain when the idea was
+first entertained. But Mr. Scarborough was fond of people who belonged
+to him. In this way he had been much attached to his late
+brother-in-law, General Mountjoy, and had perceived that his niece was
+beautiful and graceful, and was in every way desirable, as one who might
+be made in part thus to belong to himself. Florence herself, when the
+idea of the marriage was first suggested to her by her mother, was only
+eighteen, and received it with awe rather than with pleasure or
+abhorrence. To her her cousin Mountjoy had always been a most
+magnificent personage. He was only seven years her senior, but he had
+early in life assumed the manners, as he had also done the vices, of
+mature age, and loomed large in the girl's eyes as a man of undoubted
+wealth and fashion. At that period, three years antecedent to his
+father's declaration, he had no doubt been much in debt, but his debts
+had not been generally known, and his father had still thought that a
+marriage with his cousin might serve to settle him--to use the phrase
+which was common with himself. From that day to this the courtship had
+gone on, and the squire had taught himself to believe that the two
+cousins were all but engaged to each other. He had so considered it, at
+any rate, for two years, till during the last final year he had resolved
+to throw the captain overboard. And even during this year there had been
+periods of hope, for he had not finally made up his mind till but a
+short time before he had put it in practice. No doubt he was fond of his
+niece in accordance with his own capability for fondness. He would
+caress her and stroke her hair, and took delight in having her near to
+him. And of true love for such a girl his heart was quite capable. He
+was a good-natured, fearless, but not a selfish man, to whom the fate in
+life of this poor girl was a matter of real concern.
+
+And his eldest son, who was by no means good-natured, had something of
+the same nature. He did love truly,--after his own fashion of loving. He
+would have married his cousin at any moment, with or without her ten
+thousand pounds,--for of all human beings he was the most reckless. And
+yet in his breast was present a feeling of honor of which his father
+knew nothing. When it was explained to him that his mother's fair name
+was to be aspersed,--a mother whom he could but faintly remember,--the
+threat did bring with it its own peculiar agony. But of this the squire
+neither felt or knew anything. The lady had long been dead, and could be
+none the better or the worse for aught that could be said of her. To the
+captain it was not so, and it was preferable to him to believe his
+father to be dishonest than his mother. He, at any rate, was in truth in
+love with his cousin Florence, and when the story was told to him one of
+its first effects was the bearing which it would have upon her mind.
+
+It has been said that within two or three days after the communication
+he had left London. He had done so in order that he might at once go
+down to Cheltenham and see his cousin. There Miss Mountjoy lived, with
+her mother.
+
+The time had been when Florence Mountjoy had been proud of her cousin,
+and, to tell the truth of her feelings, though she had never loved him,
+she had almost done so. Rumors had made their way through even to her
+condition of life, and she in her innocence had gradually been taught to
+believe that Captain Scarborough was not a man whom she could be safe in
+loving. And there had, perhaps, come another as to whom her feelings
+were different. She had, no doubt, at first thought that she would be
+willing to become her cousin's wife, but she had never said as much
+herself. And now both her heart and mind were set against him.
+
+Captain Scarborough, as he went down to Cheltenham, turned the matter
+over in his mind, thinking within himself how best he might carry out
+his project. His intention was to obtain from his cousin an assurance of
+her love, and a promise that it should not be shaken by any stories
+which his father might tell respecting him. For this purpose he he must
+make known to her the story his father had told him, and his own
+absolute disbelief in it. Much else must be confided to her. He must
+acknowledge in part his own debts, and must explain that his father had
+taken this course in order to defraud the creditors. All this would be
+very difficult; but he must trust in her innocence and generosity. He
+thought that the condition of his affairs might be so represented that
+the story should tend rather to win her heart toward him than to turn it
+away. Her mother had hitherto always been in his favor, and he had, in
+fact, been received almost as an Apollo in the house at Cheltenham.
+
+"Florence," he said, "I must see you alone for a few minutes. I know
+that your mother will trust you with me." This was spoken immediately on
+his arrival, and Mrs. Mountjoy at once left the room. She had been
+taught to believe that it was her daughter's duty to marry her cousin;
+and though she knew that the captain had done much to embarrass the
+property, she thought that this would be the surest way to settle him.
+The heir of Tretton Park was, in her estimation, so great a man that
+very much was to be endured at his hands.
+
+The meeting between the two cousins was very long, and when Mrs.
+Mountjoy at last returned unannounced to the room she found her daughter
+in tears.
+
+"Oh, Florence, what is the matter?" asked her mother.
+
+The poor girl said nothing, but still continued to weep, while the
+captain stood by looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
+
+"What is it, Mountjoy?" said Mrs. Mountjoy, turning to him.
+
+"I have told Florence some of my troubles," said he, "and they seemed to
+have changed her mind toward me."
+
+There was something in this which was detestable to Florence,--an
+unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of
+love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess. She knew
+that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to
+be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend. He had blurted
+it all out roughly,--the story as told by his father of his mother's
+dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened
+loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,--and added his
+conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a
+thorough rascal. The full story of his debts he kept back, not with any
+predetermined falseness, but because it is so difficult for a man to own
+that he has absolutely ruined himself by his own folly. It was not
+wonderful that the girl should not have understood such a story as had
+then been told her. Why was he defending his mother? Why was he accusing
+his father? The accusations against her uncle, whom she did know, were
+more fearful to her than these mysterious charges against her aunt, whom
+she did not know, from which her son defended her. But then he had
+spoken passionately of his own love, and she had understood that. He had
+besought her to confess that she loved him, and then she had at once
+become stubborn. There was something in the word "confess" which grated
+against her feelings. It seemed to imply a conviction on his part that
+she did love him. She had never told him so, and was now sure that it
+was not so. When he had pressed her she could only weep. But in her
+weeping she never for a moment yielded. She never uttered a single word
+on which he could be enabled to build a hope. Then he had become blacker
+and still blacker, fiercer and still fiercer, more and more earnest in
+his purpose, till at last he asked her whom it was that she loved--as she
+could not love him. He knew well whom it was that he suspected;--and she
+knew also. But he had no right to demand any statement from her on that
+head. She did not think that the man loved her; nor did she know what to
+say or to think of her own feelings. Were he, the other man, to come to
+her, she would only bid him go away; but why she should so bid him she
+had hardly known. But now this dark frowning captain, with his big
+mustache and his military look, and his general aspect of invincible
+power, threatened the other man.
+
+"He came to Tretton as my friend," he said, "and by Heaven if he stands
+in my way, if he dare to cross between you and me, he shall answer it
+with his life!"
+
+The name had not been mentioned; but this had been very terrible to
+Florence, and she could only weep.
+
+He went away, refusing to stay to dinner, but said that on the following
+afternoon he would again return. In the street of the town he met one of
+his creditors, who had discovered his journey to Cheltenham, and had
+followed him.
+
+"Oh, Captain Mountjoy, what is all dis that they are talking about in
+London?"
+
+"What are they talking about?"
+
+"De inheritance!" said the man, who was a veritable Jew, looking up
+anxiously in his face.
+
+The man had his acceptance for a very large sum of money, with an
+assurance that it should be paid on his father's death, for which he had
+given him about two thousand pounds in cash.
+
+"You must ask my father."
+
+"But is it true?"
+
+"You must ask my father. Upon my word, I can tell you nothing else. He
+has concocted a tale of which I for one do not believe a word. I never
+heard of the story till he condescended to tell it me the other day.
+Whether it be true or whether it be false, you and I, Mr. Hart, are in
+the same boat."
+
+"But you have had de money."
+
+"And you have got the bill. You can't do anything by coming after me. My
+father seems to have contrived a very clever plan by which he can rob
+you; but he will rob me at the same time. You may believe me or not as
+you please; but that you will find to be the truth."
+
+Then Mr. Hart left him, but certainly did not believe a word the captain
+had said to him.
+
+To her mother Florence would only disclose her persistent intention of
+not marrying her cousin. Mrs. Mountjoy, over whose spirit the glamour of
+the captain's prestige was still potent, said much in his favor.
+Everybody had always intended the marriage, and it would be the setting
+right of everything. The captain, no doubt, owed a large sum of money,
+but that would be paid by Florence's fortune. So little did the poor
+lady know of the captain's condition. When she had been told that there
+had been a great quarrel between the captain and his father, she
+declared that the marriage would set that all right.
+
+"But, mamma, Captain Scarborough is not to have the property at all."
+
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy, believing thoroughly in entails, had declared that
+all Heaven could not prevent it.
+
+"But that makes no difference," said the daughter; "if I--I--I loved him
+I would marry him so much the more, if he had nothing."
+
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy declared that she could not understand it at all.
+
+On the next day Captain Scarborough came, according to his promise, but
+nothing that he could say would induce Florence to come into his
+presence. Her mother declared that she was so ill that it would be
+wicked to disturb her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY.
+
+
+Together with Augustus Scarborough at Cambridge had been one Harry
+Annesley, and he it was to whom the captain in his wrath had sworn to
+put an end if he should come between him and his love. Harry Annesley
+had been introduced to the captain by his brother, and an intimacy had
+grown up between them. He had brought him to Tretton Park when Florence
+was there, and Harry had since made his own way to Cheltenham, and had
+endeavored to plead his own cause after his own fashion. This he had
+done after the good old English plan, which is said to be somewhat
+loutish, but is not without its efficacy. He had looked at her, and
+danced with her, and done the best with his gloves and his cravat, and
+had let her see by twenty unmistakable signs that in order to be
+perfectly happy he must be near her. Her gloves, and her flowers, and
+her other little properties were sweeter to him than any scents, and
+were more valuable in his eyes than precious stones. But he had never as
+yet actually asked her to love him. But she was so quick a linguist that
+she had understood down to the last letter what all these tokens had
+meant. Her cousin, Captain Scarborough, was to her magnificent,
+powerful, but terrible withal. She had asked herself a thousand times
+whether it would be possible for her to love him and to become his wife.
+She had never quite given even to herself an answer to this question
+till she had suddenly found herself enabled to do so by his
+over-confidence in asking her to confess that she loved him. She had
+never acknowledged anything, even to herself, as to Harry Annesley. She
+had never told herself that it would be possible that he should ask her
+any such question. She had a wild, dreamy, fearful feeling that,
+although it would be possible to her to refuse her cousin, it would be
+impossible that she should marry any other while he should still be
+desirous of making her his wife. And now Captain Scarborough had
+threatened Harry Annesley, not indeed by name, but still clearly
+enough. Any dream of her own in that direction must be a vain dream.
+
+As Harry Annesley is going to be what is generally called the hero of
+this story, it is necessary that something should be said of the
+particulars of his life and existence up to this period. There will be
+found to be nothing very heroic about him. He is a young man with more
+than a fair allowance of a young man's folly;--it may also be said of a
+young man's weakness. But I myself am inclined to think that there was
+but little of a young man's selfishness, with nothing of falseness or
+dishonesty; and I am therefore tempted to tell his story.
+
+He was the son of a clergyman, and the eldest of a large family of
+children. But as he was the acknowledged heir to his mother's brother,
+who was the squire of the parish of which his father was rector, it was
+not thought necessary that he should follow any profession. This uncle
+was the Squire of Buston, and was, after all, not a rich man himself.
+His whole property did not exceed two thousand a year, an income which
+fifty years since was supposed to be sufficient for the moderate wants
+of a moderate country gentleman; but though Buston be not very far
+removed from the centre of everything, being in Hertfordshire and not
+more than forty miles from London, Mr. Prosper lived so retired a life,
+and was so far removed from the ways of men, that he apparently did not
+know but that his heir was as completely entitled to lead an idle life
+as though he were the son of a duke or a brewer. It must not, however,
+be imagined that Mr. Prosper was especially attached to his nephew. When
+the boy left the Charter-house, where his uncle had paid his
+school-bills, he was sent to Cambridge, with an allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds a year, and that allowance was still continued to him,
+with an assurance that under no circumstances could it ever be
+increased. At college he had been successful, and left Cambridge with a
+college fellowship. He therefore left it with one hundred and
+seventy-five pounds added to his income, and was considered by all those
+at Buston Rectory to be a rich young man.
+
+But Harry did not find that his combined income amounted to riches amid
+a world of idleness. At Buston he was constantly told by his uncle of
+the necessity of economy. Indeed, Mr. Prosper, who was a sickly little
+man about fifty years of age, always spoke of himself as though he
+intended to live for another half-century. He rarely walked across the
+park to the rectory, and once a week, on Sundays, entertained the
+rectory family. A sad occasion it generally was to the elder of the
+rectory children, who were thus doomed to abandon the loud pleasantries
+of their own home for the sober Sunday solemnities of the Hall. It was
+not that the Squire of Buston was peculiarly a religious man, or that
+the rector was the reverse: but the parson was joyous, whereas the other
+was solemn. The squire,--who never went to church, because he was supposed
+to be ill,--made up for the deficiency by his devotional tendencies when
+the children were at the Hall. He read through a sermon after dinner,
+unintelligibly and even inaudibly. At this his brother-in-law, who had
+an evening service in his own church, of course never was present; but
+Mrs. Annesley and the girls were there, and the younger children. But
+Harry Annesley had absolutely declined; and his uncle having found out
+that he never attended the church service, although he always left the
+Hall with his father, made this a ground for a quarrel. It at last came
+to pass that Mr. Prosper, who was jealous and irritable, would hardly
+speak to his nephew; but the two hundred and fifty pounds went on, with
+many bickerings on the subject between the parson and the squire. Once,
+when the squire spoke of discontinuing it, Harry's father reminded him
+that the young man had been brought up in absolute idleness, in
+conformity with his uncle's desire. This the squire denied in strong
+language; but Harry had not hitherto run loudly in debt, nor kicked over
+the traces very outrageously; and as he absolutely must be the heir, the
+allowance was permitted to go on.
+
+There was one lady who conceived all manner of bad things as to Harry
+Annesley, because, as she alleged, of the want of a profession and of
+any fixed income. Mrs. Mountjoy, Florence's mother, was this lady.
+Florence herself had read every word in Harry's language, not knowing,
+indeed, that she had read anything, but still never having missed a
+single letter. Mrs. Mountjoy also had read a good deal, though not all,
+and dreaded the appearance of Harry as a declared lover. In her eyes
+Captain Scarborough was a very handsome, very powerful, and very grand
+personage; but she feared that Florence was being induced to refuse her
+allegiance to this sovereign by the interference of her other very
+indifferent suitor. What would be Buston and two thousand a year, as
+compared with all the glories and limitless income of the great Tretton
+property? Captain Scarborough, with his mustaches and magnificence, was
+just the man who would be sure to become a peer. She had always heard
+the income fixed at thirty thousand a year. What would a few debts
+signify to thirty thousand a year? Such had been her thoughts up to the
+period of Captain Scarborough's late visit, when he had come to
+Cheltenham, and had renewed his demand for Florence's hand somewhat
+roughly. He had spoken ambiguous words, dreadful words, declaring that
+an internecine quarrel had taken place between him and his father; but
+these words, though they had been very dreadful, had been altogether
+misunderstood by Mrs. Mountjoy. The property she knew to be entailed,
+and she knew that when a property was entailed the present owner of it
+had nothing to do with its future disposition. Captain Scarborough, at
+any rate, was anxious for the marriage, and Mrs. Mountjoy was inclined
+to accept him, encumbered as he now was with his father's wrath, in
+preference to poor Harry Annesley.
+
+In June Harry came up to London, and there learned at his club the
+singular story in regard to old Mr. Scarborough and his son. Mr.
+Scarborough had declared his son illegitimate, and all the world knew
+now that he was utterly penniless and hopelessly in debt. That he had
+been greatly embarrassed Harry had known for many months, and added to
+that was now the fact, very generally believed, that he was not and
+never had been the heir to Tretton Park. All that still increasing
+property about Tretton, on which so many hopes had been founded, would
+belong to his brother. Harry, as he heard the tale, immediately
+connected it with Florence. He had, of course, known the captain was a
+suitor to the girl's hand, and there had been a time when he thought
+that his own hopes were consequently vain. Gradually the conviction
+dawned upon him that Florence did not love the grand warrior, that she
+was afraid of him rather and awe-struck. It would be terrible now were
+she brought to marry him by this feeling of awe. Then he learned that
+the warrior had gone down to Cheltenham, and in the restlessness of his
+spirit he pursued him. When he reached Cheltenham the warrior had
+already gone.
+
+"The property is certainly entailed," said Mrs. Mountjoy. He had called
+at once at the house and saw the mother, but Florence was discreetly
+sent away to her own room when the dangerous young man was admitted.
+
+"He is not Mr. Scarborough's eldest son at all," said Harry; "that is,
+in the eye of the law." Then he had to undertake that task, very
+difficult for a young man, of explaining to her all the circumstances of
+the case.
+
+But there was something in them so dreadful to the lady's imagination
+that he failed for a long time to make her comprehend it. "Do you mean
+to say that Mr. Scarborough was not married to his own wife?"
+
+"Not at first."
+
+"And that he knew it?"
+
+"No doubt he knew it. He confesses as much himself."
+
+"What a very wicked man he must be!" said Mrs. Mountjoy. Harry could
+only shrug his shoulder. "And he meant to rob Augustus all through?"
+Harry again shrugged his shoulder. "Is it not much more probable that if
+he could be so very wicked he would be willing to deny his eldest son in
+order to save paying the debts?"
+
+Harry could only declare that the facts were as he told them, or at
+least that all London believed them to be so, that at any rate Captain
+Mountjoy had gambled so recklessly as to put himself for ever and ever
+out of reach of a shilling of the property, and that it was clearly the
+duty of Mrs. Mountjoy, as Florence's mother, not to accept him as a
+suitor.
+
+It was only by slow degrees that the conversation had arrived at this
+pass. Harry had never as yet declared his own love either to the mother
+or daughter, and now appeared simply as a narrator of this terrible
+story. But at this point it did appear to him that he must introduce
+himself in another guise.
+
+"The fact is, Mrs. Mountjoy," he said, starting to his feet, "that I am
+in love with your daughter myself."
+
+"And therefore you have come here to vilify Captain Scarborough."
+
+"I have come," said he, "at any rate to tell the truth. If it be as I
+say, you cannot think it right that he should marry your daughter. I say
+nothing of myself, but that, at any rate, cannot be."
+
+"It is no business of yours, Mr. Annesley."
+
+"Except that I would fain think that her business should be mine."
+
+But he could not prevail with Mrs. Mountjoy either on this day or the
+next to allow him to see Florence, and at last was obliged to leave
+Cheltenham without having done so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CAPTAIN SCARBOROUGH'S DISAPPEARANCE.
+
+
+A few days after the visits to Cheltenham, described in the last
+chapters, Harry Annesley, coming down a passage by the side of the
+Junior United Service Club into Charles Street, suddenly met Captain
+Scarborough at two o'clock in the morning. Where Harry had been at that
+hour need not now be explained, but it may be presumed that he had not
+been drinking tea with any of his female relatives.
+
+Captain Scarborough had just come out of some neighboring club, where he
+had certainly been playing, and where, to all appearances, he had been
+drinking also. That there should have been no policemen in the street
+was not remarkable, but there was no one else there present to give any
+account of what took place during the five minutes in which the two men
+remained together. Harry, who was at the moment surprised by the
+encounter, would have passed the captain by without notice, had he been
+allowed to do so; but this the captain perceived, and stopped him
+suddenly, taking him roughly by the collar of his coat. This Harry
+naturally resented, and before a word of intelligible explanation had
+been given the two young men had quarrelled.
+
+Captain Scarborough had received a long letter from Mrs. Mountjoy,
+praying for explanation of circumstances which could not be explained,
+and stating over and over again that all her information had come from
+Harry Annesley.
+
+The captain now called him an interfering, meddlesome idiot, and shook
+him violently while holding him in his grasp. This was a usage which
+Harry was not the man to endure, and there soon arose a scuffle, in
+which blows had passed between them. The captain stuck to his prey,
+shaking him again and again in his drunken wrath, till Harry, roused to
+a passion almost equal to that of his opponent, flung him at last
+against the corner of the club railings, and there left his foe
+sprawling upon the ground, having struck his head violently against the
+ground as he fell. Harry passed on to his own bed, indifferent, as it
+was afterwards said, to the fate of his antagonist. All this occupied
+probably five minutes in the doing, but was seen by no human eye.
+
+As the occurrence of that night was subsequently made the ground for
+heavy accusation against Harry Annesley, it has been told here with
+sufficient minuteness to show what might be said in justification or in
+condemnation of his conduct,--to show what might be said if the truth
+were spoken. For, indeed, in the discussions which arose on the subject,
+much was said which was not true. When he had retired from the scuffle
+on that night, Harry had certainly not dreamed that any serious damage
+had been done to the man who had certainly been altogether to blame in
+his provocation of the quarrel. Had he kept his temper and feelings
+completely under control, and knocked down Captain Scarborough only in
+self-defence; had he not allowed himself to be roused to wrath by
+treatment which could not but give rise to wrath in a young man's bosom,
+no doubt, when his foe lay at his feet, he would have stooped to pick
+him up, and have tended his wounds. But such was not Harry's
+character,--nor that of any of the young men with whom I have been
+acquainted. Such, however, was the conduct apparently expected from him
+by many, when the circumstances of those five minutes were brought to
+the light. But, on the other hand, had passion not completely got the
+better of him, had he not at the moment considered the attack made upon
+him to amount to misconduct so gross as to supersede all necessity for
+gentle usage on his own part, he would hardly have left the man to live
+or die as chance would have it. Boiling with passion, he went his way,
+and did leave the man on the pavement, not caring much, or rather, not
+thinking much, whether his victim might live or die.
+
+On the next day Harry Annesley left London and went down to Buston,
+having heard no word farther about the captain. He did not start till
+late in the afternoon, and during the day took some trouble to make
+himself conspicuous about the town; but he heard nothing of Captain
+Scarborough. Twice he walked along Charles Street, and looked at the
+spot on which he had stood on the night before in what might have been
+deadly conflict. Then he told himself that he had not been in the least
+wounded, that the ferocious maddened man had attempted to do no more
+than shake him, that his coat had suffered and not himself, and that in
+return he had certainly struck the captain with all his violence. There
+were probably some regrets, but he said not a word on the subject to any
+one, and so he left London.
+
+For three or four days nothing was heard of the captain, nor was
+anything said about him. He had lodgings in town, at which he was no
+doubt missed, but he also had quarters at the barracks, at which he did
+not often sleep, but to which it was thought possible on the next
+morning that he might have betaken himself. Before the evening of that
+day had come he had no doubt been missed, but in the world at large no
+special mention was made of his absence for some time. Then, among the
+haunts which he was known to frequent, questions began to be asked as to
+his whereabouts, and to be answered by doubtful assertions that nothing
+had been seen or heard of him for the last sixty or seventy hours.
+
+It must be remembered that at this time Captain Scarborough was still
+the subject of universal remark, because of the story told as to his
+birth. His father had declared him to be illegitimate, and had thereby
+robbed all his creditors. Captain Scarborough was a man quite remarkable
+enough to insure universal attention for such a tale as this; but now,
+added to his illegitimacy was his disappearance. There was at first no
+idea that he had been murdered. It became quickly known to all the world
+that he had, on the night in question, lost a large sum of money at a
+whist-club which he frequented, and, in accordance with the custom of
+the club, had not paid the money on the spot.
+
+The fatal Monday had come round, and the money undoubtedly was not paid.
+Then he was declared a defaulter, and in due process of time his name
+was struck off the club books, with some serious increase of the
+ignominy hitherto sustained.
+
+During the last fortnight or more Captain Scarborough's name had been
+subjected to many remarks and to much disgrace. But this non-payment of
+the money lost at whist was considered to be the turning-point. A man
+might be declared illegitimate, and might in consequence of that or any
+other circumstance defraud all his creditors. A man might conspire with
+his father with the object of doing this fraudulently, as Captain
+Scarborough was no doubt thought to have done by most of his
+acquaintances. All this he might do and not become so degraded but that
+his friends would talk to him and play cards with him. But to have sat
+down to a whist-table and not be able to pay the stakes was held to be
+so foul a disgrace that men did not wonder that he should have
+disappeared.
+
+Such was the cause alleged for the captain's disappearance among his
+intimate friends; but by degrees more than his intimate friends came to
+talk of it. In a short time his name was in all the newspapers, and
+there was not a constable in London whose mind was not greatly exercised
+on the matter. All Scotland Yard and the police-officers were busy. Mr.
+Grey, in Lincoln's Inn, was much troubled on the matter. By degrees
+facts had made themselves clear to his mind, and he had become aware
+that the captain had been born before his client's marriage. He was
+ineffably shocked at the old squire's villany in the matter, but
+declared to all to whom he spoke openly on the subject that he did not
+see how the sinner could be punished. He never thought that the father
+and son were in a conspiracy together. Nor had he believed that they had
+arranged the young man's disappearance in order the more thoroughly to
+defraud the creditors. They could not, at any rate, harm a man of whose
+whereabouts they were unaware and who, for all they knew, might be dead.
+But the reader is already aware that this surmise on the part of Mr.
+Grey was unfounded.
+
+The captain had been absent for three weeks when Augustus Scarborough
+went down for a second time to Tretton Park, in order to discuss the
+matter with his father.
+
+Augustus had, with much equanimity and a steady, fixed purpose, settled
+himself down to the position as elder son. He pretended no anger to his
+father for the injury intended, and was only anxious that his own rights
+should be confirmed. In this he found that no great difficulty stood in
+his way. The creditors would contest his rights when his father should
+die; but for such contest he would be prepared. He had no doubt as to
+his own position, but thought that it would be safer,--and that it would
+also probably be cheaper,--to purchase the acquiescence of all claimants
+than to encounter the expense of a prolonged trial, to which there might
+be more than one appeal, and of which the end after all would be
+doubtful.
+
+No very great sum of money would probably be required. No very great sum
+would, at any rate, be offered. But such an arrangement would certainly
+be easier if his brother were not present to be confronted with the men
+whom he had duped.
+
+The squire was still ill down at Tretton, but not so ill but that he had
+his wits about him in all their clearness. Some said that he was not ill
+at all, but that in the present state of affairs the retirement suited
+him. But the nature of the operation which he had undergone was known to
+many who would not have him harassed in his present condition. In truth,
+he had only to refuse admission to all visitors and to take care that
+his commands were carried out in order to avoid disagreeable intrusions.
+
+"Do you mean to say that a man can do such a thing as this and that no
+one can touch him for it?" This was an exclamation made by Mr. Tyrrwhit
+to his lawyer, in a tone of aggrieved disgust.
+
+"He hasn't done anything," said the lawyer. "He only thought of doing
+something, and has since repented. You cannot arrest a man because he
+had contemplated the picking of your pocket, especially when he has
+shown that he is resolved not to pick it."
+
+"As far as I can learn, nothing has been heard about him as yet," said
+the son to the father.
+
+"Those limbs weren't his that were picked out of the Thames near
+Blackfriars Bridge?"
+
+"They belonged to a poor cripple who was murdered two months since."
+
+"And that body that was found down among the Yorkshire Hills?"
+
+"He was a peddler. There is nothing to induce a belief that Mountjoy has
+killed himself or been killed. In the former case his dead body would be
+found or his live body would be missing. For the second there is no
+imaginable cause for suspicion."
+
+"Then where the devil is he?" said the anxious father.
+
+"Ah, that's the difficulty. But I can imagine no position in which a man
+might be more tempted to hide himself. He is disgraced on every side,
+and could hardly show his face in London after the money he has lost.
+You would not have paid his gambling debts?"
+
+"Certainly not," said the father. "There must be an end to all things."
+
+"Nor could I. Within the last month past he has drawn from me every
+shilling that I have had at my immediate command."
+
+"Why did you give 'em to him?"
+
+"It would be difficult to explain all the reasons. He was then my elder
+brother, and it suited me to have him somewhat under my hand. At any
+rate I did do so, and am unable for the present to do more. Looking
+round about, I do not see where it was possible for him to raise a
+sovereign as soon as it was once known that he was nobody."
+
+"What will become of him?" said the father. "I don't like the idea of
+his being starved. He can't live without something to live upon."
+
+"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the son. "For lambs such
+as he there always seems to be pasture provided of one sort or another."
+
+"You would not like to have to trust to such pastures," said the
+father.
+
+"Nor should I like to be hanged; but I should have to be hanged if I had
+committed murder. Think of the chances which he has had, and the way in
+which he has misused them. Although illegitimate, he was to have had the
+whole property,--of which not a shilling belongs to him; and he has not
+lost it because it was not his own, but has simply gambled it away among
+the Jews. What can happen to a man in such a condition better than to
+turn up as a hunter among the Rocky Mountains or as a gold-digger in
+Australia? In this last adventure he seems to have plunged horribly, and
+to have lost over three thousand pounds. You wouldn't have paid that for
+him?"
+
+"Not again;--certainly not again."
+
+"Then what could he do better than disappear? I suppose I shall have to
+make him an allowance some of these days, and if he can live and keep
+himself dark I will do so."
+
+There was in this a tacit allusion to his father's speedy death which
+was grim enough; but the father passed it by without any expression of
+displeasure. He certainly owed much to his younger son, and was willing
+to pay it by quiescence. Let them both forbear. Such was the language
+which he held to himself in thinking of his younger son. Augustus was
+certainly behaving well to him. Not a word of rebuke had passed his lips
+as to the infamous attempt at spoliation which had been made. The old
+squire felt grateful for his younger son's conduct, but yet in his heart
+of hearts he preferred the elder.
+
+"He has denuded me of every penny," said Augustus, "and I must ask you
+to refund me something of what has gone."
+
+"He has kept me very bare. A man with so great a propensity for getting
+rid of money I think no father ever before had to endure."
+
+"You have had the last of it."
+
+"I do not know that. If I live, and he lets me know his whereabouts, I
+cannot leave him penniless. I do feel that a great injustice has been
+done him."
+
+"I don't exactly see it," said Augustus.
+
+"Because you're too hard-hearted to put yourself in another man's place.
+He was my eldest son."
+
+"He thought that he was."
+
+"And should have remained so had there been a hope for him," said the
+squire, roused to temporary anger. Augustus only shrugged his
+shoulders. "But there is no good talking about it."
+
+"Not the least in the world. Mr. Grey, I suppose, knows the truth at
+last. I shall have to get three or four thousand pounds from you, or I
+too must resort to the Jews. I shall do it, at any rate, under better
+circumstances than my brother."
+
+Some arrangement was at last made which was satisfactory to the son, and
+which we must presume that the father found to be endurable. Then the
+son took his leave, and went back to London, with the understood
+intention of pushing the inquiries as to his brother's existence and
+whereabouts.
+
+The sudden and complete disappearance of Captain Scarborough struck Mrs.
+Mountjoy with the deepest awe. It was not at first borne in upon her to
+believe that Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, an officer in the
+Coldstreams, and the acknowledged heir to the Tretton property, had
+vanished away as a stray street-sweeper might do, or some milliner's
+lowest work-woman. But at last there were advertisements in all the
+newspapers and placards on all the walls, and Mrs. Mountjoy did
+understand that the captain was gone. She could as yet hardly believe
+that he was no longer heir to Tretton: and in such short discussions
+with Florence as were necessary on the subject she preferred to express
+no opinion whatever as to his conduct. But she would by no means give
+way when urged to acknowledge that no marriage between Florence and the
+captain was any longer to be regarded as possible. While the captain was
+away the matter should be left as if in abeyance; but this by no means
+suited the young lady's views. Mrs. Mountjoy was not a reticent woman,
+and had no doubt been too free in whispering among her friends something
+of her daughter's position. This Florence had resented; but it had still
+been done, and in Cheltenham generally she was regarded as an engaged
+young lady. It had been in vain that she had denied that it was so. Her
+mother's word on such a subject was supposed to be more credible that
+her own; and now this man with whom she was believed to be so closely
+connected had disappeared from the world among the most disreputable
+circumstances. But when she explained the difficulty to her mother her
+mother bade her hold her tongue for the present, and seemed to hold out
+a hope that the captain might at last be restored to his old position.
+
+"Let them restore him ever so much, he would never be anything to me,
+mamma." Then Mrs. Mountjoy would only shake her head and purse her lips.
+
+On the evening of the day after the fracas in the street Harry Annesley
+went down to Buston, and there remained for the next two or three days,
+holding his tongue absolutely as to the adventure of that night. There
+was no one at Buston to whom he would probably have made known the
+circumstances. But there was clinging to it a certain flavor of
+disreputable conduct on his own part which sealed his lips altogether.
+The louder and more frequent the tidings which reached his ears as to
+the captain's departure, the more strongly did he feel that duty
+required him to tell what he knew upon the matter. Many thoughts and
+many fears encompassed him. At first was the idea that he had killed the
+man by the violence of his blow, or that his death had been caused by
+the fall. Then it occurred to him that it was impossible that
+Scarborough should have been killed and that no account should be given
+as to the finding of the body. At last he persuaded himself that he
+could not have killed the man, but he was assured at the same time that
+the disappearance must in some sort have been occasioned by what then
+took place. And it could not but be that the captain, if alive, should
+be aware of the nature of the struggle which had taken place. He heard,
+chiefly from the newspapers, the full record of the captain's
+illegitimacy; he heard of his condition with the creditors; he heard of
+those gambling debts which were left unpaid at the club. He saw it also
+stated--and repeated--that these were the grounds for the man's
+disappearance. It was quite credible that the man should disappear, or
+endeavor to disappear, under such a cloud of difficulties. It did not
+require that he and his violence should be adduced as an extra cause.
+Indeed, had the man been minded to vanish before the encounter, he might
+in all human probability have been deterred by the circumstances of the
+quarrel. It gave no extra reason for his disappearance, and could in no
+wise be counted with it were he to tell the whole story, in Scotland
+Yard. He had been grossly misused on the occasion, and had escaped from
+such misusage by the only means in his power. But still he felt that,
+had he told the story, people far and wide would have connected his name
+with the man's absence, and, worse again, that Florence's name would
+have become entangled with it also. For the first day or two he had from
+hour to hour abstained from telling all that he knew, and then when the
+day or two were passed, and when a week had run by,--when a fortnight had
+been allowed to go,--it was impossible for him not to hold his tongue.
+
+He became nervous, unhappy, and irritated down at Buston, with his
+father and mother and sister's, but more especially with his uncle.
+Previous to this his uncle for a couple of months had declined to see
+him; now he was sent for to the Hall and interrogated daily on this
+special subject. Mr. Prosper was aware that his nephew had been intimate
+with Augustus Scarborough, and that he might, therefore, be presumed to
+know much about the family. Mr. Prosper took the keenest interest in the
+illegitimacy and the impecuniosity and final disappearance of the
+captain, and no doubt did, in his cross-examinations, discover the fact
+that Harry was unwilling to answer his questions. He found out for the
+first time that Harry was acquainted with the captain, and also
+contrived to extract from him the name of Miss Mountjoy. But he could
+learn nothing else, beyond Harry's absolute unwillingness to talk upon
+the subject, which was in itself much. It must be understood that Harry
+was not specially reverential in these communications. Indeed, he gave
+his uncle to understand that he regarded his questions as impertinent,
+and at last declared his intention of not coming to the Hall any more
+for the present. Then Mr. Prosper whispered to his sister that he was
+quite sure that Harry Annesley knew more than he choose to say as to
+Captain Scarborough's whereabouts.
+
+"My dear Peter," said Mrs. Annesley, "I really think that you are doing
+poor Harry an injustice."
+
+Mrs. Annesley was always on her guard to maintain something like an
+affectionate intercourse between her own family and the squire.
+
+"My dear Anne, you do not see into a millstone as far as I do. You never
+did."
+
+"But, Peter, you really shouldn't say such things of Harry. When all the
+police-officers themselves are looking about to catch up anything in
+their way, they would catch him up at a moment's notice if they heard
+that a magistrate of the county had expressed such an opinion."
+
+"Why don't he tell me?" said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"There's nothing to tell."
+
+"Ah, that's your opinion--because you can't see into a millstone. I tell
+you that Harry knows more about this Captain Scarborough than any one
+else. They were very intimate together."
+
+"Harry only just knew him."
+
+"Well, you'll see. I tell you that Harry's name will become mixed up
+with Captain Scarborough's, and I hope that it will be in no
+discreditable manner. I hope so, that's all." Harry in the mean time
+had returned to London, in order to escape his uncle, and to be on the
+spot to learn anything that might come in his way as to the now
+acknowledged mystery respecting the captain.
+
+Such was the state of things at the commencement of the period to which
+my story refers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+Harry Annesley, when he found himself in London, could not for a moment
+shake off that feeling of nervous anxiety as to the fate of Mountjoy
+Scarborough which had seized hold of him. In every newspaper which he
+took in his hand he looked first for the paragraph respecting the fate
+of the missing man, which the paper was sure to contain in one of its
+columns. It was his habit during these few days to breakfast at a club,
+and he could not abstain from speaking to his neighbors about the
+wonderful Scarborough incident. Every man was at this time willing to
+speak on the subject, and Harry's interest might not have seemed to be
+peculiar; but it became known that he had been acquainted with the
+missing man, and Harry in conversation said much more than it would have
+been prudent for him to do on the understanding that he wished to remain
+unconnected with the story. Men asked him questions as though he were
+likely to know; and he would answer them, asserting that he knew
+nothing, but still leaving an impression behind that he did know more
+than he chose to avow. Many inquiries were made daily at this time in
+Scotland Yard as to the captain. These, no doubt, chiefly came from the
+creditors and their allies. But Harry Annesley became known among those
+who asked for information as Henry Annesley, Esq., late of St. John's
+College, Cambridge; and even the police were taught to think that there
+was something noticeable in the interest which he displayed.
+
+On the fourth day after his arrival in London, just at that time of the
+year when everybody was supposed to be leaving town, and when faded
+members of Parliament, who allowed themselves to be retained for the
+purpose of final divisions, were cursing their fate amid the heats of
+August, Harry accepted an invitation to dine with Augustus Scarborough
+at his chambers in the Temple. He understood when he accepted the
+invitation that no one else was to be there, and must have been aware
+that it was the intention of the heir of Tretton to talk to him
+respecting his brother. He had not seen Scarborough since he had been up
+in town, and had not been desirous of seeing him; but when the
+invitation came he had told himself that it would be better that he
+should accept it, and that he would allow his host to say what he
+pleased to say on the subject, he himself remaining reticent. But poor
+Harry little knew the difficulty of reticency when the heart is full. He
+had intended to be very reticent when he came up to London, and had, in
+fact, done nothing but talk about the missing man, as to whom he had
+declared that he would altogether hold his tongue.
+
+The reader must here be pleased to remember that Augustus Scarborough
+was perfectly well aware of what had befallen his brother, and must,
+therefore, have known among other things of the quarrel which had taken
+place in the streets. He knew, therefore, that Harry was concealing his
+knowledge, and could make a fair guess at the state of the poor fellow's
+mind.
+
+"He will guess," he had said to himself, "that he did not leave him for
+dead on the ground, or the body would be there to tell the tale. But he
+must be ashamed of the part which he took in the street-fight, and be
+anxious to conceal it. No doubt Mountjoy was the first offender, but
+something had occurred which Annesley is unwilling should make its way
+either to his uncle's ears, or to his father's, or to mine, or to the
+squire's,--or to those of Florence."
+
+It was thus that Augustus Scarborough reasoned with himself when he
+asked Harry Annesley to dine with him.
+
+It was not supposed by any of his friends that Augustus Scarborough
+would continue to live in the moderate chambers which he now occupied in
+the Temple; but he had as yet made no sign of a desire to leave them.
+They were up two pair of stairs, and were not great in size; but they
+were comfortable enough, and even luxurious, as a bachelor's abode.
+
+"I've asked you to come alone," said Augustus, "because there is such a
+crowd of things to be talked of about poor Mountjoy which are not
+exactly fitted for the common ear."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Harry, who did not, however, quite understand why it
+would be necessary that the heir should discuss with him the affairs of
+his unfortunate brother. There had, no doubt, been a certain degree of
+intimacy between them, but nothing which made it essential that the
+captain's difficulties should be exposed to him. The matter which
+touched him most closely was the love which both the men had borne to
+Florence Mountjoy; but Harry did not expect that any allusion to
+Florence would be made on the present occasion.
+
+"Did you ever hear of such a devil of a mess?" said Augustus.
+
+"No, indeed. It is not only that he has disappeared--"
+
+"That is as nothing when compared with all the other incidents of this
+romantic tale. Indeed, it is the only natural thing in it. Given all the
+other circumstances, I should have foretold his disappearance as a thing
+certain to occur. Why shouldn't such a man disappear, if he can?"
+
+"But how has he done it?" replied Harry. "Where has he gone to? At this
+moment where is he?"
+
+"Ah, if you will answer all those questions, and give your information
+in Scotland Yard, the creditors, no doubt, will make up a handsome purse
+for you. Not that they will ever get a shilling from him, though he were
+to be seen walking down St. James's Street to-morrow. But they are a
+sanguine gentry, these holders of bills, and I really believe that if
+they could see him they would embrace him with the warmest affection. In
+the mean time let us have some dinner, and we will talk about poor
+Mountjoy when we have got rid of young Pitcher. Young Pitcher is my
+laundress's son to the use of whose services I have been promoted since
+I have been known to be the heir of Tretton."
+
+Then they sat down and dined, and Augustus Scarborough made himself
+agreeable. The small dinner was excellent of its kind, and the wine was
+all that it ought to be. During dinner not a word was said as to
+Mountjoy, nor as to the affairs of the estate. Augustus, who was old for
+his age, and had already practised himself much in London life, knew
+well how to make himself agreeable. There was plenty to be said while
+young Pitcher was passing in and out of the room, so that there appeared
+no awkward vacancies of silence while one course succeeded the other.
+The weather was very hot, the grouse were very tempting, everybody was
+very dull, and members of Parliament more stupid than anybody else; but
+a good time was coming. Would Harry come down to Tretton and see the old
+governor? There was not much to offer him in the way of recreation, but
+when September came the partridges would abound. Harry gave a
+half-promise that he would go to Tretton for a week, and Augustus
+Scarborough expressed himself as much gratified. Harry at the moment
+thought of no reason why he should not go to Tretton, and thus
+committed himself to the promise; but he afterward felt that Tretton was
+of all places the last which he ought just at present to visit.
+
+At last Pitcher and the cheese were gone, and young Scarborough produced
+his cigars. "I want to smoke directly I've done eating," he said.
+"Drinking goes with smoking as well as it does with eating, so there
+need be no stop for that. Now, tell me, Annesley, what is it that you
+think about Mountjoy?"
+
+There was an abruptness in the question which for the moment struck
+Harry dumb. How was he to say what he thought about Mountjoy
+Scarborough, even though he should have no feeling to prevent him from
+expressing the truth? He knew, or thought that he knew, Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be a thorough blackguard; one whom no sense of honesty
+kept from spending money, and who was now a party to robbing his
+creditors without the slightest compunction,--for it was in Harry's mind
+that Mountjoy and his father were in league together to save the
+property by rescuing it from the hands of the Jews. He would have
+thought the same as to the old squire,--only that the old squire had not
+interfered with him in reference to Florence Mountjoy.
+
+And then there was present to his mind the brutal attack which had been
+made on himself in the street. According to his views Mountjoy
+Scarborough was certainly a blackguard; but he did not feel inclined
+quite to say so to the brother, nor was he perfectly certain as to his
+host's honesty. It might be that the three Scarboroughs were all in a
+league together; and if so, he had done very wrong, as he then
+remembered, to say that he would go down to Tretton. When, therefore, he
+was asked the question he could only hold his tongue.
+
+"I suppose you have some scruple in speaking because he's my brother?
+You may drop that altogether."
+
+"I think that his career has been what the novel-reader would call
+romantic; but what I, who am not one of them, should describe as
+unfortunate."
+
+"Well, yes; taking it altogether it has been unfortunate. I am not a
+soft-hearted fellow, but I am driven to pity him. The worst of it is
+that, had not my father been induced at last to tell the truth, from
+most dishonest causes, he would not have been a bit better off than he
+is. I doubt whether he could have raised another couple of thousand on
+the day when he went. If he had done so then, and again more and more,
+to any amount you choose to think of, it would have been the same with
+him."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"His lust for gambling was a bottomless quicksand, which no possible
+amount of winning could ever have satiated. Let him enter his club with
+five thousand pounds at his banker's and no misfortune could touch him.
+He being such as he is,--or, alas! for aught we know, such as he was,--the
+escape which the property has had cannot but be regarded as very
+fortunate. I don't care to talk much of myself in particular, though no
+wrong can have been done to a man more infinite than that which my
+father contrived for me."
+
+"I cannot understand your father," said Harry. In truth, there was
+something in Scarborough's manner in speaking of his father which almost
+produced belief in Harry's mind. He began to doubt whether Augustus was
+in the conspiracy.
+
+"No, I should say not. It is hard to understand that an English
+gentleman should have the courage to conceive such a plot, and the wit
+to carry it out. If Mountjoy had run only decently straight, or not more
+than indecently crooked, I should have been a younger brother,
+practising law in the Temple to the end of my days. The story of Esau
+and of Jacob is as nothing to it. But that is not the most remarkable
+circumstance. My father, for purposes of his own, which includes the
+absolute throwing over of Mountjoy's creditors, changes his plan, and is
+pleased to restore to me that of which he had resolved to rob me. What
+father would dare to look in the face of the son whom he had thus
+resolved to defraud? My father tells me the story with a gentle chuckle,
+showing almost as much indifference to Mountjoy's ruin as to my
+recovered prosperity. He has not a blush when he reveals it all. He has
+not a word to say, or, as far as I can see, a thought as to the world's
+opinion. No doubt he is supposed to be dying. I do presume that three or
+four months will see the end of him. In the mean time he takes it all as
+quietly as though he had simply lent a five-pound note to Mountjoy out
+of my pocket."
+
+"You, at any rate, will get your property?"
+
+"Oh, yes; and that, no doubt, is his argument when he sees me. He is
+delighted to have me down at Tretton, and, to tell the truth, I do not
+feel the slightest animosity toward him. But as I look at him I think
+him to be the most remarkable old gentleman that the world has ever
+produced. He is quite unconscious that I have any ground of complaint
+against him."
+
+"He has probably thought that the circumstances of your brother's birth
+should not militate against his prospects."
+
+"But the law, my dear fellow," said Scarborough, getting up from his
+chair and standing with his cigar between his finger and thumb,--"the law
+thinks otherwise. The making of all right and wrong in this world
+depends on the law. The half-crown in my pocket is merely mine because
+of the law. He did choose to marry my mother before I was born, but did
+not choose to go through that ceremony before my brother's time. That
+may be a trifle to you, or to my moral feeling may be a trifle; but
+because of that trifle all Tretton will be my property, and his attempt
+to rob me of it was just the same as though he should break into a bank
+and steal what he found there. He knows that just as well as I do, but
+to suit his own purposes he did it."
+
+There was something in the way in which the young man spoke both of his
+father and mother which made Harry's flesh creep. He could not but think
+of his own father and his own mother, and his feelings in regard to
+them. But here this man was talking of the misdoings of the one parent
+and the other with the most perfect _sang-froid._ "Of course I
+understand all that," said Harry.
+
+"There is a manner of doing evil so easy and indifferent as absolutely
+to quell the general feeling respecting it. A man shall tell you that he
+has committed a murder in a tone so careless as to make you feel that a
+murder is nothing. I don't suppose my father can be punished for his
+attempt to rob me of twenty thousand a year, and therefore he talks to
+me about it as though it were a good joke. Not only that, but he expects
+me to receive it in the same way. Upon the whole, he prevails. I find
+myself not in the least angry with him, and rather obliged to him than
+otherwise for allowing me to be his eldest son."
+
+"What must Mountjoy's feelings be!" said Harry.
+
+"Exactly; what must be Mountjoy's feelings! There is no need to consider
+my father's, but poor Mountjoy's! I don't suppose that he can be dead."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"While a man is alive he can carry himself off, but when a fellow is
+dead it requires at least one or probably two to carry him. Men do not
+wish to undertake such a work secretly unless they've been concerned in
+the murder; and then there will have been a noise which must have been
+heard, or blood which must have been seen, and the body will at last be
+forthcoming, or some sign of its destruction. I do not think he be
+dead."
+
+"I should hope not," said Harry, rather tamely, and feeling that he was
+guilty of a falsehood by the manner in which he expressed his hope.
+
+"When was it you saw him last?" Scarborough asked the question with an
+abruptness which was predetermined, but which did not quite take Harry
+aback.
+
+"About three months since--in London," said Harry, going back in his
+memory to the last meeting, which had occurred before the squire had
+declared his purpose.
+
+"Ah;--you haven't seen him, then, since he knew that he was nobody?" This
+he asked in an indifferent tone, being anxious not to discover his
+purpose, but in doing so he gave Harry great credit for his readiness of
+mind.
+
+"I have not seen him since he heard the news which must have astonished
+him more than any one else."
+
+"I wonder," said Augustus, "how Florence Mountjoy has borne it?"
+
+"Neither have I seen her. I have been at Cheltenham, but was not allowed
+to see her." This he said with an assertion to himself that though he
+had lied as to one particular he would not lie as to any other.
+
+"I suppose she must have been much cut up by it all. I have half a mind
+to declare to myself that she shall still have an opportunity of
+becoming the mistress of Tretton. She was always afraid of Mountjoy, but
+I do not know that she ever loved him. She had become so used to the
+idea of marrying him that she would have given herself up in mere
+obedience. I too think that she might do as a wife, and I shall
+certainly make a better husband than Mountjoy would have done."
+
+"Miss Mountjoy will certainly do as a wife for any one who may be lucky
+enough to get her," said Harry, with a certain tone of magnificence
+which at the moment he felt to be overstrained and ridiculous.
+
+"Oh yes; one has got to get her, as you call it, of course. You mean to
+say that you are supposed to be in the running. That is your own
+lookout. I can only allege, on my own behalf, that it has always been
+considered to be an old family arrangement that Florence Mountjoy shall
+marry the heir to Tretton Park. I am in that position now, and I only
+throw it out as a hint that I may feel disposed to follow out the family
+arrangement. Of course if other things come in the way there will be an
+end of it. Come in." This last invitation was given in consequence of a
+knock at the door. The door was opened, and there entered a policeman in
+plain clothes named Prodgers, who seemed from his manner to be well
+acquainted with Augustus Scarborough.
+
+The police for some time past had been very busy on the track of
+Mountjoy Scarborough, but had not hitherto succeeded in obtaining any
+information. Such activity as had been displayed cannot be procured
+without expense, and it had been understood in this case that old Mr.
+Scarborough had refused to furnish the means. Something he had supplied
+at first, but had latterly declined even to subscribe to a fund. He was
+not at all desirous, he said, that his son should be brought back to the
+world, particularly as he had made it evident by his disappearance that
+he was anxious to keep out of the way. "Why should I pay the fellows?
+It's no business of mine," he had said to his son. And from that moment
+he had declined to do more than make up the first subscription which had
+been suggested to him. But the police had been kept very busy, and it
+was known that the funds had been supplied chiefly by Mr. Tyrrwhit. He
+was a resolute and persistent man, and was determined to "run down"
+Mountjoy Scarborough, as he called it, if money would enable him to do
+so. It was he who had appealed to the squire for assistance in this
+object, and to him the squire had expressed his opinion that, as his son
+did not seem anxious to be brought back, he should not interfere in the
+matter.
+
+"Well, Prodgers, what news have you to-day?" asked Augustus.
+
+"There is a man a-wandering about down in Skye, just here and there,
+with nothing in particular to say for himself."
+
+"What sort of a looking fellow is he?"
+
+"Well, he's light, and don't come up to the captain's marks; but there's
+no knowing what disguises a fellow will put on. I don't think he's got
+the captain's legs, and a man can't change his legs."
+
+"Captain Scarborough would not remain loitering about in Skye where he
+would be known by half the autumn tourists who saw him."
+
+"That's just what I was saying to Wilkinson," said Prodgers. "Wilkinson
+seems to think that a man may be anybody as long as nobody knows who he
+is. 'That ain't the captain,' said I."
+
+"I'm afraid he's got out of England," said the captain's brother.
+
+"There's no place where he can be run down like New York, or Paris, or
+Melbourne, and it's them they mostly go to. We've wired 'em all three,
+and a dozen other ports of the kind. We catches 'em mostly if they go
+abroad; but when they remains at home they're uncommon troublesome.
+There was a man wandering about in County Donegal. We call Ireland at
+home, because we've so much to do with their police since the Land
+League came up; but this chap was only an artist who couldn't pay his
+bill. What do you think about it, Mr. Annesley?" said the policeman,
+turning short round upon Harry, and addressing him a question. Why
+should the policeman even have known his name?
+
+"Who? I? I don't think about it at all. I have no means of thinking
+about it."
+
+"Because you have been so busy down there at the Yard, I thought that,
+as you was asking so many questions, you was, perhaps, interested in the
+matter."
+
+"My friend Mr. Annesley," said Augustus, "was acquainted with Captain
+Scarborough, as he is with me."
+
+"It did seem as though he was more than usually interested, all the
+same," said the policeman.
+
+"I am more than usually interested," replied Harry; "but I do not know
+that I am going to give you my reason. As to his present existence I
+know absolutely nothing."
+
+"I dare say not. If you'd any information as was reliable I dare say as
+it would be forthcoming. Well, Mr. Scarborough, you may be sure of this:
+if we can get upon his trail we'll do so, and I think we shall. There
+isn't a port that hasn't been watched from two days after his
+disappearance, and there isn't a port as won't be watched as soon as any
+English steamer touches 'em. We've got our eyes out, and we means to use
+'em. Good-night, Mr. Scarborough; good-night, Mr. Annesley," and he
+bobbed his head to our friend Harry. "You say as there is a reason as is
+unknown. Perhaps it won't be unknown always. Good-night, gentlemen."
+Then Constable Prodgers left the room.
+
+Harry had been disconcerted by the policeman's remarks, and showed that
+it was so as soon as he was alone with Augustus Scarborough. "I'm afraid
+you think the man intended to be impertinent," said Augustus.
+
+"No doubt he did, but such men are allowed to be impertinent."
+
+"He sees an enemy, of course, in every one who pretends to know more
+than he knows himself,--or, indeed, in every one who does not. You said
+something about having a reason of your own, and he at once connected
+you with Mountjoy's disappearance. Such creatures are necessary, but
+from the little I've seen of them I do not think that they make the best
+companions in the world. I shall leave Mr. Prodgers to carry on his
+business to the man who employs him,--namely, Mr. Tyrrwhit,--and I advise
+you to do the same."
+
+Soon after that Harry Annesley took his leave, but he could not divest
+himself of an opinion that both the policeman and his host had thought
+that he had some knowledge respecting the missing man. Augustus
+Scarborough had said no word to that effect, but there had been a
+something in his manner which had excited suspicion in Harry's mind. And
+then Augustus had declared his purpose of offering his hand and fortune
+to Florence Mountjoy. He to be suitor to Florence,--he, so soon after
+Mountjoy had been banished from the scene! And why should he have been
+told of it?--he, of whose love for the girl he could not but think that
+Augustus Scarborough had been aware. Then, much perturbed in his mind,
+he resolved, as he returned to his lodgings, that he would go down to
+Cheltenham on the following day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY TELLS HIS SECRET.
+
+
+Harry hurried down to Cheltenham, hardly knowing what he was going to do
+or say when he got there. He went to the hotel and dined alone. "What's
+all this that's up about Captain Mountjoy?" said a stranger, coming and
+whispering to him at his table.
+
+The inquirer was almost a stranger, but Harry did know his name. It was
+Mr. Baskerville, the hunting man. Mr. Baskerville was not rich, and not
+especially popular, and had no special amusement but that of riding two
+nags in the winter along the roads of Cheltenham in the direction which
+the hounds took. It was still summer, and the nags, who had been made to
+do their work in London, were picking up a little strength in idleness,
+or, as Mr. Baskerville called it, getting into condition. In the mean
+time Mr. Baskerville amused himself as well as he could by lying in bed
+and playing lawn-tennis. He sometimes dined at the hotel, in order that
+the club might think that he was entertained at friends' houses; but the
+two places were nearly the same to him, as he could achieve a dinner and
+half a pint of wine for five or six shillings at each of them. A more
+empty existence, or, one would be inclined to say, less pleasurable, no
+one could pass; but he had always a decent coat on his back and a smile
+on his face, and five shillings in his pocket with which to pay for his
+dinner. His asking what was up about Scarborough showed, at any rate,
+that he was very backward in the world's news.
+
+"I believe he has vanished," said Harry.
+
+"Oh yes, of course he's vanished. Everybody knows that--he vanished ever
+so long ago; but where is he?"
+
+"If you can tell them in Scotland Yard they will be obliged to you."
+
+"I suppose it is true the police are after him? Dear me! Forty thousand
+a year! This is a very queer story about the property, isn't it?"
+
+"I don't know the story exactly, and therefore can hardly say whether it
+is queer or not."
+
+"But about the younger son? People say that the father has contrived
+that the younger son shall have the money. What I hear is that the whole
+property is to be divided, and that the captain is to have half, on
+conditions that he keeps out of the way. But I am sure that you know
+more about it. You used to be intimate with both the brothers. I have
+seen you down here with the captain. Where is he?" And again he
+whispered into Harry's ear. But he could not have selected any subject
+more distasteful, and, therefore, Harry repulsed Mr. Baskerville not in
+the most courteous manner.
+
+"Hang it! what airs that fellow gives himself," he said to another
+friend of the same kidney. "That's young Annesley, the son of a
+twopenny-halfpenny parson down in Hertfordshire. The kind of ways
+these fellows put on now are unbearable. He hasn't got a horse to ride
+on, but to hear him talk you'd think he was mounted three days a week."
+
+"He's heir to old Prosper, of Buston Hall."
+
+"How's that? But is he? I never heard that before. What's Buston Hall
+worth?" Then Mr. Baskerville made up his mind to be doubly civil to
+Harry Annesley the next time he saw him.
+
+Harry had to consider on that night in what manner he would endeavor to
+see Florence Mountjoy on the next day. He was thoroughly discontented
+with himself as he walked about the streets of Cheltenham. He had now
+not only allowed the disappearance of Scarborough to pass by without
+stating when and where, and how he had last seen him, but had directly
+lied on the subject. He had told the man's brother that he had not seen
+him for some weeks previous, whereas to have concealed his knowledge on
+such a subject was in itself held to be abominable. He was ashamed of
+himself, and the more so because there was no one to whom he could talk
+openly on the matter. And it seemed to him as though all whom he met
+questioned him as to the man's disappearance, as if they suspected him.
+What was the man to him, or the man's guilt, or his father, that he
+should be made miserable? The man's attack upon him had been ferocious
+in its nature,--so brutal that when he had escaped from Mountjoy
+Scarborough's clutches there was nothing for him but to leave him lying
+in the street where, in his drunkenness, he had fallen. And now, in
+consequence of this, misery had fallen upon himself. Even this
+empty-headed fellow Baskerville, a man the poverty of whose character
+Harry perfectly understood, had questioned him about Mountjoy
+Scarborough. It could not, he thought, be possible that Baskerville
+could have had any reasons for suspicion, and yet the very sound of the
+inquiry stuck in his ears.
+
+On the next morning, at eleven o'clock, he knocked at Mrs. Mountjoy's
+house in Mountpellier Place and asked for the elder lady. Mrs. Mountjoy
+was out, and Harry at once inquired for Florence. The servant at first
+seemed to hesitate, but at last showed Harry into the dining-room. There
+he waited five minutes, which seemed to him to be half an hour, and then
+Florence came to him. "Your mother is not at home," he said, putting out
+his hand.
+
+"No, Mr. Annesley, but I think she will be back soon. Will you wait for
+her?"
+
+"I do not know whether I am not glad that she should be out. Florence, I
+have something that I must tell you."
+
+"Something that you must tell me!"
+
+He had called her Florence once before, on a happy afternoon which he
+well remembered, but he was not thinking of that now. Her name, which
+was always in his mind, had come to him naturally, as though he had no
+time to pick and choose about names in the importance of the
+communication which he had to make. "Yes. I don't believe that you were
+ever really engaged to your cousin Mountjoy."
+
+"No, I never was," she answered, briskly. Harry Annesley was certainly a
+handsome man, but no young man living ever thought less of his own
+beauty. He had fair, wavy hair, which he was always submitting to some
+barber, very much to the unexpressed disgust of poor Florence; because
+to her eyes the longer the hair grew the more beautiful was the wearer
+of it. His forehead, and eyes, and nose were all perfect in their form--
+
+  "Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
+  An eye like Mars, to threaten and command."
+
+There was a peculiar brightness in his eye, which would have seemed to
+denote something absolutely great in his character had it not been for
+the wavering indecision of his mouth. There was as it were a vacillation
+in his lips which took away from the manliness of his physiognomy.
+Florence, who regarded his face as almost divine, was yet conscious of
+some weakness about his mouth which she did not know how to interpret.
+But yet, without knowing why it was so, she was accustomed to expect
+from him doubtful words, half expressed words, which would not declare
+to her his perfected thoughts--as she would have them declared. He was
+six feet high, but neither broad nor narrow, nor fat nor thin, but a
+very Apollo in Florence's eye. To the elders who knew him the
+quintessence of his beauty lay in the fact that he was altogether
+unconscious of it. He was a man who counted nothing on his personal
+appearance for the performance of those deeds which he was most anxious
+to achieve. The one achievement now essentially necessary to his
+happiness was the possession of Florence Mountjoy; but it certainly
+never occurred to him that he was more likely to obtain this because he
+was six feet high, or because his hair waved becomingly.
+
+"I have supposed so," he said, in answer to her last assertion.
+
+"You ought to have known it for certain. I mean to say that, had I ever
+been engaged to my cousin, I should have been miserable at such a moment
+as this. I never should have given him up because of the gross injustice
+done to him about the property. But his disappearance in this dreadful
+way would, I think, have killed me. As it is, I can think of nothing
+else, because he is my cousin."
+
+"It is very dreadful," said Harry. "Have you any idea what can have
+happened to him?"
+
+"Not in the least. Have you?"
+
+"None at all, but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I was the last person who saw him."
+
+"You saw him last!"
+
+"At least, I know no one who saw him after me."
+
+"Have you told them?"
+
+"I have told no one but you. I have come down here to Cheltenham on
+purpose to tell you."
+
+"Why me?" she said, as though struck with fear at such an assertion on
+his part.
+
+"I must tell some one, and I have not known whom else to tell. His
+father appears not at all anxious about him. His brother I do not
+altogether trust. Were I to go to these men, who are only looking after
+their money, I should be communicating with his enemies. Your mother
+already regards me as his enemy. If I told the police I should simply be
+brought into a court of justice, where I should be compelled to mention
+your name."
+
+"Why mine?"
+
+"I must begin the story from the beginning. One night I was coming home
+in London very late, about two o'clock, when whom should I meet in the
+street suddenly but Mountjoy Scarborough. It came out afterward that he
+had then been gambling; but when he encountered me he was intoxicated.
+He took me suddenly by the collar and shook me violently, and did his
+best to maltreat me. What words were spoken I cannot remember; but his
+conduct to me was as that of a savage beast. I struggled with him in the
+street as a man would struggle who is attacked by a wild dog. I think
+that he did not explain the cause of his hatred, though, of course, my
+memory as to what took place at that moment is disturbed and imperfect;
+but I did know in my heart why it was that he had quarrelled with me."
+
+"Why was it?" Florence asked.
+
+"Because he thought that I had ventured to love you."
+
+"No, no!" shrieked Florence; "he could not have thought that."
+
+"He did think so, and he was right enough. If I have never said so
+before, I am bound at any rate to say it now." He paused for a moment,
+but she made him no answer. "In the struggle between us he fell on the
+pavement against a rail;--and then I left him."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He has never been heard of since. On the following day, in the
+afternoon, I left London for Buston; but nothing had been then heard of
+his disappearance. I neither knew of it nor suspected it. The question
+is, when others were searching for him, was I bound to go to the police
+and declare what I had suffered from him that night? Why should I
+connect his going with the outrage which I had suffered?"
+
+"But why not tell it all?"
+
+"I should have been asked why he had quarrelled with me. Ought I to have
+said that I did not know? Ought I to have pretended that there was no
+cause? I did know, and there was a cause. It was because he thought that
+I might prevail with you, now that he was a beggar, disowned by his own
+father."
+
+"I would never have given him up for that," said Florence.
+
+"But do you not see that your name would have been brought in,--that I
+should have had to speak of you as though I thought it possible that you
+loved me?" Then he paused, and Florence sat silent. But another thought
+struck him now. It occurred to him that under the plea put forward he
+would appear to seek shelter from his silence as to her name. He was
+aware how anxious he was on his own behalf not to mention the occurrence
+in the street, and it seemed that he was attempting to escape under the
+pretence of a fear that her name would be dragged in. "But independently
+of that I do not see why I should be subjected to the annoyance of
+letting it be known that I was thus attacked in the streets. And the
+time has now gone by. It did not occur to me when first he was missed
+that the matter would have been of such importance. Now it is too late."
+
+"I suppose that you ought to have told his father."
+
+"I think that I ought to have done so. But at any rate I have come to
+explain it all to you. It was necessary that I should tell some one.
+There seems to be no reason to suspect that the man has been killed."
+
+"Oh, I hope not; I hope not that."
+
+"He has been spirited away--out of the way of his creditors. For myself
+I think that it has all been done with his father's connivance. Whether
+his brother be in the secret or not I cannot tell, but I suspect he is.
+There seems to be no doubt that Captain Scarborough himself has run so
+overhead into debt as to make the payment of his creditors impossible by
+anything short of the immediate surrender of the whole property. Some
+month or two since they all thought that the squire was dying, and that
+there would be nothing to do but to sell the property which would then
+be Mountjoy's, and pay themselves. Against this the dying man has
+rebelled, and has come, as it were, out of the grave to disinherit the
+son who has already contrived to disinherit himself. It is all an
+effort to save Tretton."
+
+"But it is dishonest," said Florence.
+
+"No doubt about it. Looking at it any way it is dishonest, Either the
+inheritance must belong to Mountjoy still, or it could not have been his
+when he was allowed to borrow money upon it."
+
+"I cannot understand it. I thought it was entailed upon him. Of course
+it is nothing to me. It never could have been anything."
+
+"But now the creditors declare that they have been cheated, and assert
+that Mountjoy is being kept out of the way to aid old Mr. Scarborough in
+the fraud. I cannot but say that I think it is so. But why he should
+have attacked me just at the moment of his going, or why, rather, he
+should have gone immediately after he had attacked me, I cannot say. I
+have no concern whatever with him or his money, though I hope--I hope
+that I may always have much with you. Oh, Florence, you surely have
+known what has been within my heart."
+
+To this appeal she made no response, but sat awhile considering what she
+would say respecting Mountjoy Scarborough and his affairs.
+
+"Am I to keep all this a secret?" she asked him at last.
+
+"You shall consider that for yourself. I have not exacted from you any
+silence on the matter. You may tell whom you please, and I shall not
+consider that I have any ground of complaint against you. Of course for
+my own sake I do not wish it to be told. A great injury was done me, and
+I do not desire to be dragged into this, which would be another injury.
+I suspect that Augustus Scarborough knows more than he pretends, and I
+do not wish to be brought into the mess by his cunning. Whether you will
+tell your mother you must judge yourself."
+
+"I shall tell nobody unless you bid me." At that moment the door of the
+room was opened, and Mrs. Mountjoy entered, with a frown upon her brow.
+She had not yet given up all hope that Mountjoy might return, and that
+the affairs of Tretton might be made to straighten themselves.
+
+"Mamma, Mr. Annesley is here."
+
+"So I perceive, my dear."
+
+"I have come to your daughter to tell her how dearly I love her," said
+Harry, boldly.
+
+"Mr. Annesley, you should have come to me before speaking to my
+daughter."
+
+"Then I shouldn't have seen her at all."
+
+"You should have left that as it might be. It is not at all a proper
+thing that a young gentleman should come and address a young lady in
+this way behind her only parent's back."
+
+"I asked for you, and I did not know that you would not be at home."
+
+"You should have gone away at once--at once. You know how terribly the
+family is cut up by this great misfortune to our cousin Mountjoy.
+Mountjoy Scarborough has been long engaged to Florence."
+
+"No, mamma; no, never."
+
+"At any rate, Mr. Annesley knows all about it. And that knowledge ought
+to have kept him away at the present moment. I must beg him to leave us
+now."
+
+Then Harry took his hat and departed; but he had great consolation in
+feeling that Florence had not repudiated his love, which she certainly
+would have done had she not loved him in return. She had spoken no word
+of absolute encouragement, but there had much more of encouragement than
+of repudiation in her manner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY GOES TO TRETTON.
+
+
+Harry had promised to go down to Tretton, and when the time came
+Augustus Scarborough did not allow him to escape from the visit. He
+explained to him that in his father's state of health there would be no
+company to entertain him; that there was only a maiden sister of his
+father's staying in the house, and that he intended to take down into
+the country with him one Septimus Jones, who occupied chambers on the
+same floor with him in London, and whom Annesley knew to be young
+Scarborough's most intimate friend. "There will be a little shooting,"
+he said, "and I have bought two or three horses, which you and Jones can
+ride. Cannock Chase is one of the prettiest parts of England, and as you
+care for scenery you can get some amusement out of that. You'll see my
+father, and hear, no doubt, what he has got to say for himself. He is
+not in the least reticent in speaking of my brother's affairs." There
+was a good deal in this which was not agreeable. Miss Scarborough was
+sister to Mrs. Mountjoy as well as to the squire, and had been one of
+the family party most anxious to assure the marriage of Florence and the
+captain. The late General Mountjoy had been supposed to be a great man
+in his way, but had died before Tretton had become as valuable as it was
+now. Hence the eldest son had been christened with his name, and much of
+the Mountjoy prestige still clung to the family. But Harry did not care
+much about the family except so far as Florence was concerned. And then
+he had not been on peculiarly friendly terms with Septimus Jones, who
+had always been submissive to Augustus; and, now that Augustus was a
+rich man and could afford to buy horses, was likely to be more
+submissive than ever.
+
+He went down to Tretton alone early in September, and when he reached
+the house he found that the two young men were out shooting. He asked
+for his own room, but was instead immediately taken to the old squire,
+whom he found lying on a couch in a small dressing-room, while his
+sister, who had been reading to him, was by his side. After the usual
+greetings Harry made some awkward apology as to his intrusion at the
+sick man's bedside. "Why, I ordered them to bring you in here," said the
+squire; "you can't very well call that intrusion. I have no idea of
+being shut up from the world before they nail me down in my coffin."
+
+"That will be a long time first, we all hope," said his sister.
+
+"Bother! you hope it, but I don't know that any one else does;--I don't
+for one. And if I did, what's the good of hoping? I have a couple of
+diseases, either of which is enough to kill a horse." Then he mentioned
+his special maladies in a manner which made Harry shrink. "What are they
+talking about in London just at present?" he asked.
+
+"Just the old set of subjects," said Harry.
+
+"I suppose they have got tired of me and my iniquities?" Harry could
+only smile and shake his head. "There has been such a complication of
+romances that one expects the story to run a little more than the
+ordinary nine days."
+
+"Men still do talk about Mountjoy."
+
+"And what are they saying? Augustus declares that you are especially
+interested on the subject."
+
+"I don't know why I should be," said Harry.
+
+"Nor I either. When a fellow becomes no longer of any service to either
+man, woman, or beast, I do not know why any should take an interest in
+him. I suppose you didn't lend him money?"
+
+"I was not likely to do that, sir."
+
+"Then I cannot conceive how it can interest you whether he be in London
+or Kamtchatka. It does not interest me the least in the world. Were he
+to turn up here it would be a trouble; and yet they expect me to
+subscribe largely to a fund for finding him. What good could he do me if
+he were found?"
+
+"Oh, John, he is your son," said Miss Scarborough.
+
+"And would be just as good a son as Augustus, only that he has turned
+out uncommonly badly. I have not the slightest feeling in the world as
+to his birth, and so I think I showed pretty plainly. But nothing could
+stop him in his course, and therefore I told the truth, that's all." In
+answer to this, Harry found it quite impossible to say a word, but got
+away to his bedroom and dressed for dinner as quickly as possible.
+
+While he was still thus employed Augustus came into the room still
+dressed in his shooting-clothes. "So you've seen my father," he said.
+
+"Yes, I saw him."
+
+"And what did he say to you about Mountjoy?"
+
+"Little or nothing that signifies. He seems to think it unreasonable
+that he should be asked to pay for finding him, seeing that the
+creditors expect to get the advantage of his presence when found."
+
+"He is about right there."
+
+"Oh yes; but still he is his father. It may be that it would be expected
+that he should interest himself in finding him."
+
+"Upon my word I don't agree with you. If a thousand a year could be paid
+to keep Mountjoy out of the way I think it would be well expended."
+
+"But you were acting with the police."
+
+"Oh, the police! What do the police know about it? Of course I talk it
+all over with them. They have not the smallest idea where the man is,
+and do not know how to go to work to discover him. I don't say that my
+father is judicious in his brazen-faced opposition to all inquiry. He
+should pretend to be a little anxious--as I do. Not that there would be
+any use now in pretending to keep up appearances. He has declared
+himself utterly indifferent to the law, and has defied the world. Never
+mind, old fellow, we shall eat the more dinner, only I must go and
+prepare myself for it."
+
+At dinner Harry found only Septimus Jones, Augustus Scarborough, and his
+aunt. Miss Scarborough said a good deal about her brother, and declared
+him to be much better. "Of course you know, Augustus, that Sir William
+Brodrick was down here for two days."
+
+"Only fancy," replied he, "what one has to pay for two days of Sir
+William Brodrick in the country!"
+
+"What can it matter?" said the generous spinster.
+
+"It matters exactly so many hundred pounds; but no one will begrudge it
+if he does so many hundred pounds' worth of good."
+
+"It will show, at any rate, that we have had the best advice," said the
+lady.
+
+"Yes, it will show;--that is exactly what people care about. What did Sir
+William say?" Then during the first half of dinner a prolonged reference
+was made to Mr. Scarborough's maladies, and to Sir William's opinion
+concerning them. Sir William had declared that Mr. Scarborough's
+constitution was the most wonderful thing that he had ever met in his
+experience. In spite of the fact that Mr. Scarborough's body was one
+mass of cuts and bruises and faulty places, and that nothing would keep
+him going except the wearing of machinery which he was unwilling to
+wear, yet the facilities for much personal enjoyment were left to him,
+and Sir William declared that, if he would only do exactly as he were
+told, he might live for the next five years. "But everybody knows that
+he won't do anything that he is told," said Augustus, in a tone of voice
+which by no means expressed extreme sorrow.
+
+From his father he led the conversation to the partridges, and declared
+his conviction that, with a little trouble and some expense, a very good
+head of game might be got up at Tretton. "I suppose it wouldn't cost
+much?" said Jones, who beyond ten shillings to a game-keeper never paid
+sixpence for whatever shooting came in his way.
+
+"I don't know what you call much," said Augustus, "but I think it may be
+done for three or four hundred a year. I should like to calculate how
+many thousand partridges at that rate Sir William has taken back in his
+pocket."
+
+"What does it matter?" asked Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Only as a speculation. Of course my father, while he lives, is
+justified in giving his whole income to doctors if he likes it; but one
+gets into a manner of speaking about him as though he had done a good
+deal with his money in which he was not justified."
+
+"Don't talk in that way, Augustus."
+
+"My dear aunt, I am not at all inclined to be more open-mouthed than he
+is. Only reflect what it was that he was disposed to do with me, and
+the good-humor with which I have borne it!"
+
+"I think I should hold my tongue about it," said Harry Annesley.
+
+"And I think that in my place you would do no such thing. To your nature
+it would be almost impossible to hold your tongue. Your sense of justice
+would be so affronted that you would feel yourself compelled to discuss
+the injury done to you with all your intimate friends. But with your
+father your quarrel would be eternal. I made nothing of it, and, indeed,
+if he pertinaciously held his tongue on the subject, so should I."
+
+"But because he talks," said Harry, "why should you?"
+
+"Why should he not?" said Septimus Jones. "Upon my word I don't see the
+justice of it."
+
+"I am not speaking of justice, but of feeling."
+
+"Upon my word I wish you would hold your tongues about it; at any rate
+till my back is turned," said the old lady.
+
+Then Augustus finished the conversation. "I am determined to treat it
+all as though it were a joke, and, as a joke, one to be spoken of
+lightly. It was a strong measure, certainly, this attempt to rob me of
+twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year. But it was done in favor of my
+brother, and therefore let it pass. I am at a loss to conceive what my
+father has done with his money. He hasn't given Mountjoy, at any rate,
+more than a half of his income for the last five or six years, and his
+own personal expenses are very small. Yet he tells me that he has the
+greatest difficulty in raising a thousand pounds, and positively refuses
+in his present difficulties to add above five hundred a year to my
+former allowance. No father who had thoroughly done his duty by his son,
+could speak in a more fixed and austere manner. And yet he knows that
+every shilling will be mine as soon as he goes." The servant who was
+waiting upon them had been in and out of the room while this was said,
+and must have heard much of it. But to that Augustus seemed to be quite
+indifferent. And, indeed, the whole family story was known to every
+servant in the house. It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have
+servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before
+all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but
+this household was unlike all others in that respect. There was not a
+housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how
+terrible a reprobate their master had been.
+
+"You will see your father before you go to bed?" Miss Scarborough said
+to her nephew as she left the room.
+
+"Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it, most anxiously."
+
+"I believe that to be your imagination. At any rate, I will come--say in
+an hour's time. He would be just as pleased to see Harry Annesley, for
+the matter of that, or Mr. Grey, or the inspector of police. Any one
+whom he could shock, or pretend to shock, by the peculiarity of his
+opinions, would do as well." By that time, however, Miss Scarborough had
+left the room.
+
+Then the three men sat and talked, and discussed the affairs of the
+family generally. New leases had just been granted for adding
+manufactories to the town of Tretton: and as far as outward marks of
+prosperity went all was prosperous. "I expect to have a water-mill on
+the lawn before long," said Augustus. "These mechanics have it all their
+own way. If they were to come and tell me that they intended to put up a
+wind-mill in my bedroom to-morrow morning, I could only take off my hat
+to them. When a man offers you five per cent. where you've only had
+four, he is instantly your lord and master. It doesn't signify how
+vulgar he is, or how insolent, or how exacting. Associations of the
+tenderest kind must all give way to trade. But the shooting which lies
+to the north and west of us is, I think, safe for the present. I suppose
+I must go and see what my father wants, or I shall be held to have
+neglected my duty to my affectionate parent."
+
+"Capital fellow, Augustus Scarborough," said Jones, as soon as their
+host had left them.
+
+"I was at Cambridge with him, and he was popular there."
+
+"He'll be more popular now that he's the heir to Tretton. I don't know
+any fellow that I can get along better with than Scarborough. I think
+you were a little hard upon him about his father, you know."
+
+"In his position he ought to hold his tongue."
+
+"It's the strangest thing that has turned up in the whole course of my
+experience. You see, if he didn't talk about it people wouldn't quite
+understand what it was that his father has done. It's only matter of
+report now, and the creditors, no doubt, do believe that when old
+Scarborough goes off the hooks they will be able to walk in and take
+possession. He has got to make the world think that he is the heir, and
+that will go a long way. You may be sure he doesn't talk as he does
+without having a reason for it. He's the last man I know to do anything
+without a reason."
+
+The evening dragged along very slowly while Jones continued to tell all
+that he knew of his friend's character. But Augustus Scarborough did not
+return, and soon after ten o'clock, when Harry Annesley could smoke no
+more cigars, and declared that he had no wish to begin upon
+brandy-and-water after his wine, he went to his bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY TAKES A WALK.
+
+
+"There was the devil to pay with my father last night after I went to
+him," said Scarborough to Harry next morning. "He now and then suffers
+agonies of pain, and it is the most difficult thing in the world to get
+him right again. But anything equal to his courage I never before met."
+
+"How is he this morning?"
+
+"Very weak and unable to exert himself. But I cannot say that he is
+otherwise much the worse. You won't see him this morning; but to-morrow
+you will, or next day. Don't you be shy about going to him when he sends
+for you. He likes to show the world that he can bear his sufferings with
+a light heart, and is ready to die to-morrow without a pang or a regret.
+Who was the fellow who sent for a fellow to let him see how a Christian
+could die? I can fancy my father doing the same thing, only there would
+be nothing about Christianity in the message. He would bid you come and
+see a pagan depart in peace, and would be very unhappy if he thought
+that your dinner would be disturbed by the ceremony. Now come down to
+breakfast, and then we'll go out shooting."
+
+For three days Harry remained at Tretton, and ate and drank, and shot
+and rode, always in young Scarborough's company. During this time he did
+not see the old squire, and understood from Miss Scarborough's absence
+that he was still suffering from his late attack. The visit was to be
+prolonged for one other day, and he was told that on that day the squire
+would send for him. "I'm sick of these eternal partridges," said
+Augustus. "No man should ever shoot partridges two days running. Jones
+can go out by himself. He won't have to tip the game-keeper any more for
+an additional day, and so it will be all gain to him. You'll see my
+father in the afternoon after lunch, and we will go and take a walk
+now."
+
+Harry started for his walk, and his companion immediately began again
+about the property. "I'm beginning to think," said he, "that it's nearly
+all up with the governor. These attacks come upon him worse and worse,
+and always leave him absolutely prostrate. Then he will do nothing to
+prevent them. To assure himself a week of life, he will not endure an
+hour of discomfort. It is plucky, you know."
+
+"He is in all respects as brave a man as I have known."
+
+"He sets God and man at absolute defiance, and always does it with the
+most profound courtesy. If he goes to the infernal regions he will
+insist upon being the last of the company to enter the door. And he will
+be prepared with something good-humored to say as soon as he has been
+ushered in. He was very much troubled about you yesterday."
+
+"What has he to say of me?"
+
+"Nothing in the least uncivil; but he has an idea in his head which
+nothing on earth will put out of it, and in which, but for your own
+word, I should be inclined to agree." Harry, when this was said, stood
+still on the mountain-side, and looked full into his companion's face.
+He felt at the moment that the idea had some reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough and his disappearance. They were together on the heathy,
+unenclosed ground of Cannock Chase, and had already walked some ten or
+twelve miles. "He thinks you know where Mountjoy is."
+
+"Why should I know?"
+
+"Or at any rate that you have seen him since any of us. He professes not
+to care a straw for Mountjoy or his whereabouts, and declares himself
+under obligation to those who have contrived his departure.
+Nevertheless, he is curious."
+
+"What have I to do with Mountjoy Scarborough?"
+
+"That's just the question. What have you to do with him? He suggests
+that there have been words between you as to Florence, which has caused
+Mountjoy to vanish. I don't profess to explain anything beyond
+that,--nor, indeed, do I profess to agree with my father. But the odd
+thing is that Prodgers, the policeman, has the same thing running in his
+head."
+
+"Because I have shown some anxiety about your brother in Scotland Yard."
+
+"No doubt; Prodgers says that you've shown more anxiety than was to be
+expected from a mere acquaintance. I quite acknowledge that Prodgers is
+as thick-headed an idiot as you shall catch on a summer's day; but
+that's his opinion. For myself, I know your word too well to doubt it."
+Harry walked on in silence, thinking, or trying to think, what, on the
+spur of the moment, he had better do. He was minded to speak out the
+whole truth, and declare to himself that it was nothing to him what
+Augustus Scarborough might say or think. And there was present to him a
+feeling that his companion was dealing unfairly with him, and was
+endeavoring in some way to trap him and lead him into a difficulty. But
+he had made up his mind, as it were, not to know anything of Mountjoy
+Scarborough, and to let those five minutes in the street be as though
+they had never been. He had been brutally attacked, and had thought it
+best to say nothing on the subject. He would not allow his secret, such
+as it was, to be wormed out of him. Scarborough was endeavoring to
+extort from him that which he had resolved to conceal; and he determined
+at last that he would not become a puppet in his hands. "I don't see why
+you should care a straw about it," said Scarborough.
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"At any rate you repeat your denial. It will be well that I should let
+my father know that he is mistaken, and also that ass Prodgers. Of
+course, with my father it is sheer curiosity. Indeed, if he thought that
+you were keeping Mountjoy under lock and key, he would only admire your
+dexterity in so preserving him. Any bold line of action that was
+contrary to the law recommends itself to his approbation. But Prodgers
+has a lurking idea that he should like to arrest you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Simply because he thinks you know something that he doesn't know. As
+he's a detective, that, in his mind, is quite enough for arresting any
+man. I may as well give him my assurance, then, that he is mistaken."
+
+"Why should your assurance go for more than mine? Give him nothing of
+the kind."
+
+"I may give him, at any rate, my assurance that I believe your word."
+
+"If you do believe it, you can do so."
+
+"But you repeat your assertion that you saw nothing of Mountjoy just
+before his disappearance?"
+
+"This is an amount of cross-questioning which I do not take in good
+part, and to which I will not submit." Here Scarborough affected to
+laugh loudly. "I know nothing of your brother, and care almost as
+little. He has professed to admire a young lady to whom I am not
+indifferent, and has, I believe, expressed a wish to make her his wife.
+He is also her cousin, and the lady in question has, no doubt, been much
+interested about him. It is natural that she should be so."
+
+"Quite natural--seeing that she has been engaged to him for twelve
+months."
+
+"Of that I know nothing. But my interest about your brother has been
+because of her. You can explain all this about your brother if you
+please, or can let it alone. But for myself, I decline to answer any
+more questions. If Prodgers thinks that he can arrest me, let him come
+and try."
+
+"The idea of your flying into a passion because I have endeavored to
+explain it all to you! At any rate I have your absolute denial, and that
+will enable me to deal both with my father and Prodgers." To this Harry
+made no answer, and the two young men walked back to Tretton together
+without many more words between them.
+
+When Harry had been in the house about half an hour, and had already
+eaten his lunch, somewhat sulkily, a message came to him from Miss
+Scarborough requiring his presence. He went to her, and was told by her
+that Mr. Scarborough would now see him. He was aware that Mr.
+Scarborough never saw Septimus Jones, and that there was something
+peculiar in the sending of this message to him. Why should the man who
+was supposed to have but a few weeks to live be so anxious to see one
+who was comparatively a stranger to him? "I am so glad you have come in
+before dinner, Mr. Annesley, because my brother is so anxious to see
+you, and I am afraid you'll go too early in the morning." Then he
+followed her, and again found Mr. Scarborough on a couch in the same
+room to which he had been first introduced.
+
+"I've had a sharp bout of it since I saw you before," said the sick man.
+
+"So we heard, sir."
+
+"There is no saying how many or rather how few bouts of this kind it
+will take to polish me off. But I think I am entitled to some little
+respite now. The apothecary from Tretton was here this morning, and I
+believe has done me just as much good as Sir William Brodrick. His
+charge will be ten shillings, while Sir William demanded three hundred
+pounds. But it would be mean to go out with no one but the Tretton
+apothecary to look after one."
+
+"I suppose Sir William's knowledge has been of some service."
+
+"His dexterity with his knife has been of more. So you and Augustus have
+been quarrelling about Mountjoy?"
+
+"Not that I know of."
+
+"He says so; and I believe his word on such a subject sooner than yours.
+You are likely to quarrel without knowing it, and he is not. He thinks
+that you know what has become of Mountjoy."
+
+"Does he? Why should he think so, when I told him that I know nothing? I
+tell you that I know absolutely nothing. I am ignorant whether he is
+dead or alive."
+
+"He is not dead," said the father.
+
+"I suppose not; but I know nothing about him. Why your second son--"
+
+"You mean my eldest according to law,--or rather my only son!"
+
+"Why Augustus Scarborough," continued Harry Annesley, "should take upon
+himself to suspect that I know aught of his brother I cannot say. He has
+some cock-and-bull story about a policeman whom he professes to believe
+to be ignorant of his own business. This policeman, he says, is anxious
+to arrest me."
+
+"To make you give evidence before a magistrate," said his father.
+
+"He did not dare to tell me that he suspected me himself."
+
+"There;--I knew you had quarrelled."
+
+"I deny it altogether. I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough.
+He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I
+should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton,
+so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in
+future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough; but to you I give my
+positive assurance, which I do not doubt you will believe, that I know
+nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he
+spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his
+mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret.
+
+"Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that
+kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I
+have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his
+appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's
+confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how
+successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!"
+
+"People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry.
+
+"What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do
+justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly
+successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a
+little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of
+his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I
+determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of
+my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not
+prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I
+am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my
+death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar?
+Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in
+doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have
+spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have
+gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of
+the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."
+
+What was Harry Annesley to say in answer to such an address as this?
+There was the man, stretched on his bed before him, haggard, unshaved,
+pale, and grizzly, with a fire in his eyes, but weakness in his
+voice,--bold, defiant, self-satisfied, and yet not selfish. He had lived
+through his life with the one strong resolution of setting the law at
+defiance in reference to the distribution of his property; but chiefly
+because he had thought the law to be unjust. Then, when the accident of
+his eldest son's extravagance had fallen upon him, he had endeavored to
+save his second son, and had thought, without the slightest remorse, of
+the loss which was to fall on the creditors. He had done all this in
+such a manner that, as far as Harry knew, the law could not touch him,
+though all the world was aware of his iniquity. And now he lay boasting
+of what he had done. It was necessary that Harry should say something as
+he rose from his seat, and he lamely expressed a wish that Mr.
+Scarborough might quickly recover. "No, my dear fellow," said the
+squire; "men do not recover when they are brought to such straits as I
+am in. Nor do I wish it. Were I to live, Augustus would feel the second
+injustice to be quite intolerable. His mind is lost in amazement at what
+I had contemplated. And he feels that the matter can only be set right
+between him and fortune by my dying at once. If he were to understand
+that I were to live ten years longer, I think that he would either
+commit a murder or lose his senses."
+
+"But there is enough for both of you," said Harry.
+
+"There is no such word in the language as enough. An estate can have but
+one owner, and Augustus is anxious to be owner here. I do not blame him
+in the least. Why should he desire to spare a father's rights when that
+father showed himself so willing to sacrifice his? Good-bye, Annesley; I
+am sorry you are going, for I like to have some honest fellow to talk
+to. You are not to suppose that because I have done this thing I am
+indifferent to what men shall say of me. I wish them to think me good,
+though I have chosen to run counter to the prejudices of the world."
+
+Then Harry escaped from the room, and spent the remaining evening with
+Augustus Scarborough and Septimus Jones. The conversation was devoted
+chiefly to the partridges and horses; and was carried on by Septimus
+with severity toward Harry, and by Scarborough with an extreme civility
+which was the more galling of the two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AUGUSTUS HAS HIS OWN DOUBTS.
+
+
+"That's an impertinent young puppy," said Septimus Jones as soon as the
+fly which was to carry Harry Annesley to the station had left the
+hall-door on the following morning. It may be presumed that Mr. Jones
+would not thus have expressed himself unless his friend Augustus
+Scarborough had dropped certain words in conversation in regard to Harry
+to the same effect. And it may be presumed also that Augustus would not
+have dropped such words without a purpose of letting his friend know
+that Harry was to be abused. Augustus Scarborough had made up his mind,
+looking at the matter all round, that more was to be got by abusing
+Harry than by praising him.
+
+"The young man has a good opinion of himself certainly."
+
+"He thinks himself to be a deal better than anybody else," continued
+Jones, "whereas I for one don't see it. And he has a way with him of
+pretending to be quite equal to his companions, let them be who they
+may, which to me is odious. He was down upon you and down upon your
+father. Of course your father has made a most fraudulent attempt; but
+what the devil is it to him?" The other young man made no answer, but
+only smiled. The opinion expressed by Mr. Jones as to Harry Annesley had
+only been a reflex of that felt by Augustus Scarborough. But the reflex,
+as is always the case when the looking-glass is true, was correct.
+
+Scarborough had known Harry Annesley for a long time, as time is counted
+in early youth, and had by degrees learned to hate him thoroughly. He
+was a little the elder, and had at first thought to domineer over his
+friend. But the friend had resisted, and had struggled manfully to
+achieve what he considered an equality in friendship. "Now, Scarborough,
+you may as well take it once for all that I am not going to be talked
+down. If you want to talk a fellow down you can go to Walker, Brown, or
+Green. Then when you are tired of the occupation you can come back to
+me." It was thus that Annesley had been wont to address his friend. But
+his friend had been anxious to talk down this special young man for
+special purposes, and had been conscious of some weakness in the other's
+character which he thought entitled him to do so. But the weakness was
+not of that nature, and he had failed. Then had come the rivalry between
+Mountjoy and Harry, which had seemed to Augustus to be the extreme of
+impudence. From of old he had been taught to regard his brother Mountjoy
+as the first of young men--among commoners; the first in prospects and
+the first in rank; and to him Florence Mountjoy had been allotted as a
+bride. How he had himself learned first to envy and then to covet this
+allotted bride need not here be told. But by degrees it had come to pass
+that Augustus had determined that his spendthrift brother should fall
+under his own power, and that the bride should be the reward. How it was
+that two brothers, so different in character, and yet so alike in their
+selfishness, should have come to love the same girl with a true
+intensity of purpose, and that Harry Annesley, whose character was
+essentially different, and who was in no degree selfish, should have
+loved her also, must be left to explain itself as the girl's character
+shall be developed. But Florence Mountjoy had now for many months been
+the cause of bitter dislike against poor Harry in the mind of Augustus
+Scarborough. He understood much more clearly than his brother had done
+who it was that the girl really preferred. He was ever conscious, too,
+of his own superiority,--falsely conscious,--and did feel that if Harry's
+character were really known, no girl would in truth prefer him. He
+could not quite see Harry with Florence's eyes nor could he see himself
+with any other eyes but his own.
+
+Then had come the meeting between Mountjoy and Harry Annesley in the
+street, of which he had only such garbled account as Mountjoy himself
+had given him within half an hour afterward. From that story, told in
+the words of a drunken man,--a man drunk, and bruised, and bloody, who
+clearly did not understand in one minute the words spoken in the
+last,--Augustus did learn that there had been some great row between his
+brother and Harry Annesley. Then Mountjoy had disappeared,--had
+disappeared, as the reader will have understood, with his brother's
+co-operation,--and Harry had not come forward, when inquiries were made,
+to declare what he knew of the occurrences of that night. Augustus had
+narrowly watched his conduct, in order at first that he might learn in
+what condition his brother had been left in the street, but afterward
+with the purpose of ascertaining why it was that Harry had been so
+reticent. Then he had allured Harry on to a direct lie, and soon
+perceived that he could afterward use the secret for his own purpose.
+
+"I think we shall have to see what that young man's about, you know," he
+said afterward to Septimus Jones.
+
+"Yes, yes, certainly," said Septimus. But Septimus did not quite
+understand why it was that they should have to see what the young man
+was about.
+
+"Between you and me, I think he means to interfere with me, and I do not
+mean to stand his interference."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"He must go back to Buston, among the Bustonians, or he and I will have
+a stand-up fight of it. I rather like a stand-up fight."
+
+"Just so. When a fellow's so bumptious as that he ought to be licked."
+
+"He has lied about Mountjoy," said Augustus. Then Jones waited to be
+told how it was that Harry had lied. He was aware that there was some
+secret unknown to him, and was anxious to be informed. Was Harry aware
+of Mountjoy's hiding-place, and if so, how had he learned it? Why was it
+that Harry should be acquainted with that which was dark to all the
+world besides? Jones was of opinion that the squire knew all about it,
+and thought it not improbable that the squire and Augustus had the
+secret in their joint keeping. But if so, how should Harry Annesley know
+anything about it? "He has lied like the very devil," continued
+Augustus, after a pause.
+
+"Has he, now?"
+
+"And I don't mean to spare him."
+
+"I should think not." Then there was a pause, at the end of which Jones
+found himself driven to ask a question: "How has he lied?" Augustus
+smiled and shook his head, from which the other man gathered that he was
+not now to be told the nature of the lie in question. "A fellow that
+lies like that," said Jones, "is not to be endured."
+
+"I do not mean to endure him. You have heard of a young lady named Miss
+Mountjoy, a cousin of ours?"
+
+"Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy?" suggested Jones.
+
+"Yes, Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy. That, of course, is over. Mountjoy has
+brought himself to such a pass that he is not entitled to have a Miss
+Mountjoy any longer. It seems the proper thing that she shall pass, with
+the rest of the family property, to the true heir."
+
+"You marry her!"
+
+"We need not talk about that just at present. I don't know that I've
+made up my mind. At any rate, I do not intend that Harry Annesley shall
+have her."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"He's a pestilential cur, that has got himself introduced into the
+family, and the sooner we get quit of him the better. I should think the
+young lady would hardly fancy him when she knows that he has lied like
+the very devil, with the object of getting her former lover out of the
+way."
+
+"By Jove, no, I should think not!"
+
+"And when the world comes to understand that Harry Annesley, in the
+midst of all these inquiries, knows all about poor Mountjoy,--was the
+last to see him in London,--and has never come forward to say a word
+about him, then I think the world will be a little hard upon the
+immaculate Harry Annesley. His own uncle has quarrelled with him
+already."
+
+"What uncle?"
+
+"The gentleman down in Hertfordshire, on the strength of whose acres
+Master Harry is flaunting it about in idleness. I have my eyes open and
+can see as well as another. When Harry lectures me about my father and
+my father about me, one would suppose that there's not a hole in his own
+coat. I think he'll find that the garment is not altogether
+water-tight." Then Augustus, finding that he had told as much as was
+needful to Septimus Jones, left his friend and went about his own family
+business.
+
+On the next morning Septimus Jones took his departure, and on the day
+following Augustus followed him. "So you're off?" his father said to
+him when he came to make his adieux.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose so. A man has got so many things to look after
+which he can't attend to down here."
+
+"I don't know what they are, but you understand it all. I'm not going to
+ask you to stay. Does it ever occur to you that you may never see me
+again?"
+
+"What a question!"
+
+"It's one that requires an answer, at any rate."
+
+"It does occur to me; but not at all as probable."
+
+"Why not probable?"
+
+"Because there's a telegraph wire from Tretton to London; and because
+the journey down here is very short. It also occurs to me to think so
+from what has been said by Sir William Brodrick. Of course any man may
+die suddenly."
+
+"Especially when the surgeons have been at him."
+
+"You have your sister with you, sir, and she will be of more comfort to
+you than I can be. Your condition is in some respects an advantage to
+you. These creditors of Mountjoy can't force their way in upon you."
+
+"You are wrong there."
+
+"They have not done so."
+
+"Nor should they, though I were as strong as you. What are Mountjoy's
+creditors to me? They have not a scrap of my handwriting in their
+possession. There is not one who can say that he has even a verbal
+promise from me. They never came to me when they wanted to lend him
+money at fifty per cent. Did they ever hear me say that he was my heir?"
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Not one has ever heard it. It was not to them I lied, but to you and to
+Grey. D---- the creditors! What do I care for them, though they be all
+ruined?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Why do you talk to me about the creditors? You, at any rate, know the
+truth." Then Augustus quitted the room, leaving his father in a passion.
+But, as a fact, he was by no means assured as to the truth. He supposed
+that he was the heir; but might it not be possible that his father had
+contrived all this so as to save the property from Mountjoy and that
+greedy pack of money-lenders? Grey must surely know the truth. But why
+should not Grey be deceived on the second event as well as the first.
+There was no limit, Augustus sometimes thought, to his father's
+cleverness. This idea had occurred to him within the last week, and his
+mind was tormented with reflecting what might yet be his condition. But
+of one thing he was sure, that his father and Mountjoy were not in
+league together. Mountjoy at any rate believed himself to have been
+disinherited. Mountjoy conceived that his only chance of obtaining money
+arose from his brother. The circumstances of Mountjoy's absence were, at
+any rate, unknown to his father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SIR MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+It was the peculiarity of Florence Mountjoy that she did not expect
+other people to be as good as herself. It was not that she erected for
+herself a high standard and had then told herself that she had no right
+to demand from others one so exalted. She had erected nothing. Nor did
+she know that she attempted to live by grand rules. She had no idea that
+she was better than anybody else; but it came to her naturally as the
+result of what had gone before, to be unselfish, generous, trusting, and
+pure. These may be regarded as feminine virtues, and may be said to be
+sometimes tarnished, by faults which are equally feminine. Unselfishness
+may become want of character; generosity essentially unjust; confidence
+may be weak, and purity insipid. Here it was that the strength of
+Florence Mountjoy asserted itself. She knew well what was due to
+herself, though she would not claim it. She could trust to another, but
+in silence be quite sure of herself. Though pure herself, she was rarely
+shocked by the ways of others. And she was as true as a man pretends to
+be.
+
+In figure, form, and face she never demanded immediate homage by the
+sudden flash of her beauty. But when her spell had once fallen on a
+man's spirit it was not often that he could escape from it quickly. When
+she spoke a peculiar melody struck the hearer's ears. Her voice was soft
+and low and sweet, and full at all times of harmonious words; but when
+she laughed it was like soft winds playing among countless silver bells.
+There was something in her touch which to men was almost divine. Of this
+she was all unconscious, but was as chary with her fingers as though it
+seemed that she could ill spare her divinity.
+
+In height she was a little above the common, but it was by the grace of
+her movements that the world was compelled to observe her figure. There
+are women whose grace is so remarkable as to demand the attention of
+all. But then it is known of them, and momentarily seen, that their
+grace is peculiar. They have studied their graces, and the result is
+there only too evident. But Florence seemed to have studied nothing. The
+beholder felt that she must have been as graceful when playing with her
+doll in the nursery. And it was the same with her beauty. There was no
+peculiarity of chiselled features. Had you taken her face and measured
+it by certain rules, you would have found that her mouth was too large
+and her nose irregular. Of her teeth she showed but little, and in her
+complexion there was none of that pellucid clearness in which men
+ordinarily delight. But her eyes were more than ordinarily bright, and
+when she laughed there seemed to stream from them some heavenly delight.
+When she did laugh it was as though some spring had been opened from
+which ran for the time a stream of sweetest intimacy. For the time you
+would then fancy that you had been let into the inner life of this girl,
+and would be proud of yourself that so much should have been granted
+you. You would feel that there was something also in yourself in that
+this should have been permitted. Her hair and eyebrows were dark brown,
+of the hue most common to men and women, and had in them nothing that
+was peculiar; but her hair was soft and smooth and ever well dressed,
+and never redolent of peculiar odors. It was simply Florence Mountjoy's
+hair, and that made it perfect in the eyes of her male friends
+generally.
+
+"She's not such a wonderful beauty, after all," once said of her a
+gentleman to whom it may be presumed that she had not taken the trouble
+to be peculiarly attractive. "No," said another,--"no. But, by George! I
+shouldn't like to have the altering of her." It was thus that men
+generally felt in regard to Florence Mountjoy. When they came to reckon
+her up they did not see how any change was to be made for the better.
+
+To Florence, as to most other girls, the question of her future life had
+been a great trouble. Whom should she marry? and whom should she decline
+to marry? To a girl, when it is proposed to her suddenly to change
+everything in life, to go altogether away and place herself under the
+custody of a new master, to find for herself a new home, new pursuits,
+new aspirations, and a strange companion, the change must be so
+complete as almost to frighten her by its awfulness. And yet it has to
+be always thought of, and generally done.
+
+But this change had been presented to Florence in a manner more than
+ordinarily burdensome. Early in life, when naturally she would not have
+begun to think seriously of marriage, she had been told rather than
+asked to give herself to her cousin Mountjoy. She was too firm of
+character to accede at once--to deliver herself over body and soul to
+the tender mercies of one, in truth, unknown. But she had been unable to
+interpose any reason that was valid, and had contented herself by
+demanding time. Since that there had been moments in which she had
+almost yielded. Mountjoy Scarborough had been so represented to her that
+she had considered it to be almost a duty to yield. More than once the
+word had been all but spoken; but the word had never been spoken. She
+had been subjected to what might be called cruel pressure. In season and
+out of season her mother had represented as a duty this marriage with
+her cousin. Why should she not marry her cousin? It must be understood
+that these questions had been asked before any of the terrible facts of
+Captain Scarborough's life had been made known to her. Because, it may
+be said, she did not love him. But in these days she had loved no man,
+and was inclined to think so little of herself as to make her want of
+love no necessary bar to the accomplishment of the wish of others. By
+degrees she was spoken of among their acquaintance as the promised bride
+of Mountjoy Scarborough, and though she ever denied the imputation,
+there came over her girl's heart a feeling,--very sad and very solemn,
+but still all but accepted,--that so it must be. Then Harry Annesley had
+crossed her path, and the question had been at last nearly answered, and
+the doubts nearly decided. She did not quite know at first that she
+loved Harry Annesley, but was almost sure that it was impossible for her
+to become the wife of Mountjoy Scarborough.
+
+Then there came nearly twelve months of most painful uncertainty in her
+life. It is very hard for a young girl to have to be firm with her
+mother in declining a proposed marriage, when all circumstances of the
+connection are recommended to her as being peculiarly alluring. And
+there was nothing in the personal manners of her cousin which seemed to
+justify her in declaring her abhorrence. He was a dark, handsome,
+military-looking man, whose chief sin it was in the eyes of his cousin
+that he seemed to demand from her affection, worship, and obedience. She
+did not analyse his character, but she felt it. And when it came to
+pass that tidings of his debts at last reached her, she felt that she
+was glad of an excuse, though she knew that the excuse would not have
+prevailed with her had she liked him. Then came his debts, and with the
+knowledge of them a keener perception of his imperiousness. She could
+consent to become the wife of the man who had squandered his property
+and wasted his estate; but not of one who before his marriage demanded
+of her that submission which, as she thought, should be given by her
+freely after her marriage. Harry Annesley glided into her heart after a
+manner very different from this. She knew that he adored her, but yet he
+did not hasten to tell her so. She knew that she loved him, but she
+doubted whether a time would ever come in which she could confess it. It
+was not till he had come to acknowledge the trouble to which Mountjoy
+had subjected him that he had ever ventured to speak plainly of his own
+passion, and even then he had not asked for a reply. She was still free,
+as she thought of all this, but she did at last tell herself that, let
+her mother say what she would, she certainly never would stand at the
+altar with her cousin Mountjoy.
+
+Even now, when the captain had been declared not to be his father's
+heir, and when all the world knew that he had disappeared from the face
+of the earth, Mrs. Mountjoy did not altogether give him up. She partly
+disbelieved her brother, and partly thought that circumstances could not
+be so bad as they were described.
+
+To her feminine mind,--to her, living, not in the world of London, but in
+the very moderate fashion of Cheltenham,--it seemed to be impossible that
+an entail should be thus blighted in the bud. Why was an entail called
+an entail unless it were ineradicable,--a decision of fate rather than of
+man and of law? And to her eyes Mountjoy Scarborough was so commanding
+that all things must at last be compelled to go as he would have them.
+And, to tell the truth, there had lately come to Mrs. Mountjoy a word of
+comfort, which might be necessary if the world should be absolutely
+upset in accordance with the wicked skill of her brother, which even in
+that case might make crooked things smooth. Augustus, whom she had
+regarded always as quite a Mountjoy, because of his talent, and
+appearance, and habit of command, had whispered to her a word. Why
+should not Florence be transferred with the remainder of the property?
+There was something to Mrs. Mountjoy's feelings base in the idea at the
+first blush of it. She did not like to be untrue to her gallant nephew.
+But as she came to turn it in her mind there were certain circumstances
+which recommended the change to her--should the change be necessary.
+Florence certainly had expressed an unintelligible objection to the
+elder brother. Why should the younger not be more successful? Mrs.
+Mountjoy's heart had begun to droop within her as she had thought that
+her girl would prove deaf to the voice of the charmer. Another charmer
+had come, most objectionable in her sight, but to him no word of
+absolute encouragement had, as she thought, been yet spoken. Augustus
+had already obtained for himself among his friends the character of an
+eloquent young lawyer. Let him come and try his eloquence on his
+cousin,--only let it first be ascertained, as an assured fact, and beyond
+the possibility of all retrogression, that the squire's villainy was
+certain.
+
+"I think, my love," she said to her daughter one day, "that, under the
+immediate circumstances of the family, we should retire for a while into
+private life." This occurred on the very day on which Septimus Jones had
+been vaguely informed of the iniquitous falsehood of Harry Annesley.
+
+"Good gracious, mamma, is not our life always private?" She had
+understood it all,--that the private life was intended altogether to
+exclude Harry, but was to be made open to the manoeuvres of her cousin,
+such as they might be.
+
+"Not in the sense in which I mean. Your poor uncle is dying."
+
+"We hear that Sir William says he is better."
+
+"I fear, nevertheless, that he is dying,--though it may, perhaps, take a
+long time. And then poor Mountjoy has disappeared. I think that we
+should see no one till the mystery about Mountjoy has been cleared up.
+And then the story is so very discreditable."
+
+"I do not see that that is an affair of ours," said Florence, who had no
+desire to be shut up just at the present moment.
+
+"We cannot help ourselves. This making his eldest son out to be--oh,
+something so very different--is too horrible to be thought of. I am told
+that nobody knows the truth."
+
+"We at any rate are not implicated in that."
+
+"But we are. He at any rate is my brother, and Mountjoy is my nephew,--or
+at any rate was. Poor Augustus is thrown into terrible difficulties."
+
+"I am told that he is greatly pleased at finding that Tretton is to
+belong to him."
+
+"Who tells you that? You have no right to believe anything about such
+near relatives from any one. Whoever told you so has been very wicked."
+Mrs. Mountjoy no doubt thought that this wicked communication had been
+made by Harry Annesley. "Augustus has always proved himself to be
+affectionate and respectful to his elder brother, that is, to his
+brother who is--is older than himself," added Mrs. Mountjoy, feeling
+that there was a difficulty in expressing herself as to the presumed
+condition of the two Scarboroughs, "Of course he would rather be owner
+of Tretton than let any one else have it, if you mean that. The honor of
+the family is very much to him."
+
+"I do not know that the family can have any honor left," said Florence,
+severely.
+
+"My dear, you have no right to say that. The Scarboroughs have always
+held their heads very high in Staffordshire, and more so of late than
+ever. I don't mean quite of late, but since Tretton became of so much
+importance. Now, I'll tell you what I think we had better do. We'll go
+and spend six weeks with your uncle at Brussels. He has always been
+pressing us to come."
+
+"Oh, mamma, he does not want us."
+
+"How can you say that? How do you know?"
+
+"I am sure Sir Magnus will not care for our coming now. Besides, how
+could that be retiring into private life? Sir Magnus, as ambassador, has
+his house always full of company."
+
+"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is
+not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative,--our
+nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation,
+of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."
+
+"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But
+Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind.
+Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand
+that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be
+received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their
+joint wardrobe.
+
+Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the
+last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been
+minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man
+hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very
+extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive
+governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus
+had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would
+have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that
+such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his
+well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been
+well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the
+blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus
+had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as
+her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject
+was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady
+Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they
+were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there
+as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than
+at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw
+no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be
+expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of
+course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English
+world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but
+there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who
+thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously
+resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady
+Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and
+wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to
+be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her
+carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon
+the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in
+life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in
+truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things
+done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did
+not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He
+could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his
+wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based
+on a different footing.
+
+He knew well that as a rule it was not fitting that he should ask a
+married man without his wife; but there are occasions on which an excuse
+can be given, and upon the whole the men liked it. He was a stout, tall,
+portly old gentleman, sixty years of age, but looking somewhat older,
+whom it was a difficulty to place on horseback, but who, when there,
+looked remarkably well. He rarely rose to a trot during his two hours of
+exercise, which to the two attaché's who were told off for the duty of
+accompanying him was the hardest part of their allotted work. But other
+gentlemen would lay themselves out to meet Sir Magnus and to ride with
+him, and in this way he achieved that character for popularity which had
+been a better aid to him in life than all the diplomatic skill which he
+possessed.
+
+"What do you think?" said he, walking off with Mrs. Mountjoy's letter
+into his wife's room.
+
+"I don't think anything, my dear."
+
+"You never do." Lady Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting,
+looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are
+proposing to come here."
+
+"Good gracious! At once?"
+
+"Yes, at once. Of course, I've asked them over and over again, and
+something was said about this autumn, when we had come back from
+Pimperingen."
+
+"Why did you not tell me?"
+
+"Bother! I did tell you. This kind of thing always turns up at last.
+She's a very good kind of a woman, and the daughter is all that she
+ought to be."
+
+"Of course she'll be flirting with Anderson." Anderson was one of the
+two mounted attachés.
+
+"Anderson will know how to look after himself," said Sir Magnus. "At any
+rate they must come. They have never troubled us before, and we ought to
+put up with them once."
+
+"But, my dear, what is all this about her brother?"
+
+"She won't bring her brother with her."
+
+"How can you be sure of that?" said the anxious lady.
+
+"He is dying, and can't be moved."
+
+"But that son of his--Mountjoy. It's altogether a most distressing
+story. He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared,
+and the papers for an entire month were full of him. What would you do
+if he were to turn up here? The girl was engaged to him, you know, and
+has only thrown him off since his own father declared that he was not
+legitimate. There never was such a mess about anything since London
+first began."
+
+Then Sir Magnus declared that, let Mountjoy Scarborough and his father
+have misbehaved as they might, Mr. Scarborough's sister must be received
+at Brussels. There was a little family difficulty. Sir Magnus had
+borrowed three thousand pounds from the general which had been settled
+on the general's widow, and the interest was not always paid with
+extreme punctuality. To give Mrs. Mountjoy her due, it must be said that
+this had not entered into her consideration when she had written to her
+brother-in-law; but it was a burden to Sir Magnus, and had always
+tended to produce from him a reiteration of those invitations, which
+Mrs. Mountjoy had taken as an expression of brotherly love. Her own
+income was always sufficient for her wants, and the hundred and fifty
+pounds coming from Sir Magnus had not troubled her much. "Well, my dear,
+if it must be it must;--only what I'm to do with her I do not know."
+
+"Take her about in the carriage," said Sir Magnus, who was beginning to
+be a little angry with this interference.
+
+"And the daughter? Daughters are twice more troublesome than their
+mothers."
+
+"Pass her over to Miss Abbott. And for goodness' sake don't make so much
+trouble about things which need not be troublesome." Then Sir Magnus
+left his wife to ring for her chambermaid and go on with her painting,
+while he himself undertook the unwonted task of writing an affectionate
+letter to his sister-in-law. It should be here explained that Sir Magnus
+had no children of his own, and that Miss Abbott was the lady who was
+bound to smile and say pretty things on all occasions to Lady Mountjoy
+for the moderate remuneration of two hundred a year and her maintenance.
+
+The letter which Sir Magnus wrote was as follows:
+
+
+  MY DEAR SARAH,--Lady Mountjoy bids me say that we shall
+  be delighted to receive you and my niece at the British
+  Ministry on the 1st of October, and hope that you will
+  stay with us till the end of the month.--Believe me, most
+  affectionately yours,                    MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+"I have a most kind letter from Sir Magnus," said Mrs. Mountjoy to her
+daughter.
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"That he will be delighted to receive us on the 1st of October. I did
+say that we should be ready to start in about a week's time, because I
+know that he gets home from his autumn holiday by the middle of
+September. But I have no doubt he has his house full till the time he
+has named."
+
+"Do you know her, mamma?" asked Florence.
+
+"I did see her once; but I cannot say that I know her. She used to be a
+very handsome woman, and looks to be quite good-natured; but Sir Magnus
+has always lived abroad, and except when he came home about your poor
+father's death I have seen very little of him."
+
+"I never saw him but that once," said Florence.
+
+And so it was settled that she and her mother were to spend a month at
+Brussels.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MONTE CARLO.
+
+
+Toward the end of September, while the weather was so hot as to keep
+away from the south of France all but very determined travellers, an
+English gentleman, not very beautiful in his outward appearance, was
+sauntering about the great hall of the gambling-house at Monte Carlo, in
+the kingdom or principality of Monaco, the only gambling-house now left
+in Europe in which idle men of a speculative nature may yet solace their
+hours with some excitement. Nor is the amusement denied to idle ladies,
+as might be seen by two or three highly-dressed _habituées_ who at this
+moment were depositing their shawls and parasols with the porters. The
+clock was on the stroke of eleven, when the gambling-room would be open,
+and the amusement was too rich in its nature to allow of the loss of
+even a few minutes. But this gentleman was not an _habitué_, nor was he
+known even by name to any of the small crowd that was then assembled.
+But it was known to many of them that he had had a great "turn of luck"
+on the preceding day, and had walked off from the "rouge-et-noir" table
+with four or five hundred pounds.
+
+The weather was still so hot that but few Englishmen were there, and the
+play had not as yet begun to run high. There were only two or three,--men
+who cannot keep their hands from ruin when ruin is open to them. To them
+heat and cold, the dog-star or twenty degrees below zero, make no
+difference while the croupier is there, with his rouleaux before him,
+capable of turning up the card. They know that the chance is against
+them,--one in twenty, let us say,--and that in the long-run one in twenty
+is as good as two to one to effect their ruin. For a day they may stand
+against one in twenty, as this man had done. For two or three days, for
+a week, they may possibly do so; but they know that the doom must come
+at last,--as it does come invariably,--and they go on. But our friend, the
+Englishman who had won the money, was not such a one as these, at any
+rate in regard to Monaco. Yesterday had been his first appearance, and
+he had broken ground there with great success. He was an ill-looking
+person, poorly clad,--what, in common parlance, we should call seedy. He
+had not a scrap of beard on his face, and though swarthy and dark as to
+his countenance, was light as to his hair, which hung in quantities down
+his back. He was dressed from head to foot in a suit of cross-barred,
+light-colored tweed, of which he wore the coat buttoned tight over his
+chest, as though to hide some deficiency of linen.
+
+The gentleman was altogether a disreputable-looking personage, and they
+who had seen him win his money,--Frenchmen and Italians for the most
+part,--had declared among themselves that his luck had been most
+miraculous. It was observed that he had a companion with him, who stuck
+close to his elbow, and it was asserted that this companion continually
+urged him to leave the room. But as long as the croupier remained at the
+table he remained, and continued to play through the day with almost
+invariable luck. It was surmised among the gamblers there that he had
+not entered the room with above twenty or thirty pieces in his pocket,
+and that he had taken away with him, when the place was closed, six
+hundred napoleons. "Look there; he has come again to give it all back to
+Madame Blanc, with interest," said a Frenchman to an Italian.
+
+"Yes; and he will end by blowing his brains out within a week. He is
+just the man to do it."
+
+"These Englishmen always rush at their fate like mad bulls," said the
+Frenchman. "They get less distraction for their money than any one."
+
+"Che va piano va sano," said the Italian, jingling the four napoleons in
+his pocket, which had been six on yesterday morning. Then they sauntered
+up to the Englishman, and both of them touched their hats to him. The
+Englishman just acknowledged the compliment, and walked off with his
+companion, who was still whispering something into his ear.
+
+"It is a gendarme who is with him, I think," said the Frenchman, "only
+the man does not walk erect."
+
+Who does not know the outside hall of the magnificent gambling-house at
+Monte Carlo, with all the golden splendor of its music-room within? Who
+does not know the lofty roof and lounging seats, with its luxuries of
+liveried servants, its wealth of newspapers, and every appanage of
+costly comfort which can be added to it? And its music within,--who does
+not know that there are to be heard sounds in a greater perfection of
+orchestral melody than are to be procured by money and trouble combined
+in the great capitals of Europe? Think of the trouble endured by those
+unhappy fathers of families who indulge their wives and daughters at the
+Philharmonic and St. James's Hall! Think of the horrors of our theatres,
+with their hot gas, and narrow passages, and difficulties of entrance,
+and almost impossibility of escape! And for all this money has to be
+paid,--high prices,--and the day has to be fixed long beforehand, so that
+the tickets may be secured, and the daily feast,--papa's too often
+solitary enjoyment,--has to be turned into a painful early fast. And when
+at last the thing has been done, and the torment endured, the sounds
+heard have not always been good of their kind, for the money has not
+sufficed to purchase the aid of a crowd of the best musicians. But at
+Monte Carlo you walk in with your wife in her morning costume, and
+seating yourself luxuriously in one of those soft stalls which are there
+prepared for you, you give yourself up with perfect ease to absolute
+enjoyment. For two hours the concert lasts, and all around is perfection
+and gilding. There is nothing to annoy the most fastidious taste. You
+have not heated yourself with fighting your way up crowded stairs; no
+box-keeper has asked you for a shilling. No link-boy has dunned you
+because he stood useless for a moment at the door of your carriage. No
+panic has seized you, and still oppresses you, because of the narrow
+dimensions in which you have to seat yourself for the next three hours.
+There are no twenty minutes during which you are doomed to sit in
+miserable expectation. Exactly at the hour named the music begins, and
+for two hours it is your own fault if you be not happy. A
+railway-carriage has brought you to steps leading up to the garden in
+which these princely halls are built, and when the music is over will
+again take you home. Nothing can be more perfect than the concert-room
+at Monte Carlo, and nothing more charming; and for all this there is
+nothing whatever to pay.
+
+But by whom;--out of whose pocket are all these good things provided?
+They tell you at Monte Carlo that from time to time are to be seen men
+walking off in the dark of the night or the gloom of the evening, or,
+for the matter of that, in the broad light of day, if the stern
+necessity of the hour require it, with a burden among them, to be
+deposited where it may not be seen or heard of any more. They are
+carrying away "all that mortal remains" of one of the gentlemen who have
+paid for your musical entertainment. He has given his all for the
+purpose, and has then--blown his brains out. It is one of the
+disagreeable incidents to which the otherwise extremely pleasant
+money-making operations of the establishment are liable. Such accidents
+will happen. A gambling-house, the keeper of which is able to maintain
+the royal expense of the neighboring court out of his winnings and also
+to keep open for those who are not ashamed to accept it,--gratis, all
+for love,--a concert-room brilliant with gold, filled with the best
+performers whom the world can furnish, and comfortable beyond all
+opera-houses known to men must be liable to a few such misfortunes. Who
+is not ashamed to accept, I have said, having lately been there and
+thoroughly enjoyed myself? But I did not put myself in the way of having
+to cut my throat, on which account I felt, as I came out, that I had
+been somewhat shabby. I was ashamed in that I had not put a few
+napoleons down on the table. Conscience had prevented me, and a wish to
+keep my money. But should not conscience have kept me away from all that
+happiness for which I had not paid? I had not thought of it before I
+went to Monte Carlo, but I am inclined now to advise others to stay
+away, or else to put down half a napoleon, at any rate, as the price of
+a ticket. The place is not overcrowded, because the conscience of many
+is keener than was mine.
+
+We ought to be grateful to the august sovereign of Monaco in that he
+enabled an enterprising individual to keep open for us in so brilliant a
+fashion the last public gambling-house in Europe. The principality is
+but large enough to contain the court of the sovereign which is held in
+the little town of Monaco, and the establishment of the last of
+legitimate gamblers which is maintained at Monte Carlo. If the report of
+the world does not malign the prince, he lives, as does the gambler, out
+of the spoil taken from the gamblers. He is to be seen in his royal
+carriage going forth with his royal consort,--and very royal he looks!
+His little teacup of a kingdom,--or rather a roll of French bread, for it
+is crusty and picturesque,--is now surrounded by France. There is Nice
+away to the west, and Mentone to the east, and the whole kingdom lies
+within the compass of a walk. Mentone, in France, at any rate, is within
+five miles of the monarch's residence. How happy it is that there should
+be so blessed a spot left in tranquillity on the earth's surface!
+
+But on the present occasion Monte Carlo was not in all its grandeur,
+because of the heat of the weather. Another month, and English lords,
+and English members of Parliament, and English barristers would be
+there,--all men, for instance, who could afford to be indifferent as to
+their character for a month,--and the place would be quite alive with
+music, cards, and dice. At present men of business only flocked to its
+halls, eagerly intent on making money, though, alas! almost all doomed
+to lose it. But our one friend with the long light locks was impatient
+for the fray. The gambling-room had now been opened, and the servants
+of the table, less impatient than he, were slowly arranging their money
+and their cards. Our friend had taken his seat, and was already
+resolving, with his eyes fixed on the table, where he would make his
+first plunge. In his right hand was a bag of gold, and under his left
+hand were hidden the twelve napoleons with which he intended to
+commence. On yesterday he had gone through his day's work by twelve,
+though on one or two occasions he had plunged deeply. It had seemed to
+this man as though a new heaven had been opened to him, as of late he
+had seen little of luck in this world. The surmises made as to the low
+state of his funds when he entered the room had been partly true; but
+time had been when he was able to gamble in a more costly fashion even
+than here, and to play among those who had taken his winnings and
+losings simply as a matter of course.
+
+And now the game had begun, and the twelve napoleons were duly
+deposited. Again he won his stake, an omen for the day, and was
+exultant. A second twelve and a third were put down, and on each
+occasion he won. In the silly imagination of his heart he declared to
+himself that the calculation of all chances was as nothing against his
+run of luck. Here was the spot on which it was destined that he should
+redeem all the injury which fortune had done him. And in truth this man
+had been misused by fortune. His companion whispered in his ear, but he
+heard not a word of it. He increased the twelve to fifteen, and again
+won. As he looked round there was a halo of triumph which seemed to
+illuminate his face. He had chained Chance to his chariot-wheel and
+would persevere now that the good time had come. What did he care for
+the creature at his elbow? He thought of all the good things which money
+could again purchase for him as he carefully fingered the gold for the
+next stake. He had been rich, though he was now poor; though how could a
+man be accounted poor who had an endless sum of six hundred napoleons in
+his pocket, a sum which was, in truth, endless, while it could be so
+rapidly recruited in this fashion? The next stake he also won, but as he
+raked all the pieces which the croupier pushed toward him his mind had
+become intent on another sphere and on other persons. Let him win what
+he might, his old haunts were now closed against him. What good would
+money do him, living such a life as he must now be compelled to pass? As
+he thought of this the five-and-twenty napoleons on the table were taken
+away from him almost without consciousness on his part.
+
+At that moment there came a voice in his ear,--not the voice of his
+attending friend, but one of which he accurately knew the lisping,
+fiendish sound: "Ah, Captain Scarborough, I thought it vas posshible you
+might be here. Dis ish a very nice place." Our friend looked round and
+glared at the man, and felt that it was impossible that this occupation
+should be continued under his eyes. "Yesh; it was likely. How do you
+like Monte Carlo? You have plenty of money--plenty!" The man was small,
+and oily, and black-haired, and beaky-nosed, with a perpetual smile on
+his face, unless when on special occasions he would be moved to the
+expression of deep anger. Of the modern Hebrews a most complete Hebrew;
+but a man of purpose, who never did things by halves, who could count
+upon good courage within, and who never allowed himself to be foiled by
+misadventure. He was one who, beginning with nothing, was determined to
+die a rich man, and was likely to achieve his purpose. Now there was no
+gleam of anger on his face, but a look of invincible good-humor, which
+was not, however, quite good-humor, when you came to examine it closely.
+
+"Oh, that is you, is it, Mr. Hart?"
+
+"Yesh; it is me. I have followed you. Oh, I have had quite a pleasant
+tour following you. But ven I got my noshe once on to the schent then I
+was sure it was Monte Carlo. And it ish Monte Carlo; eh, Captain
+Scarborough?"
+
+"Yes; of course it is Monte Carlo. That is to say, Monte Carlo is the
+place where we are now. I don't know what you mean by running on in that
+way." Then he drew back from the table, Mr. Hart following close behind
+him, and his attendant at a farther distance behind him. As he went he
+remembered that he had slightly increased the six hundred napoleons of
+yesterday, and that the money was still in his own possession. Not all
+the Jews in London could touch the money while he kept it in his pocket.
+
+"Who ish dat man there?" asked Mr. Hart.
+
+"What can that be to you?"
+
+"He seems to follow you pretty close."
+
+"Not so close as you do, by George; and perhaps he has something to get
+by it, which you haven't."
+
+"Come, come, come! If he have more to get than I he mush be pretty deep.
+There is Mishter Tyrrwhit. No one have more to get than I, only Mishter
+Tyrrwhit. Vy, Captain Scarborough, the little game you wash playing
+there, which wash a very pretty little game, is as nothing to my game
+wish you. When you see the money down, on the table there, it seems to
+be mush because the gold glitters, but it is as noting to my little
+game, where the gold does not glitter, because it is pen and ink. A pen
+and ink soon writes ten thousand pounds. But you think mush of it when
+you win two hundred pounds at roulette."
+
+"I think nothing of it," said our friend Captain Scarborough.
+
+"And it goes into your pocket to give champagne to the ladies, instead
+of paying your debts to the poor fellows who have supplied you for so
+long with all de money."
+
+All this occurred in the gambling-house at a distance from the table,
+but within hearing of that attendant who still followed the player.
+These moments were moments of misery to the captain in spite of the
+bank-notes for six hundred napoleons which were still in his breast
+coat-pocket. And they were not made lighter by the fact that all the
+words spoken by the Jew were overheard by the man who was supposed to be
+there in the capacity of his servant. But the man, as it seemed, had a
+mission to fulfil, and was the captain's master as well as servant. "Mr.
+Hart," said Captain Scarborough, repressing the loudness of his words as
+far as his rage would admit him, but still speaking so as to attract the
+attention of some of those round him, "I do not know what good you
+propose to yourself by following me in this manner. You have my bonds,
+which are not even payable till my father's death."
+
+"Ah, there you are very much mistaken."
+
+"And are then only payable out of the property to which I believed
+myself to be heir when the money was borrowed."
+
+"You are still de heir--de heir to Tretton. There is not a shadow of a
+doubt as to that."
+
+"I hope when the time comes," said the captain, "you'll be able to prove
+your words."
+
+"Of course we shall prove dem. Why not? Your father and your brother are
+very clever shentlemen, I think, but they will not be more clever than
+Mishter Samuel Hart. Mr. Tyrrwhit also is a clever man. Perhaps he
+understands your father's way of doing business. Perhaps it is all right
+with Mr. Tyrrwhit. It shall be all right with me too;--I swear it. When
+will you come back to London, Captain Scarborough?"
+
+Then there came an angry dispute in the gambling-room, during which Mr.
+Hart by no means strove to repress his voice. Captain Scarborough
+asserted his rights as a free agent, declaring himself capable, as far
+as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference
+to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part
+would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money--my money, which you
+must pay this minute, if I please to demand it."
+
+"You did not lend me five-and-twenty thousand pounds without security."
+
+"It is forty-five--now, at this moment."
+
+"Take it, get it; go and put it in your pocket. You have a lot of
+writings; turn then into cash at once. Take them to any other Jew in
+London and sell them. See if you can get your five-and-twenty thousand
+pounds for them,--or twenty-five thousand shillings. You certainly
+cannot get five-and-twenty pence for them here, though you had all the
+police of this royal kingdom to support you. My father says that the
+bonds I gave you are not worth the paper on which they were written. If
+you are cheated, so have I been. If he has robbed you, so has he me. But
+I have not robbed you, and you can do nothing to me."
+
+"I vill stick to you like beesvax," said Mr. Hart, while the look of
+good-humor left his countenance for a moment. "Like beesvax! You shall
+not escape me again."
+
+"You will have to follow me to Constantinople, then."
+
+"I vill follow you to the devil."
+
+"You are likely to go before me there. But for the present I am off to
+Constantinople, from whence I intend to make an extended tour to Mount
+Caucasus, and then into Thibet. I shall be very glad of your company,
+but cannot offer to pay the bill. When you and your companions have
+settled yourselves comfortably at Tretton, I shall be happy to come and
+see you there. You will have to settle the matter first with my younger
+brother, if I may make bold to call that well-born gentleman my brother
+at all. I wish you a good-morning, Mr. Hart." Upon that he walked out
+into the hall, and thence down the steps into the garden in front of the
+establishment, his own attendant following him.
+
+Mr. Hart also followed him, but did not immediately seek to renew the
+conversation. If he meant to show any sign of keeping his threat and of
+sticking to the captain like beeswax, he must show his purpose at once.
+The captain for a time walked round the little enclosure in earnest
+conversation with the attendant, and Mr. Hart stood on the steps
+watching them. Play was over, at any rate for that day, as far as the
+captain was concerned.
+
+"Now, Captain Scarborough, don't you think you've been very rash?" said
+the attendant.
+
+"I think I've got six hundred and fifty napoleons in my pocket, instead
+of waiting to get them in driblets from my brother."
+
+"But if he knew that you had come here he would withdraw them
+altogether. Of course, he will know now. That man will be sure to tell
+him. He will let all London know. Of course, it would be so when you
+came to a place of such common resort as Monte Carlo."
+
+"Common resort! Do you believe he came here as to a place of common
+resort? Do you think that he had not tracked me out, and would not have
+done so, whether I had gone to Melbourne, or New York, or St.
+Petersburg? But the wonder is that he should spend his money in such a
+vain pursuit."
+
+"Ah, captain, you do not know what is vain and what is not. It is your
+brother's pleasure that you should be kept in the dark for a time."
+
+"Hang my brother's pleasure! Why am I to follow my brother's pleasure?"
+
+"Because he will allow you an income. He will keep a coat on your back
+and a hat on your head, and supply meat and wine for your needs." Here
+Captain Scarborough jingled the loose napoleons in his trousers pocket.
+"Oh, yes, that is all very well but it will not last forever. Indeed, it
+will not last for a week unless you leave Monte Carlo."
+
+"I shall leave it this afternoon by the train for Genoa."
+
+"And where shall you go then?"
+
+"You heard me suggest to Mr. Hart to the devil,--or else Constantinople,
+and after that to Thibet. I suppose I shall still enjoy the pleasure of
+your company?"
+
+"Mr. Augustus wishes that I should remain with you, and, as you yourself
+say, perhaps it will be best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S SUCCESS.
+
+
+Harry Annesley, a day or two after he had left Tretton, went down to
+Cheltenham; for he had received an invitation to a dance there, and with
+the invitation an intimation that Florence Mountjoy was to be at the
+dance. If I were to declare that the dance had been given and Florence
+asked to it merely as an act of friendship to Harry, it would perhaps be
+thought that modern friendship is seldom carried to so great a length.
+But it was undoubtedly the fact that Mrs. Armitage, who gave the dance,
+was a great friend and admirer of Harry's, and that Mr. Armitage was an
+especial chum. Let not, however, any reader suppose that Florence was in
+the secret. Mrs. Armitage had thought it best to keep her in the dark as
+to the person asked to meet her. "As to my going to Montpelier Place,"
+Harry had once said to Mrs. Armitage, "I might as well knock at a
+prison-door." Mrs. Mountjoy lived in Montpelier Place.
+
+"I think we could perhaps manage that for you," Mrs. Armitage had
+replied, and she had managed it.
+
+"Is she coming?" Harry said to Mrs. Armitage, in an anxious whisper, as
+he entered the room.
+
+"She has been here this half-hour,--if you had taken the trouble to leave
+your cigars and come and meet her."
+
+"She has not gone?" said Harry, almost awe-struck at the idea.
+
+"No; she is sitting like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, in
+the room inside. She has got horrible news to tell you."
+
+"Oh, heavens! What news?"
+
+"I suppose she will tell you, though she has not been communicative to
+me in regard to your royal highness. The news is simply that her mother
+is going to take her to Brussels, and that she is to live for a while
+amid the ambassadorial splendors with Sir Magnus and his wife."
+
+By retiring from the world Mrs. Mountjoy had not intended to include
+such slight social relaxations as Mrs. Armitage's party, for Harry on
+turning round encountered her talking to another Cheltenham lady. He
+greeted her with his pleasantest smile, to which Mrs. Mountjoy did not
+respond quite so sweetly. She had ever greatly feared Harry Annesley,
+and had to-day heard a story very much, as she thought, to his
+discredit. "Is your daughter here?" asked Harry, with well-trained
+hypocrisy. Mrs. Mountjoy could not but acknowledge that Florence was in
+the room, and then Harry passed on in pursuit of his quarry.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Annesley, when did you come to Cheltenham?"
+
+"As soon as I heard that Mrs. Armitage was going to have a party I began
+to think of coming immediately." Then an idea for the first time shot
+through Florence's mind--that her friend Mrs. Armitage was a woman
+devoted to intrigue. "What dance have you disengaged? I have something
+that I must tell you to-night. You don't mean to say that you will not
+give me one dance?" This was merely a lover's anxious doubt on his
+part, because Florence had not at once replied to him. "I am told that
+you are going away to Brussels."
+
+"Mamma is going on a visit to her brother-in-law."
+
+"And you with her?"
+
+"Of course I shall go with mamma." All this had been said apart, while a
+fair-haired, lackadaisical young gentleman was standing twiddling his
+thumbs waiting to dance with Florence. At last the little book from her
+waist was brought forth, and Harry's name was duly inscribed. The next
+dance was a quadrille, and he saw that the space after that was also
+vacant; so he boldly wrote down his name for both. I almost think that
+Florence must have suspected that Harry Annesley was to be there that
+night, or why should the two places have been kept vacant? "And now what
+is this," he began, "about your going to Brussels?"
+
+"Mamma's brother is minister there, and we are just going on a visit."
+
+"But why now? I am sure there is some especial cause." Florence would
+not say that there was no especial cause, so she could only repeat her
+assertion that they certainly were going to Brussels. She herself was
+well aware that she was to be taken out of Harry's way, and that
+something was expected to occur during this short month of her absence
+which might be detrimental to him,--and to her also. But this she could
+not tell, nor did she like to say that the plea given by her mother was
+the general state of the Scarborough affairs. She did not wish to
+declare to this lover that that other lover was as nothing to her. "And
+how long are you to be away?" asked Harry.
+
+"We shall be a month with Sir Magnus; but mamma is talking of going on
+afterward to the Italian lakes."
+
+"Good heavens! you will not be back, I suppose, till ever so much after
+Christmas?"
+
+"I cannot tell. Nothing as yet has been settled. I do not know that I
+ought to tell you anything about it." Harry at this moment looked up,
+and caught the eye of Mrs. Mountjoy, as she was standing in the door-way
+opposite. Mrs. Mountjoy certainly looked as though no special
+communication as to Florence's future movements ought to be made to
+Harry Annesley.
+
+Then, however, it came to his turn to dance, and he had a moment allowed
+to him to collect his thoughts. By nothing that he could do or say could
+he prevent her going, and he could only use the present moment to the
+best purpose in his power. He bethought himself then that he had never
+received from her a word of encouragement, and that such word, if ever
+to be spoken, should be forthcoming that night. What might not happen to
+a girl who was passing the balmy Christmas months amid the sweet shadows
+of an Italian lake? Harry's ideas of an Italian lake were, in truth, at
+present somewhat vague. But future months were, to his thinking,
+interminable; the present moment only was his own. The dance was now
+finished. "Come and take a walk," said Harry.
+
+"I think I will go to mamma." Florence had seen her mother's eye fixed
+upon her.
+
+"Oh, come, that won't do at all," said Harry, who had already got her
+hand within his arm. "A fellow is always entitled to five minutes, and
+then I am down for the next waltz."
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"But I am, and you can't get out of it now. Oh, Florence, will you
+answer me a question,--one question? I asked it you before, and you did
+not vouchsafe me any answer."
+
+"You asked me no question," said Florence, who remembered to the last
+syllable every word that had been said to her on that occasion.
+
+"Did I not? I am sure you knew what it was that I intended to ask."
+Florence could not but think that this was quite another thing. "Oh,
+Florence, can you love me?" Had she given her ears for it she could not
+have told him the truth then, on the spur of the moment. Her mother's
+eye was, she knew, watching her through the door-way all the way across
+from the other room. And yet, had her mother asked her, she would have
+answered boldly that she did love Harry Annesley, and intended to love
+him for ever and ever with all her heart. And she would have gone
+farther if cross-questioned, and have declared that she regarded him
+already as her lord and master. But now she had not a word to say to
+him. All she knew was that he had now pledged himself to her, and that
+she intended to keep him to his pledge. "May I not have one word," he
+said,--"one word?"
+
+What could he want with a word more? thought Florence. Her silence now
+was as good as any speech. But as he did want more she would, after her
+own way, reply to him. So there came upon his arm the slightest possible
+sense of pressure from those sweet fingers, and Harry Annesley was on a
+sudden carried up among azure-tinted clouds into the farthest heaven of
+happiness. After a moment he stood still, and passed his fingers through
+his hair and waved his head as a god might do it. She had now made to
+him a solemn promise than which no words could be more binding. "Oh,
+Florence," he exclaimed, "I must have you alone with me for one moment."
+For what could he want her alone for any moment? thought Florence. There
+was her mother still looking at them; but for her Harry did not now care
+one straw. Nor did he hate those bright Italian lakes with nearly so
+strong a feeling of abhorrence. "Florence, you are now all my own."
+There came another slightest pressure, slight, but so eloquent from
+those fingers.
+
+"I hate dancing. How is a fellow to dance now? I shall run against
+everybody. I can see no one. I should be sure to make a fool of myself.
+No, I don't want to dance even with you. No, certainly not!--let you
+dance with somebody else, and you engaged to me! Well, if I must, of
+course I must. I declare, Florence, you have not spoken a single word to
+me, though there is so much that you must have to say. What have you got
+to say? What a question to ask! You must tell me. Oh, you know what you
+have got to tell me! The sound of it will be the sweetest music that a
+man can possibly hear."
+
+"You knew it all, Harry," she whispered.
+
+"But I want to hear it. Oh, Florence, Florence, I do not think you can
+understand how completely I am beyond myself with joy. I cannot dance
+again, and will not. Oh, my wife, my wife!"
+
+"Hush!" said Florence, afraid that the very walls might hear the sound
+of Harry's words.
+
+"What does it signify though all the world knew it?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"That I should have been so fortunate! That is what I cannot understand.
+Poor Mountjoy! I do feel for him. That he should have had the start of
+me so long, and have done nothing!"
+
+"Nothing," whispered Florence.
+
+"And I have done everything. I am so proud of myself that I think I must
+look almost like a hero."
+
+They had now got to the extremity of the room near an open window, and
+Florence found that she was able to say one word. "You are my hero." The
+sound of this nearly drove him mad with joy. He forgot all his troubles.
+Prodgers, the policeman, Augustus Scarborough, and that fellow whom he
+hated so much, Septimus Jones;--what were they all to him now? He had set
+his mind upon one thing of value, and he had got it. Florence had
+promised to be his, and he was sure that she would never break her word
+to him. But he felt that for the full enjoyment of his triumph he must
+be alone somewhere with Florence for five minutes. He had not actually
+explained to himself why, but he knew that he wished to be alone with
+her. At present there was no prospect of any such five minutes, but he
+must say something in preparation for some future five minutes at a time
+to come. Perhaps it might be to-morrow, though he did not at present see
+how that might be possible, for Mrs. Mountjoy, he knew, would shut her
+door against him. And Mrs. Mountjoy was already prowling round the room
+after her daughter. Harry saw her as he got Florence to an opposite
+door, and there for the moment escaped with her. "And now," he said,
+"how am I to manage to see you before you go to Brussels?"
+
+"I do not know that you can see me."
+
+"Do you mean that you are to be shut up, and that I am not to be allowed
+to approach you?"
+
+"I do mean it. Mamma is, of course, attached to her nephew."
+
+"What, after all that has passed?"
+
+"Why not? Is he to blame for what his father has done?" Harry felt that
+he could not press the case against Captain Scarborough without some
+want of generosity. And though he had told Florence once about that
+dreadful midnight meeting, he could say nothing farther on that subject.
+"Of course mamma thinks that I am foolish."
+
+"But why?" he asked.
+
+"Because she doesn't see with my eyes, Harry. We need not say anything
+more about it at present. It is so; and therefore I am to go to
+Brussels. You have made this opportunity for yourself before I start.
+Perhaps I have been foolish to be taken off my guard."
+
+"Don't say that, Florence."
+
+"I shall think so, unless you can be discreet. Harry, you will have to
+wait. You will remember that we must wait; but I shall not change."
+
+"Nor I,--nor I."
+
+"I think not, because I trust you. Here is mamma, and now I must leave
+you. But I shall tell mamma everything before I go to bed." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy came up and took Florence away, with a few words of most
+disdainful greeting to Harry Annesley.
+
+When Florence was gone Harry felt that as the sun and the moon and the
+stars had all set, and as absolute darkness reigned through the rooms,
+he might as well escape into the street, where there was no one but the
+police to watch him, as he threw his hat up into the air in his
+exultation. But before he did so he had to pass by Mrs. Armitage and
+thank her for all her kindness; for he was aware how much she had done
+for him in his present circumstances. "Oh, Mrs. Armitage, I am so
+obliged to you! no fellow was ever so obliged to a friend before."
+
+"How has it gone off? For Mrs. Mountjoy has taken Florence home."
+
+"Oh yes, she has taken her away. But she hasn't shut the stable-door
+till the steed has been stolen."
+
+"Oh, the steed has been stolen?"
+
+"Yes, I think so; I do think so."
+
+"And that poor man who has disappeared is nowhere."
+
+"Men who disappear never are anywhere. But I do flatter myself that if
+he had held his ground and kept his property the result would have been
+the same."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"Don't suppose, Mrs. Armitage, that I am taking any pride to myself. Why
+on earth Florence should have taken a fancy to such a fellow as I am I
+cannot imagine."
+
+"Oh no; not in the least."
+
+"It's all very well for you to laugh, Mrs. Armitage, but as I have
+thought of it all I have sometimes been in despair."
+
+"But now you are not in despair."
+
+"No, indeed; just now I am triumphant. I have thought so often that I
+was a fool to love her, because everything was so much against me."
+
+"I have wondered that you continued. It always seemed to me that there
+wasn't a ghost of a chance for you. Mr. Armitage bade me give it all up,
+because he was sure you would never do any good."
+
+"I don't care how much you laugh at me, Mrs. Armitage."
+
+"Let those laugh who win." Then he rushed out into the Paragon, and
+absolutely did throw his hat up in the air in his triumph.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MRS. MOUNTJOY'S ANGER.
+
+
+Florence, as she went home in the fly with her mother after the party at
+which Harry had spoken to her so openly, did not find the little journey
+very happy. Mrs. Mountjoy was a woman endowed with a strong power of
+wishing rather than of willing, of desiring rather than of contriving;
+but she was one who could make herself very unpleasant when she was
+thwarted. Her daughter was now at last fully determined that if she ever
+married anybody, that person should be Harry Annesley. Having once
+pressed his arm in token of assent, she had as it were given herself
+away to him, so that no reasoning, no expostulations could, she thought,
+change her purpose; and she had much more power of bringing about her
+purposed design than had her mother. But her mother could be obstinate
+and self-willed, and would for the time make herself disagreeable.
+Florence had assured her lover that everything should be told her mother
+that night before she went to bed. But Mrs. Mountjoy did not wait to be
+simply told. No sooner were they seated in the fly together than she
+began to make her inquiries. "What has that man been saying to you?" she
+demanded.
+
+Florence was at once offended by hearing her lover so spoken of, and
+could not simply tell the story of Harry's successful courtship, as she
+had intended. "Mamma," she said "why do you speak of him like that?"
+
+"Because he is a scamp."
+
+"No, he is no scamp. It is very unkind of you to speak in such terms of
+one whom you know is very dear to me."
+
+"I do not know it. He ought not to be dear to you at all. You have been
+for years intended for another purpose." This was intolerable to
+Florence,--this idea that she should have been considered as capable of
+being intended for the purposes of other people! And a resolution at
+once was formed in her mind that she would let her mother know that such
+intentions were futile. But for the moment she sat silent. A journey
+home at twelve o'clock at night in a fly was not the time for the
+expression of her resolution. "I say he is a scamp," said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+"During all these inquiries that have been made after your cousin he has
+known all about it."
+
+"He has not known all about it," said Florence.
+
+"You contradict me in a very impertinent manner, and cannot be
+acquainted with the circumstances. The last person who saw your cousin
+in London was Mr. Henry Annesley, and yet he has not said a word about
+it, while search was being made on all sides. And he saw him under
+circumstances most suspicious in their nature; so suspicious as to have
+made the police arrest him if they were aware of them. He had at that
+moment grossly insulted Captain Scarborough."
+
+"No, mamma; no, it was not so."
+
+"How do you know? how can you tell?"
+
+"I do know; and I can tell. The ill-usage had come from the other side."
+
+"Then you, too, have known the secret, and have said nothing about it?
+You, too, have been aware of the violence which took place at that
+midnight meeting? You have been aware of what befell your cousin, the
+man to whom you were all but engaged. And you have held your tongue at
+the instigation, no doubt, of Mr. Henry Annesley. Oh, Florence, you also
+will find yourself in the hands of the policeman!" At this moment the
+fly drew up at the door of the house in Montpelier Place, and the two
+ladies had to get out and walk up the steps into the hall, where they
+were congratulated on their early return from the party by the
+lady's-maid.
+
+"Mamma, I will go to bed," said Florence, as soon as she reached her
+mother's room.
+
+"I think you had better, my dear, though Heaven knows what disturbances
+there may be during the night." By this Mrs. Mountjoy had intended to
+imply that Prodgers, the policeman, might probably lose not a moment
+more before he would at once proceed to arrest Miss Mountjoy for the
+steps she had taken in regard to the disappearance of Captain
+Scarborough.
+
+She had heard from Harry Annesley the fact that he had been brutally
+attacked by the captain in the middle of the night in the streets of
+London; and for this, in accordance with her mother's theory, she was to
+be dragged out of bed by a constable, and that, probably, before the
+next morning should have come. There was something in this so ludicrous
+as regarded the truth of the story, and yet so cruel as coming from her
+mother, that Florence hardly knew whether to cry or laugh as she laid
+her head upon the pillow.
+
+But in the morning, as she was thinking that the facts of her own
+position had still to be explained to her mother,--that it would be
+necessary that she should declare her purpose and the impossibility of
+change, now that she had once pledged herself to her lover,--Mrs.
+Mountjoy came into the room, and stood at her bedside, with that
+appearance of ghostly displeasure which always belongs to an angry old
+lady in a night-cap.
+
+"Well, mamma?"
+
+"Florence, there must be an understanding between us."
+
+"I hope so. I thought there always had been. I am sure, mamma, you have
+known that I have never liked Captain Scarborough so as to become his
+wife, and I think you have known that I have liked Harry Annesley."
+
+"Likings are all fiddlesticks!"
+
+"No, mamma; or, if you object to the word, I will say love. You have
+known that I have not loved my cousin, and that I have loved this other
+man. That is not nonsense; that at any rate is a stern reality, if there
+be anything real in the world."
+
+"Stern! you may well call it stern."
+
+"I mean unbending, strong, not to be overcome by outside circumstances.
+If Mr. Annesley had not spoken to me as he did last night,--could never
+have so spoken to me,--I should have been a miserable girl, but my love
+for him would have been just as stern. I should have remained and
+thought of it, and have been unhappy through my whole life. But he has
+spoken, and I am exultant. That is what I mean by stern. All that is
+most important, at any rate to me."
+
+"I am here now to tell you that it is impossible."
+
+"Very well, mamma. Then things must go on, and we must bide our time."
+
+"It is proper that I should tell you that he has disgraced himself."
+
+"Never! I will not admit it. You do not know the circumstances,"
+exclaimed Florence.
+
+"It is most impertinent in you to pretend that you know them better than
+I do," said her mother, indignantly.
+
+"The story was told to me by himself."
+
+"Yes; and therefore told untruly."
+
+"I grieve that you should think so of him, mamma; but I cannot help it.
+Where you have got your information I cannot tell. But that mine has
+been accurately told to me I feel certain."
+
+"At any rate, my duty is to look after you and to keep you from harm. I
+can only do my duty to the best of my ability. Mr. Annesley is, to my
+thinking, a most objectionable young man, and he will, I believe, be in
+the hands of the police before long. Evidence will have to be given, in
+which your name will, unfortunately, be mentioned."
+
+"Why my name?"
+
+"It is not probable that he will keep it a secret, when
+cross-questioned, as to his having divulged the story to some one. He
+will declare that he has told it to you. When that time shall come it
+will be well that we should be out of the country. I propose to start
+from here on this day week."
+
+"Uncle Magnus will not be able to have us then."
+
+"We must loiter away our time on the road. I look upon it as quite
+imperative that we shall both be out of England within eight days' time
+of this."
+
+"But where will you go?"
+
+"Never mind. I do not know that I have as yet quite made up my mind. But
+you may understand that we shall start from Cheltenham this day week.
+Baker will go with us, and I shall leave the other two servants in
+charge of the house. I cannot tell you anything farther as yet,--except
+that I will never consent to your marriage with Mr. Henry Annesley. You
+had better know that for certain, and then there will be less cause for
+unhappiness between us." So saying, the angry ghost with the night-cap
+on stalked out of the room.
+
+It need hardly be explained that Mrs. Mountjoy's information respecting
+the scene in London had come to her from Augustus Scarborough. When he
+told her that Annesley had been the last in London to see his brother
+Mountjoy, and had described the nature of the scene that had occurred
+between them, he had no doubt forgotten that he himself had subsequently
+seen his brother. In the story, as he had told it, there was no need to
+mention himself,--no necessity for such a character in making up the
+tragedy of that night. No doubt, according to his idea, the two had been
+alone together. Harry had struck the blow by which his brother had been
+injured, and had then left him in the street. Mountjoy had subsequently
+disappeared, and Harry had told to no one that such an encounter had
+taken place. This had been the meaning of Augustus Scarborough when he
+informed his aunt that Harry had been the last who had seen Mountjoy
+before his disappearance. To Mrs. Mountjoy the fact had been most
+injurious to Harry's character. Harry had wilfully kept the secret while
+all the world was at work looking for Mountjoy Scarborough; and, as far
+as Mrs. Mountjoy could understand, it might well be that Harry had
+struck the fatal blow that had sent her nephew to his long account. All
+the impossibilities in the case had not dawned upon her. It had not
+occurred to her that Mountjoy could not have been killed and his body
+made away with without some great effort, in the performance of which
+the "scamp" would hardly have risked his life or his character. But the
+scamp was certainly a scamp, even though he might not be a murderer, or
+he would have revealed the secret. In fact, Mrs. Mountjoy believed in
+the matter exactly what Augustus had intended, and, so believing, had
+resolved that her daughter should suffer any purgatory rather than
+become Harry's wife.
+
+But her daughter made her resolutions exactly in the contrary direction.
+She in truth did know what had been done on that night, while her mother
+was in ignorance. The extent of her mother's ignorance she understood,
+but she did not at all know where her mother had got her information.
+She felt that Harry's secret was in hands other than he had intended,
+and that some one must have spoken of the scene. It occurred to Florence
+at the moment that this must have come from Mountjoy himself, whom she
+believed,--and rightly believed,--to have been the only second person
+present on the occasion. And if he had told it to any one, then must
+that "any one" know where and how he had disappeared. And the
+information must have been given to her mother solely with the view of
+damaging Harry's character, and of preventing Harry's marriage.
+
+Thinking of all this, Florence felt that a premeditated and foul
+attempt,--for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be
+very foul,--was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was
+brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the
+truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It
+should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once,
+and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An
+attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made
+it had not known her character. She was sure of herself now, within her
+own bosom, that she was bound in a peculiar way to be more than
+ordinarily true to Harry Annesley. In such an emergency she ought to do
+for Harry Annesley more than a girl in common circumstances would be
+justified in doing for her lover. Harry was maligned, ill-used, and
+slandered. Her mother had been induced to call him a scamp, and to give
+as her reason for doing so an account of a transaction which was
+altogether false, though she no doubt had believed it to be true.
+
+As she thought of all this she resolved that it was her duty to write to
+her lover, and tell him the story as she had heard it. It might be most
+necessary that he should know the truth. She would write her letter and
+post it,--so that it should be altogether beyond her mother's
+control,--and then would tell her mother that she had written it. She at
+first thought that she would keep a copy of the letter and show it to
+her mother. But when it was written,--those first words intended for a
+lover's eyes which had ever been produced by her pen,--she found that she
+could not subject those very words to her mother's hard judgment.
+
+Her letter was as follows:
+
+"DEAR HARRY,--You will be much surprised at receiving a letter from me
+so soon after our meeting last night. But I warn you that you must not
+take it amiss. I should not write now were it not that I think it may be
+for your interest that I should do so. I do not write to say a word
+about my love, of which I think you may be assured without any letter. I
+told mamma last night what had occurred between us, and she of course
+was very angry. You will understand that, knowing how anxious she has
+been on behalf of my cousin Mountjoy. She has always taken his part, and
+I think it does mamma great honor not to throw him over now that he is
+in trouble. I should never have thrown him over in his trouble, had I
+ever cared for him in that way. I tell you that fairly, Master Harry.
+
+"But mamma, in speaking against you, which she was bound to do in
+supporting poor Mountjoy, declared that you were the last person who had
+seen my cousin before his disappearance, and she knew that there had
+been some violent struggle between you. Indeed, she knew all the truth
+as to that night, except that the attack had been made by Mountjoy on
+you. She turned the story all round, declaring that you had attacked
+him,--which, as you perceive, gives a totally different appearance to the
+whole matter. Somebody has told her,--though who it may have been I
+cannot guess,--but somebody has been endeavoring to do you all the
+mischief he can in the matter, and has made mamma think evil of you. She
+says that after attacking him, and brutally ill-using him, you had left
+him in the street, and had subsequently denied all knowledge of having
+seen him. You will perceive that somebody has been at work inventing a
+story to do you a mischief, and I think it right that I should tell you.
+
+"But you must never believe that I shall believe anything to your
+discredit. It would be to my discredit now. I know that you are good,
+and true, and noble, and that you would not do anything so foul as this.
+It is because I know this that I have loved you, and shall always love
+you. Let mamma and others say what they will, you are now to me all the
+world. Oh, Harry, Harry, when I think of it, how serious it seems to me,
+and yet how joyful! I exult in you, and will do so, let them say what
+they may against you. You will be sure of that always. Will you not be
+sure of it?
+
+"But you must not write a line in answer, not even to give me your
+assurance. That must come when we shall meet at length,--say after a
+dozen years or so. I shall tell mamma of this letter, which
+circumstances seem to demand, and shall assure her that you will write
+no answer to it.
+
+"Oh, Harry, you will understand all that I might say of my feelings in
+regard to you.
+
+"Your own, FLORENCE."
+
+This letter, when she had written it and copied it fair and posted the
+copy in the pillar-box close by, she found that she could not in any way
+show absolutely to her mother. In spite of all her efforts it had become
+a love-letter. And what genuine love-letter can a girl show even to her
+mother? But she at once told her of what she had done. "Mamma, I have
+written a letter to Harry Annesley."
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes, mamma; I have thought it right to tell him what you had heard
+about that night."
+
+"And you have done this without my permission,--without even telling me
+what you were going to do?"
+
+"If I had asked you, you would have told me not."
+
+"Of course I should have told you not. Good gracious! has it come to
+this, that you correspond with a young gentleman without my leave, and
+when you know that I would not have given it?"
+
+"Mamma, in this instance it was necessary."
+
+"Who was to judge of that?"
+
+"If he is to be my husband--"
+
+"But he is not to be your husband. You are never to speak to him again.
+You shall never be allowed to meet him; you shall be taken abroad, and
+there you shall remain, and he shall hear nothing about you. If he
+attempts to correspond with you--"
+
+"He will not."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I have told him not to write."
+
+"Told him, indeed! Much he will mind such telling! I shall give your
+Uncle Magnus a full account of it all and ask for his advice. He is a
+man in a high position, and perhaps you may think fit to obey him,
+although you utterly refuse to be guided in any way by your mother."
+Then the conversation for the moment came to an end. But Florence, as
+she left her mother, assured herself that she could not promise any
+close obedience in any such matters to Sir Magnus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THEY ARRIVE IN BRUSSELS.
+
+
+For some weeks after the party at Mrs. Armitage's house, and the
+subsequent explanations with her mother, Florence was made to suffer
+many things. First came the one week before they started, which was
+perhaps the worst of all. This was specially embittered by the fact that
+Mrs. Mountjoy absolutely refused to divulge her plans as they were made.
+There was still a fortnight before she could be received at Brussels,
+and as to that fortnight she would tell nothing.
+
+Her knowledge of human nature probably went so far as to teach her that
+she could thus most torment her daughter. It was not that she wished to
+torment her in a revengeful spirit. She was quite sure within her own
+bosom that she did all in love. She was devoted to her daughter. But she
+was thwarted; and therefore told herself that she could best farther the
+girl's interests by tormenting her. It was not meditated revenge, but
+that revenge which springs up without any meditation, and is often
+therefore the most bitter. "I must bring her nose to the grindstone,"
+was the manner in which she would have probably expressed her thoughts
+to herself. Consequently Florence's nose was brought to the grindstone,
+and the operation made her miserable. She would not, however, complain
+when she had discovered what her mother was doing. She asked such
+questions as appeared to be natural, and put up with replies which
+purposely withheld all information. "Mamma, have you not settled on what
+day we shall start?" "No, my dear." "Mamma, where are we going?" "I
+cannot tell you as yet; I am by no means sure myself." "I shall be glad
+to know, mamma, what I am to pack up for use on the journey." "Just the
+same as you would do on any journey." Then Florence held her tongue, and
+consoled herself with thinking of Harry Annesley.
+
+At last the day came, and she knew that she was to be taken to Boulogne.
+Before this time she had received one letter from Harry, full of love,
+full of thanks,--just what a lover's letter ought to have been;--but yet
+she was disturbed by it. It had been delivered to herself in the usual
+way, and she might have concealed the receipt of it from her mother,
+because the servants in the house were all on her side. But this would
+not be in accordance with the conduct which she had arranged for
+herself, and she told her mother. "It is just an acknowledgment of mine
+to him. It was to have been expected, but I regret it."
+
+"I do not ask to see it," said Mrs. Mountjoy, angrily.
+
+"I could not show it you, mamma, though I think it right to tell you of
+it."
+
+"I do not ask to see it, I tell you. I never wish to hear his name again
+from your tongue. But I knew how it would be;--of course. I cannot allow
+this kind of thing to go on. It must be prevented."
+
+"It will not go on, mamma."
+
+"But it has gone on. You tell me that he has already written. Do you
+think it proper that you should correspond with a young man of whom I do
+not approve?" Florence endeavored to reflect whether she did think it
+proper or not. She thought it quite proper that she should love Harry
+Annesley with all her heart, but was not quite sure as to the
+correspondence. "At any rate, you must understand," continued Mrs.
+Mountjoy, "that I will not permit it. All letters, while we are abroad,
+must be brought to me; and if any come from him they shall be sent back
+to him. I do not wish to open his letters, but you cannot be allowed to
+receive them. When we are at Brussels I shall consult your uncle upon
+the subject. I am very sorry, Florence, that there should be this cause
+of quarrel between us; but it is your doing."
+
+"Oh, mamma, why should you be so hard?"
+
+"I am hard, because I will not allow you to accept a young man who has,
+I believe, behaved very badly, and who has got nothing of his own."
+
+"He is his uncle's heir."
+
+"We know what that may come to. Mountjoy was his father's heir; and
+nothing could be entailed more strictly than Tretton. We know what
+entails have come to there. Mr. Prosper will find some way of escaping
+from it. Entails go for nothing now; and I hear that he thinks so badly
+of his nephew that he has already quarrelled with him. And he is quite a
+young man himself. I cannot think how you can be so foolish,--you, who
+declared that you are throwing your cousin over because he is no longer
+to have all his father's property."
+
+"Oh, mamma, that is not true."
+
+"Very well, my dear."
+
+"I never allowed it to be said in my name that I was engaged to my
+cousin Mountjoy."
+
+"Very well, I will never allow it to be said in my name that with my
+consent you are engaged to Mr. Henry Annesley."
+
+Six or seven days after this they were settled together most
+uncomfortably in a hotel at Boulogne. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there
+because there was no other retreat to which she could take her daughter,
+and because she had resolved to remove her from beyond the sphere of
+Harry Annesley's presence. She had at first thought of Ostend; but it
+had seemed to her that Ostend was within the kingdom reigned over by Sir
+Magnus and that there would be some impropriety in removing from thence
+to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning. It was as though you
+were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were
+entertained at the mansion. Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial
+gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her
+being at Boulogne. And for company's sake, in the hope of maintaining
+some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also. "Mamma, he has
+not written again," said Florence, coming up one day from the stand.
+
+"I suppose that you are impatient."
+
+"Why should there be a quarrel between us? I am not impatient. If you
+would only believe me, it would be so much more happy for both of us.
+You always used to believe me."
+
+"That was before you knew Mr. Harry Annesley."
+
+There was something in this very aggravating,--something specially
+intended to excite angry feelings. But Florence determined to forbear.
+"I think you may believe me, mamma. I am your own daughter, and I shall
+not deceive you. I do consider myself engaged to Mr. Annesley."
+
+"You need not tell me that."
+
+"But while I am living with you I will promise not to receive letters
+from him without your leave. If one should come I will bring it to you,
+unopened, so that you may deal with it as though it had been delivered
+to yourself. I care nothing about my uncle as to this affair. What he
+may say cannot affect me, but what you say does affect me very much. I
+will promise neither to write nor to hear from Mr. Annesley for three
+months. Will not that satisfy you?" Mrs. Mountjoy would not say that it
+did satisfy her; but she somewhat mitigated her treatment of her
+daughter till they arrived together at Sir Magnus's mansion.
+
+They were shown through the great hall by three lackeys into an inner
+vestibule, where they encountered the great man himself. He was just
+then preparing to be put on to his horse, and Lady Mountjoy had already
+gone forth in her carriage for her daily airing, with the object, in
+truth, of avoiding the new-comers. "My dear Sarah," said Sir Magnus, "I
+hope I have the pleasure of seeing you and my niece very well. Let me
+see, your name is--"
+
+"My name is Florence," said the young lady so interrogated.
+
+"Ah yes; to be sure. I shall forget my own name soon. If any one was to
+call me Magnus without the 'Sir,' I shouldn't know whom they meant."
+Then he looked his niece in the face, and it occurred to him that
+Anderson might not improbably desire to flirt with her. Anderson was the
+riding attaché, who always accompanied him on horseback, and of whom
+Lady Mountjoy had predicted that he would be sure to flirt with the
+minister's niece. At that moment Anderson himself came in, and some
+ceremony of introduction took place. Anderson was a fair-haired,
+good-looking young man, with that thorough look of self-satisfaction and
+conceit which attachés are much more wont to exhibit than to deserve.
+For the work of an attaché at Brussels is not of a nature to bring forth
+the highest order of intellect; but the occupations are of a nature to
+make a young man feel that he is not like other young men.
+
+"I am so sorry that Lady Mountjoy has just gone out. She did not expect
+you till the later train. You have been staying at Boulogne. What on
+earth made you stay at Boulogne?"
+
+"Bathing," said Mrs. Mountjoy, in a low voice.
+
+"Ah, yes; I suppose so. Why did you not come to Ostend? There is better
+bathing there, and I could have done something for you. What! The horses
+ready, are they? I must go out and show myself, or otherwise they'll all
+think that I am dead. If I were absent from the boulevard at this time
+of day I should be put into the newspapers. Where is Mrs. Richards?"
+Then the two guests, with their own special Baker, were made over to the
+ministerial house-keeper, and Sir Magnus went forth upon his ride.
+
+"She's a pretty girl, that niece of mine," said Sir Magnus.
+
+"Uncommonly pretty," said the attaché.
+
+"But I believe she is engaged to some one. I quite forget who; but I
+know there is some aspirant. Therefore you had better keep your toe in
+your pump, young man."
+
+"I don't know that I shall keep my toe in my pump because there is
+another aspirant," said Anderson. "You rather whet my ardor, sir, to new
+exploits. In such circumstances one is inclined to think that the
+aspirant must look after himself. Not that I conceive for a moment that
+Miss Mountjoy should ever look after me."
+
+When Mrs. Mountjoy came down to the drawing-room there seemed to be
+quite "a party" collected to enjoy the hospitality of Sir Magnus, but
+there were not, in truth, many more than the usual number at the board.
+There were Lady Mountjoy, and Miss Abbot, and Mr. Anderson, with Mr.
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, the two attachés. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+especially proud of his name, but was otherwise rather a humble young
+man as an attaché, having as yet been only three months with Sir Magnus,
+and desirous of perfecting himself in Foreign Office manners under the
+tuition of Mr. Anderson. Mr. Blow, Secretary of Legation, was not there.
+He was a married man of austere manners, who, to tell the truth, looked
+down from a considerable height, as regarded Foreign Office knowledge,
+upon his chief.
+
+It was Mr. Blow who did the "grinding" on behalf of the Belgian
+Legation, and who sometimes did not hesitate to let it be known that
+such was the fact. Neither he nor Mrs. Blow was popular at the Embassy;
+or it may, perhaps, be said with more truth that the Embassy was not
+popular with Mr. and Mrs. Blow. It may be stated, also, that there was a
+clerk attached to the establishment, Mr. Bunderdown, who had been there
+for some years, and who was good-naturedly regarded by the English
+inhabitants as a third attaché. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot did his best to
+let it be understood that this was a mistake. In the small affairs of
+the legation, which no doubt did not go beyond the legation, Mr.
+Bunderdown generally sided with Mr. Blow. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+recognized as a second mounted attaché, though his attendance on the
+boulevard was not as constant as that of Mr. Anderson, in consequence,
+probably, of the fact that he had not a horse of his own. But there were
+others also present. There were Sir Thomas Tresham, with his wife, who
+had been sent over to inquire into the iron trade of Belgium. He was a
+learned free-trader who could not be got to agree with the old familiar
+views of Sir Magnus,--who thought that the more iron that was produced in
+Belgium the less would be forthcoming from England. But Sir Thomas knew
+better, and as Sir Magnus was quite unable to hold his own with the
+political economist, he gave him many dinners and was civil to his wife.
+Sir Thomas, no doubt, felt that in doing so Sir Magnus did all that
+could be expected from him. Lady Tresham was a quiet little woman, who
+could endure to be patronized by Lady Mountjoy without annoyance. And
+there was M. Grascour, from the Belgian Foreign Office, who spoke
+English so much better than the other gentlemen present that a stranger
+might have supposed him to be a school-master whose mission it was to
+instruct the English Embassy in their own language.
+
+"Oh, Mrs Mountjoy, I am so ashamed of myself!" said Lady Mountjoy, as
+she waddled into the room two minutes after the guests had been
+assembled. She had a way of waddling that was quite her own, and which
+they who knew her best declared that she had adopted in lieu of other
+graces of manner. She puffed a little also, and did contrive to attract
+peculiar attention. "But I have to be in my carriage every day at the
+same hour. I don't know what would be thought of us if we were absent."
+Then she turned, with a puff and a waddle, to Miss Abbot. "Dear Lady
+Tresham was with us." Mrs. Mountjoy murmured something as to her
+satisfaction at not having delayed the carriage-party, and bethought
+herself how exactly similar had been the excuse made by Sir Magnus
+himself. Then Lady Mountjoy gave another little puff, and assured
+Florence that she hoped she would find Brussels sufficiently gay,--"not
+that we pretend at all to equal Paris."
+
+"We live at Cheltenham," said Florence, "and that is not at all like
+Paris. Indeed, I never slept but two nights at Paris in my life."
+
+"Then we shall do very well at Brussels." After this she waddled off
+again, and was stopped in her waddling by Sir Magnus, who sternly
+desired her to prepare for the august ceremony of going in to dinner.
+The one period of real importance at the English Embassy was, no doubt,
+the daily dinner-hour.
+
+Florence found herself seated between Mr. Anderson, who had taken her
+in, and M. Grascour, who had performed the same ceremony for her
+ladyship. "I am sure you will like this little capital very much," said
+M. Grascour. "It is as much nicer than Paris as it is smaller and less
+pretentious." Florence could only assent. "You will soon be able to
+learn something of us; but in Paris you must be to the manner born, or
+half a lifetime will not suffice."
+
+"We'll put you up to the time of day," said Mr. Anderson, who did not
+choose, as he said afterward, that this tidbit should be taken out of
+his mouth.
+
+"I dare say that all that I shall want will come naturally without any
+putting up."
+
+"You won't find it amiss to know a little of what's what. You have not
+got a riding-horse here?"
+
+"Oh no," said Florence.
+
+"I was going on to say that I can manage to secure one for you.
+Billibong has got an excellent horse that carried the Princess of Styria
+last year." Mr. Anderson was supposed to be peculiarly up to everything
+concerning horses.
+
+"But I have not got a habit. That is a much more serious affair."
+
+"Well, yes. Billibong does not keep habits: I wish he did. But we can
+manage that too. There does live a habit-maker in Brussels."
+
+"Ladies' habits certainly are made in Brussels," said M. Grascour. "But
+if Miss Mountjoy does not choose to trust a Belgian tailor there is the
+railway open to her. An English habit can be sent."
+
+"Dear Lady Centaur had one sent to her only last year, when she was
+staying here," said Lady Mountjoy across her neighbor, with two little
+puffs.
+
+"I shall not at all want the habit," said Florence, "not having the
+horse, and indeed, never being accustomed to ride at all."
+
+"Do tell me what it is that you do do," said Mr. Anderson, with a
+convenient whisper, when he found that M. Grascour had fallen into
+conversation with her ladyship. "Lawn-tennis?"
+
+"I do play at lawn-tennis, though I am not wedded to it."
+
+"Billiards? I know you play billiards."
+
+"I never struck a ball in my life."
+
+"Goodness gracious, how odd! Don't you ever amuse yourself at all? Are
+they so very devotional down at Cheltenham?"
+
+"I suppose we are stupid. I don't know that I ever do especially amuse
+myself."
+
+"We must teach you;--we really must teach you. I think I may boast of
+myself that I am a good instructor in that line. Will you promise to put
+yourself into my hands?"
+
+"You will find me a most unpromising pupil."
+
+"Not in the least. I will undertake that when you leave this you shall
+be _au fait_ at everything. Leap frog is not too heavy for me and
+spillikins not too light. I am up to them all, from backgammon to a
+cotillon,--not but what I prefer the cotillon for my own taste."
+
+"Or leap-frog, perhaps," suggested Florence.
+
+"Well, yes; leap-frog used to be a good game at Gother School, and I
+don't see why we shouldn't have it back again. Ladies, of course, must
+have a costume on purpose. But I am fond of anything that requires a
+costume. Don't you like everything out of the common way? I do."
+Florence assured him that their tastes were wholly dissimilar, as she
+liked everything in the common way. "That's what I call an uncommonly
+pretty girl," he said afterward to M. Grascour, while Sir Magnus was
+talking to Sir Thomas. "What an eye!"
+
+"Yes, indeed; she is very lovely."
+
+"My word, you may say that! And such a turn of the shoulders! I don't
+say which are the best-looking, as a rule, English or Belgians, but
+there are very few of either to come up to her."
+
+"Anderson, can you tell us how many tons of steel rails they turn out at
+Liege every week? Sir Thomas asks me, just as though it were the
+simplest question in the world."
+
+"Forty million," said Anderson,--"more or less."
+
+"Twenty thousand would, perhaps, be nearer the mark," said M. Grascour;
+"but I will send him the exact amount to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MR. ANDERSON'S LOVE.
+
+
+Lady Mountjoy had certainly prophesied the truth when she said that Mr.
+Anderson would devote himself to Florence. The first week in Brussels
+passed by quietly enough. A young man can hardly declare his passion
+within a week, and Mr. Anderson's ways in that particular were well
+known. A certain amount of license was usually given to him, both by Sir
+Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and when he would become remarkable by the
+rapidity of his changes the only adverse criticism would come generally
+from Mr. Blow. "Another peerless Bird of Paradise," Mr. Blow would say.
+"If the birds were less numerous, Anderson might, perhaps, do
+something." But at the end of the week, on this occasion, even Sir
+Magnus perceived that Anderson was about to make himself peculiar.
+
+"By George!" he said one morning, when Sir Magnus had just left the
+outer office, which he had entered with the object of giving some
+instruction as to the day's ride, "take her altogether, I never saw a
+girl so fit as Miss Mountjoy." There was something very remarkable in
+this speech, as, according to his usual habit of life, Anderson would
+certainly have called her Florence, whereas his present appellation
+showed an unwonted respect.
+
+"What do you mean when you say that a young lady is fit?" said Mr. Blow.
+
+"I mean that she is right all round, which is a great deal more than can
+be said of most of them."
+
+"The divine Florence--" began Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot, struggling to
+say something funny.
+
+"Young man, you had better hold your tongue, and not talk of young
+ladies in that language."
+
+"I do believe that he is going to fall in love," said Mr. Blow.
+
+"I say that Miss Mountjoy is the fittest girl I have seen for many a
+day; and when a young puppy calls her the divine Florence, he does not
+know what he is about."
+
+"Why didn't you blow Mr. Blow up when he called her a Bird of Paradise?"
+said Montgomery Arbuthnot. "Divine Florence is not half so disrespectful
+of a young lady as Bird of Paradise. Divine Florence means divine
+Florence, but Bird of Paradise is chaff."
+
+"Mr. Blow, as a married man," said Anderson, "has a certain freedom
+allowed him. If he uses it in bad taste, the evil falls back upon his
+own head. Now, if you please, we'll change the conversation." From this
+it will be seen that Mr. Anderson had really fallen in love with Miss
+Mountjoy.
+
+But though the week had passed in a harmless way to Sir Magnus and Lady
+Mountjoy,--in a harmless way to them as regarded their niece and their
+attaché,--a certain amount of annoyance had, no doubt, been felt by
+Florence herself. Though Mr. Anderson's expressions of admiration had
+been more subdued than usual, though he had endeavored to whisper his
+love rather than to talk it out loud, still the admiration had been both
+visible and audible, and especially so to Florence herself. It was
+nothing to Sir Magnus with whom his attaché flirted. Anderson was the
+younger son of a baronet who had a sickly elder brother, and some
+fortune of his own. If he chose to marry the girl, that would be well
+for her; and if not, it would be quite well that the young people should
+amuse themselves. He expected Anderson to help to put him on his horse,
+and to ride with him at the appointed hour. He, in return, gave Anderson
+his dinner and as much wine as he chose to drink. They were both
+satisfied with each other, and Sir Magnus did not choose to interfere
+with the young man's amusements. But Florence did not like being the
+subject of a young man's love-making, and complained to her mother.
+
+Now, it had come to pass that not a word had been said as to Harry
+Annesley since the mother and daughter had reached Brussels. Mrs.
+Mountjoy had declared that she would consult her brother-in-law in that
+difficulty, but no such consultation had as yet taken place. Indeed,
+Florence would not have found her sojourn at Brussels to be unpleasant
+were it not for Mr. Anderson's unpalatable little whispers. She had
+taken them as jokes as long as she had been able to do so, but was now
+at last driven to perceive that other people would not do so. "Mamma,"
+she said, "don't you think that that Mr. Anderson is an odious young
+man?"
+
+"No, my dear, by no means. What is there odious about him? He is very
+lively; he is the second son of Sir Gregory Anderson, and has very
+comfortable means of his own."
+
+"Oh, mamma, what does that signify?"
+
+"Well, my dear, it does signify. In the first place, he is a gentleman,
+and in the next, has a right to make himself attentive to any young lady
+in your position. I don't say anything more. I am not particularly
+wedded to Mr. Anderson. If he were to come to me and ask for my
+permission to address you, I should simply refer him to yourself, by
+which I should mean to imply that if he could contrive to recommend
+himself to you I should not refuse my sanction."
+
+Then the subject for that moment dropped, but Florence was astonished to
+find that her mother could talk about it, not only without reference to
+Harry Annesley, but also without an apparent thought of Mountjoy
+Scarborough; and it was distressing to her to think that her mother
+should pretend to feel that she, her own daughter, should be free to
+receive the advances of another suitor. As she reflected it came across
+her mind that Harry was so odious that her mother would have been
+willing to accept on her behalf any suitor who presented himself, even
+though her daughter, in accepting him, should have proved herself to be
+heartless. Any alternative would have been better to her mother than
+that choice to which Florence had determined to devote her whole life.
+
+"Mamma," she said, going back to the subject on the next day, "if I am
+to stay here for three weeks longer--"
+
+"Yes, my dear, you are to stay here for three weeks longer."
+
+"Then somebody must say something to Mr. Anderson."
+
+"I do not see who can say it but you yourself. As far as I can see, he
+has not misbehaved."
+
+"I wish you would speak to my uncle."
+
+"What am I to tell him?"
+
+"That I am engaged."
+
+"He would ask me to whom, and I cannot tell him. I should then be driven
+to put the whole case in his hands, and to ask his advice. You do not
+suppose that I am going to say that you are engaged to marry that odious
+young man? All the world knows how atrociously badly he has behaved to
+your own cousin. He left him lying for dead in the street by a blow from
+his own hand; and though from that day to this nothing has been heard of
+Mountjoy, nothing is known to the police of what may have been his
+fate;--even stranger, he may have perished under the usage which he
+received, yet Mr. Annesley has not thought it right to say a word of
+what had occurred. He has not dared even to tell an inspector of police
+the events of that night. And the young man was your own cousin, to whom
+you were known to have been promised for the last two years."
+
+"No, no!" said Florence.
+
+"I say that it was so. You were promised to your cousin, Mountjoy
+Scarborough."
+
+"Not with my own consent."
+
+"All your friends,--your natural friends,--knew that it was to be so. And
+now you expect me to take by the hand this young man who has almost been
+his murderer!"
+
+"No, mamma, it is not true. You do not know the circumstances, and you
+assert things which are directly at variance with the truth."
+
+"From whom do you get your information? From the young man himself. Is
+that likely to be true? What would Sir Magnus say as to that were I to
+tell him?"
+
+"I do not know what he would say, but I do know what is the truth. And
+can you think it possible that I should now be willing to accept this
+foolish young man in order thus to put an end to my embarrassments?"
+
+Then she left her mother's room, and, retreating to her own, sat for a
+couple of hours thinking, partly in anger and partly in grief, of the
+troubles of her situation. Her mother had now, in truth, frightened her
+as to Harry's position. She did begin to see what men might say of him,
+and the way in which they might speak of his silence, though she was
+resolved to be as true to him in her faith as ever. Some exertion of
+spirit would, indeed, be necessary. She was beginning to understand in
+what way the outside world might talk of Harry Annesley, of the man to
+whom she had given herself and her whole heart. Then her mother was
+right. And as she thought of it she began to justify her mother. It was
+natural that her mother should believe the story which had been told to
+her, let it have come from where it might. There was in her mind some
+suspicion of the truth. She acknowledged a great animosity to her cousin
+Augustus, and regarded him as one of the causes of her unhappiness. But
+she knew nothing of the real facts; she did not even suspect that
+Augustus had seen his brother after Harry had dealt with him, or that he
+was responsible for his brother's absence. But she knew that she
+disliked him, and in some way she connected his name with Harry's
+misfortune.
+
+Of one thing she was certain: let them,--the Mountjoys, and Prospers, and
+the rest of the world,--think and say what they would of Harry, she would
+be true to him. She could understand that his character might be made to
+suffer, but it should not suffer in her estimation. Or rather, let it
+suffer ever so, that should not affect her love and her truth. She did
+not say this to herself. By saying it even to herself she would have
+committed some default of truth. She did not whisper it even to her own
+heart. But within her heart there was a feeling that, let Harry be right
+or wrong in what he had done, even let it be proved, to the satisfaction
+of all the world, that he had sinned grievously when he had left the man
+stunned and bleeding on the pavement,--for to such details her mother's
+story had gone,--still, to her he should be braver, more noble, more
+manly, more worthy of being loved, than was any other man. She,
+perceiving the difficulties that were in store for her, and looking
+forward to the misfortune under which Harry might be placed, declared to
+herself that he should at least have one friend who would be true to
+him.
+
+"Miss Mountjoy, I have come to you with a message from your aunt." This
+was said, three or four days after the conversation between Florence and
+her mother, by Mr. Anderson, who had contrived to follow the young lady
+into a small drawing-room after luncheon. What was the nature of the
+message it is not necessary for us to know. We may be sure that it had
+been manufactured by Mr. Anderson for the occasion. He had looked about
+and spied, and had discovered that Miss Mountjoy was alone in the little
+room. And in thus spying we consider him to have been perfectly
+justified. His business at the moment was that of making love, a
+business which is allowed to override all other considerations. Even the
+making an office copy of a report made by Mr. Blow for the signature of
+Sir Magnus might, according to our view of life, have been properly laid
+aside for such a purpose. When a young man has it in him to make love to
+a young lady, and is earnest in his intention, no duty, however
+paramount, should be held as a restraint. Such was Mr. Anderson's
+intention at the present moment; and therefore we think that he was
+justified in concocting a message from Lady Mountjoy. The business of
+love-making warrants any concoction to which the lover may resort. "But
+oh, Miss Mountjoy, I am so glad to have a moment in which I can find you
+alone!" It must be understood that the amorous young gentleman had not
+yet been acquainted with the young lady for quite a fortnight.
+
+"I was just about to go up-stairs to my mother," said Florence, rising
+to leave the room.
+
+"Oh, bother your mother! I beg her pardon and yours;--I really didn't
+mean it. There is such a lot of chaff going on in that outer room, that
+a fellow falls into the way of it whether he likes it or no."
+
+"My mother won't mind it at all; but I really must go."
+
+"Oh no. I am sure you can wait for five minutes. I don't want to keep
+you for more than five minutes. But it is so hard for a fellow to get an
+opportunity to say a few words."
+
+"What words can you want to say to me, Mr. Anderson?" This she said with
+a look of great surprise, as though utterly unable to imagine what was
+to follow.
+
+"Well, I did hope that you might have some idea of what my feelings
+are."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Haven't you, now? I suppose I am bound to believe you, though I doubt
+whether I quite do. Pray excuse me for saying this, but it is best to be
+open." Florence felt that he ought to be excused for doubting her, as
+she did know very well what was coming. "I--I--Come, then; I love you!
+If I were to go on beating about the bush for twelve months I could only
+come to the same conclusion."
+
+"Perhaps you might then have considered it better."
+
+"Not in the least. Fancy considering such a thing as that for twelve
+months before you speak of it! I couldn't do it,--not for twelve days."
+
+"So I perceive, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"Well, isn't it best to speak the truth when you're quite sure of it? If
+I were to remain dumb for three months, how should I know but what some
+one else might come in the way?"
+
+"But you can't expect that I should be so sudden?"
+
+"That's just where it is. Of course I don't. And yet girls have to be
+sudden too."
+
+"Have they?"
+
+"They're expected to be ready with their answer as soon as they're
+asked. I don't say this by way of impertinence, but merely to show that
+I have some justification. Of course, if you like to say that you must
+take a week to think of it, I am prepared for that. Only let me tell my
+own story first."
+
+"You shall tell your own story, Mr. Anderson; but I am afraid that it
+can be to no purpose."
+
+"Don't say that,--pray, don't say that,--but do let me tell it." Then he
+paused; but, as she remained silent, after a moment he resumed the
+eloquence of his appeal. "By George! Miss Mountjoy, I have been so
+struck of a heap that I do not know whether I am standing on my head or
+my heels. You have knocked me so completely off my pins that I am not at
+all like the same person. Sir Magnus himself says that he never saw such
+a difference. I only say that to show that I am quite in earnest. Now I
+am not quite like a fellow that has no business to fall in love with a
+girl. I have four hundred a year besides my place in the Foreign Office.
+And then, of course, there are chances." In this he alluded to his
+brother's failing health, of which he could not explain the details to
+Miss Mountjoy on the present occasion. "I don't mean to say that this is
+very splendid, or that it is half what I should like to lay at your
+feet. But a competence is comfortable."
+
+"Money has nothing to do with it, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"What, then? Perhaps it is that you don't like a fellow. What girls
+generally do like is devotion, and, by George, you'd have that. The very
+ground that you tread upon is sweet to me. For beauty,--I don't know how
+it is, but to my taste there is no one I ever saw at all like you. You
+fit me--well, as though you were made for me. I know that another fellow
+might say it a deal better, but no one more truly. Miss Mountjoy, I
+love you with all my heart, and I want you to be my wife. Now you've got
+it!"
+
+He had not pleaded his cause badly, and so Florence felt. That he had
+pleaded it hopelessly was a matter of course. But he had given rise to
+feelings of gentle regard rather than of anger. He had been honest, and
+had contrived to make her believe him. He did not come up to her ideal
+of what a lover should be, but he was nearer to it than Mountjoy
+Scarborough. He had touched her so closely that she determined at once
+to tell him the truth, thinking that she might best in this way put an
+end to his passion forever. "Mr. Anderson," she said, "though I have
+known it to be vain, I have thought it best to listen to you, because
+you asked it."
+
+"I am sure I am awfully obliged to you."
+
+"And I ought to thank you for the kind feeling you have expressed to me.
+Indeed, I do thank you. I believe every word you have said. It is better
+to show my confidence in your truth than to pretend to the humility of
+thinking you untrue."
+
+"It is true; it is true,--every word of it."
+
+"But I am engaged." Then it was sad to see the thorough change which
+came over the young man's face. "Of course a girl does not talk of her
+own little affairs to strangers, or I would let you have known this
+before, so as to have prevented it. But, in truth, I am engaged."
+
+"Does Sir Magnus know it, or Lady Mountjoy?"
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"Does your mother?"
+
+"Now you are taking advantage of my confidence, and pressing your
+questions too closely. But my mother does know of it. I will tell you
+more;--she does not approve of it. But it is fixed in Heaven itself. It
+may well be that I shall never be able to marry the gentleman to whom I
+allude, but most certainly I shall marry no one else. I have told you
+this because it seems to be necessary to your welfare, so that you may
+get over this passing feeling."
+
+"It is no passing feeling," said Anderson, with some tragic grandeur.
+
+"At any rate, you have now my story, and remember that it is trusted to
+you as a gentleman. I have told it you for a purpose." Then she walked
+out of the room, leaving the poor young man in temporary despair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+MR. AND MISS GREY.
+
+
+It was now the middle of October, and it may be said that from the time
+in which old Mr. Scarborough had declared his intention of showing that
+the elder of his sons had no right to the property, Mr. Grey, the
+lawyer, had been so occupied with the Scarborough affairs as to have had
+left him hardly a moment for other considerations.
+
+He had a partner, who during these four months had, in fact, carried on
+the business. One difficulty had grown out of another till Mr. Grey's
+whole time had been occupied; and all his thoughts had been filled with
+Mr. Scarborough, which is a matter of much greater moment to a man than
+the loss of his time. The question of Mountjoy Scarborough's position
+had been first submitted to him in June. October had now been reached
+and Mr. Grey had been out of town only for a fortnight, during which
+fortnight he had been occupied entirely in unravelling the mystery. He
+had at first refused altogether to have anything to do with the
+unravelling, and had desired that some other lawyer might be employed.
+But it had gradually come to pass that he had entered heart and soul
+into the case, and, with many execrations on his own part against Mr.
+Scarborough, could find a real interest in nothing else. He had begun
+his investigations with a thorough wish to discover that Mountjoy
+Scarborough was, in truth, the heir. Though he had never loved the young
+man, and, as he went on with his investigations, became aware that the
+whole property would go to the creditors should he succeed in proving
+that Mountjoy was the heir, yet for the sake of abstract honesty he was
+most anxious that it should be so. And he could not bear to think that
+he and other lawyers had been taken in by the wily craft of such a man
+as the Squire of Tretton. It went thoroughly against the grain with him
+to have to acknowledge that the estate would become the property of
+Augustus. But it was so, and he did acknowledge it. It was proved to him
+that, in spite of all the evidence which he had hitherto seen in the
+matter, the squire had not married his wife until after the birth of his
+eldest son. He did acknowledge it, and he said bravely that it must be
+so. Then there came down upon him a crowd of enemies in the guise of
+baffled creditors, all of whom believed, or professed to believe, that
+he, Mr. Grey, was in league with the squire to rob them of their rights.
+
+If it could be proved that Mountjoy had no claim to the property, then
+would it go nominally to Augustus, who according to their showing was
+also one of the confederates, and the property could thus, they said, be
+divided. Very shortly the squire would be dead, and then the
+confederates would get everything, to the utter exclusion of poor Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and poor Mr. Samuel Hart, and all the other poor creditors,
+who would thus be denuded, defrauded, and robbed by a lawyer's trick. It
+was in this spirit that Mr. Grey was attacked by Mr. Tyrrwhit and the
+others; and Mr. Grey found it very hard to bear.
+
+And then there was another matter which was also very grievous to him.
+If it were as he now stated,--if the squire had been guilty of this
+fraud,--to what punishment would he be subjected? Mountjoy was declared
+to have been innocent. Mr. Tyrrwhit, as he put the case to his own
+lawyers, laughed bitterly as he made this suggestion. And Augustus was,
+of course, innocent. Then there was renewed laughter. And Mr. Grey! Mr.
+Grey had, of course, been innocent. Then the laughter was very loud. Was
+it to be believed that anybody could be taken in by such a story as
+this? There was he, Mr. Tyrrwhit: he had ever been known as a sharp
+fellow; and Mr. Samuel Hart, who was now away on his travels, and the
+others;--they were all of them sharp fellows. Was it to be believed that
+such a set of gentlemen, so keenly alive to their own interest, should
+be made the victims of such a trick as this? Not if they knew it! Not if
+Mr. Tyrrwhit knew it!
+
+It was in this shape that the matter reached Mr. Grey's ears; and then
+it was asked, if it were so, what would be the punishment to which they
+would be subjected who had defrauded Mr. Tyrrwhit of his just claim. Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, who on one occasion made his way into Mr. Grey's presence,
+wished to get an answer to that question from Mr. Grey. "The man is
+dying," said Mr. Grey, solemnly.
+
+"Dying! He is not more likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At
+this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the
+creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there
+had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of
+almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill at all," said Mr.
+Tyrrwhit.
+
+"I cannot help your belief," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"But because a man doesn't die and recovers, is he on that account to be
+allowed to cheat people, as he has cheated me, with impunity?"
+
+"I am not going to defend Mr. Scarborough; but he has not, in fact,
+cheated you."
+
+"Who has? Come; do you mean to tell me that if this goes on I shall not
+have been defrauded of a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"Did you ever see Mr. Scarborough on the matter?"
+
+"No; it was not necessary."
+
+"Or have you got his writing to any document? Have you anything to show
+that he knew what his son was doing when he borrowed money of you? Is it
+not perfectly clear that he knew nothing about it?"
+
+"Of course he knew nothing about it then,--at that time. It was afterward
+that his fraud began. When he found that the estate was in jeopardy,
+then the falsehood was concocted."
+
+"Ah, there, Mr. Tyrrwhit, I can only say, that I disagree with you. I
+must express my opinion that if you endeavor to recover your money on
+that plea you will be beaten. If you can prove fraud of that kind, no
+doubt you can punish those who have been guilty of it,--me among the
+number."
+
+"I say nothing of that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"But if you have been led into your present difficulty by an illegal
+attempt on the part of my client to prove an illegitimate son to have
+been legitimate, and then to have changed his mind for certain purposes,
+I do not see how you are to punish him. The act will have been attempted
+and not completed. And it will have been an act concerning his son and
+not concerning you."
+
+"Not concerning me!" shrieked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Certainly not, legally. You are not in a position to prove that he knew
+that his son was borrowing money from you on the credit of the estate.
+As a fact he certainly did not know it."
+
+"We shall see about that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Then you must see about it, but not with my aid. As a fact I am telling
+you all that I know about it. If I could I would prove Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be his father's heir to-morrow. Indeed, I am altogether
+on your side in the matter,--if you would believe it." Here Mr. Tyrrwhit
+again laughed. "But you will not believe it, and I do not ask you to do
+so. As it is we must be opposed to each other."
+
+"Where is the young man?" asked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Ah, that is a question I am not bound to answer, even if I knew. It is
+a matter on which I say nothing. You have lent him money, at an
+exorbitant rate of interest."
+
+"It is not true."
+
+"At any rate it seems so to me; and it is out of the question that I
+should assist you in recovering it. You did it at your own peril, and
+not on my advice. Good-morning, Mr. Tyrrwhit." Then Mr. Tyrrwhit went
+his way, not without sundry threats as to the whole Scarborough family.
+
+It was very hard upon Mr. Grey, because he certainly was an honest man
+and had taken up the matter simply with a view of learning the truth. It
+had been whispered to him within the last day or two that Mountjoy
+Scarborough had lately been seen alive, and gambling with reckless
+prodigality, at Monte Carlo. It had only been told to him as probably
+true, but he certainly believed it. But he knew nothing of the details
+of his disappearance, and had not been much surprised, as he had never
+believed that the young man had been murdered or had made away with
+himself. But he had heard before that of the quarrel in the street
+between him and Harry Annesley; and the story had been told to him so as
+to fall with great discredit on Harry Annesley's head.
+
+According to that story Harry Annesley had struck his foe during the
+night and had left him for dead upon the pavement. Then Mountjoy
+Scarborough had been missing, and Harry Annesley had told no one of the
+quarrel. There had been some girl in question. So much and no more Mr.
+Grey had heard, and was, of course, inclined to think that Harry
+Annesley must have behaved very badly. But of the mode of Mountjoy's
+subsequent escape he had heard nothing.
+
+Mr. Grey at this time was living down at Fulham, in a small,
+old-fashioned house which over-looked the river, and was called the
+Manor-house. He would have said that it was his custom to go home every
+day by an omnibus, but he did, in truth, almost always remain at his
+office so late as to make it necessary that he should return by a cab.
+He was a man fairly well to do in the world, as he had no one depending
+on him but one daughter,--no one, that is to say, whom he was obliged to
+support. But he had a married sister with a scapegrace husband and six
+daughters whom, in fact, he did support. Mrs. Carroll, with the kindest
+intentions in the world, had come and lived near him. She had taken a
+genteel house in Bolsover Terrace,--a genteel new house on the Fulham
+Road, about a quarter of a mile from her brother. Mr. Grey lived in the
+old Manor-house, a small, uncomfortable place, which had a nook of its
+own, close upon the water, and with a lovely little lawn. It was
+certainly most uncomfortable as a gentleman's residence, but no
+consideration would induce Mr. Grey to sell it. There were but two
+sitting-rooms in it, and one was for the most part uninhabited. The
+up-stairs drawing-room was furnished, but any one with half an eye could
+see that it was never used. A "stray" caller might be shown up there,
+but callers of that class were very uncommon in Mr. Grey's
+establishment.
+
+With his own domestic arrangements Mr. Grey would have been quite
+contented, had it not been for Mrs. Carroll. It was now some years since
+he had declared that though Mr. Carroll,--or Captain Carroll, as he had
+then been called,--was an improvident, worthless, drunken Irishman, he
+would never see his sister want. The consequence was that Carroll had
+come with his wife and six daughters and taken a house close to him.
+There are such "whips and scorns" in the world to which a man shall be
+so subject as to have the whole tenor of his life changed by them. The
+hero bears them heroically, making no complaints to those around him.
+The common man shrinks, and squeals, and cringes, so that he is known to
+those around him as one especially persecuted. In this respect Mr. Grey
+was a grand hero. When he spoke to his friends of Mrs. Carroll his
+friends were taught to believe that his outside arrangements with his
+sister were perfectly comfortable. No doubt there did creep out among
+those who were most intimate with him a knowledge that Mr. Carroll,--for
+the captain had, in truth, never been more than a lieutenant, and had
+now long since sold out,--was impecunious, and a trouble rather than
+otherwise. But I doubt whether there was a single inhabitant of the
+neighborhood of Fulham who was aware that Mrs. Carroll and the Miss
+Carrolls cost Mr. Grey on an average above six hundred a year.
+
+There was one in Mr. Grey's family to whom he was so attached that he
+would, to oblige her, have thrown over the whole Carroll family; but of
+this that one person would not hear. She hated the whole Carroll family
+with an almost unholy hatred, of which she herself was endeavoring to
+repent daily, but in vain. She could not do other than hate them, but
+she could do other than allow her father to withdraw his fostering
+protection; for this one person was Mr. Grey's only daughter and his one
+close domestic associate. Miss Dorothy Grey was known well to all the
+neighborhood, and was both feared and revered. As we shall have much to
+do with her in the telling of our story, it may be well to make her
+stand plainly before the reader's eyes.
+
+In the first place, it must be understood that she was motherless,
+brotherless and sisterless. She had been Mr. Grey's only child, and her
+mother had been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. She was now about
+thirty years of age, but was generally regarded as ranging somewhere
+between forty and fifty. "If she isn't nearer fifty than forty I'll eat
+my old shoes," said a lady in the neighborhood to a gentleman. "I've
+known her these twenty years, and she's not altered in the least." As
+Dolly Grey had been only ten twenty years ago, the lady must have been
+wrong. But it is singular how a person's memory of things may be created
+out of their present appearances. Dorothy herself had apparently no
+desire to set right this erroneous opinion which the neighborhood
+entertained respecting her. She did not seem to care whether she was
+supposed to be thirty, or forty, or fifty. Of youth, as a means of
+getting lovers, she entertained a profound contempt. That no lover would
+ever come she was assured, and would not at all have known what to do
+with one had he come. The only man for whom she had ever felt the
+slightest regard was her father. For some women about she did entertain
+a passionless, well-regulated affection, but they were generally the
+poor, the afflicted, or the aged. It was, however, always necessary that
+the person so signalized should be submissive. Now, Mrs. Carroll, Mr.
+Grey's sister, had long since shown that she was not submissive enough,
+nor were the girls, the eldest of whom was a pert, ugly, well-grown
+minx, now about eighteen years old. The second sister, who was
+seventeen, was supposed to be a beauty, but which of the two was the
+more odious in the eyes of their cousin it would be impossible to say.
+
+Miss Dorothy Grey was Dolly only to her father. Had any one else so
+ventured to call her she would have started up at once, the outraged
+aged female of fifty. Even her aunt, who was trouble enough to her, felt
+that it could not be so. Her uncle tried it once, and she declined to
+come into his presence for a month, letting it be fully understood that
+she had been insulted.
+
+And yet she was not, according to my idea, by any means an ill-favored
+young woman. It is true that she wore spectacles; and, as she always
+desired to have her eyes about with her, she never put them off when out
+of bed. But how many German girls do the like, and are not accounted for
+that reason to be plain? She was tall and well-made, we may almost say
+robust. She had the full use of all her limbs, and was never ashamed of
+using them. I think she was wrong when she would be seen to wheel the
+barrow about the garden, and that her hands must have suffered in her
+attempts to live down the conventional absurdities of the world. It is
+true that she did wear gloves during her gardening, but she wore them
+only in obedience to her father's request. She had bright eyes, somewhat
+far apart, and well-made, wholesome, regular features. Her nose was
+large, and her mouth was large, but they were singularly intelligent,
+and full of humor when she was pleased in conversation. As to her hair,
+she was too indifferent to enable one to say that it was attractive; but
+it was smoothed twice a day, was very copious, and always very clean.
+Indeed, for cleanliness from head to foot she was a model. "She is very
+clean, but then it's second to nothing to her," had said a sarcastic old
+lady, who had meant to imply that Miss Dorothy Grey was not constant at
+church. But the sarcastic old lady had known nothing about it. Dorothy
+Grey never stayed away from morning church unless her presence was
+desired by her father, and for once or twice that she might do so she
+would take her father with her three or four times,--against the grain
+with him, it must be acknowledged.
+
+But the most singular attribute of the lady's appearance has still to be
+mentioned. She always wore a slouch hat, which from motives of propriety
+she called her bonnet, which gave her a singular appearance, as though
+it had been put on to thatch her entirely from the weather. It was made
+generally of black straw, and was round, equal at all points of the
+circle, and was fastened with broad brown ribbons. It was supposed in
+the neighborhood to be completely weather-tight.
+
+The unimaginative nature of Fulham did not allow the Fulham mind to
+gather in the fact that, at the same time, she might possess two or
+three such hats. But they were undoubtedly precisely similar, and she
+would wear them in London with exactly the same indifference as in the
+comparatively rural neighborhood of her own residence. She would, in
+truth, go up and down in the omnibus, and would do so alone, without the
+slightest regard to the opinion of any of her neighbors. The Carroll
+girls would laugh at her behind her back, but no Carroll girl had been
+seen ever to smile before her face, instigated to do so by their
+cousin's vagaries.
+
+But I have not yet mentioned that attribute of Miss Grey's which is,
+perhaps, the most essential in her character. It is necessary, at any
+rate, that they should know it who wish to understand her nature. When
+it had once been brought home to her that duty required her to do this
+thing or the other, or to say this word or another, the thing would be
+done or the word said, let the result be what it might. Even to the
+displeasure of her father the word was said or the thing was done. Such
+a one was Dolly Grey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MR. GREY DINES AT HOME.
+
+
+Mr. Grey returned home in a cab on the day of Mr. Tyrrwhit's visit, not
+in the happiest humor. Though he had got the best of Mr. Tyrrwhit in the
+conversation, still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed
+him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which
+he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not
+expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you
+you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it
+impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a
+thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a
+tone of voice as to make you understand that he conceives you to be
+both. We all know the parliamentary mode of giving an opponent the lie
+so as to make it impossible that the Speaker shall interfere.
+
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had treated Mr. Grey in the same fashion; and as Mr. Grey
+was irritable, thin-skinned, and irascible, and as he would brood over
+things of which it was quite unnecessary that a lawyer should take any
+cognizance, he went back home an unhappy man. Indeed, the whole
+Scarborough affair had been from first to last a great trouble to him.
+The work which he was now performing could not, he imagined, be put into
+his bill. To that he was supremely indifferent; but his younger partner
+thought it a little hard that all the other work of the firm should be
+thrown on his shoulders during the period which naturally would have
+been his holidays, and he did make his feelings intelligible to Mr.
+Grey. Mr. Grey, who was essentially a just man, saw that his partner was
+right, and made offers, but he would not accede to the only proposition
+which his partner made. "Let him go and look for a lawyer elsewhere,"
+said his partner. They both of them knew that Mr. Scarborough had been
+thoroughly dishonest, but he had been an old client. His father before
+him had been a client of Mr. Grey's father. It was not in accordance
+with Mr. Grey's theory to treat the old man after this fashion. And he
+had taken intense interest in the matter. He had, first of all, been
+quite sure that Mountjoy Scarborough was the heir; and though Mountjoy
+Scarborough was not at all to his taste, he had been prepared to fight
+for him. He had now assured himself, after most laborious inquiry, that
+Augustus Scarborough was the heir; and although, in the course of the
+business, he had come to hate the cautious, money-loving Augustus twice
+worse than the gambling spendthrift Mountjoy, still, in the cause of
+honesty and truth and justice, he fought for Augustus against the world
+at large, and against the band of creditors, till the world at large and
+the band of creditors began to think that he was leagued with
+Augustus,--so as to be one of those who would make large sums of money
+out of the irregularity of the affair. This made him cross, and put him
+into a very bad humor as he went back to Fulham.
+
+One thing must be told of Mr. Grey which was very much to his discredit,
+and which, if generally known, would have caused his clients to think
+him to be unfit to be the recipient of their family secrets;--he told all
+the secrets to Dolly. He was a man who could not possibly be induced to
+leave his business behind him at his office. It made the chief subject
+of conversation when he was at home. He would even call Dolly into his
+bedroom late at night, bringing her out of bed for the occasion, to
+discuss with her some point of legal strategy,--of legal but still honest
+strategy,--which had just occurred to him. Maybe he had not quite seen
+his way as to the honesty, and wanted Dolly's opinion on the subject.
+Dolly would come in in her dressing-gown, and, sitting on his bed, would
+discuss the matter with him as advocate against the devil. Sometimes she
+would be convinced; more frequently she would hold her own. But the
+points which were discussed in that way, and the strength of
+argumentation which was used on either side, would have surprised the
+clients, and the partner, and the clerks, and the eloquent barrister who
+was occasionally employed to support this side or the other. The
+eloquent barrister, or it might be the client himself, startled
+sometimes at the amount of enthusiasm which Mr. Grey would throw into
+his argument, would little dream that the very words had come from the
+young lady in her dressing-gown. To tell the truth, Miss Grey thoroughly
+liked these discussions, whether held on the lawn, or in the
+dining-room arm-chairs, or during the silent hours of the night. They
+formed, indeed, the very salt of her life. She felt herself to be the
+Conscience of the firm. Her father was the Reason. And the partner, in
+her own phraseology, was the--Devil. For it must be understood that
+Dolly Grey had a spice of fun about her, of which her father had the
+full advantage. She would not have called her father's partner the
+"Devil" to any other ear but her father's. And that her father knew,
+understanding also the spirit in which the sobriquet had been applied.
+He did not think that his partner was worse than another man, nor did he
+think that his daughter so thought. The partner, whose name was Barry,
+was a man of average honesty, who would occasionally be surprised at the
+searching justness with which Mr. Grey would look into a matter after it
+had been already debated for a day or two in the office. But Mr. Barry,
+though he had the pleasure of Miss Grey's acquaintance, had no idea of
+the nature of the duties which she performed in the firm.
+
+"I'm nearly broken-hearted about this abominable business," said Mr.
+Grey, as he went upstairs to his dressing room. The normal hour for
+dinner was half-past six. He had arrived on this occasion at half-past
+seven, and had paid a shilling extra to the cabman to drive him quick.
+The man, having a lame horse, had come very slowly, fidgeting Mr. Grey
+into additional temporary discomfort. He had got his additional
+shilling, and Mr. Grey had only additional discomfort. "I declare I
+think he is the wickedest old man the world ever produced." This he said
+as Dolly followed him upstairs; but Dolly, wiser than her father, would
+say nothing about the wicked old man in the servants' hearing.
+
+In five minutes Mr. Grey came down "dressed,"--by the use of which word
+was implied the fact that he had shaken his neckcloth, washed his hands
+and face, and put on his slippers. It was understood in the household
+that, though half-past six was the hour named for dinner, half-past
+seven was a much more probable time. Mr. Grey pertinaciously refused to
+have it changed.
+
+"Stare super vias antiquas," he had stoutly said when the proposition
+had been made to him; by which he had intended to imply that, as during
+the last twenty years he had been compelled to dine at half-past six
+instead of six, he did not mean to be driven any farther in the same
+direction. Consequently his cook was compelled to prepare his dinner in
+such a manner that it might be eaten at one hour or the other, as chance
+would have it.
+
+The dinner passed without much conversation other than incidental to
+Mr. Grey's wants and comforts. His daughter knew that he had been at the
+office for eight hours, and knew also that he was not a young man. Every
+kind of little cosseting was, therefore, applied to him. There was a
+pheasant for dinner, and it was essentially necessary, in Dolly's
+opinion, that he should have first the wing, quite hot, and then the
+leg, also hot, and that the bread-sauce should be quite hot on the two
+occasions. For herself, if she had had an old crow for dinner it would
+have been the same thing. Tea and bread-and-butter were her luxuries,
+and her tea and bread-and-butter had been enjoyed three hours ago. "I
+declare I think that, after all, the leg is the better joint of the
+two."
+
+"Then why don't you have the two legs?"
+
+"There would be a savor of greediness in that, though I know that the
+leg will go down,--and I shouldn't then be able to draw the comparison. I
+like to have them both, and I like always to be able to assert my
+opinion that the leg is the better joint. Now, how about the
+apple-pudding? You said I should have an apple-pudding." From which it
+appeared that Mr. Grey was not superior to having the dinner discussed
+in his presence at the breakfast-table. The apple-pudding came, and was
+apparently enjoyed. A large portion of it was put between two plates.
+"That's for Mrs. Grimes," suggested Mr. Grey. "I am not quite sure that
+Mrs. Grimes is worthy of it." "If you knew what it was to be left
+without a shilling of your husband's wages you'd think yourself worthy."
+When the conversation about the pudding was over Mr. Grey ate his
+cheese, and then sat quite still in his arm-chair over the fire while
+the things were being taken away. "I declare I think he is the wickedest
+man the world has ever produced," said Mr. Grey as soon as the door was
+shut, thus showing by the repetition of the words he had before used
+that his mind had been intent on Mr. Scarborough rather than on the
+pheasant.
+
+"Why don't you have done with them?"
+
+"That's all very well; but you wouldn't have done with them if you had
+known them all your life."
+
+"I wouldn't spend my time and energies in white-washing any rascal,"
+said Dolly, with vigor.
+
+"You don't know what you'd do. And a man isn't to be left in the lurch
+altogether because he's a rascal. Would you have a murderer hanged
+without some one to stand up for him?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Dolly, thoughtlessly.
+
+"And he mightn't have been a murderer after all; or not legally so,
+which as far as the law goes is the same thing."
+
+But this special question had been often discussed between them, and Mr.
+Grey and Dolly did not intend to be carried away by it on the present
+occasion. "I know all about that," she said; "but this isn't a case of
+life and death. The old man is only anxious to save his property, and
+throws upon you all the burden of doing it. He never agrees with you as
+to anything you say."
+
+"As to legal points he does."
+
+"But he keeps you always in hot water, and puts forward so much villany
+that I would have nothing farther to do with him. He has been so crafty
+that you hardly know now which is, in truth, the heir."
+
+"Oh yes, I do," said the lawyer. "I know very well, and am very sorry
+that it should be so. And I cannot but feel for the rascal because the
+dishonest effort was made on behalf of his own son."
+
+"Why was it necessary?" said Dolly, with sparks flying from her eye.
+"Throughout from the beginning he has been bad. Why was the woman not
+his wife?"
+
+"Ah! why, indeed. But had his sin consisted only in that, I should not
+have dreamed of refusing my assistance as a family lawyer. All that
+would have gone for nothing then."
+
+"When evil creeps in," said Dolly, sententiously, "you cannot put it
+right afterward."
+
+"Never mind about that. We shall never get to the end if you go back to
+Adam and Eve."
+
+"People don't go back often enough."
+
+"Bother!" said Mr. Grey, finishing his second and last glass of
+port-wine. "Do keep yourself in some degree to the question in dispute.
+In advising an attorney of to-day as to how he is to treat a client you
+can't do any good by going back to Adam and Eve. Augustus is the heir,
+and I am bound to protect the property for him from these money-lending
+harpies. The moment the breath is out of the old man's body they will
+settle down upon it if we leave them an inch of ground on which to
+stand. Every detail of his marriage must be made as clear as daylight;
+and that must be done in the teeth of former false statements."
+
+"As far as I can see, the money-lending harpies are the honestest lot of
+people concerned."
+
+"The law is not on their side. They have got no right. The estate, as a
+fact, will belong to Augustus the moment his father dies. Mr.
+Scarborough endeavored to do what he could for him whom he regarded as
+his eldest son. It was very wicked. He was adding a second and a worse
+crime to the first. He was flying in the face of the laws of his
+country. But he was successful; and he threw dust into my eyes, because
+he wanted to save the property for the boy. And he endeavored to make it
+up to his second son by saving for him a second property. He was not
+selfish; and I cannot but feel for him."
+
+"But you say he is the wickedest man the world ever produced."
+
+"Because he boasts of it all, and cannot be got in any way to repent. He
+gives me my instructions as though from first to last he had been a
+highly honorable man, and only laughs at me when I object. And yet he
+must know that he may die any day. He only wishes to have this matter
+set straight so that he may die. I could forgive him altogether if he
+would but once say that he was sorry for what he'd done. But he has
+completely the air of the fine old head of a family who thinks he is to
+be put into marble the moment the breath is out of his body, and that he
+richly deserves the marble he is to be put into."
+
+"That is a question between him and his God," said Dolly.
+
+"He hasn't got a God. He believes only in his own reason,--and is content
+to do so, lying there on the very brink of eternity. He is quite content
+with himself, because he thinks that he has not been selfish. He cares
+nothing that he has robbed every one all round. He has no reverence for
+property and the laws which govern it. He was born only with the
+life-interest, and he has determined to treat it as though the
+fee-simple had belonged to him. It is his utter disregard for law, for
+what the law has decided, which makes me declare him to have been the
+wickedest man the world ever produced."
+
+"It is his disregard for truth which makes you think so."
+
+"He cares nothing for truth. He scorns it and laughs at it. And yet
+about the little things of the world he expects his word to be taken as
+certainly as that of any other gentleman."
+
+"I would not take it."
+
+"Yes, you would, and would be right too. If he would say he'd pay me a
+hundred pounds to-morrow, or a thousand, I would have his word as soon
+as any other man's bond. And yet he has utterly got the better of me,
+and made me believe that a marriage took place, when there was no
+marriage. I think I'll have a cup of tea."
+
+"You won't go to sleep, papa?"
+
+"Oh yes, I shall. When I've been so troubled as that I must have a cup
+of tea." Mr. Grey was often troubled, and as a consequence Dolly was
+called up for consultations in the middle of the night.
+
+At about one o'clock there came the well-known knock at Dolly's door and
+the usual invitation. Would she come into her father's room for a few
+minutes? Then her father trotted back to his bed, and Dolly, of course,
+followed him as soon as she had clothed herself decently.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I thought I had made up my mind not to go; or I thought rather that I
+should be able to make up my mind not to go. But it is possible that
+down there I may have some effect for good."
+
+"What does he want of you?"
+
+"There is a long question about raising money with which Augustus
+desires to buy the silence of the creditors."
+
+"Could he get the money?" asked Dolly.
+
+"Yes, I think he could. The property at present is altogether
+unembarrassed. To give Mr. Scarborough his due, he has never put his
+name to a scrap of paper; nor has he had occasion to do so. The Tretton
+pottery people want more land, or rather more water, and a large sum of
+money will be forthcoming. But he doesn't see the necessity of giving
+Mr. Tyrrwhit a penny-piece, or certainly Mr. Hart. He would send them
+away howling without a scruple. Now, Augustus is anxious to settle with
+them, for some reason which I do not clearly understand. But he wishes
+to do so without any interference on his father's part. In fact, he and
+his father have very different ideas as to the property. The squire
+regards it as his, but Augustus thinks that any day may make it his own.
+In fact, they are on the very verge of quarrelling." Then, after a long
+debate, Dolly consented that her father should go down to Tretton, and
+act, if possible, the part of peace-maker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CARROLL FAMILY.
+
+
+"Aunt Carroll is coming to dinner to-day," said Dolly the next day, with
+a serious face.
+
+"I know she is. Have a nice dinner for her. I don't think she ever has a
+nice dinner at home."
+
+"And the three eldest girls are coming."
+
+"Three!"
+
+"You asked them yourself on Sunday."
+
+"Very well. They said their papa would be away on business." It was
+understood that Mr. Carroll was never asked to the Manor-house.
+
+"Business! There is a club he belongs to where he dines and gets drunk
+once a month. It's the only thing he does regularly."
+
+"They must have their dinner, at any rate," said Mr. Grey. "I don't
+think they should suffer because he drinks." This had been a subject
+much discussed between them, but on the present occasion Miss Grey would
+not renew it. She despatched her father in a cab, the cab having been
+procured because he was supposed to be a quarter of an hour late, and
+then went to work to order her dinner.
+
+It has been said that Miss Grey hated the Carrolls; but she hated the
+daughters worse than the mother, and of all the people she hated in the
+world she hated Amelia Carroll the worst. Amelia, the eldest,
+entertained an idea that she was more of a personage in the world's eyes
+than her cousin,--that she went to more parties, which certainly was true
+if she went to any,--that she wore finer clothes, which was also true,
+and that she had a lover, whereas Dolly Grey,--as she called her cousin
+behind her back,--had none. This lover had something to do with horses,
+and had only been heard of, had never been seen, at the Manor-house.
+Sophy was a good deal hated also, being a forward, flirting, tricky girl
+of seventeen, who had just left the school at which Uncle John had paid
+for her education. Georgina, the third, was still at school under
+similar circumstances, and was pardoned her egregious noisiness and
+romping propensities under the score of youth. She was sixteen, and was
+possessed of terrible vitality. "I am sure they take after their father
+altogether," Mr. Grey had once said when the three left the Manor-house
+together. At half-past six punctually they came. Dolly heard a great
+clatter of four people leaving their clogs and cloaks in the hall, and
+would not move out of the unused drawing-room, in which for the moment
+she was seated. Betsey had to prepare the dinner-table down-stairs, and
+would have been sadly discomfited had she been driven to do it in the
+presence of three Carroll girls. For it must be understood that Betsey
+had no greater respect for the Carroll girls than her mistress. "Well,
+Aunt Carroll, how does the world use you?"
+
+"Very badly. You haven't been up to see me for ten days."
+
+"I haven't counted; but when I do come I don't often do any good. How
+are Minna, and Brenda, and Potsey?"
+
+"Poor Potsey has got a nasty boil under her arm."
+
+"It comes from eating too much toffy," said Georgina. "I told her it
+would."
+
+"How very nasty you are!" said Miss Carroll. "Do leave the child and her
+ailments alone!"
+
+"Poor papa isn't very well, either," said Sophy, who was supposed to be
+her father's pet.
+
+"I hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his
+friends to-night," said Miss Grey.
+
+"You have always something ill-natured to say about papa," said Sophy.
+
+"Nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his
+presence." This came from his afflicted wife, who, in spite of all his
+misfortunes, would ever speak with some respect of her husband's
+employments. "He wasn't at all in a fit state to go to-night, but he had
+promised, and that was enough."
+
+When they had waited three-quarters of an hour Amelia began to
+complain,--certainly not without reason. "I wonder why Uncle John always
+keeps us waiting in this way?"
+
+"Papa has, unfortunately, something to do with his time, which is not
+altogether his own." There was not much in these words, but the tone in
+which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than
+Amelia Carroll. But at that moment the cab arrived, and Dolly went down
+to meet her father.
+
+"Have they come?" he asked.
+
+"Come," she answered, taking his gloves and comforter from him, and
+giving him a kiss as she did so. "That girl up-stairs is nearly
+famished."
+
+"I won't be half a moment," said the repentant father, hastening
+up-stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement.
+
+"I wouldn't hurry for her," said Dolly; "but of course you'll hurry.
+You always do, don't you, papa?" Then they sat down to dinner.
+
+"Well, girls, what is your news?"
+
+"We were out to-day on the Brompton Road," said the eldest, "and there
+came up Prince Chitakov's drag with four roans."
+
+"Prince Chitakov! I didn't know there was such a prince."
+
+"Oh, dear, yes; with very stiff mustaches, turned up high at the
+corners, and pink cheeks, and a very sharp, nobby-looking hat, with a
+light-colored grey coat, and light gloves. You must know the prince."
+
+"Upon my word, I never heard of him, my dear. What did the prince do?"
+
+"He was tooling his own drag, and he had a lady with him on the box. I
+never saw anything more tasty than her dress,--dark red silk, with little
+fluffy fur ornaments all over it. I wonder who she was?"
+
+"Mrs. Chitakov, probably," said the attorney.
+
+"I don't think the prince is a married man," said Sophy.
+
+"They never are, for the most part," said Amelia; "and she wouldn't be
+Mrs. Chitakov, Uncle John."
+
+"Wouldn't she, now? What would she be? Can either of you tell me what
+the wife of a Prince of Chitakov would call herself?"
+
+"Princess of Chitakov, of course," said Sophy. "It's the Princess of
+Wales."
+
+"But it isn't the Princess of Christian, nor yet the Princess of Teck,
+nor the Princess of England. I don't see why the lady shouldn't be Mrs.
+Chitakov, if there is such a lady."
+
+
+"Papa, don't bamboozle her," said his daughter.
+
+"But," continued the attorney, "why shouldn't the lady have been his
+wife? Don't married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments?"
+
+"I wish, John, you wouldn't talk to the girls in that strain," said
+their mother. "It really isn't becoming."
+
+"To suggest that the lady was the gentleman's wife?"
+
+"But I was going to say," continued Amelia, "that as the prince drove by
+he kissed his hand--he did, indeed. And Sophy and I were walking along
+as demurely as possible. I never was so knocked of a heap in all my
+life."
+
+"He did," said Sophy. "It's the most impertinent thing I ever heard. If
+my father had seen it he'd have had the prince off the box of the coach
+in no time."
+
+"Then, my dear," said the attorney, "I am very glad that your father
+did not see it." Poor Dolly, during this conversation about the prince,
+sat angry and silent, thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of
+vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty. That she
+should be sitting at table with a girl who could boast that a reprobate
+foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable
+four-horsed coach! For it was in that light that Miss Grey regarded it.
+"And did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable
+encounter with the prince?"
+
+"Nothing nearly so interesting," said Sophy.
+
+"That was hardly to be expected," said the attorney. "Jane, you will
+have a glass of port-wine? Girls, you must have a glass of port-wine to
+support you after your disappointment with the prince."
+
+"We were not disappointed in the least," said Amelia.
+
+"Pray, pray, let the subject drop," said Dolly.
+
+"That is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you," said Sophy.
+Then Miss Grey sunk again into silence, crushed beneath this last blow.
+
+In the evening, when the dinner-things had been taken away, a matter of
+business came up, and took the place of the prince and his mustaches.
+Mrs. Carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could "lend"
+her a small sum of twenty pounds. It came out in conversation that the
+small sum was needed to satisfy some imperious demand made upon Mr.
+Carroll by a tailor. "He must have clothes, you know," said the poor
+woman, wailing. "He doesn't have many, but he must have some." There had
+been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since, and, to
+tell the truth, Mr. Grey did require to have the subject argued, in fear
+of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his
+daughter if he gave the money too easily. The loan had to be arranged in
+full conclave, as otherwise Mrs. Carroll would have found it difficult
+to obtain access to her brother's ear. But the one auditor whom she
+feared was her niece. On the present occasion Miss Grey simply took up
+her book to show that the subject was one which had no interest for her;
+but she did undoubtedly listen to all that was said on the subject.
+"There was never anything settled about poor Patrick's clothes," said
+Mrs. Carroll, in a half-whisper. She did not care how much her own
+children heard, and she knew how vain it was to attempt so to speak that
+Dolly should not hear.
+
+"I dare say something ought to be done at some time," said Mr. Grey, who
+knew that he would be told, when the evening was over, that he would
+give away all his substance to that man if he were asked.
+
+"Papa has not had a new pair of trousers this year," said Sophy.
+
+"Except those green ones he wore at the races," said Georgina.
+
+"Hold your tongue, miss!" said her mother. "That was a pair I made up
+for him and sent them to the man to get pressed."
+
+"When the hundred a year was arranged for all our dresses," said Amelia,
+"not a word was said about papa. Of course, papa is a trouble."
+
+"I don't see that he is more of a trouble than any one else," said
+Sophy. "Uncle John would not like not to have any clothes."
+
+"No, I should not, my dear."
+
+"And his own income is all given up to the house uses." Here Sophy
+touched imprudently on a sore subject. His "own" income consisted of
+what had been saved out of his wife's fortune, and was thus named as in
+opposition to the larger sum paid to Mrs. Carroll by Mr. Grey. There was
+one hundred and fifty pounds a year coming from settled property, which
+had been preserved by the lawyer's care, and which was regarded in the
+family as "papa's own."
+
+It certainly is essential for respectability that something should be
+set apart from a man's income for his wearing apparel; and though the
+money was, perhaps, improperly so designated, Dolly would not have
+objected had she not thought that it had already gone to the
+race-course,--in company with the green trousers. She had her own means
+of obtaining information as to the Carroll family. It was very necessary
+that she should do so, if the family was to be kept on its legs at all.
+"I don't think any good can come from discussing what my uncle does with
+the money." This was Dolly's first speech. "If he is to have it, let him
+have it, but let him have as little as possible."
+
+"I never heard anybody so cross as you always are to papa," said Sophy.
+
+"Your cousin Dorothy is very fortunate," said Mrs. Carroll. "She does
+not know what it is to want for anything."
+
+"She never spends anything--on herself," said her father. "It is Dolly's
+only fault that she won't."
+
+"Because she has it all done for her," said Amelia.
+
+Dolly had gone back to her book, and disdained to make any farther
+reply. Her father felt that quite enough had been said about it, and
+was prepared to give the twenty pounds, under the idea that he might be
+thought to have made a stout fight upon the subject. "He does want them
+very badly--for decency's sake," said the poor wife, thus winding up her
+plea. Then Mr. Grey got out his check-book and wrote the check for
+twenty pounds. But he made it payable, not to Mr. but to Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"I suppose, papa, nothing can be done about Mr. Carroll." This was said
+by Dolly as soon as the family had withdrawn.
+
+"In what way 'done,' my dear?"
+
+"As to settling some farther sum for himself."
+
+"He'd only spend it, my dear."
+
+"That would be intended," said Dolly.
+
+"And then he would come back just the same."
+
+"But in that case he should have nothing more. Though they were to
+declare that he hadn't a pair of trousers in which to appear at a
+race-course, he shouldn't have it."
+
+"My dear," said Mr. Grey, "you cannot get rid of the gnats of the world.
+They will buzz and sting and be a nuisance. Poor Jane suffers worse from
+this gnat than you or I. Put up with it; and understand in your own mind
+that when he comes for another twenty pounds he must have it. You
+needn't tell him, but so it must be."
+
+"If I had my way," said Dolly, after ten minutes' silence, "I would
+punish him. He is an evil thing, and should be made to reap the proper
+reward. It is not that I wish to avoid my share of the world's burdens,
+but that justice should be done. I don't know which I hate the
+worst,--Uncle Carroll or Mr. Scarborough."
+
+The next day was Sunday, and Dolly was very anxious before breakfast to
+induce her father to say that he would go to church with her; but he was
+inclined to be obstinate, and fell back upon his usual excuse, saying
+that there were Scarborough papers which it would be necessary that he
+should read before he started for Tretton on the following day.
+
+"Papa, I think it would do you good if you came."
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it would. That is the intention; but somehow it
+fails with me sometimes."
+
+"Do you think that you hate people when you go to church as much as when
+you don't?"
+
+"I am not sure that I hate anybody very much."
+
+"I do."
+
+"That seems an argument for your going."
+
+"But if you don't hate them it is because you won't take the trouble,
+and that again is not right. If you would come to church you would be
+better for it all round. You'd hate Uncle Carroll's idleness and
+abominable self-indulgence worse than you do."
+
+"I don't love him, as it is, my dear."
+
+"And I should hate him less. I felt last night as though I could rise
+from my bed and go and murder him."
+
+"Then you certainly ought to go to church."
+
+"And you had passed him off just as though he were a gnat from which you
+were to receive as little annoyance as possible, forgetting the
+influence he must have on those six unfortunate children. Don't you know
+that you gave her that twenty pounds simply to be rid of a disagreeable
+subject?"
+
+"I should have given it ever so much sooner, only that you were looking
+at me."
+
+"I know you would, you dear, sweet, kind-hearted, but most un-Christian,
+father. You must come to church, in order that some idea of what
+Christianity demands of you may make its way into your heart. It is not
+what the clergyman may say of you, but that your mind will get away for
+two hours from that other reptile and his concerns." Then Mr. Grey, with
+a loud, long sigh, allowed his boots, and his gloves, and his
+church-going hat, and his church-going umbrella to be brought to him. It
+was, in fact, his aversion to these articles that Dolly had to
+encounter.
+
+It may be doubted whether the church services of that day did Mr. Grey
+much good; but they seemed to have had some effect upon his daughter,
+from the fact that in the afternoon she wrote a letter in kindly words
+to her aunt: "Papa is going to Tretton, and I will come up to you on
+Tuesday. I have got a frock which I will bring with me as a present for
+Potsey; and I will make her sew on the buttons for herself. Tell Minna I
+will lend her that book I spoke of. About those boots--I will go with
+Georgina to the boot-maker." But as to Amelia and Sophy she could not
+bring herself to say a good-natured word, so deep in her heart had sunk
+that sin of which they had been guilty with reference to Prince
+Chitakov.
+
+On that night she had a long discussion with her father respecting the
+affairs of the Scarborough family. The discussion was held in the
+dining-room, and may, therefore, be supposed to have been premeditated.
+Those at night in Mr. Grey's own bedroom were generally the result of
+sudden thought. "I should lay down the law to him--" began Dolly.
+
+"The law is the law," said her father.
+
+"I don't mean the law in that sense. I should tell him firmly what I
+advised, and should then make him understand that if he did not follow
+my advice I must withdraw. If his son is willing to pay these
+money-lenders what sums they have actually advanced, and if by any
+effort on his part the money can be raised, let it be done. There seems
+to be some justice in repaying out of the property that which was lent
+to the property when by Mr. Scarborough's own doing the property was
+supposed to go into the eldest son's hands. Though the eldest son and
+the money-lenders be spendthrifts and profligates alike, there will in
+that be something of fairness. Go there prepared with your opinion. But
+if either father or son will not accept it, then depart, and shake the
+dust from your feet."
+
+"You propose it all as though it were the easiest thing in the world."
+
+"Easy or difficult. I would not discuss anything of which the justice
+may hereafter be disputed."
+
+What was the result of the consultation on Mr. Grey's mind he did not
+declare, but he resolved to take his daughter's advice in all that she
+said to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+MR. GREY GOES TO TRETTON.
+
+
+Mr. Grey went down to Tretton with a great bag of papers. In fact,
+though he told his daughter that he had to examine them all before he
+started, and had taken them to Fulham for that purpose, he had not
+looked at them. And, as another fact, the bag was not opened till he got
+home again. They had been read;--at any rate, what was necessary. He knew
+his subject. The old squire knew it well.
+
+Mr. Grey was going down to Tretton, not to convey facts or to explain
+the law, but in order that he might take the side either of the father
+or of the son. Mr. Scarborough had sent for the lawyer to support his
+view of the case; and the son had consented to meet him in order that he
+might the more easily get the better of his father.
+
+Mr. Grey had of late learned one thing which had before been dark to
+him,--had seen one phase of this complicated farrago of dishonesty which
+had not before been visible to him. Augustus suspected his father of
+some farther treachery. That he should be angry at having been debarred
+from his birthright so long,--debarred from the knowledge of his
+birthright,--was, Mr. Grey thought, natural. A great wrong had been, at
+least, intended; and that such a man should resent it was to have been
+expected. But of late Mr. Grey had discovered that it was not in that
+way that the son's mind worked. It was not anger but suspicion that he
+showed; and he used his father's former treatment of him as a
+justification for the condemnation implied in his thoughts. There is no
+knowing what an old man may do who has already acted as he had done. It
+was thus that he expressed himself both by his words and deeds, and did
+so openly in his father's presence, Mr. Grey had not seen them together,
+but knew from the letters of both of them that such was the case. Old
+Mr. Scarborough scorned his son's suspicions, and disregarded altogether
+any words that might be said as to his own past conduct. He was willing,
+or half willing, that Mountjoy's debts should be, not paid, but settled.
+But he was willing to do nothing toward such a step except in his own
+way. While the breath was in his body the property was his, and he chose
+to be treated as its only master. If Augustus desired to do anything by
+"post-obits," let him ruin himself after his own fashion. "It is not
+very likely that Augustus can raise money by post obits, circumstanced
+as the property is," he had written to Mr. Grey, with a conveyed sneer
+and chuckle as to the success of his own villany. It was as though he
+had declared that the money-lenders had been too well instructed as to
+what tricks Mr. Scarborough could play with his property to risk a
+second venture.
+
+Augustus had, in truth, been awaiting his father's death with great
+impatience. It was unreasonable that a man should live who had acted in
+such a way and who had been so cut about by the doctors. His father's
+demise had, in truth, been promised to him, and to all the world. It was
+an understood thing, in all circles which knew anything, that old Mr.
+Scarborough could not live another month. It had been understood some
+time, and was understood at the present moment; and yet Mr. Scarborough
+went on living,--no doubt, as an invalid in the last stage of probable
+dissolution, but still with the full command of his intellect and mental
+powers for mischief. Augustus, suspecting him as he did, had begun to
+fear that he might live too long. His brother had disappeared, and he
+was the heir. If his father would die,--such had been his first
+thought,--he could settle with the creditors immediately, before any
+tidings should be heard of his brother. But tidings had come. His
+brother had been seen by Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo; and though Mr. Hart
+had not yet sent home the news to the other creditors, the news had been
+sent at once to Augustus Scarborough by his own paid attendant upon his
+brother. Of Mr. Hart's "little game" he did not yet know the
+particulars; but he was confident that there was some game.
+
+Augustus by no means gave his mother credit for the disgraceful conduct
+imputed to her in the story as now told by her surviving husband. It was
+not that he believed in the honesty of his mother, whom he had never
+known, and for whose memory he cared little, but that he believed so
+fully in the dishonesty of his father. His father, when he had
+thoroughly understood that Mountjoy had enveloped the property in debt,
+so that nothing but a skeleton would remain when the bonds were paid,
+had set to work, and by the ingenuity of his brain had resolved to
+redeem, as far as the Scarboroughs were concerned, their estate from its
+unfortunate position.
+
+It was so that Augustus believed; this was the theory existing in his
+mind. That his father should have been so clever, and Mr. Grey so blind,
+and even Mr. Hart and Mr. Tyrrwhit so easily hoodwinked, was remarkable.
+But so it was,--or might probably be so. He felt no assurance, but there
+was ever present to him the feeling of great danger. But the state of
+things as arranged by his father might be established by himself. If he
+could get these creditors to give up their bonds while his father's
+falsehood was still believed, it would be a great thing. He had learned
+by degrees how small a proportion of the money claimed had, in fact,
+been advanced to Mountjoy, and had resolved to confine himself to paying
+that. That might now probably be accepted with gratitude. The increasing
+value of the estate might bear that without being crushed. But it should
+be done at once, while Mountjoy was still absent and before Mr. Tyrrwhit
+at any rate knew that Mountjoy had not been killed. Then had happened
+that accidental meeting with Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo. That idiot of a
+keeper of his had been unable to keep Mountjoy from the gambling-house.
+But Mr. Hart had as yet told nothing. Mr. Hart was playing some game of
+his own, in which he would assuredly be foiled. The strong hold which
+Augustus had was in the great infirmity of his father and in the
+blindness of Mr. Grey, but it would be settled. It ought to have been
+well that the thing should be settled already by his father's death.
+Augustus did feel strongly that the squire ought to complete his work by
+dying. Were the story, as now told by him, true, he ought certainly to
+die, so as to make speedy atonement for his wickedness. Were it false,
+then he ought to go quickly, so that the lie might be effectual. Every
+day that he continued to live would go far to endanger the discovery.
+Augustus felt that he must at once have the property in his own hands,
+so as to buy the creditors and obtain security.
+
+Mr. Grey, who was not so blind as Augustus thought him, saw a great deal
+of this. Augustus suspected him as well as the squire. His mind went
+backward and forward on these suspicions. It was more probable that the
+squire should have contrived all this with the attorney's assistance
+than without it. The two, willing it together, might be very powerful.
+But then Mr. Grey would hardly dare to do it. His father knew that he
+was dying; but Mr. Grey had no such easy mode of immediate escape if
+detected. And his father was endowed with a courage as peculiar as it
+was great. He did not think that Mr. Grey was so brave a man as his
+father. And then he could trace the payment of no large sum to Mr.
+Grey,--such as would have been necessary as a bribe in such a case.
+Augustus suspected Mr. Grey, on and off. But Mr. Grey was sure that
+Augustus suspected his own father. Now, of one thing Mr. Grey was
+certain:--Augustus was, in truth, the rightful heir. The squire had at
+first contrived to blind him,--him, Mr. Grey,--partly by his own
+acuteness, partly through the carelessness of himself and those in his
+office, partly by the subornation of witnesses who seemed to have been
+actually prepared for such an event. But there could be no subsequent
+blinding. Mr. Grey had a well-earned reputation for professional
+acuteness and honesty. He knew there was no need for such suspicions as
+those now entertained by the young man; but he knew also that they
+existed, and he hated the young man for entertaining them.
+
+When he arrived at Tretton Park he first of all saw Mr. Septimus Jones,
+with whom he was not acquainted. "Mr. Scarborough will be here directly.
+He is out somewhere about the stables," said Mr. Jones, in that tone of
+voice with which a guest at the house,--a guest for pleasure,--may address
+sometimes a guest who is a guest on business. In such a case the guest
+on pleasure cannot be a gentleman, and must suppose that the guest on
+business is not one either.
+
+Mr. Grey, thinking that the Mr. Scarborough spoken of could not be the
+squire, put Mr. Jones right. "It is the elder Mr. Scarborough whom I
+wish to see. There is quite time enough. No doubt Miss Scarborough will
+be down presently."
+
+"You are Mr. Grey, I believe?"
+
+"That is my name."
+
+"My friend, Augustus Scarborough, is particularly anxious to see you
+before you go to his father. The old man is in very failing health, you
+know."
+
+"I am well acquainted with the state of Mr. Scarborough's health," said
+Mr. Grey, "and will leave it to himself to say when I shall see him.
+Perhaps to-morrow will be best." Then he rung the bell; but the servant
+entered the room at the same moment and summoned him up to the squire's
+chamber. Mr. Scarborough also wished to see Mr. Grey before his son, and
+had been on the alert to watch for his coming.
+
+On the landing he met Miss Scarborough. "He does seem to keep up his
+strength," said the lady. "Mr. Merton is living in the house now, and
+watches him very closely." Mr. Merton was a resident young doctor, whom
+Sir William Brodrick had sent down to see that all medical appliances
+were at hand as the sick man might require them. Then Mr. Grey was shown
+in, and found the squire recumbent on a sofa, with a store of books
+within his reach, and reading apparatuses of all descriptions, and every
+appliance which the ingenuity of the skilful can prepare for the relief
+of the sick and wealthy.
+
+"This is very kind of you, Mr. Grey," said the squire, speaking in a
+cheery voice. "I wanted you to come very much, but I hardly thought that
+you would take the trouble. Augustus is here, you know."
+
+"So I have heard from that gentleman down-stairs."
+
+"Mr. Jones? I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jones. What sort
+of a gentleman is Mr. Jones to look at?"
+
+"Very much like other gentlemen."
+
+"I dare say. He has done me the honor to stay a good deal at my house
+lately. Augustus never comes without him. He is 'Fidus Achates,' I take
+it, to Augustus. Augustus has never asked whether he can be received. Of
+course it does not matter. When a man is the eldest son, and, so to say,
+the only one, he is apt to take liberties with his father's house. I am
+so sorry that in my position I cannot do the honors and receive him
+properly. He is a very estimable and modest young man, I believe?" As
+Mr. Grey had not come down to Tretton either to be a spy on Mr. Jones or
+to answer questions concerning him, he held his tongue. "Well, Mr. Grey,
+what do you think about it;--eh?" This was a comprehensive question, but
+Mr. Grey well understood its purport. What did he, Mr. Grey, think of
+the condition to which the affairs of Tretton had been brought, and
+those of Mr. Scarborough himself and of his two sons? What did he think
+of Mountjoy, who had disappeared and was still absent? What did he think
+of Augustus, who was not showing his gratitude in the best way for all
+that had been done for him? And what did he think of the squire himself,
+who from his death-bed had so well contrived to have his own way in
+everything,--to do all manner of illegal things without paying any of the
+penalties to which illegality is generally subject? And having asked the
+question he paused for an answer.
+
+Mr. Grey had had no personal interview with the squire since the time at
+which it had been declared that Mountjoy was not the heir. Then some
+very severe words had been spoken. Mr. Grey had first sworn that he did
+not believe a word of what was said to him, and had refused to deal with
+the matter at all. If carried out Mr. Scarborough must take it to some
+other lawyer's office. There had, since that, been a correspondence as
+to much of which Mr. Scarborough had been forced to employ an
+amanuensis. Gradually Mr. Grey had assented, in the first instance on
+behalf of Mountjoy, and then on behalf of Augustus. But he had done so
+in the expectation that he should never again see the squire in this
+world. He, too, had been assured that the man would die, and had felt
+that it would be better that the management of things should then be in
+honest hands, such as his own, and in the hands of those who understood
+them, than be confided to those who did not not understand them, and who
+might probably not be honest.
+
+But the squire had not died, and here he was again at Tretton as the
+squire's guest. "I think," said Mr. Grey, "that the less said about a
+good deal of it the better."
+
+"That, of course, is sweeping condemnation, which, however, I expect.
+Let that be all as though it had been expressed. You don't understand
+the inner man which rules me,--how it has struggled to free itself from
+conventionalities. Nor do I quite understand how your inner man has
+succumbed to them and encouraged them."
+
+"I have encouraged an obedience to the laws of my country. Men generally
+find it safer to do so."
+
+"Exactly, and men like to be safe. Perhaps a condition of danger has
+had its attractions for me. It is very stupid, but perhaps it is so. But
+let that go. The rope has been round my own neck and not round that of
+others. Perhaps I have thought of late that if danger should come I
+could run away from it all, by the help of the surgeon. They have become
+so skilful now that a man has no chance in that way. But what do you
+think of Mountjoy and Augustus?"
+
+"I think that Mountjoy has been very ill-used."
+
+"But I endeavored to do the best I could for him."
+
+"And that Augustus has been worse used."
+
+"But he, at any rate, has been put right quite in time. Had he been
+brought up as the eldest son he might have done as Mountjoy did." Then
+there came a little gleam of satisfaction across the squire's face as he
+felt the sufficiency of his answer. "But they are neither of them
+pleased."
+
+"You cannot please men by going wrong, even in their own behalf."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. Were you to say that we cannot please men ever
+by doing right on their behalf you would perhaps be nearer the mark.
+Where do you think that Mountjoy is?" A rumor, had reached Mr. Grey that
+Mountjoy had been seen at Monte Carlo, but it had been only a rumor. The
+same had, in truth, reached Mr. Scarborough, but he chose to keep his
+rumor to himself. Indeed, more than a rumor had reached him.
+
+"I think that he will turn up safely," said the lawyer. "I think that if
+it were made worth his while he would turn up at once."
+
+"Is it not better that he should be away?" Mr. Grey shrugged his
+shoulders. "What's the good of his coming back into a nest of hornets? I
+have always thought that he did very well to disappear. Where is he to
+live if he came back? Should he come here?"
+
+"Not with his gambling debts unpaid at the club."
+
+"That might have been settled. Though, indeed, his gambling was as a tub
+that has no bottom to it. There has been nothing for it but to throw him
+over altogether. And yet how very much the better he has been of the
+two! Poor Mountjoy!"
+
+"Poor Mountjoy!"
+
+"You see, if I hadn't disinherited him I should have had to go on paying
+for him till the whole estate would have been squandered even during my
+lifetime."
+
+"You speak as though the law had given you the power of disinheriting
+him."
+
+"So it did."
+
+"But not the power of giving him the inheritance."
+
+"I took that upon myself. There I was stronger than the law. Now I
+simply and humbly ask the law to come and help me. And the upshot is
+that Augustus takes upon himself to lecture me and to feel aggrieved. He
+is not angry with me for what I did about Mountjoy, but is quarrelling
+with me because I do not die. I have no idea of dying just to please
+him. I think it important that I should live just at present."
+
+"But will you let him have the money to pay these creditors?"
+
+"That is what I want to speak about. If I can see the list of the sums
+to be paid, and if you can assure yourself that by paying them I shall
+get back all the post-obit bonds which Mountjoy has given, and that the
+money can be at once raised upon a joint mortgage, to be executed by me
+and Augustus, I will do it. But the first thing must be to know the
+amount. I will join Augustus in nothing without your consent. He wants
+to assume the power himself. In fact, the one thing he desires is that I
+shall go. As long as I remain he shall do nothing except by my
+co-operation. I will see you and him to-morrow, and now you may go and
+eat your dinner. I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for
+coming." And then Mr. Grey left the room, went to his chamber, and in
+process of time made his way into the drawing-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MR. GREY'S OPINION OF THE SCARBOROUGH FAMILY.
+
+
+Had Augustus been really anxious to see Mr. Grey before Mr. Grey went to
+his father, he would probably have managed to do so. He did not always
+tell Mr. Jones everything. "So the fellow has hurried up to the governor
+the moment he came into the house," he said.
+
+"He's with him now."
+
+"Of course he is. Never mind. I'll be even with him in the long-run."
+Then he greeted the lawyer with a mock courtesy as soon as he saw him.
+"I hope your journey has done you no harm, Mr. Grey."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"It's very kind of you, I am sure, to look after our poor concerns with
+so much interest. Jones, don't you think it is time they gave us some
+dinner? Mr. Grey, I'm sure, must want his dinner."
+
+"All in good time," said the lawyer.
+
+"You shall have your dinner, Mr. Grey. It is the least we can do for
+you." Mr. Grey felt that in every sound of his voice there was an
+insult, and took special notice of every tone, and booked them all down
+in his memory. After dinner he asked some unimportant question with
+reference to the meeting that was to take place in the morning, and was
+at once rebuked. "I do not know that we need trouble our friend here
+with our private concerns," he said.
+
+"Not in the least," said Mr. Grey. "You have already been talking about
+them in my presence and in his. It is necessary that I should have a
+list of the creditors before I can advise your father."
+
+"I don't see it; but, however, that is for you to judge. Indeed, I do
+not know on what points my father wants your advice. A lawyer generally
+furnishes such a list." Then Mr. Grey took up a book, and was soon left
+alone by the younger men.
+
+In the morning he walked out in the park, so as to have free time for
+thought. Not a word farther had been said between him and Augustus
+touching their affairs. At breakfast Augustus discussed with his friend
+the state of the odds respecting some race and then the characters of
+certain ladies. No subjects could have been less interesting to Mr.
+Grey, as Augustus was aware. They breakfasted at ten, and twelve had
+been named for the meeting. Mr. Grey had an hour or an hour and a half
+for his walk, in which he could again turn over in his mind all these
+matters of which his thoughts had been full for now many a day.
+
+Of two or three facts he was certain. Augustus was the legitimate heir
+of his father. Of that he had seen ample documentary evidence. The word
+of no Scarborough should go for anything with him;--but of that fact he
+was assured. Whether the squire knew aught of Mountjoy he did not feel
+sure, but that Augustus did he was quite certain. Who was paying the
+bills for the scapegrace during his travels he could not say, but he
+thought it probable that Augustus was finding the money. He, Mountjoy,
+was kept away, so as to be out of the creditors' way.
+
+He thought, therefore, that Augustus was doing this, so that he might
+the more easily buy up the debts. But why should Augustus go to the
+expense of buying up the debts, seeing that the money must ultimately
+come out of his own pocket? Because,--so Mr. Grey thought,--Augustus would
+not trust his own father. The creditors, if they could get hold of
+Mountjoy when his father was dead, and when the bonds would all become
+payable, might possibly so unravel the facts as to make it apparent
+that, after all, the property was Mountjoy's. This was not Mr. Grey's
+idea, but was Mr. Grey's idea of the calculation which Augustus was
+making for his own government. According to Mr. Grey's reading of all
+the facts of the case, such were the suspicions which Augustus
+entertained in the matter. Otherwise, why should he be anxious to take a
+step which would redound only to the advantage of the creditors? He was
+quite certain that no money would be paid, at any rate, by Augustus,
+solely with the view of honestly settling their claims.
+
+But there was another subject which troubled his mind excessively as he
+walked across the park. Why should he soil his hands, or, at any rate,
+trouble his conscience, with an affair so unclean, so perplexed, and so
+troublesome? Why was he there at Tretton at all, to be insulted by a
+young blackguard such as he believed Augustus Scarborough to be?
+Augustus Scarborough, he knew, suspected him. But he, in return,
+suspected Augustus Scarborough. The creditors suspected him. Mountjoy
+suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the
+squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of
+trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in
+reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should
+he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he
+not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament
+compelling him to meddle with the dirt.
+
+Such were his thoughts. But yet he knew that he was compelled. He did
+feel himself bound to look after interests which he had taken in hand
+now for many years. It had been his duty,--or the duty of some one
+belonging to him,--to see into the deceit by which an attempt had been
+made to rob Augustus Scarborough of his patrimony. It had been his duty,
+for a while, to protect Mountjoy, and the creditors who had lent their
+money to Mountjoy, from what he had believed to be a flagitious attempt.
+Then, as soon as he felt that the flagitious attempt had been made
+previously, in Mountjoy's favor, it became his duty to protect Augustus,
+in spite of the strong personal dislike which from the first he had
+conceived for that young man.
+
+And then he doubtless had been attracted by the singularity of all that
+had been done in the affair, and of all that was likely to be done. He
+had said to himself that the matter should be made straight, and that he
+would make it straight. Therefore, during his walk in the park, he
+resolved that he must persevere.
+
+At twelve o'clock he was ready to be taken up to the sick man's room.
+When he entered it, under the custody of Miss Scarborough, he found that
+Augustus was there. The squire was sitting up, with his feet supported,
+and was apparently in a good humor. "Well, Mr. Grey," he said, "have you
+settled this matter with Augustus?"
+
+"I have settled nothing."
+
+"He has not spoken to me about it at all," said Augustus.
+
+"I told him I wanted a list of the creditors. He said that it was my
+duty to supply it. That was the extent of our conversation."
+
+"Which he thought it expedient to have in the presence of my friend, Mr.
+Jones. Mr. Jones is very well in his way, but he is not acquainted with
+all my affairs."
+
+"Your son, Mr. Scarborough, has made no tender to me of any
+information."
+
+"Nor, sir, has Mr. Grey sought for any information from me." During this
+little dialogue Mr. Scarborough turned his face, with a smile, from one
+to the other, without a word.
+
+"If Mr. Grey has anything to suggest in the way of advice, let him
+suggest it," said Augustus.
+
+"Now, Mr. Grey," said the squire, with the same smile.
+
+"Till I get farther information," said Mr. Grey, "I can only limit
+myself to giving the advice which I offered to you yesterday."
+
+"Perhaps you will repeat it, so that he may hear it," said the squire.
+
+"If you get a list of those to whom your son Mountjoy owes money, and an
+assurance that the moneys named in that list have been from time to time
+lent by them to him,--the actual amount, I mean,--then I think that if you
+and your son Augustus shall together choose to pay those amounts, you
+will make the best reparation in your power for the injury you have no
+doubt done in having contrived that it should be understood that
+Mountjoy was legitimate."
+
+"You need not discuss," said the squire, "any injuries that I have done.
+I have done a great many, no doubt."
+
+"But," continued the lawyer, "before any such payment is made, close
+inquiries should be instituted as to the amounts of money which have
+absolutely passed."
+
+"We should certainly be taken in," said the squire. "I have great
+admiration for Mr. Samuel Hart. I do believe that it would be found
+impossible to extract the truth from Mr. Samuel Hart. If Mr. Samuel Hart
+does not make money yet out of poor Mountjoy I shall be surprised."
+
+"The truth may be ascertained," said Mr. Grey. "You should get some
+accountant to examine the checks."
+
+"When I remember how easy it was to deceive some really clever men as to
+the evidence of my marriage--" began Mr. Scarborough. So the squire
+began, but then stopped himself, with a shrug of his shoulders. Among
+the really clever men who had been easily deceived Mr. Grey was, if not
+actually first in importance, foremost, at any rate, in name.
+
+"The truth may be ascertained," Mr. Grey repeated, almost with a scowl
+of anger upon his brow.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it may. It will be difficult, in opposition to Mr.
+Samuel Hart."
+
+"You must satisfy yourselves, at any rate. These men will know that they
+have no other hope of getting a shilling."
+
+"It is a little hard to make them believe anything," said the squire.
+"They fancy, you know, that if they could get a hold of Mountjoy, so as
+to have him in their hands when the breath is out of my body and the
+bonds are really due, that then it may be made to turn out that he is
+really the heir."
+
+"We know that it is not so," said Mr. Grey. At this Augustus smiled
+blandly.
+
+"We know. But it is what we can make Mr. Samuel Hart know. In truth, Mr.
+Samuel Hart never allows himself to know anything,--except the amount of
+money which he may have at his banker's. And it will be difficult to
+convince Mr. Tyrrwhit. Mr. Tyrrwhit is assured that all of us,--you and
+I, and Mountjoy and Augustus,--are in a conspiracy to cheat him and the
+others."
+
+"I don't wonder at it," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Perhaps not," continued the squire; "the circumstances, no doubt, are
+suspicious. But he will have to find out his mistake. Augustus is very
+anxious to pay these poor men their money. It is a noble feeling on the
+part of Augustus; you must admit that, Mr. Grey." The irony with which
+this was said was evident in the squire's face and voice. Augustus only
+quietly laughed. The attorney sat as firm as death. He was not going to
+argue with such a statement or to laugh at such a joke. "I suppose it
+will come to over a hundred thousand pounds."
+
+"Eighty thousand, I should think," said Augustus. "The bonds amount to a
+great deal more than that--twice that."
+
+"It is for him to judge," said the squire, "whether he is bound by his
+honor to pay so large a sum to men whom I do not suppose he loves very
+well."
+
+"The estate can bear it," said Augustus.
+
+"Yes, the estate can bear it," said the attorney. "They should be paid
+what they have expended. That is my idea. Your son thinks that their
+silence will be worth the money."
+
+"What makes you say that?" demanded Augustus.
+
+"Just my own opinion."
+
+"I look upon it as an insult."
+
+"Would you be kind enough to explain to us what is your reason for
+wishing to do this thing?" asked Mr. Grey.
+
+"No, sir; I decline to give any reason. But those which you ascribe to
+me are insulting."
+
+"Will you deny them?"
+
+"I will not assent to anything,--coming from you,--nor will I deny
+anything. It is altogether out of your place as an attorney to ascribe
+motives to your clients. Can you raise the money, so that it shall be
+forthcoming at once? That is the question."
+
+"On your father's authority, backed by your signature, I imagine that I
+can do so. But I will not answer as a certainty. The best thing would be
+to sell a portion of the property. If you and your father will join, and
+Mountjoy also with you, it may be done."
+
+"What has Mountjoy got to do with it?" asked the father.
+
+"You had better have Mountjoy also. There may be some doubt as to the
+title. People will think so after the tricks that have been played."
+This was said by the lawyer; but the squire only laughed. He always
+showed some enjoyment of the fun which arose from the effects of his own
+scheming. The legal world, with its entails, had endeavored to dispose
+of his property, but he had shown the legal world that it was not an
+easy task to dispose of anything in which he was concerned.
+
+"How will you get hold of Mountjoy?" asked Augustus. Then the two older
+men only looked at each other. Both of them believed that Augustus knew
+more about his brother than any one else. "I think you had better send
+to Mr. Annesley and ask him."
+
+"What does Annesley know about him?" asked the squire.
+
+"He was the last person who saw him, at any rate, in London."
+
+"Are you sure of that?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"I think I may say that I am. I think, at any rate, that I know that
+there was a violent quarrel between them in the streets,--a quarrel in
+which the two men proceeded to blows,--and that Annesley struck him in
+such a way as to leave him for dead upon the pavement. Then the young
+man walked away, and Mountjoy has not been heard of, or, at least, has
+not been seen since. That a man should have struck such a blow, and
+then, on the spur of the moment, thinking of his own safety, should have
+left his opponent, I can understand. I should not like to be accused of
+such treatment myself, but I can understand it. I cannot understand that
+the man should have been missing altogether, and that then he should
+have held his tongue."
+
+"How do you know all this?" asked the attorney.
+
+"It is sufficient that I do know it."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said the squire.
+
+"Coming from you, of course I must put up with any contradiction," said
+Augustus. "I should not bear it from any one else," and he looked at the
+attorney.
+
+"One has a right to ask for your authority," said his father.
+
+"I cannot give it. A lady is concerned whose name I shall not mention.
+But it is of less importance, as his own friends are acquainted with the
+nature of his conduct. Indeed, it seems odd to see you two gentlemen so
+ignorant as to the matter which has been a subject of common
+conversation in most circles. His uncle means to cut him out from the
+property."
+
+"Can he too deal with entails?" said the squire.
+
+"He is still in middle life, and he can marry. That is what he intended
+to do, so much is he disgusted with his nephew. He has already stopped
+the young man's allowance, and swears that he shall not have a shilling
+of his money if he can help it. The police for some time were in great
+doubt whether they would not arrest him. I think I am justified in
+saying that he is a thorough reprobate."
+
+"You are not at all justified," said the father.
+
+"I can only express my opinion, and am glad to say that the world agrees
+with me."
+
+"It is sickening, absolutely sickening," said the squire, turning to the
+attorney. "You would not believe, now--"
+
+But he stopped himself. "What would not Mr. Grey believe?" asked the
+son.
+
+"There is no one one knows better than you that after the row in the
+street,--when Mountjoy was, I believe, the aggressor,--he was again seen
+by another person. I hate such deceit and scheming." Here Augustus
+smiled. "What are you sniggering there at, you blockhead?"
+
+"Your hatred, sir, at deceit and scheming. The truth is that when a man
+plays a game well, he does not like to find that he has any equal.
+Heaven forbid that I should say that there is rivalry here. You, sir,
+are so pre-eminently the first that no one can touch you." Then he
+laughed long,--a low, bitter, inaudible laugh,--during which Mr. Grey sat
+silent.
+
+"This comes well from you!" said the father.
+
+"Well, sir, you would try your hand upon me. I have passed over all that
+you have done on my behalf. But when you come to abuse me I cannot quite
+take your words as calmly as though there had been--no, shall I say,
+antecedents? Now about this money. Are we to pay it?"
+
+"I don't care one straw about the money. What is it to me? I don't owe
+these creditors anything."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"Let them rest, then, and do the worst they can. But upon the whole, Mr.
+Grey," he added, after a pause, "I think we had better pay them. They
+have endeavored to be insolent to me, and I have therefore ignored their
+claim. I have told them to do their worst. If my son here will agree
+with you in raising the money, and if Mountjoy,--as he, too, is
+necessary,--will do so, I too will do what is required of me. If eighty
+thousand pounds will settle it all, there ought not to be any
+difficulty. You can inquire what the real amount would be. If they
+choose to hold to their bonds, nothing will come of it;--that's all."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Scarborough. Then I shall know how to proceed. I
+understand that Mr. Scarborough, junior, is an assenting party?" Mr.
+Scarborough, junior, signified his assent by nodding his head.
+
+"That will do, then, for I think that I have a little exhausted myself."
+Then he turned round upon his couch, as though he intended to slumber.
+Mr. Grey left the room, and Augustus followed him, but not a word was
+spoken between them. Mr. Grey had an early dinner and went up to London
+by an evening train. What became of Augustus he did not inquire, but
+simply asked for his dinner and for a conveyance to the train. These
+were forthcoming, and he returned that night to Fulham.
+
+"Well?" said Dolly, as soon as she had got him his slippers and made
+him his tea.
+
+"I wish with all my heart I had never seen any one of the name of
+Scarborough!"
+
+"That is of course;--but what have you done?"
+
+"The father has been a great knave. He has set the laws of his country
+at defiance, and should be punished most severely. And Mountjoy
+Scarborough has proved himself to be unfit to have any money in his
+hands. A man so reckless is little better than a lunatic. But compared
+with Augustus they are both estimable, amiable men. The father has ideas
+of philanthropy, and Mountjoy is simply mad. But Augustus is as
+dishonest as either of them, and is odious also all round." Then at
+length he explained all that he had learned, and all that he had
+advised, and at last went to bed combating Dolly's idea that the
+Scarboroughs ought now to be thrown over altogether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S THOUGHTS OF HIMSELF.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough was left alone he did not go to sleep, as he had
+pretended, but lay there for an hour, thinking of his position and
+indulging to the full the feelings of anger which he now entertained
+toward his second son. He had never, in truth, loved Augustus. Augustus
+was very like his father in his capacity for organizing deceit, for
+plotting, and so contriving that his own will should be in opposition to
+the wills of all those around him. But they were thoroughly unlike in
+the object to be attained. Mr. Scarborough was not a selfish man.
+Augustus was selfish and nothing else. Mr. Scarborough hated the
+law,--because it was the law and endeavored to put a restraint upon him
+and others. Augustus liked the law,--unless when in particular points it
+interfered with his own actions. Mr. Scarborough thought that he could
+do better than the law. Augustus wished to do worse. Mr. Scarborough
+never blushed at what he himself attempted, unless he failed, which was
+not often the case. But he was constantly driven to blush for his son.
+Augustus blushed for nothing and for nobody. When Mr. Scarborough had
+declared to the attorney that just praise was due to Augustus for the
+nobility of the sacrifice he was making, Augustus had understood his
+father accurately and determined to be revenged, not because of the
+expression of his father's thoughts, but because he had so expressed
+himself before the attorney. Mr. Scarborough also thought that he was
+entitled to his revenge.
+
+When he had been left alone for an hour he rung the bell, which was
+close at his side, and called for Mr. Merton. "Where is Mr. Grey?"
+
+"I think he has ordered the wagonette to take him to the station."
+
+"And where is Augustus?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"And Mr. Jones? I suppose they have not gone to the station. Just feel
+my pulse, Merton. I am afraid I am very weak." Mr. Merton felt his pulse
+and shook his head. "There isn't a pulse, so to speak."
+
+"Oh yes; but it is irregular. If you will exert yourself so violently--"
+
+"That is all very well; but a man has to exert himself sometimes, let
+the penalty be what it may. When do you think that Sir William will have
+to come again?" Sir William, when he came, would come with his knife,
+and his advent was always to be feared.
+
+"It depends very much on yourself, Mr. Scarborough. I don't think he can
+come very often, but you can make the distances long or short. You
+should attend to no business."
+
+"That is absolute rubbish."
+
+"Nevertheless, it is my duty to say so. Whatever arrangements may be
+required, they should be made by others. Of course, if you do as you
+have done this morning, I can suggest some little relief. I can give you
+tonics and increase the amount; but I cannot resist the evil which you
+yourself do yourself."
+
+"I understand all about it."
+
+"You will kill yourself if you go on."
+
+"I don't mean to go on any farther,--not as I have done to-day; but as to
+giving up business, that is rubbish. I have got my property to manage,
+and I mean to manage it myself as long as I live. Unfortunately, there
+have been accidents which make the management a little rough at times. I
+have had one of the rough moments to-day, but they shall not be
+repeated. I give you my word for that. But do not talk to me about
+giving up my business. Now I'll take your tonics, and then would you
+have the kindness to ask my sister to come to me?"
+
+Miss Scarborough, who was always in waiting on her brother, was at once
+in the room. "Martha," he said, "where is Augustus?"
+
+"I think he has gone out."
+
+"And where is Mr. Septimus Jones?"
+
+"He is with him, John. The two are always together."
+
+"You would not mind giving my compliments to Mr. Jones, and telling him
+that his bedroom is wanted?"
+
+"His bedroom wanted! There are lots of bedrooms, and nobody to occupy
+them."
+
+"It's a hint that I want him to go; he'd understand that."
+
+"Would it not be better to tell Augustus?" asked the lady, doubting much
+her power to carry out the instructions given to her.
+
+"He would tell Augustus. It is not, you see, any objection I have to Mr.
+Jones. I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. He is a most
+agreeable young man, I'm sure; but I do not care to entertain an
+agreeable young man without having a word to say on the subject.
+Augustus does not think it worth his while even to speak to me about
+him. Of course, when I am gone, in a month or so,--perhaps a week or
+two,--he can do as he pleases."
+
+"Don't, John!"
+
+"But it is so. While I live I am master at least of this house. I cannot
+see Mr. Jones, and I do not wish to have another quarrel with Augustus.
+Mr. Merton says that every time I get angry it gives Sir William another
+chance with the knife. I thought that perhaps you could do it." Then
+Miss Scarborough promised that she would do it, and, having her
+brother's health very much at heart, she did do it. Augustus stood
+smiling while the message was, in fact, conveyed to him, but he made no
+answer. When the lady had done he bobbed his head to signify that he
+acknowledged the receipt of it, and the lady retired.
+
+"I have got my walking-papers," he said to Septimus Jones ten minutes
+afterward.
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Don't you? Then you must be very thick-headed. My father has sent me
+word that you are to be turned out. Of course he means it for me. He
+does not wish to give me the power of saying that he sent me away from
+the house,--me, whom he has so long endeavored to rob,--me, to whom he
+owes so much for taking no steps to punish his fraud. And he knows that
+I can take none, because he is on his death-bed."
+
+"But you couldn't, could you, if he were--were anywhere else?"
+
+"Couldn't I? That's all you know about it. Understand, however, that I
+shall start to-morrow morning, and unless you like to remain here on a
+visit to him, you had better go with me." Mr. Jones signified his
+compliance with the hint, and so Miss Scarborough had done her work.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, when thus left alone, spent his time chiefly in
+thinking of the condition of his sons. His eldest son, Mountjoy, who had
+ever been his favorite, whom as a little boy he had spoiled by every
+means in his power, was a ruined man. His debts had all been paid,
+except the money due to the money-lenders. But he was not the less a
+ruined man. Where he was at this moment his father did not know. All the
+world knew the injustice of which he had been guilty on his boy's
+behalf, and all the world knew the failure of the endeavor. And now he
+had made a great and a successful effort to give back to his legitimate
+heir all the property. But in return the second son only desired his
+death, and almost told him so to his face. He had been proud of Augustus
+as a lad, but he had never loved him as he had loved Mountjoy. Now he
+knew that he and Augustus must henceforward be enemies. Never for a
+moment did he think of giving up his power over the estate as long as
+the estate should still be his. Though it should be but for a month,
+though it should be but for a week, he would hold his own. Such was the
+nature of the man, and when he swallowed Mr. Merton's tonics he did so
+more with the idea of keeping the property out of his son's hands than
+of preserving his own life. According to his view, he had done very much
+for Augustus, and this was the return which he received!
+
+And in truth he had done much for Augustus. For years past it had been
+his object to leave to his second son as much as would come to his
+first. He had continued to put money by for him, instead of spending his
+income on himself.
+
+Of this Mr. Grey had known much, but had said nothing when he was
+speaking those severe words which Mr. Scarborough had always contrived
+to receive with laughter. But he had felt their injustice, though he had
+himself ridiculed the idea of law. There had been the two sons, both
+born from the same mother, and he had willed that they should be both
+rich men, living among the foremost of their fellowmen, and the
+circumstances of the property would have helped him. The income from
+year to year went on increasing.
+
+The water-mills of Tretton and the town of Tretton had grown and been
+expanded within his domain, and the management of the sales in Mr.
+Grey's hands had been judicious. The revenues were double now what they
+had been when Mr. Scarborough first inherited it. It was all, no doubt,
+entailed, but for twenty years he had enjoyed the power of accumulating
+a sum of money for his second son's sake,--or would have enjoyed it, had
+not the accumulation been taken from him to pay Mountjoy's debts. It was
+in vain that he attempted to make Mountjoy responsible for the money.
+Mountjoy's debts, and irregularities, and gambling went on, till Mr.
+Scarborough found himself bound to dethrone the illegitimate son, and to
+place the legitimate in his proper position.
+
+In doing the deed he had not suffered much, though the circumstances
+which had led to the doing of it had been full of pain. There had been
+an actual pleasure to him in thus showing himself to be superior to the
+conventionalities of the world. There was Augustus still ready to occupy
+the position to which he had in truth been born. And at the moment
+Mountjoy had gone--he knew not where. There had been gambling debts
+which, coming as they did after many others, he had refused to pay. He
+himself was dying at the moment, as he thought. It would be better for
+him to take up with Augustus. Mountjoy he must leave to his fate. For
+such a son, so reckless, so incurable, so hopeless, it was impossible
+that anything farther should be done. He would at least enjoy the power
+of leaving those wretched creditors without their money. There would be
+some triumph, some consolation, in that. So he had done, and now his
+heir turned against him!
+
+It was very bitter to him, as he lay thinking of it all. He was a man
+who was from his constitution and heart capable of making great
+sacrifices for those he loved. He had a most thorough contempt for the
+character of an honest man. He did not believe in honesty, but only in
+mock honesty. And yet he would speak of an honest man with admiration,
+meaning something altogether different from the honesty of which men
+ordinarily spoke. The usual honesty of the world was with him all
+pretence, or, if not, assumed for the sake of the character it would
+achieve. Mr. Grey he knew to be honest; Mr. Grey's word he knew to be
+true; but he fancied that Mr. Grey had adopted this absurd mode of
+living with the view of cheating his neighbors by appearing to be better
+than others. All virtue and all vice were comprised by him in the words
+"good-nature" and "ill-nature." All church-going propensities,--and
+these propensities in his estimate extended very widely,--he scorned from
+the very bottom of his heart. That one set of words should be deemed
+more wicked than another, as in regard to swearing, was to him a sign
+either of hypocrisy, of idolatry, or of feminine weakness of intellect.
+To women he allowed the privilege of being, in regard to thought, only
+something better than dogs. When his sister Martha shuddered at some
+exclamation from his mouth, he would say to himself simply that she was
+a woman, not an idiot or a hypocrite. Of women, old and young, he had
+been very fond, and in his manner to them very tender; but when a woman
+rose to a way of thinking akin to his own, she was no longer a woman to
+his senses. Against such a one his taste revolted. She sunk to the level
+of a man contaminated by petticoats. And law was hardly less absurd to
+him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got
+together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the
+many.
+
+Robbery, if you could get to the bottom of it, was bad, as was all
+violence; but taxation was robbery, rent was robbery, prices fixed
+according to the desire of the seller and not in obedience to justice,
+were robbery. "Then you are the greatest of robbers," his friends would
+say to him. He would admit it, allowing that in such a state of society
+he was not prepared to go out and live naked in the streets if he could
+help it. But he delighted to get the better of the law, and triumphed in
+his own iniquity, as has been seen by his conduct in reference to his
+sons.
+
+In this way he lived, and was kind to many people, having a generous and
+an open hand. But he was a man who could hate with a bitter hatred, and
+he hated most those suspected by him of mean or dirty conduct. Mr. Grey,
+who constantly told him to his face that he was a rascal, he did not
+hate at all. Thinking Mr. Grey to be in some respects idiotic, he
+respected him, and almost loved him. He thoroughly believed Mr. Grey,
+thinking him to be an ass for telling so much truth unnecessarily. And
+he had loved his son Mountjoy in spite of all his iniquities, and had
+fostered him till it was impossible to foster him any longer. Then he
+had endeavored to love Augustus, and did not in the least love him the
+less because his son told him frequently of the wicked things he had
+done. He did not object to be told of his wickedness even by his son.
+But Augustus suspected him of other things than those of which he
+accused him, and attempted to be sharp with him and to get the better
+of him at his own game. And his son laughed at him and scorned him, and
+regarded him as one who was troublesome only for a time, and who need
+not be treated with much attention, because he was there only for a
+time. Therefore he hated Augustus. But Augustus was his heir, and he
+knew that he must die soon.
+
+But for how long could he live? And what could he yet do before he died?
+A braver man than Mr. Scarborough never lived,--that is, one who less
+feared to die. Whether that is true courage may be a question, but it
+was his, in conjunction with courage of another description. He did not
+fear to die, nor did he fear to live. But what he did fear was to fail
+before he died. Not to go out with the conviction that he was vanishing
+amid the glory of success, was to him to be wretched at his last moment,
+and to be wretched at his last moment, or to anticipate that he should
+be so, was to him,--even so near his last hours,--the acme of misery. How
+much of life was left to him, so that he might recover something of
+success? Or was any moment left to him?
+
+He could not sleep, so he rung his bell, and again sent for Mr. Merton.
+"I have taken what you told me."
+
+"So best," said Mr. Merton. For he did not always feel assured that this
+strange patient would take what had been ordered.
+
+"And I have tried to sleep."
+
+"That will come after a while. You would not naturally sleep just after
+the tonic."
+
+"And I have been thinking of what you said about business. There is one
+thing I must do, and then I can remain quiet for a fortnight, unless I
+should be called upon to disturb my rest by dying."
+
+"We will hope not."
+
+"That may go as it pleases," said the sick man. "I want you now to write
+a letter for me to Mr. Grey." Mr. Merton had undertaken to perform the
+duties of secretary as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to
+obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but
+he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down
+at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance
+with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,--the lawyer, you
+know,--is a good man."
+
+"The world, as far as I hear it, says that he is honest."
+
+"I don't care a straw what the world says. The world says that I am
+dishonest, but I am not." Merton could only shrug his shoulders. "I
+don't say that because I want you to change your opinion. I don't care
+what you think. But I tell you a fact. I doubt whether Grey is so
+absolutely honest as I am, but, as things go, he is a good man."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But the world, I suppose, says that my son Augustus is honest?"
+
+"Well, yes; I should suppose so."
+
+"If you have looked into him and have seen the contrary, I respect your
+intelligence."
+
+"I did not mean anything particular."
+
+"I dare say not, and if so, I mean nothing particular as to your
+intelligence. He, at any rate, is a scoundrel. Mountjoy--you know
+Mountjoy?"
+
+"Never saw him in my life."
+
+"I don't think he is a scoundrel,--not all round. He has gambled when he
+has not had money to pay. That is bad. And he has promised when he
+wanted money, and broken his word as soon as he had got it, which is bad
+also. And he has thought himself to be a fine fellow because he has been
+intimate with lords and dukes, which is very bad. He has never cared
+whether he paid his tailor. I do not mean that he has merely got into
+debt, which a young man such as he cannot help; but he has not cared
+whether his breeches were his or another man's. That too is bad. Though
+he has been passionately fond of women, it has only been for himself,
+not for the women, which is very bad. There is an immense deal to be
+altered before he can go to heaven."
+
+"I hope the change may come before it is too late," said Merton.
+
+"These changes don't come very suddenly, you know. But there is some
+chance for Mountjoy. I don't think that there is any for Augustus." Here
+he paused, but Merton did not feel disposed to make any remark. "You
+don't happen to know a young man of the name of Annesley,--Harry
+Annesley?"
+
+"I have heard his name from your son."
+
+"From Augustus? Then you didn't hear any good of him, I'm sure. You have
+heard all the row about poor Mountjoy's disappearance?"
+
+"I heard that he did disappear."
+
+"After a quarrel with that Annesley?"
+
+"After some quarrel. I did not notice the name at the time."
+
+"Harry Annesley was the name. Now, Augustus says that Harry Annesley
+was the last person who saw Mountjoy before his disappearance,--the last
+who knew him. He implies thereby that Annesley was the conscious or
+unconscious cause of his disappearance."
+
+"Well, yes."
+
+"Certainly it is so. And as it has been thought by the police, and by
+other fools, that Mountjoy was murdered,--that his disappearance was
+occasioned by his death, either by murder or suicide, it follows that
+Annesley must have had something to do with it. That is the inference,
+is it not?"
+
+"I should suppose so," said Merton.
+
+"That is manifestly the inference which Augustus draws. To hear him
+speak to me about it you would suppose that he suspected Annesley of
+having killed Mountjoy."
+
+"Not that, I hope."
+
+"Something of the sort. He has intended it to be believed that Annesley,
+for his own purposes, has caused Mountjoy to be made away with. He has
+endeavored to fill the police with that idea. A policeman, generally, is
+the biggest fool that London, or England, or the world produces, and has
+been selected on that account. Therefore the police have a beautifully
+mysterious but altogether ignorant suspicion as to Annesley. That is the
+doing of Augustus, for some purpose of his own. Now, let me tell you
+that Augustus saw Mountjoy after Annesley had seen him, that he knows
+this to be the case, and that it was Augustus, who contrived Mountjoy's
+disappearance. Now what do you think of Augustus?" This was a question
+which Merton did not find it very easy to answer. But Mr. Scarborough
+waited for a reply. "Eh?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I had rather not give an opinion on a point so raised."
+
+"You may. Of course you understand that I intend to assert that Augustus
+is the greatest blackguard you ever knew. If you have anything to say in
+his favor you can say it."
+
+"Only that you may be mistaken. Living down here, you may not know the
+truth."
+
+"Just that. But I do know the truth. Augustus is very clever; but there
+are others as clever as he is. He can pay, but then so can I. That he
+should want to get Mountjoy out of the way is intelligible. Mountjoy has
+become disreputable, and had better be out of the way. But why
+persistently endeavor to throw the blame upon young Annesley? That
+surprises me;--only I do not care much about it. I hear now for the first
+time that he has ruined young Annesley, and that does appear to be very
+horrible. But why does he want to pay eighty thousand pounds to these
+creditors? That I should wish to do so,--out of a property which must in
+a very short time become his,--would be intelligible. I may be supposed
+to have some affection for Mountjoy, and, after all, am not called upon
+to pay the money out of my own pocket. Do you understand it?"
+
+"Not in the least," said Merton, who did not, indeed, very much care
+about it.
+
+"Nor do I;--only this, that if he could pay these men and deprive them of
+all power of obtaining farther payment, let who would have the property,
+they at any rate would be quiet. Augustus is now my eldest son. Perhaps
+he thinks he might not remain so. If I were out of the way, and these
+creditors were paid, he thinks that poor Mountjoy wouldn't have a
+chance. He shall pay this eighty thousand pounds. Mountjoy hasn't a
+chance as it is; but Augustus shall pay the penalty."
+
+Then he threw himself back on the bed, and Mr. Merton begged him to
+spare himself the trouble of the letter for the present. But in a few
+minutes he was again on his elbow and took some farther medicine. "I'm a
+great ass," he said, "to help Augustus in playing his game. If I were to
+go off at once he would be the happiest fellow left alive. But come, let
+us begin." Then he dictated the letter as follows:
+
+"DEAR MR. GREY,--I have been thinking much of what passed between us the
+other day. Augustus seems to be in a great hurry as to paying the
+creditors, and I do not see why he should not be gratified, as the money
+may now be forthcoming. I presume that the sales, which will be
+completed before Christmas, will nearly enable us to stop their mouths.
+I can understand that Mountjoy should be induced to join with me and
+Augustus, so that in disposing of so large a sum of money the authority
+of all may be given, both of myself and of the heir, and also of him who
+a short time since was supposed to be the heir. I think that you may
+possibly find Mountjoy's address by applying to Augustus, who is always
+clever in such matters.
+
+"But you will have to be certain that you obtain all the bonds. If you
+can get Tyrrwhit to help you you will be able to be sure of doing so.
+The matter to him is one of vital importance, as his sum is so much the
+largest. Of course he will open his mouth very wide; but when he finds
+that he can get his principal and nothing more, I think that he will
+help you. I am afraid that I must ask you to put yourself in
+correspondence with Augustus. That he is an insolent scoundrel I will
+admit; but we cannot very well complete this affair without him. I fancy
+that he now feels it to be his interest to get it all done before I die,
+as the men will be clamorous with their bonds as soon as the breath is
+out of my body.--
+
+"Yours sincerely, JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"That will do," he said, when the letter was finished. But when Mr.
+Merton turned to leave the room Mr. Scarborough detained him. "Upon the
+whole, I am not dissatisfied with my life," he said.
+
+"I don't know that you have occasion," rejoined Mr. Merton. In this he
+absolutely lied, for, according to his thinking, there was very much in
+the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's life which ought to have induced
+regret. He knew the whole story of the birth of the elder son, of the
+subsequent marriage, of Mr. Scarborough's fraudulent deceit which had
+lasted so many years, and of his later return to the truth, so as to
+save the property, and to give back to the younger son all of which for
+so many years he, his father, had attempted to rob him.
+
+All London had talked of the affair, and all London had declared that so
+wicked and dishonest an old gentleman had never lived. And now he had
+returned to the truth simply with the view of cheating the creditors and
+keeping the estate in the family. He was manifestly an old gentleman who
+ought to be, above all others, dissatisfied with his own life; but Mr.
+Merton, when the assertion was made to him, knew not what other answer
+to make.
+
+"I really do not think I have, nor do I know one to whom heaven with all
+its bliss will be more readily accorded. What have I done for myself?"
+
+"I don't quite know what you have done all your life."
+
+"I was born a rich man, and then I married,--not rich as I am now, but
+with ample means for marrying."
+
+"After Mr. Mountjoy's birth," said Merton, who could not pretend to be
+ignorant of the circumstance.
+
+"Well, yes. I have my own ideas about marriage and that kind of thing,
+which are, perhaps, at variance with yours." Whereupon Merton bowed. "I
+had the best wife in the world, who entirely coincided with me in all
+that I did. I lived entirely abroad, and made most liberal allowances to
+all the agricultural tenants. I rebuilt all the cottages;--go and look at
+them. I let any man shoot his own game till Mountjoy came up in the
+world and took the shooting into his own hands. When the people at the
+pottery began to build I assisted them in every way in the world. I
+offered to keep a school at my own expense, solely on the understanding
+that what they call Dissenters should be allowed to come there. The
+parson spread abroad a rumor that I was an atheist, and consequently the
+School was kept for the Dissenters only. The School-board has come and
+made that all right, though the parson goes on with his rumor. If he
+understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more
+of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on
+them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes
+were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I
+have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became richer, but
+Mountjoy grew more and more expensive. I began to find that with all my
+economies the estate could not keep pace with him, so as to allow me to
+put by anything for Augustus. Then I had to bethink myself what I had to
+do to save the estate from those rascals."
+
+"You took peculiar steps."
+
+"I am a man who does take peculiar steps. Another would have turned his
+face to the wall in my state of health, and have allowed two dirty Jews
+such as Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart to have revelled in the wealth of
+Tretton. I am not going to allow them to revel. Tyrrwhit knows me, and
+Hart will have to know me. They could not keep their hands to themselves
+till the breath was out of my body. Now I am about to see that each
+shall have his own shortly, and the estate will still be kept in the
+family."
+
+"For Mr. Augustus Scarborough?"
+
+"Yes, alas, yes! But that is not my doing. I do not know that I have
+cause to be dissatisfied with myself, but I cannot but own that I am
+unhappy. But I wished you to understand that though a man may break the
+law, he need not therefore be accounted bad, and though he may have
+views of his own as to religious matters, he need not be an atheist. I
+have made efforts on behalf of others, in which I have allowed no
+outward circumstances to control me. Now I think I do feel sleepy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS SUMMONED HOME.
+
+
+"Just now I am triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he
+left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was
+absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the
+abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well
+of his own parts as to have flattered himself that the girl must
+certainly be his.
+
+There are at present a number of young men about who think that few
+girls are worth the winning, but that any girl is to be had, not by
+asking,--which would be troublesome,--but simply by looking at her. You
+can see the feeling in their faces. They are for the most part small in
+stature, well made little men, who are aware that they have something to
+be proud of, wearing close-packed, shining little hats, by which they
+seem to add more than a cubit to their stature; men endowed with certain
+gifts of personal--dignity I may perhaps call it, though the word rises
+somewhat too high. They look as though they would be able to say a
+clever thing; but their spoken thoughts seldom rise above a small, acrid
+sharpness. They respect no one; above all, not their elders. To such a
+one his horse comes first, if he have a horse; then a dog; and then a
+stick; and after that the mistress of his affections. But their fault is
+not altogether of their own making. It is the girls themselves who spoil
+them and endure their inanity, because of that assumed look of
+superiority which to the eyes of the outside world would be a little
+offensive were it not a little foolish. But they do not marry often.
+Whether it be that the girls know better at last, or that they
+themselves do not see sufficiently clearly their future dinners, who can
+say? They are for the most part younger brothers, and perhaps have
+discovered the best way of getting out of the world whatever scraps the
+world can afford them. Harry Annesley's faults were altogether of
+another kind. In regard to this young woman, the Florence whom he had
+loved, he had been over-modest. Now his feeling of glory was altogether
+redundant. Having been told by Florence that she was devoted to him, he
+walked with his head among the heavens. The first instinct with such a
+young man as those of whom I have spoken teaches him, the moment he has
+committed himself, to begin to consider how he can get out of the
+scrape. It is not much of a scrape, for when an older man comes this
+way, a man verging toward baldness, with a good professional income, our
+little friend is forgotten and he is passed by without a word. But Harry
+had now a conviction,--on that one special night,--that he never would be
+forgotten and never would forget. He was filled at once with an unwonted
+pride. All the world was now at his feet, and all the stars were open to
+him. He had begun to have a glimmering of what it was that Augustus
+Scarborough intended to do; but the intentions of Augustus Scarborough
+were now of no moment to him. He was clothed in a panoply of armor which
+would be true against all weapons. At any rate, on that night and during
+the next day this feeling remained the same with him.
+
+Then he received a summons from his mother at Buston. His mother pressed
+him to come at once down to the parsonage. "Your uncle has been with
+your father, and has said terrible things about you. As you know, my
+brother is not very strong-minded, and I should not care so much for
+what he says were it not that so much is in his hands. I cannot
+understand what it is all about, but your father says that he does
+nothing but threaten. He talks of putting the entail on one side.
+Entails used to be fixed things, I thought; but since what old Mr.
+Scarborough did nobody seems to regard them now. But even suppose the
+entail does remain, what are you to do about the income? Your father
+thinks you had better come down and have a little talk about the
+matter."
+
+This was the first blow received since the moment of his exaltation.
+Harry knew very well that the entail was fixed, and could not be put
+aside by Mr. Prosper, though Mr. Scarborough might have succeeded with
+his entail; but yet he was aware that his present income was chiefly
+dependent on his uncle's good-will. To be reduced to live on his
+fellowship would be very dreadful. And that income, such as it was,
+depended entirely on his celibacy. And he had, too, as he was well
+aware, engendered habits of idleness during the last two years. The mind
+of a young man so circumstanced turns always first to the Bar, and then
+to literature. At the Bar he did not think that there could be any
+opening for him. In the first place, it was late to begin; and then he
+was humble enough to believe of himself that he had none of the peculiar
+gifts necessary for a judge or for an advocate. Perhaps the knowledge
+that six or seven years of preliminary labor would be necessary was
+somewhat of a deterrent.
+
+The rewards of literature might be achieved immediately. Such was his
+idea. But he had another idea,--perhaps as erroneous,--that this career
+would not become a gentleman who intended to be Squire of Buston. He had
+seen two or three men, decidedly Bohemian in their modes of life, to
+whom he did not wish to assimilate himself. There was Quaverdale, whom
+he had known intimately at St. John's, and who was on the Press.
+Quaverdale had quarrelled absolutely with his father, who was also a
+clergyman, and having been thrown altogether on his own resources, had
+come out as a writer for _The Coming Hour_. He made his five or six
+hundred a year in a rattling, loose, uncertain sort of fashion, and
+was,--so thought Harry Annesley,--the dirtiest man of his acquaintance. He
+did not believe in the six hundred a year, or Quaverdale would certainly
+have changed his shirt more frequently, and would sometimes have had a
+new pair of trousers. He was very amusing, very happy, very thoughtless,
+and as a rule altogether impecunious. Annesley had never known him
+without the means of getting a good dinner, but those means did not rise
+to the purchase of a new hat. Putting Quaverdale before him as an
+example, Annesley could not bring himself to choose literature as a
+profession. Thinking of all this when he received his mother's letter,
+he assured himself that Florence would not like professional literature.
+
+He wrote to say that he would be down at Buston in five days' time. It
+does not become a son who is a fellow of a college and the heir to a
+property to obey his parents too quickly. But he gave up the
+intermediate days to thinking over the condition which bound him to his
+uncle, and to discussing his prospects with Quaverdale, who, as usual,
+was remaining in town doing the editor's work for _The Coming Hour_. "If
+he interfered with me I should tell him to go to bed," said Quaverdale.
+The allusion was, of course, made to Mr. Prosper.
+
+"I am not on those sort of terms with him."
+
+"I should make my own terms, and then let him do his worst. What can he
+do? If he means to withdraw his beggarly two hundred and fifty pounds,
+of course he'll do it."
+
+"I suppose I do owe him something, in the way of respect."
+
+"Not if he threatens you in regard to money. What does it come to? That
+you are to cringe at his heels for a beggarly allowance which he has
+been pleased to bestow upon you without your asking. 'Very well, my dear
+fellow,' I should say to him, 'you can stop it the moment you please.
+For certain objects of your own,--that your heir might live in the world
+after a certain fashion,--you have bestowed it. It has been mine since I
+was a child. If you can reconcile it to your conscience to discontinue
+it, do so.' You would find that he would have to think twice about it."
+
+"He will stop it, and what am I to do then? Can I get an opening on any
+of these papers?" Quaverdale whistled,--a mode of receiving the overture
+which was not pleasing to Annesley. "I don't suppose that anything so
+very super-human in the way of intellect is required." Annesley had got
+a fellowship, whereas Quaverdale had done nothing at the university.
+
+"Couldn't you make a pair of shoes? Shoemakers do get good wages."
+
+"What do you mean? A fellow never can get you to be serious for two
+minutes together.
+
+"I never was more serious in my life."
+
+"That I am to make shoes?"
+
+"No, I don't quite think that. I don't suppose you can make them. You'd
+have first to learn the trade and show that you were an adept."
+
+"And I must show that I am an adept before I can write for _The Coming
+Hour_." There was a tone of sarcasm in this which was not lost on
+Quaverdale.
+
+"Certainly you must; and that you are a better adept than I who have got
+the place, or some other unfortunate who will have to be put out of his
+berth. _The Coming Hour_ only requires a certain number. Of course there
+are many newspapers in London, and many magazines, and much literary
+work going. You may get your share of it, but you have got to begin by
+shoving some incompetent fellow out. And in order to be able to begin
+you must learn the trade."
+
+"How did you begin?"
+
+"Just in that way. While you were roaming about London like a fine
+gentleman I began by earning twenty-four shillings a week."
+
+"Can I earn twenty-four shillings a week?"
+
+"You won't because you have already got your fellowship. You had a knack
+at writing Greek iambics, and therefore got a fellowship. I picked up at
+the same time the way of stringing English together. I also soon learned
+the way to be hungry. I'm not hungry now very often, but I've been
+through it. My belief is that you wouldn't get along with my editor."
+
+"That's your idea of being independent."
+
+"Certainly it is. I do his work, and take his pay, and obey his orders.
+If you think you can do the same, come and try. There's not room here,
+but there is, no doubt, room elsewhere. There's the trade to be
+learned, like any other trade; but my belief is that even then you could
+not do it. We don't want Greek iambics."
+
+Harry turned away disgusted. Quaverdale was like the rest of the world,
+and thought that a peculiar talent and a peculiar tact were needed for
+his own business. Harry believed that he was as able to write a leading
+article, at any rate, as Quaverdale, and that the Greek iambics would
+not stand in his way. But he conceived it to be probable that his habits
+of cleanliness might do so, and gave up the idea for the present. He
+thought that his friend should have welcomed him with an open hand into
+the realms of literature; and, perhaps, it was the case that Quaverdale
+attributed too much weight to the knack of turning readable paragraphs
+on any subject at any moment's notice.
+
+But what should he do down at Buston? There were three persons there
+with whom he would have to contend,--his father, his mother, and his
+uncle. With his father he had always been on good terms, but had still
+been subject to a certain amount of gentle sarcasm. He had got his
+fellowship and his allowance, and so had been lifted above his father's
+authority. His father thoroughly despised his brother-in-law, and looked
+down upon him as an absolute ass. But he was reticent, only dropping a
+word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a
+feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were
+encouraged to laugh at his benefactor. He had said a word or two as to a
+profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to
+nothing. In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and
+the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether
+opposed the notion. The rector himself was an idle, good-looking,
+self-indulgent man,--a man who read a little and understood what he read,
+and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no
+trouble about anything. To go through the world comfortably with a
+rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his
+ambition. In regard to his eldest son he had begun well. Harry had been
+educated free, and had got a fellowship. He had never cost his father a
+shilling. And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be
+married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford.
+This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a
+thankful heart. There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a
+third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school
+at Royston. Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world
+with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his
+troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages. Of
+these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be
+careful to guard it. It was quite out of the question that he should
+find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty
+pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.
+
+Then there was Harry's mother, who had already very frequently
+discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a
+dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be
+swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of
+plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the
+young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be
+stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung
+were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,--an
+amusement which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit
+of following. Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having
+been born at the Hall. She was an excellent mother of a family, and a
+good clergyman's wife, being in both respects more painstaking and
+assiduous than her husband. But she did maintain something of respect
+for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool.
+But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have
+reached the age of fifty unmarried, so as to leave the position of heir
+open to her own son, was more. To such a one a great deal was due; but
+of that deal Harry was but little disposed to pay any part. He must be
+talked to, and very seriously talked to, and if possible saved from the
+sin of offending his easily-offended uncle. A terrible idea had been
+suggested to her lately by her husband. The entail might be made
+altogether inoperative by the marriage of her brother. It was a fearful
+notion, but one which if it entered into her brother's head might
+possibly be carried out. No one before had ever dreamed of anything so
+dangerous to the Annesley interests, and Mrs. Annesley now felt that by
+due submission on the part of the heir it might be avoided.
+
+But the squire himself was the foe whom Harry most feared. He quite
+understood that he would be required to be submissive, and, even if he
+were willing, he did not know how to act the part. There was much now
+that he would endure for the sake of Florence. If Mr. Prosper demanded
+that after dinner he should hear a sermon, he would sit and hear it out.
+It would be a bore, but might be endured on behalf of the girl whom he
+loved. But he much feared that the cause of his uncle's displeasure was
+deeper than that. A rumor had reached him that his uncle had declared
+his conduct to Mountjoy Scarborough to have been abominable. He had
+heard no words spoken by his uncle, but threats had reached him through
+his mother, and also through his uncle's man of business. He certainly
+would go down to Buston, and carry himself toward his uncle with what
+outward signs of respect would be possible. But if his uncle accused
+him, he could not but tell his uncle that he knew nothing of the matter
+of which he was talking. Not for all Buston could he admit that he had
+done anything mean or ignoble. Florence, he was quite sure, would not
+desire it. Florence would not be Florence were she to desire it. He
+thought that he could trace the hands,--or rather the tongues,--through
+which the calumny had made its way down to the Hall. He would at once go
+to the Hall, and tell his uncle all the facts. He would describe the
+gross ill-usage to which he had been subjected. No doubt he had left the
+man sprawling upon the pavement, but there had been no sign that the man
+had been dangerously hurt; and when two days afterward the man had
+vanished, it was clear that he could not have vanished without legs. Had
+he taken himself off,--as was probable,--then why need Harry trouble
+himself as to his vanishing? If some one else had helped him in
+escaping,--as was also probable,--why had not that some one come and told
+the circumstances when all the inquiries were being made? Why should he
+have been expected to speak of the circumstances of such an encounter,
+which could not have been told but to Captain Scarborough's infinite
+disgrace? And he could not have told of it without naming Florence
+Mountjoy.
+
+His uncle, when he heard the truth, must acknowledge that he had not
+behaved badly. And yet Harry, as he turned it all in his mind was uneasy
+as to his own conduct. He could not quite acquit himself in that he had
+kept secret all the facts of that midnight encounter in the face of the
+inquiries which had been made, in that he had falsely assured Augustus
+Scarborough of his ignorance. And yet he knew that on no consideration
+would he acknowledge himself to have been wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE RUMORS AS TO MR. PROSPER.
+
+
+It was still October when Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and the
+Mountjoys had just reached Brussels. Mr. Grey had made his visit to
+Tretton and had returned to London. Harry went home on an
+understanding,--on the part of his mother, at any rate,--that he should
+remain there till Christmas. But he felt himself very averse to so long
+a sojourn. If the Hall and park were open to him he might endure it. He
+would take down two or three stiff books which he certainly would never
+read, and would shoot a few pheasants, and possibly ride one of his
+future brother-in-law's horses with the hounds. But he feared that there
+was to be a quarrel by which he would be debarred from the Hall and the
+park; and he knew, too, that it would not be well for him to shoot and
+hunt when his income should have been cut off. It would be necessary
+that some great step should be taken at once; but then it would be
+necessary, also, that Florence should agree to that step. He had a
+modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for
+what must occur by giving notice. "I don't say as yet that I shall give
+them up; but I might as well let you know that it's possible." This he
+said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this
+intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do. But where should he betake
+himself when his home at Mrs. Brown's had been lost? He would, he
+thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the
+rectory. Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to
+Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.
+
+He saw it all in his mother's eye the moment she embraced him. There was
+some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle?
+"Well, mother, what is it?"
+
+"Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!"
+
+"Is my uncle dead?"
+
+"Dead! No!"
+
+"Then why do you look so sad?--
+
+  "'Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
+  So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
+  Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.'"
+
+"Oh Harry do not laugh. Your uncle says such dreadful things!"
+
+"I don't care much what he says. The question is--what does he mean to
+do?"
+
+"He declares that he will cut you off altogether."
+
+"That is sooner said than done."
+
+"That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it. Oh, Harry! But come and
+sit down and talk to me. I told your father to be out, so that I might
+have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford."
+
+"Ah, like them! Thoroughbung will have enough of them."
+
+"He is our only happiness now."
+
+"Poor Thoroughbung! I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole
+household."
+
+"Joshua is a most excellent young man. Where we should be without him I
+do not know." The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had
+been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a
+brother-in-law.
+
+"I am sure he is; particularly as he has chosen Molly to be his wife. He
+is just the young man who ought to have a wife."
+
+"Of course he ought."
+
+"Because he can keep a family. But now about my uncle. He is to perform
+this ceremony of cutting me off. Will he turn out to have had a wife and
+family in former ages? I have no doubt old Scarborough could manage it,
+but I don't give my uncle credit for so much cleverness."
+
+"But in future ages--" said the unhappy mother, shaking her head and
+rubbing her eyes.
+
+"You mean that he is going to have a family?"
+
+"It is all in the hands of Providence," said the parson's wife.
+
+"Yes; that is true. He is not too old yet to be a second Priam, and have
+his curtains drawn the other way. That's his little game, is it?"
+
+"There's a sort of rumor about, that it is possible."
+
+"And who is the lady?"
+
+"You may be sure there will be no lack of a lady if he sets his mind
+upon it. I was turning it over in my mind, and I thought of Matilda
+Thoroughbung."
+
+"Joshua's aunt!"
+
+"Well; she is Joshua's aunt, no doubt. I did just whisper the idea to
+Joshua, and he says that she is fool enough for anything. She has
+twenty-five thousand pounds of her own, but she lives all by herself."
+
+"I know where she lives,--just out of Buntingford, as you go to Royston.
+But she's not alone. Is Uncle Prosper to marry Miss Tickle also?" Miss
+Tickle was an estimable lady living as companion to Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I don't know how they may manage; but it has to be thought of, Harry.
+We only know that your uncle has been twice to Buntingford."
+
+"The lady is fifty, at any rate."
+
+"The lady is barely forty. She gives out that she is thirty-six. And he
+could settle a jointure on her which would leave the property not worth
+having."
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear; what can you do?"
+
+"Why is he going to upset all the arrangements of my life, and his life,
+after such a fashion as this?"
+
+"That's just what your father says."
+
+"I suppose he can do it. The law will allow him. But the injustice would
+be monstrous. I did not ask him to take me by the hand when I was a boy
+and lead me into this special walk of life. It has been his own doing.
+How will he look me in the face and tell me that he is going to marry a
+wife? I shall look him in the face and tell him of my wife."
+
+"But is that settled?"
+
+"Yes, mother; it is settled. Wish me joy for having won the finest lady
+that ever walked the earth." His mother blessed him,--but said nothing
+about the finest lady,--who at that moment she believed to be the future
+bride of Mr. Joshua Thoroughbung. "And when I shall tell my uncle that
+it is so, what will he say to me? Will he have the face then to tell me
+that I am to be cut out of Buston? I doubt whether he will have the
+courage."
+
+"He has thought of that, Harry."
+
+"How thought of it, mother?"
+
+"He has given orders that he is not to see you."
+
+"Not to see me!"
+
+"So he declares. He has written a long letter to your father, in which
+he says that he would be spared the agony of an interview."
+
+"What! is it all done, then?"
+
+"Your father got the letter yesterday. It must have taken my poor
+brother a week to write it."
+
+"And he tells the whole plan,--Matilda Thoroughbung, and the future
+family?"
+
+"No, he does not say anything about Miss Thoroughbung He says that he
+must make other arrangements about the property."
+
+"He can't make other arrangements; that is, not until the boy is born.
+It may be a long time first, you know."
+
+"But the jointure?"
+
+"What does Molly say about it?"
+
+"Molly is mad about it and so is Joshua. Joshua talks about it just as
+though he were one of us, and he says that the old people at Buntingford
+would not hear of it." The old people spoken of were the father and
+mother of Joshua, and the half-brother of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung.
+"But what can they do?"
+
+"They can do nothing. If Miss Matilda likes Uncle Prosper--"
+
+"Likes, my dear! How young you are! Of course she would like a country
+house to live in, and the park, and the county society. And she would
+like somebody to live with besides Miss Tickle."
+
+"My uncle, for instance."
+
+"Yes, your uncle."
+
+"If I had my choice, mother, I should prefer Miss Tickle."
+
+"Because you are a silly boy. But what are you to do now?"
+
+"In this long letter which he has written to my father does he give no
+reason?"
+
+"Your father will show you the letter. Of course he gives reasons. He
+says that you have done something which you ought not to have
+done--about that wretched Mountjoy Scarborough."
+
+"What does he know about it?--the idiot!"
+
+"Oh, Harry!"
+
+"Well, mother, what better can I say of him? He has taken me as a child
+and fashioned my life for me; has said that this property should be
+mine, and has put an income into my hand as though I were an eldest son;
+has repeatedly declared, when his voice was more potent than mine, that
+I should follow no profession. He has bound himself to me, telling all
+the world that I was his heir. And now he casts me out because he has
+heard some cock-and-bull story, of the truth of which he knows nothing.
+What better can I say of him than call him an idiot? He must be that or
+else a heartless knave. And he says that he does not mean to see me,--me
+with whose life he has thus been empowered to interfere, so as to blast
+it if not to bless it, and intends to turn me adrift as he might do a
+dog that did not suit him! And because he knows that he cannot answer me
+he declares that he will not see me."
+
+"It is very hard, Harry."
+
+"Therefore I call him an idiot in preference to calling him a knave. But
+I am not going to be dropped out of the running in that way, just in
+deference to his will. I shall see him. Unless they lock him up in his
+bedroom I shall compel him to see me."
+
+"What good would that do, Harry? That would only set him more against
+you."
+
+"You don't know his weakness."
+
+"Oh yes, I do; he is very weak."
+
+"He will not see me, because he will have to yield when he hears what I
+have to say for myself. He knows that, and would therefore fain keep
+away from me. Why should he be stirred to this animosity against me?"
+
+"Why indeed?"
+
+"Because there is some one who wishes to injure me more strong than he
+is, and who has got hold of him. Some one has lied behind my back."
+
+"Who has done this?"
+
+"Ah, that is the question. But I know who has done it, though I will not
+name him just now. This enemy of mine, knowing him to be weak,--knowing
+him to be an idiot, has got hold of him and persuaded him. He believes
+the story which is told to him, and then feels happy in shaking off an
+incubus. No doubt I have not been very soft with him,--nor, indeed, hard.
+I have kept out of his way, and he is willing to resent it; but he is
+afraid to face me and tell me that it is so. Here are the girls come
+back from Buntingford. Molly, you blooming young bride, I wish you joy
+of your brewer."
+
+"He's none the worse on that account, Master Harry," said the eldest
+sister.
+
+"All the better,--very much the better. Where would you be if he was not
+a brewer? But I congratulate you with all my heart, old girl. I have
+known him ever so long, and he is one of the best fellows I do know."
+
+"Thank you, Harry," and she kissed him.
+
+"I wish Fanny and Kate may even do so well."
+
+"All in good time," said Fanny.
+
+"I mean to have a banker--all to myself," said Kate.
+
+"I wish you may have half as good a man for your husband," said Harry.
+
+"And I am to tell you," continued Molly, who was now in high
+good-humor, "that there will be always one of his horses for you to ride
+as long as you remain at home. It is not every brother-in-law that would
+do as much as that for you."
+
+"Nor yet every uncle," said Kate, shaking her head, from which Harry
+could see that this quarrel with his uncle had been freely discussed in
+the family circle.
+
+"Uncles are very different," said the mother; "uncles can't be expected
+to do everything as though they were in love."
+
+"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle
+Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. Then the other two
+girls shook their heads very gravely, from which Harry learned that the
+question respecting the choice of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung as a
+mistress for the Hall had been discussed also before them.
+
+"I am not going to marry all the family," said Molly.
+
+"Not Miss Matilda, for instance," said her brother, laughing.
+
+"No, especially not Matilda. Joshua is quite as angry about his aunt as
+anybody here can be. You'll find that he is more of an Annesley than a
+Thoroughbung."
+
+"My dear," said the mother, "your husband will, as a matter of course,
+think most of his own family. And so ought you to do of his family,
+which will be yours. A married woman should always think most of her
+husband's family." In this way the mother told her daughter of her
+future duties; but behind the mother's back Kate made a grimace, for the
+benefit of her sister Fanny, showing thereby her conviction that in a
+matter of blood,--what she called being a gentleman,--a Thoroughbung could
+not approach an Annesley.
+
+"Mamma does not know it as yet," Molly said afterward in privacy to her
+brother, "but you may take it for granted that Uncle Peter has been into
+Buntingford and has made an offer to Aunt Matilda. I could tell it at
+once, because she looked so sharp at me to-day. And Joshua says that he
+is sure it is so by the airs she gives herself."
+
+"You think she'll have him?"
+
+"Have him! Of course she'll have him. Why shouldn't she? A wretched old
+maid living with a companion like that would have any one."
+
+"She has got a lot of money."
+
+"She'll take care of her money, let her alone for that.
+
+"And she'll have his house to live in. And there'll be a jointure. Of
+course, if there were to be children--"
+
+"Oh, bother!"
+
+"Well, perhaps there will not. But it will be just as bad. We don't mean
+even to visit them; we think it so very wicked. And we shall tell them a
+bit of our mind as soon as the thing has been publicly declared."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S MISERY.
+
+
+The conversation which took place that evening between Harry and his
+father was more serious in its language, though not more important in
+its purpose. "This is bad news, Harry," said the rector.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir."'
+
+"Your uncle, no doubt, can do as he pleases."
+
+"You mean as to the income he has allowed me?"
+
+"As to the income! As to the property itself. It is bad waiting for dead
+men's shoes."
+
+"And yet it is what everybody does in this world. No one can say that I
+have been at all in a hurry to step into my uncle's shoes. It was he
+that first told you that he should never marry, and as the property had
+been entailed on me, he undertook to bring me up as his son."
+
+"So he did."
+
+"Not a doubt about it, sir. But I had nothing to say to it. As far as I
+understand, he has been allowing me two hundred and fifty pounds a year
+for the last dozen years."
+
+"Ever since you went to the Charter-house."
+
+"At that time I could not be expected to have a word to say to it. And
+it has gone on ever since."
+
+"Yes, it has gone on ever since."
+
+"And when I was leaving Cambridge he required that I should not go into
+a profession."
+
+"Not exactly that, Harry."
+
+"It was so that I understood it. He did not wish his heir to be burdened
+with a profession. He said so to me himself."
+
+"Yes, just when he was in his pride because you had got your fellowship.
+But there was a contract understood, if not made."
+
+"What contract?" asked Harry, with an air of surprise.
+
+"That you should be to him as a son."
+
+"I never undertook it. I wouldn't have done it at the price,--or for any
+price. I never felt for him the respect or the love that were due to a
+father. I did feel both of them, to the full, for my own father. They
+are a sort of a thing which we cannot transfer."
+
+"They may be shared, Harry," said the rector, who was flattered.
+
+"No, sir; in this instance that was not possible."
+
+"You might have sat by while he read a sermon to his sister and nieces.
+You understood his vanity, and you wounded it, knowing what you were
+doing. I don't mean to blame you, but it was a misfortune. Now we must
+look it in the face and see what must be done. Your mother has told you
+that he has written to me. There is his letter. You will see that he
+writes with a fixed purpose." Then he handed to Harry a letter written
+on a large sheet of paper, the reading of which would be so long that
+Harry seated himself for the operation.
+
+The letter need not here be repeated at length. It was written with
+involved sentences, but in very decided language. It said nothing of
+Harry's want of duty, or not attending to the sermons, or of other
+deficiencies of a like nature, but based his resolution in regard to
+stopping the income on his nephew's misconduct,--as it appeared to
+him,--in a certain particular case. And unfortunately,--though Harry was
+prepared to deny that his conduct on that occasion had been subject to
+censure,--he could not contradict any of the facts on which Mr. Prosper
+had founded his opinion. The story was told in reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough, but not the whole story. "I understand that there was a row
+in the streets late at night, at the end of which young Mr. Scarborough
+was left as dead under the railings." "Left for dead!" exclaimed Harry.
+"Who says that he was left for dead? I did not think him to be dead."
+
+"You had better read it to the end," said his father, and Harry read it.
+The letter went on to describe how Mountjoy Scarborough was missed from
+his usual haunts, how search was made by the police, how the newspapers
+were filled with the strange incident, and how Harry had told nothing of
+what had occurred. "But beyond this," the letter went on to say, "he
+positively denied, in conversation with the gentleman's brother, that he
+had anything to do with the gentleman on the night in question. If this
+be so, he absolutely lied. A man who would lie on such an occasion,
+knowing himself to have been guilty of having beaten the man in such a
+way as to have probably caused his death,--for he had left him for dead
+under the railings in a London street and in the midnight hour,--and
+would positively assert to the gentleman's brother that he had not seen
+the gentleman on the night in question, when he had every reason to
+believe that he had killed him,--a deed which might or might not be
+murder,--is not fit to be recognized as my heir."
+
+There were other sentences equally long and equally complicated, in all
+of which Mr. Prosper strove to tell the story with tragic effect, but
+all of which had reference to the same transaction. He said nothing as
+to the ultimate destination of the property, nor of his own proposed
+marriage. Should he have a son, that son would, of course, have the
+property. Should there be no son, Harry must have it, even though his
+conduct might have been ever so abominable. To prevent this outrage on
+society, his marriage,--with its ordinary results,--would be the only
+step. Of that he need say nothing. But the two hundred and fifty pounds
+would not be paid after the Christmas quarter, and he must decline for
+the future the honor of receiving Mr. Henry Annesley at the Hall.
+
+Harry, when he had read it all, began to storm with anger. The man, as
+he truly observed, had grossly insulted him. Mr. Prosper had called him
+a liar and had hinted that he was a murderer. "You can do nothing to
+him," his father said. "He is your uncle, and you have eaten his bread."
+
+"I can't call him out and fight him."
+
+"You must let it alone."
+
+"I can make my way into the house and see him."
+
+"I don't think you can do that. You will find it difficult to get beyond
+the front-door, and I would advise you to abandon all such ideas. What
+can you say to him?"
+
+"It is false!"
+
+"What is false? Though in essence it is false, in words it is true. You
+did deny that you had seen him."
+
+"I forget what passed. Augustus Scarborough endeavored to pump me about
+his brother, and I did not choose to be pumped. As far as I can
+ascertain now, it is he that is the liar. He saw his brother after the
+affair with me."
+
+"Has he denied it?"
+
+"Practically he denies it by asking me the question. He asked me with
+the ostensible object of finding out what had become of his brother when
+he himself knew what had become of him."
+
+"But you can't prove it. He positively says that you did deny having
+seen him on the night in question, I am not speaking of Augustus
+Scarborough, but of your uncle. What he says is true, and you had better
+leave him alone. Take other steps for driving the real truth into his
+brain."
+
+"What steps can be taken with such a fool?"
+
+"Write your own account of the transaction, so that he shall read it.
+Let your mother have it. I suppose he will see your mother."
+
+"And so beg his favor."
+
+"You need beg for nothing. Or if the marriage comes off--"
+
+"You have heard of the marriage, sir?"
+
+"Yes; I have heard of the marriage. I believe that he contemplates it.
+Put your statement of what did occur, and of your motives, into the
+hands of the lady's friends. He will be sure to read it."
+
+"What good will that do?"
+
+"No good, but that of making him ashamed of himself. You have got to
+read the world a little more deeply than you have hitherto done. He
+thinks that he is quarrelling with you about the affair in London, but
+it is in truth because you have declined to hear him read the sermons
+after having taken his money."
+
+"Then it is he that is the liar rather than I."
+
+"I, who am a moderate man, would say that neither is a liar. You did not
+choose to be pumped, as you call it, and therefore spoke as you did.
+According to the world's ways that was fair enough. He, who is sore at
+the little respect you have paid him, takes any ground of offence rather
+than that. Being sore at heart, he believes anything. This young
+Scarborough in some way gets hold of him, and makes him accept this
+cock-and-bull story. If you had sat there punctual all those Sunday
+evenings, do you think he would have believed it then?"
+
+"And I have got to pay such a penalty as this?" The rector could only
+shrug his shoulders. He was not disposed to scold his son. It was not
+the custom of the house that Harry should be scolded. He was a fellow of
+his college and the heir to Buston, and was therefore considered to be
+out of the way of scolding. But the rector felt that his son had made
+his bed and must now lie on it, and Harry was aware that this was his
+father's feeling.
+
+For two or three days he wandered about the country very down in the
+mouth. The natural state of ovation in which the girls existed was in
+itself an injury to him. How could he join them in their ovation, he who
+had suffered so much? It seemed to be heartless that they should smile
+and rejoice when he,--the head of the family, as he had been taught to
+consider himself,--was being so cruelly ill-used. For a day or two he
+hated Thoroughbung, though Thoroughbung was all that was kind to him. He
+congratulated him with cold congratulations, and afterward kept out of
+his way. "Remember, Harry, that up to Christmas you can always have one
+of the nags. There's Belladonna and Orange Peel. I think you'd find the
+mare a little the faster, though perhaps the horse is the bigger
+jumper." "Oh, thank you!" said Harry, and passed on. Now, Thoroughbung
+was fond of his horses, and liked to have them talked about, and he knew
+that Harry Annesley was treating him badly. But he was a good-humored
+fellow, and he bore it without complaint. He did not even say a cross
+word to Molly. Molly, however, was not so patient. "You might be a
+little more gracious when he's doing the best he can for you. It is not
+every one who will lend you a horse to hunt for two months." Harry shook
+his head, and wandered away miserable through the fields, and would not
+in these days even set his foot upon the soil of the park. "He was not
+going to intrude any farther," he said to the rector. "You can come to
+church, at any rate," his father said, "for he certainly will not be
+there while you are at the parsonage." Oh yes, Harry would go to the
+church. "I have yet to understand that Mr. Prosper is owner of the
+church, and the path there from the rectory is, at any rate, open to the
+public;" for at Buston the church stands on one corner of the park.
+
+This went on for two or three days, during which nothing farther was
+said by the family as to Harry's woes. A letter was sent off to Mrs.
+Brown, telling her that the lodgings would not be required any longer,
+and anxious ideas began to crowd themselves on Harry's mind as to his
+future residence. He thought that he must go back to Cambridge and take
+his rooms at St. John's and look for college work. Two fatal years,
+years of idleness and gayety, had been passed, but still he thought that
+it might be possible. What else was there open for him? And then, as he
+roamed about the fields, his mind naturally ran away to the girl he
+loved. How would he dare again to look Florence in the face? It was not
+only the two hundred and fifty pounds per annum that was gone: that
+would have been a small income on which to marry. And he had never taken
+the girl's own money into account. He had rather chosen to look forward
+to the position as squire of Buston, and to take it for granted that it
+would not be very long before he was called upon to fill the position.
+He had said not a word to Florence about money, but it was thus that he
+had regarded the matter. Now the existing squire was going to marry, and
+the matter could not so be regarded any longer. He saw half a dozen
+little Prospers occupying half a dozen little cradles, and a whole suite
+of nurseries established at the Hall. The name of Prosper would be fixed
+at Buston, putting it altogether beyond his reach.
+
+In such circumstances would it not be reasonable that Florence should
+expect him to authorize her to break their engagement? What was he now
+but the penniless son of a poor clergyman, with nothing on which to
+depend but a miserable stipend, which must cease were he to marry? He
+knew that he ought to give her back her troth; and yet, as he thought of
+doing so, he was indignant with her. Was love to come to this? Was her
+regard for him to be counted as nothing? What right had he to expect
+that she should be different from any other girl?
+
+Then he was more miserable than ever, as he told himself that such would
+undoubtedly be her conduct. As he walked across the fields, heavy with
+the mud of a wet October day, there came down a storm of rain which wet
+him through. Who does not know the sort of sensation which falls upon a
+man when he feels that even the elements have turned against him,--how he
+buttons up his coat and bids the clouds open themselves upon his devoted
+bosom?
+
+  "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage, blow,
+  You cataracts and hurricanes!"
+
+It is thus that a man is apt to address the soft rains of heaven when he
+is becoming wet through in such a frame of mind; and on the present
+occasion Harry likened himself to Leer. It was to him as though the
+steeples were to be drenched and the cocks drowned when he found himself
+wet through. In this condition he went back to the house, and so bitter
+to him were the misfortunes of the world that he would hardly condescend
+to speak while enduring them. But when he had entered the drawing-room
+his mother greeted him with a letter. It had come by the day mail, and
+his mother looked into his face piteously as she gave it to him. The
+letter was from Brussels, and she could guess from whom it had come. It
+might be a sweetly soft love-letter; but then it might be neither sweet
+nor soft, in the condition of things in which Harry was now placed. He
+took it and looked at it, but did not dare to open it on the spur of the
+moment. Without a word he went up to his room, and then tore it asunder.
+No doubt, he said to himself, it would allude to his miserable stipend
+and penniless condition. The letter ran as follows:
+
+"DEAREST HARRY,--I think it right to write to you, though mamma does not
+approve of it. I have told her, however, that in the present
+circumstances I am bound to do so, and that I should implore you not to
+answer. Though I must write, there must be no correspondence between us.
+Rumors have been received here very detrimental to your character."
+Harry gnashed his teeth as he read this. "Stories are told about your
+meeting with Captain Scarborough in London, which I know to be only in
+part true. Mamma says that because of them I ought to give up my
+engagement, and my uncle, Sir Magnus, has taken upon himself to advise
+me to do so. I have told them both that that which is said of you is in
+part untrue; but whether it be true or whether it be false, I will never
+give up my engagement unless you ask me to do so. They tell me that as
+regards your pecuniary prospects you are ruined. I say that you cannot
+be ruined as long as you have my income. It will not be much, but it
+will, I should think, be enough.
+
+"And now you can do as you please. You may be quite sure that I shall be
+true to you, through ill report and good report. Nothing that mamma can
+say to me will change me, and certainly nothing from Sir Magnus.
+
+"And now there need not be a word from you, if you mean to be true to
+me. Indeed, I have promised that there shall be no word, and I expect
+you to keep my promise for me. If you wish to be free of me, then you
+must write and say so.
+
+"But you won't wish it, and therefore I am yours, always, always, always
+your own
+
+"FLORENCE."
+
+Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half
+a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to
+the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and
+his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
+
+He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized
+her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!"
+Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was
+just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of
+spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had
+been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not
+write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
+
+"But she seems to be in earnest there."
+
+"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow
+should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must
+write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"
+
+"I think she means that you should be silent."
+
+"She has taken a very odd way of assuming it. I am to keep her promise
+for her,--my darling, my angel, my life! But I cannot do that one thing.
+Oh, mother, mother, if you knew how happy I am! What the mischief does
+it all signify,--Uncle Prosper, Miss Thoroughbung, and the rest of
+it,--with a girl like that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+HARRY AND HIS UNCLE.
+
+
+Harry was kissed all round by the girls, and was congratulated warmly on
+the heavenly excellence of his mistress. They could afford to be
+generous if he would be good-natured. "Of course you must write to her,"
+said Molly, when he came down-stairs with dry clothes.
+
+"I should think so, mother."
+
+"Only she does seem to be so much in earnest about it," said Mrs.
+Annesley.
+
+"I think she would rather get just a line to say that he is in earnest
+too," said Fanny.
+
+"Why should not she like a love-letter as much as any one else?" said
+Kate, who had her own ideas. "Of course she has to tell him about her
+mamma, but what need he care for that? Of course mamma thinks that
+Joshua need not write to Molly, but Molly won't mind."
+
+"I don't think anything of the kind, miss."
+
+"And besides, Joshua lives in the next parish," said Fanny, "and has a
+horse to ride over on if he has anything to say."
+
+"At any rate, I shall write," said Harry, "even at the risk of making
+her angry." And he did write as follows:
+
+"BUSTON, _October_, 188--.
+
+"MY OWN DEAR GIRL,--It is impossible that I should not send one line in
+answer. Put yourself in my place, and consult your own feelings. Think
+that you have a letter so full of love, so noble, so true, so certain to
+fill you with joy, and then say whether you would let it pass without a
+word of acknowledgment. It would be absolutely impossible. It is not
+very probable that I should ask you to break your engagement, which in
+the midst of my troubles is the only consolation I have. But when a man
+has a rock to stand upon like that, he does not want anything else. As
+long as a man has the one person necessary to his happiness to believe
+in him, he can put up with the ill opinion of all the others. You are to
+me so much that you outweigh all the world.
+
+"I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus
+Scarborough. I can tell you the whole truth now. Mountjoy Scarborough
+had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to
+say that I would--drop you. You know now how probable that was. He was
+drunk on the occasion,--had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get
+over all scruples,--and attacked me with his stick. Then came a
+scrimmage, in which he was upset. A sober man has always the best of
+it." I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.
+The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.
+"I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.
+But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come
+out. Now I should not mind. Now I might tell the truth about you,--with
+great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn't do it then. What
+would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a
+girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the
+reason why I told an untruth,--because I did not choose to fall into the
+trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.
+
+"If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object
+to me on that score. If she does quarrel with me, she will only be
+fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her. I am
+afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,--not because
+of my sins, but from auld lang syne.
+
+"But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a
+terrible injury. My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed
+against me from other circumstances. He thinks that I have neglected
+him, and is willing to believe anything against me. He has stopped my
+income,--two hundred and fifty pounds a year,--and is going to revenge
+himself on me by marrying a wife. It is too absurd, and the proposed
+wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry. It makes such
+a heap of confusion. Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I
+shall be nowhere. Had I not better take to some profession? Only what
+shall I take to? It is almost too late for the Bar. I must see you and
+talk over it all.
+
+"You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter! It
+is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. But when a man's character
+is at stake he feels that he must plead for it. You won't be angry with
+me because I have not done all that you told me? It was absolutely
+necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break
+your engagement, and one word has led to all the others. There shall be
+only one other, which means more than all the rest:--that I am yours,
+dearest, with all my heart,
+
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+
+"There," he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope,
+"she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been
+pleased had I not written at all."
+
+That afternoon Joshua was at the rectory, having just trotted over after
+business hours at the brewery because of some special word which had to
+be whispered to Molly, and Harry put himself in his way as he went out
+to get on his horse in the stable-yard. "Joshua," he said, "I know that
+I owe you an apology."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You have been awfully good to me about the horses, and I have been very
+ungracious."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But I have. The truth is, I have been made thoroughly miserable by
+circumstances, and, when that occurs, a man cannot pick himself up all
+at once. It isn't my uncle that has made me wretched. That is a kind of
+thing that a man has to put up with, and I think that I can bear it as
+well as another. But an attack has been made upon me which has wounded
+me."
+
+"I know all about it."
+
+"I don't mind telling you, as you and Molly are going to hit it off
+together. There is a girl I love, and they have tried to interfere with
+her."
+
+"They haven't succeeded?"
+
+"No, by George! And now I'm as right as a trivet. When it came across me
+that she might have--might have yielded, you know,--it was as though all
+had been over. I ought not to have suspected her."
+
+"But she's all right?"
+
+"Indeed she is. I think you'll like her when you see her some day. If
+you don't, you have the most extraordinary taste I ever knew a man to
+possess. How about the horse?"
+
+"I have four, you know."
+
+"What a grand thing it is to be a brewer!"
+
+"And there are two of them will carry you. The other two are not quite
+up to your weight."
+
+"You haven't been out yet?"
+
+"Well, no;--not exactly out. The governor is the best fellow in the
+world, but he draws the line at cub-hunting. He says the business should
+be the business till November. Upon my word, I think he's right."
+
+"And how many days a week after that?"
+
+"Well, three regular. I do get an odd day with the Essex sometimes, and
+the governor winks."
+
+"The governor hunts himself as often as you."
+
+"Oh dear no; three a week does for the governor, and he is beginning to
+like frosty weather, and to hear with pleasure that one of the old
+horses isn't as fit as he should be. He's what they call training off.
+Good-bye, old fellow. Mind you come out on the 7th of November."
+
+But Harry, though he had been made happy by the letter from Florence,
+had still a great many troubles on his mind. His first trouble was the
+having to do something in reference to his uncle. It did not appear to
+him to be proper to accept his uncle's decision in regard to his income,
+without, at any rate, attempting to see Mr. Prosper. It would be as
+though he had taken what was done as a matter of course,--as though his
+uncle could stop the income without leaving him any ground of complaint.
+Of the intended marriage,--if it were intended,--he would say nothing. His
+uncle had never promised him in so many words not to marry, and there
+would be, he thought, something ignoble in his asking his uncle not to
+do that which he intended to do himself without even consulting his
+uncle about it. As he turned it all over in his mind he began to ask
+himself why his uncle should be asked to do anything for him, whereas he
+had never done anything for his uncle. He had been told that he was the
+heir, not to the uncle, but to Buston, and had gradually been taught to
+look upon Buston as his right,--as though he had a certain defeasible
+property in the acres. He now began to perceive that there was no such
+thing. A tacit contract had been made on his behalf, and he had declined
+to accept his share of the contract. But he had been debarred from
+following any profession by his uncle's promised allowance. He did not
+think that he could complain to his uncle about the proposed marriage;
+but he did think that he could ask a question or two as to the income.
+
+Without saying a word to any of his own family he walked across the
+park, and presented himself at the front-door of Buston Hall. In doing
+so he would not go upon the grass. He had told his father that he would
+not enter the park, and therefore kept himself to the road. And he had
+dressed himself with some little care, as a man does when he feels that
+he is going forth on some mission of importance. Had he intended to call
+on old Mr. Thoroughbung there would have been no such care. And he rung
+at the front-door, instead of entering the house by any of the numerous
+side inlets with which he was well acquainted. The butler understood the
+ring, and put on his company-coat when he answered the bell.
+
+"Is my uncle at home, Matthew?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Prosper, Mr. Harry? Well, no; I can't say that he just is;" and the
+old man groaned, and wheezed, and looked unhappy.
+
+"He is not often out at this time." Matthew groaned again, and wheezed
+more deeply, and looked unhappier. "I suppose you mean to say that he
+has given orders that I am not to be admitted?" To this the butler made
+no answer, but only looked woefully into the young man's face. "What is
+the meaning of it all, Matthew?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Harry, you shouldn't ask me, as is merely a servant."
+
+Harry felt the truth of this rebuke, but was not going to put up with
+it.
+
+"That's all my eye, Matthew; you know all about it as well as any one.
+It is so. He does not want to see me."
+
+"I don't think he does, Mr. Harry."
+
+"And why not? You know the whole of my family story as well as my
+father does, or my uncle. Why does he shut his doors against me, and
+send me word that he does not want to see me?"
+
+"Well Mr. Harry, I'm not just able to say why he does it,--and you the
+heir. But if I was asked I should make answer that it has come along of
+them sermons." Then Matthew looked very serious, and bathed his head.
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"That was it, Mr. Harry. We, none of us, were very fond of the sermons."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"We in the kitchen. But we was bound to have them, or we should have
+lost our places."
+
+"And now I must lose my place." The butler said nothing, but his face
+assented. "A little hard, isn't it, Matthew? But I wish to say a few
+words to my uncle,--not to express any regret about the sermons, but to
+ask what it is that he intends to do." Here Matthew shook his head very
+slowly. "He has given positive orders that I shall not be admitted?"
+
+"It must be over my dead body, Mr. Harry," and he stood in the way with
+the door in his hand, as though intending to sacrifice himself should he
+be called upon to do so by the nature of the circumstances. Harry,
+however, did not put him to the test; but bidding him good-bye with some
+little joke as to his fidelity, made his way back to the parsonage.
+
+That night before he went to bed he wrote a letter to his uncle, as to
+which he said not a word to either his father, or mother, or sisters. He
+thought that the letter was a good letter, and would have been proud to
+show it; but he feared that either his father or mother would advise him
+not to send it, and he was ashamed to read it to Molly. He therefore
+sent the letter across the park the next morning by the gardener.
+
+The letter was as follows:
+
+"MY DEAR UNCLE,--My father has shown me your letter to him, and, of
+course, I feel it incumbent on me to take some notice of it. Not wishing
+to trouble you with a letter I called this morning, but I was told by
+Matthew that you would not see me. As you have expressed yourself to my
+father very severely as to my conduct, I am sure you will agree with me
+that I ought not to let the matter pass by without making my own
+defence.
+
+"You say that there was a row in the streets between Mountjoy
+Scarborough and myself in which he was 'left for dead.' When I left him
+I did not think he had been much hurt, nor have I had reason to think so
+since. He had attacked me, and I had simply defended myself. He had come
+upon me by surprise; and, when I had shaken him off, I went away. Then
+in a day or two he had disappeared. Had he been killed, or much hurt,
+the world would have heard of it: but the world simply heard that he had
+disappeared, which could hardly have been the case had he been much
+hurt.
+
+"Then you say that I denied, in conversation with Augustus Scarborough,
+that I had seen his brother on the night in question. I did deny it.
+Augustus Scarborough, who was evidently well acquainted with the whole
+transaction, and who had, I believe, assisted his brother in
+disappearing, wished to learn from me what I had done, and to hide what
+he had done. He wished to saddle me with the disgrace of his brother's
+departure, and I did not choose to fall into his trap. At the moment of
+his asking me he knew that his brother was safe. I think that the word
+'lie,' as used by you, is very severe for such an occurrence. A man is
+not generally held to be bound to tell everything respecting himself to
+the first person that shall ask him. If you will ask any man who knows
+the world,--my father, for instance,--I think you will be told that such
+conduct was not faulty.
+
+"But it is at any rate necessary that I should ask you what you intend
+to do in reference to my future life. I am told that you intend to stop
+the income which I have hitherto received. Will this be considerate on
+your part?" (In his first copy of the letter Harry had asked whether it
+would be "fair," and had then changed the word for one that was milder.)
+"When I took my degree you yourself said that it would not be necessary
+that I should go into any profession, because you would allow me an
+income, and would then provide for me, I took your advice in opposition
+to my father's, because it seemed then that I was to depend on you
+rather than on him. You cannot deny that I shall have been treated
+hardly if I now be turned loose upon the world.
+
+"I shall be happy to come and see you if you shall wish it, so as to
+save you the trouble of writing to me.
+
+"Your affectionate nephew,
+
+"HENRY ANNESLEY."
+
+Harry might have been sure that his uncle would not see him,--probably
+was sure when he added the last paragraph. Mr. Prosper enjoyed greatly
+two things,--the mysticism of being invisible and the opportunity of
+writing a letter. Mr. Prosper had not a large correspondence, but it was
+laborious, and, as he thought, effective. He believed that he did know
+how to write a letter, and he went about it with a will. It was not
+probable that he would make himself common by seeing his nephew on such
+an occasion, or that he would omit the opportunity of spending an entire
+morning with pen and ink. The result was very short, but, to his idea,
+it was satisfactory.
+
+"SIR," he began. He considered this matter very deeply; but as the
+entire future of his own life was concerned in it he felt that it became
+him to be both grave and severe.
+
+"I have received your letter and have read it with attention. I observe
+that you admit that you told Mr. Augustus Scarborough a deliberate
+untruth. This is what the plain-speaking world, when it wishes to be
+understood as using the unadorned English language, which is always the
+language which I prefer myself, calls a lie--A LIE! I do not choose that
+this humble property shall fall at my death into the hands of A LIAR.
+Therefore I shall take steps to prevent it,--which may or may not be
+successful.
+
+"As such steps, whatever may be their result, are to be taken, the
+income,--intended to prepare you for another alternative, which may
+possibly not now be forth-coming,--will naturally now be no longer
+allowed.--I am, sir, your obedient servant, PETER PROSPER."
+
+The first effect of the letter was to produce laughter at the rectory.
+Harry could not but show it to his father, and in an hour or two it
+became known to his mother and sister, and, under an oath of secrecy, to
+Joshua Thoroughbung. It could not be matter of laughter when the future
+hopes of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung were taken into consideration. "I
+declare I don't know what you are all laughing about," said Kate,
+"except that Uncle Peter does use such comical phrases." But Mrs.
+Annesley, though the most good-hearted woman in the world, was almost
+angry. "I don't know what you all see to laugh at in it. Peter has in
+his hands the power of making or marring Harry's future."
+
+"But he hasn't," said Harry.
+
+"Or he mayn't have," said the rector.
+
+"It's all in the hands of the Almighty," said Mrs. Annesley, who felt
+herself bound to retire from the room and to take her daughter with her.
+
+But, when they were alone, both the father and his son were very angry.
+"I have done with him forever," said Harry. "Let come what may, I will
+never see him or speak to him again. A 'lie,' and 'liar!' He has written
+those words in that way so as to salve his own conscience for the
+injustice he is doing. He knows that I am not a liar. He cannot
+understand what a liar means, or he would know that he is one himself."
+
+"A man seldom has such knowledge as that."
+
+"Is it not so when he stigmatizes me in this way merely as an excuse to
+himself? He wants to be rid of me,--probably because I did not sit and
+hear him read the sermons. Let that pass. I may have been wrong in that,
+and he may be justified; but because of that he cannot believe really
+that I have been a liar,--a liar in such a determined way as to make me
+unfit to be his heir."
+
+"He is a fool, Harry! That is the worst of him."
+
+"I don't think it is the worst."
+
+"You cannot have worse. It is dreadful to have to depend on a fool,--to
+have to trust to a man who cannot tell wrong from right. Your uncle
+intends to be a good man. If it were brought home to him that he were
+doing a wrong he would not do it. He would not rob; he would not steal;
+he must not commit murder, and the rest of it. But he is a fool, and he
+does not know when he is doing these things."
+
+"I will wash my hands of him."
+
+"Yes; and he will wash his hands of you. You do not know him as I do. He
+has taken it into his silly head that you are the chief of sinners
+because you said what was not true to that man, who seems really to be
+the sinner, and nothing will eradicate the idea. He will go and marry
+that woman because he thinks that in that way he can best carry his
+purpose, and then he will repent at leisure. I used to tell you that you
+had better listen to the sermons."
+
+"And now I must pay for it!"
+
+"Well, my boy, it is no good crying for spilt milk. As I was saying just
+now, there is nothing worse than a fool."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+MARMADUKE LODGE.
+
+
+On the 7th of next month two things occurred, each of great importance.
+Hunting commenced in the Puckeridge country, and Harry with that famous
+mare Belladonna was there. And Squire Prosper was driven in his carriage
+into Buntingford, and made his offer with all due formality to Miss
+Thoroughbung. The whole household, including Matthew, and the cook, and
+the coachman, and the boy, and the two house-maids, knew what he was
+going to do. It would be difficult to say how they knew, because he was
+a man who never told anything. He was the last man in England who, on
+such a matter, would have made a confidant of his butler. He never spoke
+to a servant about matters unconnected with their service. He considered
+that to do so would be altogether against his dignity. Nevertheless when
+he ordered his carriage, which he did not do very frequently at this
+time of the year, when the horses were wanted on the farm,--and of which
+he gave twenty-four hours' notice to all the persons concerned,--and when
+early in the morning he ordered that his Sunday suit should be prepared
+for wearing, and when his aspect grew more and more serious as the hour
+drew nigh, it was well understood by them all that he was going to make
+the offer that day.
+
+He was both proud and fearful as to the thing to be done,--proud that he,
+the Squire of Buston, should be called on to take so important a step;
+proud by anticipation of his feelings as he would return home a jolly
+thriving wooer,--and yet a little fearful lest he might not succeed. Were
+he to fail the failure would be horrible to him. He knew that every man
+and woman about the place would know all about it. Among the secrets of
+the family there was a story, never now mentioned, of his having done
+the same thing, once before. He was then a young man, about twenty-five,
+and he had come forth to lay himself and Buston at the feet of a
+baronet's daughter who lived some twenty-five miles off. She was very
+beautiful, and was said to have a fitting dower, but he had come back,
+and had shut himself up in the house for a week afterward. To no human
+ears had he ever since spoken of his interview with Miss Courteney. The
+doings of that day had been wrapped in impenetrable darkness. But all
+Buston and the neighboring parishes had known that Miss Courteney had
+refused him. Since that day he had never gone forth again on such a
+mission.
+
+There were those who said of him that his love had been so deep and
+enduring that he had never got the better of it. Miss Courteney had been
+married to a much grander lover, and had been taken off to splendid
+circles. But he had never mentioned her name. That story of his abiding
+love was throughly believed by his sister, who used to tell it of him to
+his credit when at the rectory the rector would declare him to be a
+fool. But the rector used to say that he was dumb from pride, or that he
+could not bear to have it known that he had failed at anything. At any
+rate, he had never again attempted love, and had formally declared to
+his sister that, as he did not intend to marry, Harry should be regarded
+as his son. Then at last had come the fellowship, and he had been proud
+of his heir, thinking that in some way he had won the fellowship
+himself, as he had paid the bills. But now all was altered, and he was
+to go forth to his wooing again.
+
+There had been a rumor about the country that he was already accepted;
+but such was not the case. He had fluttered about Buntingford, thinking
+of it: but he had never put the question. To his thinking it would not
+have been becoming to do so without some ceremony. Buston was not to be
+made away during the turnings of a quadrille or as a part of an ordinary
+conversation. It was not probable,--nay, it was impossible,--that he
+should mention the subject to any one; but still he must visibly prepare
+for it, and I think that he was aware that the world around him knew
+what he was about.
+
+And the Thoroughbung's knew, and Miss Matilda Thoroughbung knew well.
+All Buntingford knew. In those old days in which he had sought the hand
+of the baronet's daughter, the baronet's daughter, and the baronet's
+wife, and the baronet himself, had known what was coming, though Mr.
+Prosper thought that the secret dwelt alone in his own bosom. Nor did he
+dream now that Harry and Harry's father, and Harry's mother and sisters,
+had all laughed at the conspicuous gravity of his threat. It was the
+general feeling on the subject which made the rumor current that the
+deed had been done. But when he came down-stairs with one new gray
+kid-glove on, and the other dangling in his hand, nothing had been done.
+
+"Drive to Buntingford," said the squire.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Matthew, the door of the carriage in his hand.
+
+"To Marmaduke Lodge."
+
+"Yes, sir." Then Matthew told the coachman, who had heard the
+instructions very plainly, and knew them before he had heard them. The
+squire threw himself back in the carriage, and applied himself to
+wondering how he should do the deed. He had, in truth, barely studied
+the words,--but not, finally, the manner of delivering them. With his
+bare hand up to his eyes so that he might hold the glove unsoiled in the
+other, he devoted his intellect to the task; nor did he withdraw his
+hand till the carriage turned in at the gate. The drive up to the door
+of Marmaduke Lodge was very short, and he had barely time to arrange his
+waistcoat and his whiskers before the carriage stood still. He was soon
+told that Miss Thoroughbung was at home, and within a moment he found
+himself absolutely standing on the carpet in her presence.
+
+Report had dealt unkindly with Miss Thoroughbung in the matter of her
+age. Report always does deal unkindly with unmarried young women who
+have ceased to be girls. There is an idea that they will wish to make
+themselves out to be younger than they are, and therefore report always
+makes them older. She had been called forty-five, and even fifty. Her
+exact age at this moment was forty-two, and as Mr. Prosper was only
+fifty there was no discrepancy in the marriage. He would have been
+young-looking for his age, but for an air of ancient dandyism which had
+grown upon him. He was somewhat dry, too, and skinny, with high
+cheekbones and large dull eyes. But he was clean, and grave, and
+orderly,--a man promising well to a lady on the lookout for a husband.
+Miss Thoroughbung was fat, fair, and forty to the letter, and she had a
+just measure of her own good looks, of which she was not unconscious.
+But she was specially conscious of twenty-five thousand pounds, the
+possession of which had hitherto stood in the way of her search after a
+husband. It was said commonly about Buntingford that she looked too
+high, seeing that she was only a Thoroughbung and had no more than
+twenty-five thousand pounds.
+
+But Miss Tickle was in the room, and might have been said to be in the
+way, were it not that a little temporary relief was felt by Mr. Prosper
+to be a comfort. Miss Tickle was at any rate twenty years older than
+Miss Thoroughbung, and was of all slaves at the same time the humblest
+and the most irritating. She never asked for anything, but was always
+painting the picture of her own deserts. "I hope I have the pleasure of
+seeing Miss Tickle quite well," said the squire, as soon as he had paid
+his first compliments to the lady of his love.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Prosper, pretty well. My anxiety is all for Matilda."
+Matilda had been Matilda to her since she had been a little girl, and
+Miss Tickle was not going now to drop the advantage which the old
+intimacy gave her.
+
+"I trust there is no cause for it."
+
+"Well, I'm not so sure. She coughed a little last night, and would not
+eat her supper. We always do have a little supper. A despatched crab it
+was; and when she would not eat it I knew there was something wrong."
+
+"Nonsense! what a fuss you make. Well, Mr. Prosper, have you seen your
+nephew yet?"
+
+"No, Miss Thoroughbung; nor do I intend to see him. The young man has
+disgraced himself."
+
+"Dear, dear; how sad!"
+
+"Young men do disgrace themselves, I fear, very often," said Miss
+Tickle.
+
+"We won't talk about it, if you please, because it is a family affair."
+
+"Oh no," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"At least, not as yet. It may be;--but never mind, I would not wish to be
+premature in anything."
+
+"I am always telling Matilda so. She is so impulsive. But as you may
+have matters of business, Mr. Prosper, on which to speak to Miss
+Thoroughbung, I will retire."
+
+"It is very thoughtful on your part, Miss Tickle."
+
+Then Miss Tickle retired; from which it may be surmised that the
+probable circumstances of the interview had been already discussed
+between the ladies. Mr. Prosper drew a long breath, and sighed audibly,
+as soon as he was alone with the object of his affections. He wondered
+whether men were ever bright and jolly in such circumstances. He sighed
+again, and then he began: "Miss Thoroughbung!"
+
+"Mr. Prosper!"
+
+All the prepared words had flown from his memory. He could not even
+bethink himself how he ought to begin. And, unfortunately, so much must
+depend upon manner! But the property was unembarrassed, and Miss
+Thoroughbung thought it probable that she might be allowed to do what
+she would with her own money. She had turned it all over to the right
+and to the left, and she was quite minded to accept him. With this view
+she had told Miss Tickle to leave the room, and she now felt that she
+was bound to give the gentleman what help might be in her power. "Oh,
+Miss Thoroughbung!" he said.
+
+"Mr. Prosper, you and I are such good friends, that--that--that--"
+
+"Yes, indeed. You can have no more true friend than I am,--not even Miss
+Tickle."
+
+"Oh, bother Miss Tickle! Miss Tickle is very well."
+
+"Exactly so. Miss Tickle is very well; a most estimable person."
+
+"We'll leave her alone just at present."
+
+"Yes, certainly. We had better leave her alone in our present
+conversation. Not but what I have a strong regard for her." Mr. Prosper
+had surely not thought of the opening he might be giving as to a future
+career for Miss Tickle by such an assertion.
+
+"So have I, for the matter of that, but we'll drop her just now." Then
+she paused, but he paused also. "You have come over to Buntingford
+to-day probably in order that you might congratulate them at the brewery
+on the marriage with one of your family." Then Mr. Prosper frowned, but
+she did not care for his frowning. "It will not be a bad match for the
+young lady, as Joshua is fairly steady, and the brewery is worth money."
+
+"I could have wished him a better brother-in-law," said the lover, who
+was taken away from the consideration of his love by the allusion to the
+Annesleys. He had thought of all that, and in the dearth of fitting
+objects of affection had resolved to endure the drawback of the
+connection. But it had for a while weighed very seriously with him, so
+that had the twenty-five thousand pounds been twenty thousand pounds, he
+might have taken himself to Miss Puffle, who lived near Saffron Walden
+and who would own Snickham Manor when her father died. The property was
+said to be involved, and Miss Puffle was certainly forty-eight. As an
+heir was the great desideratum, he had resolved that Matilda Thoroughbung
+should be the lady, in spite of the evils attending the new connection.
+He did feel that in throwing over Harry he would have to abandon all the
+Annesleys, and to draw a line between himself with Miss Thoroughbung and
+the whole family of the Thoroughbungs generally.
+
+"You mustn't be too bitter against poor Molly," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+Mr. Prosper did not like to be called bitter, and, in spite of the
+importance of the occasion, could not but show that he did not like it.
+"I don't think that we need talk about it."
+
+"Oh dear no. Kate and Miss Tickle need neither of them be talked
+about." Mr. Prosper disliked all familiarity, and especially that of
+being laughed at, but Miss Thoroughbung did laugh. So he drew himself
+up, and dangled his glove more slowly than before. "Then you were not
+going on to congratulate them at the brewery?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"I did not know."
+
+"My purpose carries me no farther than Marmaduke Lodge. I have no desire
+to see any one to-day besides Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"That is a compliment."
+
+Then his memory suddenly brought back to him one of his composed
+sentences. "In beholding Miss Thoroughbung I behold her on whom I hope I
+may depend for all the future happiness of my life." He did feel that it
+had come in the right place. It had been intended to be said immediately
+after her acceptance of him. But it did very well where it was. It
+expressed, as he assured himself, the feelings of his heart, and must
+draw from her some declaration of hers.
+
+"Goodness gracious me, Mr. Prosper!"
+
+This sort of coyness was to have been expected, and he therefore
+continued with another portion of his prepared words, which now came
+glibly enough to him. But it was a previous portion. It was all the same
+to Miss Thoroughbung, as it declared plainly the gentleman's intention.
+"If I can induce you to listen to me favorably, I shall say of myself
+that I am the happiest gentleman in Hertfordshire."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Prosper!"
+
+"My purpose is to lay at your feet my hand, my heart, and the lands of
+Buston." Here he was again going backward, but it did not much matter
+now in what sequence the words were said. The offer had been thoroughly
+completed and was thoroughly understood.
+
+"A lady, Mr. Prosper, has to think of these things," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"Of course I would not wish to hurry you prematurely to any declaration
+of your affections."
+
+"But there are other considerations, Mr. Prosper. You know about my
+property?"
+
+"Nothing particularly. It has not been a matter of consideration with
+me." This he said with some slight air of offence. He was a gentleman,
+whereas Miss Thoroughbung was hardly a lady. Matter of consideration her
+money of course had been. How should he not consider it? But he was
+aware that he ought not to rush on that subject, but should leave it to
+the arrangement of lawyers, expressing his own views through her own
+lawyer. To her it was the thing of most importance, and she had no
+feelings which induced her to be silent on a matter so near to her. She
+rushed.
+
+"But it has to be considered, Mr. Prosper. It is all my own, and comes
+to very nearly one thousand a year. I think it is nine hundred and
+seventy-two pounds six shillings and eightpence. Of course, when there
+is so much money it would have to be tied up somehow." Mr. Prosper was
+undoubtedly disgusted, and if he could have receded at this moment would
+have transferred his affections to Miss Puffle. "Of course you
+understand that."
+
+She had not accepted him as yet, nor said a word of her regard for him.
+All that went, it seemed, as a matter of no importance whatever. He had
+been standing for the last few minutes, and now he remained standing and
+looking at her. They were both silent, so that he was obliged to speak.
+"I understand that between a lady and gentleman so circumstanced there
+should be a settlement."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"I also have some property," said Mr. Prosper, with a touch of pride in
+his tone.
+
+"Of course you have. Goodness gracious me! Why else would you come? You
+have got Buston, which I suppose is two thousand a year. At any rate it
+has that name. But it isn't your own."
+
+"Not my own?"
+
+"Well, no. You couldn't leave it to your widow, so that she might give
+it to any one she pleased when you were gone." Here the gentleman
+frowned very darkly, and thought that after all Miss Puffle would be the
+woman for him. "All that has to be considered, and it makes Buston not
+exactly your own. If I were to have a daughter she wouldn't have it."
+
+"No, not a daughter," said Mr. Prosper, still wondering at the thorough
+knowledge of the business in hand displayed by the lady.
+
+"Oh, if it were to be a son, that would be all right, and then my money
+would go to the younger children, divided equally between the boys and
+girls." Mr. Prosper shook his head as he found himself suddenly provided
+with so plentiful and thriving a family. "That, I suppose, would be the
+way of the settlement, together with a certain income out of Buston set
+apart for my use. It ought to be considered that I should have to
+provide a house to live in. This belongs to my brother, and I pay him
+forty pounds a year for it. It should be something better than this."
+
+"My dear Miss Thoroughbung, the lawyer would do all that." There did
+come upon him an idea that she, with her aptitude for business, would
+not be altogether a bad helpmate.
+
+"The lawyers are very well; but in a transaction of this kind there is
+nothing like the principals understanding each other. Young women are
+always robbed when their money is left altogether to the gentlemen."
+
+"Robbed!"
+
+"Don't suppose I mean you, Mr. Prosper; and the robbery I mean is not
+considered disgraceful at all. The gentlemen I mean are the fathers and
+the brothers, and the uncles and the lawyers. And they intend to do
+right after the custom of their fathers and uncles. But woman's rights
+are coming up."
+
+"I hate woman's rights."
+
+"Nevertheless they are coming up. A young woman doesn't get taken in as
+she used to do. I don't mean any offence, you know." This was said in
+reply to Mr. Prosper's repeated frown. "Since woman's rights have come
+up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle."
+
+Mr. Prosper was willing to admit that Miss Thoroughbung was fair, but
+she was fat also, and at least forty. There was hardly need that she
+should refer so often to her own unprotected youth. "I should like to
+have the spending of my own income, Mr. Prosper;--that's a fact."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"Yes, I should. I shouldn't care to have to go to my husband if I wanted
+to buy a pair of stockings."
+
+"An allowance, I should say."
+
+"And that should be my own income."
+
+"Nothing to go to the house?"
+
+"Oh yes. There might be certain things which I might agree to pay for. A
+pair of ponies I should like."
+
+"I always keep a carriage and a pair of horses."
+
+"But the ponies would be my lookout. I shouldn't mind paying for my own
+maid, and the champagne, and my clothes, of course, and the
+fish-monger's bill. There would be Miss Tickle, too. You said you would
+like Miss Tickle. I should have to pay for her. That would be about
+enough, I think."
+
+Mr. Prosper was thoroughly disgusted; but when he left Marmaduke Lodge
+he had not said a word as to withdrawing from his offer. She declared
+that she would put her terms into writing and give them to her lawyer,
+who would communicate with Mr. Grey.
+
+Mr. Prosper was surprised to find that she knew the name of his lawyer,
+who was in truth our old friend. And then, while he was still
+hesitating, she astounded,--nay, shocked him by her mode of ending the
+conference. She got up and, throwing her arms round his neck, kissed him
+most affectionately. After that there was no retreating for Mr.
+Prosper,--no immediate mode of retreat, at all events. He could only back
+out of the room, and get into his carriage, and be carried home as
+quickly as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE PROPOSAL.
+
+
+It had never happened to him before. The first thought that came upon
+Mr. Prosper, when he got into his carriage, was that it had never
+occurred to him before. He did not reflect that he had not put himself
+in the way of it: but now the strangeness of the sensation overwhelmed
+him. He inquired of himself whether it was pleasant, but he found
+himself compelled to answer the question with a negative. It should have
+come from him, but not yet; not yet, probably, for some weeks. But it
+had been done, and by the doing of it she had sealed him utterly as her
+own. There was no getting out of it now. He did feel that he ought not
+to attempt to get out of it after what had taken place. He was not sure
+but that the lady had planned it all with that purpose; but he was sure
+that a strong foundation had been laid for a breach of promise case if
+he were to attempt to escape. What might not a jury do against him,
+giving damages out of the acres of Buston Hall? And then Miss
+Thoroughbung would go over to the other Thoroughbungs and to the
+Annesleys, and his condition would become intolerable. In some moments,
+as he was driven home, he was not sure but that it had all been got up
+as a plot against him by the Annesleys.
+
+When he got out of his carriage Matthew knew that things had gone badly
+with his master; but he could not conjecture in what way. The matter had
+been fully debated in the kitchen, and it had been there decided that
+Miss Thoroughbung was certainly to be brought home as the future
+mistress of Buston. The step to be taken by their master was not
+popular in the Buston kitchen. It had been there considered that Master
+Harry was to be the future master, and, by some perversity of intellect,
+they had all thought that this would occur soon. Matthew was much older
+than the squire, who was hardly to be called a sickly man, and yet
+Matthew had made up his mind that Mr. Harry was to reign over him as
+Squire of Buston. When, therefore, the tidings came that Miss
+Thoroughbung was to brought to Buston as the mistress, there had been
+some slight symptoms of rebellion. "They didn't want any 'Tilda
+Thoroughbung there." They had their own idea of a lady and a gentleman,
+which, as in all such cases, was perfectly correct. They knew the squire
+to be a fool, but they believed him to be a gentleman. They heard that
+Miss Thoroughbung was a clever woman, but they did not believe her to be
+a lady. Matthew had said a few words to the cook as to a public-house at
+Stevenage. She had told him not to be an old fool, and that he would
+lose his money, but she had thought of the public-house. There had been
+a mutinous feeling. Matthew helped his master out of the carriage, and
+then came a revulsion. That "froth of a beer-barrel," as Matthew had
+dared to call her, had absolutely refused his master.
+
+Mr. Prosper went into the house very meditative, and sad at heart. It
+was a matter almost of regret to him that it had not been as Matthew
+supposed. But he was caught and bound, and must make the best of it. He
+thought of all the particulars of her proposed mode of living, and
+recapitulated them to himself. A pair of ponies, her own maid,
+champagne, the fish-monger's bill, and Miss Tickle. Miss Puffle would
+certainly not have required such expensive luxuries. Champagne and the
+fish would require company for their final consumption.
+
+The ponies assumed a tone of being quite opposed to that which he had
+contemplated. He questioned with himself whether he would like Miss
+Tickle as a perpetual inmate. He had, in sheer civility, expressed a
+liking for Miss Tickle, but what need could there be to a married woman
+of a Miss Tickle? And then he thought of the education of the five or
+six children which she had almost promised him! He had suggested to
+himself simply an heir,--just one heir,--so that the nefarious Harry might
+be cut out. He already saw that he would not be enriched to the extent
+of a shilling by the lady's income. Then there would be all the trouble
+and the disgrace of a separate purse. He felt that there would be
+disgrace in having the fish and champagne, which were consumed in his
+own house,--paid for by his wife without reference to him. What if the
+lady had a partiality for champagne? He knew nothing about it, and would
+know nothing about it, except when he saw it in her heightened color.
+Despatched crabs for supper! He always went to bed at ten, and had a
+tumbler of barley-water brought to him,--a glass of barley-water with
+just a squeeze of lemon-juice.
+
+He saw ruin before him. No doubt she was a good manager, but she would
+be a good manager for herself. Would it not be better for him to stand
+the action for breach of promise, and betake himself to Miss Puffle? But
+Miss Puffle was fifty, and there could be no doubt that the lady ought
+to be younger than the gentleman. He was much distressed in mind. If he
+broke off with Miss Thoroughbung, ought he to do so at once, before she
+had had time to put the matter into the hands of the lawyer? And on what
+plea should he do it? Before he went to bed that night he did draw out a
+portion of a letter, which, however, was never sent:
+
+"MY DEAR MISS THOROUGHBUNG,--In the views which we both promulgated this
+morning I fear that there was some essential misunderstanding as to the
+mode of life which had occurred to both of us. You, as was so natural at
+your age, and with your charms, have not been slow to anticipate a
+coming period of uncheckered delights. Your allusion to a pony-carriage,
+and other incidental allusions,"--he did not think it well to mention
+more particularly the fish and the champagne,--"have made clear the sort
+of future life which you have pictured to yourself. Heaven forbid that I
+should take upon myself to find fault with anything so pleasant and so
+innocent! But my prospects of life are different, and in seeking the
+honor of an alliance with you I was looking for a quiet companion in my
+declining years, and it might be also to a mother to a possible future
+son. When you honored me with an unmistakable sign of your affection, on
+my going, I was just about to explain all this. You must excuse me if my
+mouth was then stopped by the mutual ardor of our feeling. I was about
+to say--" But he had found it difficult to explain what he had been
+about to say, and on the next morning, when the time for writing had
+come, he heard news which detained him for the day, and then the
+opportunity was gone.
+
+On the following morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his
+cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the
+Buntingford _Gazette_, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it,
+opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information,
+which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir,
+I suppose, as yet?"
+
+"Heard what?"
+
+"About Miss Puffle."
+
+"What about Miss Puffle? I haven't heard a word. What about Miss
+Puffle?" He had been thinking that moment of Miss Puffle,--of how she
+would be superior to Miss Thoroughbung in many ways,--so that he sat up
+in his bed, holding the untasted tea in his hand.
+
+"She's gone off with young Farmer Tazlehurst."
+
+"Miss Puffle gone off, and with her father's tenant's son!"
+
+"Yes indeed, sir. She and her father have been quarrelling for the last
+ten years, and now she's off. She was always riding and roistering about
+the country with them dogs and them men; and now she's gone."
+
+"Oh heavens!" exclaimed the squire, thinking of his own escape.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir. There's no knowing what any one of them is up to.
+Unless they gets married afore they're thirty, or thirty-five at most,
+they're most sure to get such ideas into their head as no one can mostly
+approve." This had been intended by Matthew as a word of caution to his
+master, but had really the opposite effect. He resolved at the moment
+that the latter should not be said of Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+And he turned Matthew out of the room with a flea in his ear. "How dare
+you speak in that way of your betters? Mr. Puffle, the lady's father,
+has for many years been my friend. I am not saying anything of the lady,
+nor saying that she has done right. Of course, down-stairs, in the
+servants' hall, you can say what you please; but up here, in my
+presence, you should not speak in such language of a lady behind whose
+chair you may be called upon to wait."
+
+"Very well, sir; I won't no more," said Matthew, retiring with mock
+humility. But he had shot his bolt, and he supposed successfully. He did
+not know what had taken place between his master and Miss Thoroughbung;
+but he did think that his speech might assist in preventing a repetition
+of the offer.
+
+Miss Puffle gone off with the tenant's son! The news made matrimony
+doubly dangerous to him, and yet robbed him of the chief reason by
+which he was to have been driven to send her a letter. He could not, at
+any rate, now fall back upon Miss Puffle. And he thought that nothing
+would have induced Miss Thoroughbung to go off with one of the carters
+from the brewery. Whatever faults she might have, they did not lie in
+that direction. Champagne and ponies were, as faults, less deleterious.
+
+Miss Puffle gone off with young Tazlehurst,--a lady of fifty, with a
+young man of twenty-five! and she the reputed heiress of Snickham Manor!
+It was a comfort to him as he remembered that Snickham Manor had been
+bought no longer ago than by the father of the present owner. The
+Prospers been at Buston ever since the time of George the First. You
+cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He had been ever assuring
+himself of that fact, which was now more of a fact than ever. And fifty
+years old! It was quite shocking. With a steady middle-aged man like
+himself, and with the approval of her family, marriage might have been
+thought of. But this harum-scarum young tenant's son, who was in no
+respect a gentleman, whose only thought was of galloping over hedges and
+ditches, such an idea showed a state of mind which--well, absolutely
+disgusted him. Mr. Prosper, because he had grown old himself, could not
+endure to think that others, at his age, should retain a smack of their
+youth. There are ladies besides Miss Puffle who like to ride across the
+country with a young man before them, or perhaps following, and never
+think much of their fifty years.
+
+But the news certainly brought to him a great change of feelings, so
+that the letter to which he had devoted the preceding afternoon was put
+back into the letter-case, and was never finished. And his mind
+immediately recurred to Miss Thoroughbung, and he bethought himself that
+the objection which he felt was, perhaps, in part frivolous. At any
+rate, she was a better woman than Miss Puffle. She certainly would run
+after no farmer's son. Though she might be fond of champagne, it
+was, he thought, chiefly for other people. Though she was ambitious of
+ponies, the ambition might be checked. At any rate, she could pay for
+her own ponies, whereas Mr. Puffle was a very hale old man of seventy.
+Puffle, he told himself, had married young, and might live for the next
+ten years, or twenty. To Mr. Prosper, whose imagination did not fly far
+afield, the world afforded at present but two ladies. These were Miss
+Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung, and as Miss Puffle had fallen out of the
+running, there seemed to be a walk-over for Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+He did think, during the two or three days which passed without any
+farther step on his part,--he did think how it might be were he to remain
+unmarried. As regarded his own comfort, he was greatly tempted. Life
+would remain so easy to him! But then duty demanded of him that he
+should marry, and he was a man who, in honest, sober talk, thought much
+of his duty. He was absurdly credulous, and as obstinate as a mule. But
+he did wish to do what was right. He had been convinced that Harry
+Annesley was a false knave, and had been made to swear an oath that
+Harry should not be his heir. Harry had been draped in the blackest
+colors, and to each daub of black something darker had been added by his
+uncle's memory of those neglected sermons. It was now his first duty in
+life to beget an heir, and for that purpose a wife must be had.
+
+Putting aside the ponies and the champagne,--and the despatched crab, the
+sound of which, as coming to him from Miss Tickle's mouth, was uglier
+than the other sounds,--he still thought that Miss Thoroughbung would
+answer his purpose. From her side there would not be making of a silk
+purse; but then "the boy" would be his boy as well as hers, and would
+probably take more after the father. He passed much of these days with
+the "Peerage" in his hand, and satisfied himself that the best blood had
+been maintained frequently by second-rate marriages. Health was a great
+thing. Health in the mother was everything. Who could be more healthy
+than Miss Thoroughbung? Then he thought of that warm embrace. Perhaps,
+after all, it was right that she should embrace him after what he had
+said to her.
+
+Three days only had passed by, and he was still thinking what ought to
+be his next step, when there came to him a letter from Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson, attorneys in Buntingford. He had heard of Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson, had been familiar with their names for the last twenty years,
+but had never dreamed that his own private affairs should become a
+matter of consultation in their office. Messrs. Grey & Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, were his lawyers, who were quite gentlemen. He knew
+nothing against Messrs. Soames & Simpson, but he thought that their work
+consisted generally in the recovery of local debts. Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson now wrote to him with full details as to his future life. Their
+client Miss Thoroughbung, had communicated to them his offer of
+marriage. They were acquainted with all the lady's circumstances, and
+she had asked them for their advice. They had proposed to her that the
+use of her own income should be by deed left to herself. Some proportion
+of it should go into the house, and might be made matter of agreement.
+They suggested that an annuity of a thousand pounds a year, in shape of
+dower, should be secured to their client in the event of her outliving
+Mr. Prosper. The estate should, of course, be settled on the eldest
+child. The mother's property should be equally divided among the other
+children. Buston Hall should be the residence of the widow till the
+eldest son should be twenty-four, after which Mr. Prosper would no doubt
+feel that their client would have to provide a home for herself. Messrs.
+Soames & Simpson did not think that there was anything in this to which
+Mr. Prosper would object, and if this were so, they would immediately
+prepare the settlement. "That woman didn't say against it, after all,"
+said Matthew to himself as he gave the letter from the lawyers to his
+master.
+
+The letter made Mr. Prosper very angry. It did, in truth, contain
+nothing more than a repetition of the very terms which the lady had
+herself suggested; but coming to him through these local lawyers it was
+doubly distasteful. What was he to do? He felt it to be out of the
+question to accede at once. Indeed, he had a strong repugnance to
+putting himself into communication with the Buntingford lawyers. Had the
+matter been other than it was, he would have gone to the rector for
+advice. The rector generally advised him.
+
+But that was out of the question now. He had seen his sister once since
+his visit to Buntingford, but had said nothing to her about it. Indeed,
+he had been anything but communicative, so that Mrs. Annesley had been
+forced to leave him with a feeling almost of offense. There was no help
+to be had in that quarter, and he could only write to Mr. Grey, and ask
+that gentleman to assist him in his difficulties.
+
+He did write to Mr. Grey, begging for his immediate attention. "There is
+that fool Prosper going to marry a brewer's daughter down at
+Buntingford," said Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+
+"He's sixty years old."
+
+"No, my love. He looks it, but he's only fifty. A man at fifty is
+supposed to be young enough to marry. There's a nephew who has been
+brought up as his heir; that's the hard part of it. And the nephew is
+mixed up in some way with the Scarboroughs."
+
+"Is it he who is to marry that young lady?"
+
+"I think it is. And now there's some devil's play going on. I've got
+nothing to do with it."
+
+"But you will have."
+
+"Not a turn. Mr. Prosper can marry if he likes it. They have sent him
+most abominable proposals as to the lady's money; and as to her
+jointure, I must stop that if I can, though I suppose he is not such a
+fool as to give way."
+
+"Is he soft?"
+
+"Well, not exactly. He likes his own money. But he's a gentleman, and
+wants nothing but what is or ought to be his own."
+
+"There are but few like that now."
+
+"It's true of him. But then he does not know what is his own, or what
+ought to be. He's almost the biggest fool I have ever known, and will do
+an injustice to that boy simply from ignorance." Then he drafted his
+letter to Mr. Prosper, and gave it to Dolly to read. "That's what I
+shall propose. The clerk can put it into proper language. He must offer
+less than he means to give."
+
+"Is that honest, father?"
+
+"It's honest on my part, knowing the people with whom I have to deal. If
+I were to lay down the strict minimum which he should grant, he would
+add other things which would cause him to act not in accordance with my
+advice. I have to make allowance for his folly,--a sort of windage, which
+is not dishonest. Had he referred her lawyers to me I could have been as
+hard and honest as you please." All which did not quite satisfy Dolly's
+strict ideas of integrity.
+
+But the terms proposed were that the lady's means should be divided so
+that one-half should go to herself for her own personal expenses, and
+the other half to her husband for the use of the house; that the lady
+should put up with a jointure of two hundred and fifty pounds, which
+ought to suffice when joined to her own property, and that the
+settlement among the children should be as recommended by Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson.
+
+"And if there are not any children, papa?"
+
+"Then each will receive his or her own property."
+
+"Because it may be so."
+
+"Certainly, my dear; very probably."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+MR. HARKAWAY.
+
+
+When the first Monday in November came Harry was still living at the
+rectory. Indeed, what other home had he in which to live? Other friends
+had become shy of him besides his uncle. He had been accustomed to
+receive many invitations. Young men who are the heirs to properties, and
+are supposed to be rich because they are idle, do get themselves asked
+about here and there, and think a great deal of themselves in
+consequence. "There's young Jones. He is fairly good-looking, but hasn't
+a word to say for himself. He will do to pair off with Miss Smith,
+who'll talk for a dozen. He can't hit a hay-stack, but he's none the
+worse for that. We haven't got too many pheasants. He'll be sure to come
+when you ask him,--and he'll be sure to go."
+
+So Jones is asked, and considers himself to be the most popular man in
+London. I will not say that Harry's invitations had been of exactly that
+description; but he too had considered himself to be popular, and now
+greatly felt the withdrawal of such marks of friendship. He had received
+one "put off"--from the Ingoldsbys of Kent. Early in June he had
+promised to be there in November. The youngest Miss Ingoldsby was very
+pretty, and he, no doubt, had been gracious. She knew that he had meant
+nothing,--could have meant nothing. But he might come to mean something,
+and had been most pressingly asked. In September there came a letter to
+him to say that the room intended for him at Ingoldsby had been burnt
+down. Mrs. Ingoldsby was so extremely sorry, and so were the "girls!"
+Harry could trace it all up. The Ingoldsbys knew the Greens, and Mrs.
+Green was Sister to Septimus Jones, who was absolutely the slave,--the
+slave, as Harry said, repeating the word to himself with emphasis,--of
+Augustus Scarborough. He was very unhappy, not that he cared in the
+least for any Miss Ingoldsby, but that he began to be conscious that he
+was to be dropped.
+
+He was to be taken up, on the other hand, by Joshua Thoroughbung. Alas!
+alas! though he smiled and resolved to accept his brother-in-law with a
+good heart, this did not in the least salve the wound. His own county
+was to him less than other counties, and his own neighborhood less than
+other neighborhoods. Buntingford was full of Thoroughbungs, the best
+people in the world, but not quite up to what he believed to be his
+mark. Mr. Prosper himself was the stupidest ass! At Welwyn people
+smelled of the City. At Stevenage the parsons' set began. Baldock was a
+_caput mortuum_ of dulness. Royston was alive only on market-days. Of
+his own father's house, and even of his mother and sisters, he
+entertained ideas that savored a little of depreciation. But, to redeem
+him from this fault,--a fault which would have led to the absolute ruin
+of his character had it not been redeemed and at last cured,--there was a
+consciousness of his own vanity and weakness. "My father is worth a
+dozen of them, and my mother and sisters two dozen," he would say of the
+Ingoldsbys when he went to bed in the room that was to be burnt down in
+preparation for his exile. And he believed it. They were honest; they
+were unselfish; they were unpretending. His sister Molly was not above
+owning that her young brewer was all the world to her; a fine, honest,
+bouncing girl, who said her prayers with a meaning, thanked the Lord for
+giving her Joshua, and laughed so loud that you could hear her out of
+the rectory garden half across the park. Harry knew that they were
+good,--did in his heart know that where the parsons begin the good things
+were likely to begin also.
+
+He was in this state of mind, the hand of good pulling one way and the
+devil's pride the other, when young Thoroughbung called for him one
+morning to carry him on to Cumberlow Green. Cumberlow Green was a
+popular meet in that county, where meets have not much to make them
+popular except the good-humor of those who form the hunt. It is not a
+county either pleasant or easy to ride over, and a Puckeridge fox is
+surely the most ill-mannered of foxes. But the Puckeridge men are
+gracious to strangers, and fairly so among themselves. It is more than
+can be said of Leicestershire, where sportsmen ride in brilliant boots
+and breeches, but with their noses turned supernaturally into the air.
+"Come along; we've four miles to do, and twenty minutes to do it in.
+Halloo, Molly, how d'ye do? Come up on to the step and give us a kiss."
+
+"Go away!" said Molly, rushing back into the house. "Did you ever hear
+anything like his impudence?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" said Kate. "All the world knows it." Then the gig,
+with the two sportsmen, was driven on. "Don't you think he looks
+handsome in his pink coat?" whispered Molly, afterward, to her elder
+sister. "Only think; I have never seen him in a red coat since he was my
+own. Last April, when the hunting was over, he hadn't spoken out; and
+this is the first day he has worn pink this year."
+
+Harry, when he reached the meet, looked about him to watch how he was
+received. There are not many more painful things in life than when an
+honest, gallant young fellow has to look about him in such a frame of
+mind. It might have been worse had he deserved to be dropped, some one
+will say. Not at all. A different condition of mind exists then, and a
+struggle is made to overcome the judgment of men which is not in itself
+painful. It is part of the natural battle of life, which does not hurt
+one at all,--unless, indeed, the man hate himself for that which has
+brought upon him the hatred of others. Repentance is always an
+agony,--and should be so. Without the agony there can be no repentance.
+But even then it is hardly so sharp as that feeling of injustice which
+accompanies the unmeaning look, and dumb faces, and pretended
+indifference of those who have condemned.
+
+When Harry descended from the gig he found himself close to old Mr.
+Harkaway, the master of the hounds. Mr. Harkaway was a gentleman who had
+been master of these hounds for more than forty years, and had given as
+much satisfaction as the county could produce. His hounds, which were
+his hobby, were perfect. His horses were good enough for the
+Hertfordshire lanes and Hertfordshire hedges. His object was not so much
+to run a fox as to kill him in obedience to certain rules of the game.
+Ever so many hinderances have been created to bar the killing a fox,--as
+for instance that you shouldn't knock him on the head with a
+brick-bat,--all of which had to Mr. Harkaway the force of a religion. The
+laws of hunting are so many that most men who hunt cannot know them all.
+But no law had ever been written, or had become a law by the strength of
+tradition, which he did not know.
+
+To break them was to him treason. When a young man broke them he pitied
+the young man's ignorance, and endeavored to instruct him after some
+rough fashion. When an old man broke them, he regarded him as a fool who
+should stay at home, or as a traitor who should be dealt with as such.
+And with such men he could deal very hardly. Forty years of reigning had
+taught him to believe himself to be omnipotent, and he was so in his own
+hunt. He was a man who had never much affected social habits. The
+company of one or two brother sportsmen to drink a glass of port-wine
+with him and then to go early to bed, was the most of it. He had a small
+library, but not a book ever came off the shelf unless it referred to
+farriers or the _res venatica_. He was unmarried. The time which other
+men gave to their wives and families he bestowed upon his hounds. To his
+stables he never went, looking on a horse as a necessary adjunct to
+hunting,--expensive, disagreeable, and prone to get you into danger. When
+anyone flattered him about his horse he would only grunt, and turn his
+head on one side. No one in these latter years had seen him jump any
+fence. But yet he was always with his hounds, and when any one said a
+kind word as to their doings, that he would take as a compliment. It was
+they who were there to do the work of the day, which horses and men
+could only look at. He was a sincere, honest, taciturn, and withal,
+affectionate man, who could on an occasion be very angry with those who
+offended him. He knew well what he could do, and never attempted that
+which was beyond his power. "How are you, Mr. Harkaway?" said Harry.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Annesley? how are you?" said the master, with all the
+grace of which he was capable. But Harry caught a tone in his voice
+which he thought implied displeasure. And Mr. Harkaway had in truth
+heard the story,--how Harry had been discarded at Buston because he had
+knocked the man down in the streets at night-time and had then gone
+away. After that Mr. Harkaway toddled off, and Harry sat and frowned
+with embittered heart.
+
+"Well, Malt-and-hops, and how are you?" This came from a fast young
+banker who lived in the neighborhood, and who thus intended to show his
+familiarity with the brewer; but when he saw Annesley, he turned round
+and rode away. "Scaly trick that fellow played the other day. He knocked
+a fellow down, and, when he thought that he was dead, he lied about it
+like old boots." All of which made itself intelligible to Harry. He told
+himself that he had always hated that banker.
+
+"Why do you let such a fellow as that call you Malt-and-hops?" he said
+to Joshua.
+
+"What,--young Florin? He's a very good fellow, and doesn't mean
+anything."
+
+"A vulgar cad, I should say."
+
+Then he rode on in silence till he was addressed by an old gentleman of
+the county who had known his father for the last thirty years. The old
+gentleman had had nothing about him to recommend him either to Harry's
+hatred or love till he spoke; and after that Harry hated him. "How d'you
+do, Mr. Annesley?" said the old gentleman, and then rode on. Harry knew
+that the old man had condemned him as the others had done, or he would
+never have called him Mr. Annesley. He felt that he was "blown upon" in
+his own county, as well as by the Ingoldsbys down in Kent.
+
+They had but a moderate day's sport, going a considerable distance in
+search of it, till an incident arose which gave quite an interest to the
+field generally, and nearly brought Joshua Thoroughbung into a scrape.
+They were drawing a covert which was undoubtedly the property of their
+own hunt,--or rather just going to draw it,--when all of a sudden they
+became aware that every hound in the pack was hunting. Mr. Harkaway at
+once sprung from his usual cold, apathetic manner into full action. But
+they who knew him well could see that it was not the excitement of joy.
+He was in an instant full of life, but it was not the life of successful
+enterprise. He was perturbed and unhappy, and his huntsman, Dillon,--a
+silent, cunning, not very popular man, who would obey his master in
+everything,--began to move about rapidly, and to be at his wit's end. The
+younger men prepared themselves for a run,--one of those sudden, short,
+decisive spurts which come at the spur of the moment, and on which a
+man, if he is not quite awake to the demands of the moment, is very apt
+to be left behind. But the old stagers had their eyes on Mr. Harkaway,
+and knew that there was something amiss.
+
+Then there appeared another field of hunters, first one man leading
+them, then others following, and after them the first ruck and then the
+crowd. It was apparent to all who knew anything that two packs had
+joined. These were the Hitchiners, as the rival sportsmen would call
+them, and this was the Hitchin Hunt, with Mr. Fairlawn, their master.
+Mr. Fairlawn was also an old man, popular, no doubt, in his own country,
+but by no means beloved by Mr. Harkaway. Mr. Harkaway used to declare
+how Fairlawn had behaved very badly about certain common coverts about
+thirty years ago, when the matter had to be referred to a committee of
+masters. No one in these modern days knew aught of the quarrel, or
+cared. The men of the two hunts were very good friends, unless they met
+under the joint eyes of the two masters, and then they were supposed to
+be bound to hate each other. Now the two packs were mixed together, and
+there was only one fox between them.
+
+The fox did not trouble them long. He could hardly have saved himself
+from one pack, but very soon escaped from the fangs of the two. Each
+hound knew that his neighbor hound was a stranger, and, in scrutinizing
+the singularity of the occurrence, lost all the power of hunting. In ten
+minutes there were nearly forty couples of hounds running hither and
+thither, with two huntsmen and four whips swearing at them with strange
+voices, and two old gentlemen giving orders each in opposition to the
+other. Then each pack was got together, almost on the same ground, and
+it was necessary that something should be done. Mr. Harkaway waited to
+see whether Mr. Fairlawn would ride away quickly to his own country. He
+would not have spoken to Mr. Fairlawn if he could have helped it. Mr.
+Fairlawn was some miles away from his country. He must have given up the
+day for lost had he simply gone away. But there was another covert a
+mile off, and he thought that one of his hounds had "shown a line,"--or
+said that he thought so.
+
+Now, it is well known that you may follow a hunted fox through whatever
+country he may take you to, if only your hounds are hunting him
+continuously. And one hound for that purpose is as good as thirty, and
+if a hound can only "show a line" he is held to be hunting. Mr. Fairlawn
+was quite sure that one of his hounds had been showing a line, and had
+been whipped off it by one of Mr. Harkaway's men. The man swore that he
+had only been collecting his own hounds. On this plea Mr. Fairlawn
+demanded to take his whole pack into Greasegate Wood,--the very covert
+that Mr. Harkaway had been about to draw. "I'm d----d if you do!" said Mr.
+Harkaway, standing, whip in hand, in the middle of the road, so as to
+prevent the enemy's huntsman passing by with his hounds. It was
+afterward declared that Mr. Harkaway had not been heard to curse and
+swear for the last fifteen years. "I'm d----d if I don't!" said Mr.
+Fairlawn, riding up to him. Mr. Harkaway was ten years the older man,
+and looked as though he had much less of fighting power. But no one saw
+him quail or give an inch. Those who watched his face declared that his
+lips were white with rage and quivered with passion.
+
+To tell the words which passed between them after that would require
+Homer's pathos and Homer's imagination. The two old men scowled and
+scolded at each other, and, had Mr. Fairlawn attempted to pass, Mr.
+Harkaway would certainly have struck him with his whip. And behind their
+master a crowd of the Puckeridge men collected themselves,--foremost
+among whom was Joshua Thoroughbung. "Take 'em round to the covert by
+Winnipeg Lane," said Mr. Fairlawn to his huntsman. The man prepared to
+take his pack round by Winnipeg Lane, which would have added a mile to
+the distance. But the huntsman, when he had got a little to the left,
+was soon seen scurrying across the country in the direction of the
+covert, with a dozen others at his heels, and the hounds following him.
+But old Mr. Harkaway had seen it too, and having possession of the road,
+galloped along it at such a pace that no one could pass him.
+
+All the field declared that they had regarded it as impossible that
+their master should move so fast. And Dillon, and the whips, and
+Thoroughbung, and Harry Annesley, with half a dozen others, kept pace
+with him. They would not sit there and see their master outmanoeuvred by
+any lack of readiness on their part. They got to the covert first, and
+there, with their whips drawn, were ready to receive the second pack.
+Then one hound went in without an order; but for their own hounds they
+did not care. They might find a fox and go after him, and nobody would
+follow them. The business here at the covert-side was more important and
+more attractive.
+
+Then it was that Mr. Thoroughbung nearly fell into danger. As to the
+other hounds,--Mr. Fairlawn's hounds,--doing any harm in the covert, or
+doing any good for themselves or their owners, that was out of the
+question. The rival pack was already there, with their noses up in the
+air, and thinking of anything but a fox; and this other pack,--the
+Hitchiners,--were just as wild. But it was the object of Mr. Fairlawn's
+body-guard to say that they had drawn the covert in the teeth of Mr.
+Harkaway, and to achieve this one of the whips thought that he could
+ride through the Puckeridge men, taking a couple of hounds with him.
+That would suffice for triumph.
+
+But to prevent such triumph on the part of the enemy Joshua Thoroughbung
+was prepared to sacrifice himself. He rode right at the whip, with his
+own whip raised, and would undoubtedly have ridden over him had not the
+whip tried to turn his horse sharp round, stumbled and fallen in the
+struggle, and had not Thoroughbung, with his horse, fallen over him.
+
+It will be the case that a slight danger or injury in one direction will
+often stop a course of action calculated to create greater dangers and
+worse injuries. So it was in this case. When Dick, the Hitchin whip,
+went down, and Thoroughbung, with his horse, was over him,--two men and
+two horses struggling together on the ground,--all desire to carry on the
+fight was over.
+
+The huntsman came up, and at last Mr. Fairlawn also, and considered it
+to be their duty to pick up Dick, whose breath was knocked out of him by
+the weight of Joshua Thoroughbung, and the Puckeridge side felt it to be
+necessary to give their aid to the valiant brewer. There was then no
+more attempt to draw the covert. Each general in gloomy silence took off
+his forces, and each afterward deemed that the victory was his. Dick
+swore, when brought to himself, that one of his hounds had gone in,
+whereas Squire 'Arkaway "had swore most 'orrid oaths that no 'Itchiner
+'ound should ever live to put his nose in. One of 'is 'ounds 'ad, and
+Squire 'Arkaway would have to be--" Well, Dick declared that he would
+not say what would happen to Mr. Harkaway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+RIDING HOME.
+
+
+The two old gentlemen rode away, each in his own direction, in gloomy
+silence. Not a word was said by either of them, even to one of his own
+followers. It was nearly twenty miles to Mr. Harkaway's house, and along
+the entire twenty miles he rode silent. "He's in an awful passion," said
+Thoroughbung; "he can't speak from anger." But, to tell the truth, Mr.
+Harkaway was ashamed of himself. He was an old gentleman, between
+seventy and eighty, who was supposed to go out for his amusement, and
+had allowed himself to be betrayed into most unseemly language. What
+though the hound had not "shown a line?" Was it necessary that he, at
+his time of life, should fight on the road for the maintenance of a
+trifling right of sport. But yet there came upon him from time to time a
+sense of the deep injury done to him. That man Fairlawn, that
+blackguard, that creature of all others the farthest removed from a
+gentleman, had declared that in his, Mr. Harkaway's teeth, he would draw
+his, Mr. Harkaway's covert! Then he would urge on his old horse, and
+gnash his teeth; and then, again, he would be ashamed. "Tantaene animis
+coelestibus irae?"
+
+But Thoroughbung rode home high in spirits, very proud, and conscious of
+having done good work. He was always anxious to stand well with the hunt
+generally, and was aware that he had now distinguished himself. Harry
+Annesley was on one side of him, and on the other rode Mr. Florin, the
+banker. "He's an abominable liar!" said Thoroughbung, "a wicked,
+wretched liar!" He was alluding to the Hitchiner's whip, whom in his
+wrath he had nearly sent to another world. "He says that one of his
+hounds got into the covert, but I was there and saw it all. Not a nose
+was over the little bank which runs between the field and the covert."
+
+"You must have seen a hound if he had been there," said the banker.
+
+"I was as cool as a cucumber, and could count the hounds he had with
+him. There were three of them. A big black-spotted bitch was leading,
+the one that I nearly fell upon. When the man went down the hound
+stopped, not knowing what was expected of him. How should he? The man
+would have been in the covert, but, by George! I managed to stop him."
+
+"What did you mean to do to him when you rode at him so furiously?"
+asked Harry.
+
+"Not let him get in there. That was my resolute purpose. I suppose I
+should have knocked him off his horse with my whip."
+
+"But suppose he had knocked you off your horse?" suggested the banker.
+
+"There is no knowing how that might have been. I never calculated those
+chances. When a man wants to do a thing like that he generally does it."
+
+"And you did it?" said Harry.
+
+"Yes; I think I did. I dare say his bones are sore. I know mine are. But
+I don't care for that in the least. When this day comes to be talked
+about, as I dare say it will be for many a long year, no one will be
+able to say that the Hitchiners got into that covert." Thoroughbung,
+with the genuine modesty of an Englishman, would not say that he had
+achieved by his own prowess all this glory for the Puckeridge Hunt, but
+he felt it down to the very end of his nails.
+
+Had he not been there that whip would have got into the wood, and a very
+different tale would then have been told in those coming years to which
+his mind was running away with happy thoughts. He had ridden the
+aggressors down; he had stopped the first intrusive hound. But though he
+continued to talk of the subject, he did not boast in so many words that
+he had done it. His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom.
+
+As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round
+Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one
+they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one
+addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them
+in this. It was he that fell away, and courted loneliness, and then in
+his heart accused them. There was no doubt something of truth in his
+accusations; but another man, less sensitive, might have lived it down.
+He did more than meet their coldness half-way, and then complained to
+himself of the bitterness of the world. "They are like the beasts of the
+field," he said, "who when another beast has been wounded, turn upon him
+and rend him to death." His future brother-in-law, the best natured
+fellow that ever was born, rode on thoughtless, and left Harry alone for
+three or four miles, while he received the pleasant plaudits of his
+companions. In Joshua's heart was that tale of the whip's discomfiture.
+He did not see that Molly's brother was alone as soon as he would have
+done but for his own glory. "He is the same as the others," said Harry
+to himself. "Because that man has told a falsehood of me, and has had
+the wit to surround it with circumstances, he thinks it becomes him to
+ride away and cut me." Then he asked himself some foolish questions as
+to himself and as to Joshua Thoroughbung, which he did not answer as he
+should have done, had he remembered that he was then riding
+Thoroughbung's horse, and that his sister was to become Thoroughbung's
+wife.
+
+After half an hour of triumphant ovation, Joshua remembered his
+brother-in-law, and did fall back so as to pick him up. "What's the
+matter, Harry? Why don't you come on and join us?"
+
+"I'm sick of hearing of that infernal squabble."
+
+"Well; as to a squabble, Mr. Harkaway behaved quite right. If a hunt is
+to be kept up, the right of entering coverts must be preserved for the
+hunt they belong to. There was no line shown. You must remember that
+there isn't a doubt about that. The hounds were all astray when we
+joined them. It's a great question whether they brought their fox into
+that first covert. There are they who think that Bodkin was just riding
+across the Puckeridge country in search of a fox." Bodkin was Mr.
+Fairlawn's huntsman. "If you admit that kind of thing, where will you
+be? As a hunting country, just nowhere. Then as a sportsman, where are
+you? It is necessary to put down such gross fraud. My own impression is
+that Mr. Fairlawn should be turned out from being master. I own I feel
+very strongly about it. But then I always have been fond of hunting."
+
+"Just so," said Harry, sulkily, who was not in the least interested as
+to the matter on which Joshua was so eloquent.
+
+Then Mr. Proctor rode by, the gentleman who in the early part of the day
+disgusted Harry by calling him "mister." "Now, Mr. Proctor," continued
+Joshua, "I appeal to you whether Mr. Harkaway was not quite right? If
+you won't stick up for your rights in a hunting county--" But Mr.
+Proctor rode on, wishing them good-night, very discourteously declining
+to hear the remainder of the brewer's arguments. "He's in a hurry, I
+suppose," said Joshua.
+
+"You'd better follow him. You'll find that he'll listen to you then."
+
+"I don't want him to listen to me particularly."
+
+"I thought you did." Then for half an hour the two men rode on in
+silence.
+
+"What's the matter with you Harry?" said Joshua. "I can see there's
+something up that riles you. I know you're a fellow of your college, and
+have other things to think of besides the vagaries of a fox."
+
+"The fellow of a college!" said Harry, who, had he been in a good-humor,
+would have thought much more of being along with a lot of fox-hunters
+than of any college honors.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it is a great thing to be a fellow of a college. I
+never could have been one if I had mugged forever."
+
+"My being a fellow of a college won't do me much good. Did you see that
+old man Proctor go by just now?"
+
+"Oh yes; he never likes to be out after a certain hour."
+
+"And did you see Florin, and Mr. Harkaway, and a lot of others? You
+yourself have been going on ahead for the last hour without speaking to
+me."
+
+"How do you mean without speaking to you?" said Joshua, turning sharp
+round.
+
+Then Harry Annesley reflected that he was doing an injustice to his
+future brother-in-law.
+
+"Perhaps I have done you wrong," he said.
+
+"You have."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I believe you are as honest and true a fellow as
+there is in Hertfordshire, but for those others--"
+
+"You think it's about Mountjoy Scarborough, then?" asked Joshua.
+
+"I do. That infernal fool, Peter Prosper, has chosen to publish to the
+world that he has dropped me because of something that he has heard of
+that occurrence. A wretched lie has been told with a purpose by
+Mountjoy Scarborough's brother, and my uncle has taken it into his wise
+head to believe it. The truth is, I have not been as respectful to him
+as he thinks I ought, and now he resents my neglect in this fashion. He
+is going to marry your aunt in order that he may have a lot of children,
+and cut me out. In order to justify himself, he has told these lies
+about me, and you see the consequence;--not a man in the county is
+willing to speak to me."
+
+"I really think a great deal of it's fancy."
+
+"You go and ask Mr. Harkaway. He's honest, and he'll tell you. Ask this
+new cousin of yours, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"I don't know that they are going to make a match of it, after all."
+
+"Ask my own father. Only think of it,--that a puling, puking idiot like
+that, from a mere freak, should be able to do a man such a mischief! He
+can rob me of my income, which he himself has brought me up to expect.
+That he can do by a stroke of his pen. He can threaten to have sons like
+Priam. All that is within his own bosom. But to justify himself to the
+world at large, he picks up a scandalous story from a man like Augustus
+Scarborough, and immediately not a man in the county will speak to me. I
+say that that is enough to break a man's heart,--not the injury done
+which a man should bear, but the injustice of the doing. Who wants his
+beggarly allowance! He can do as he likes about his own money. I shall
+never ask him for his money. But that he should tell such a lie as this
+about the county is more than a man can endure."
+
+"What was it that did happen?" asked Joshua.
+
+"The man met me in the street when he was drunk, and he struck at me and
+was insolent. Of course I knocked him down. Who wouldn't have done the
+same? Then his brother found him somewhere, or got hold of him, and sent
+him out of the country, and says that I had held my tongue when I left
+him in the street. Of course I held my tongue. What was Mountjoy to me?
+Then Augustus has asked me sly questions, and accuses me of lying
+because I did not choose to tell him everything. It all comes out of
+that."
+
+Here they had reached the rectory, and Harry, after seeing that the
+horses were properly supplied with gruel, took himself and his ill-humor
+up-stairs to his own chamber. But Joshua had a word or two to say to one
+of the inmates of the rectory.
+
+He felt that it would be improper to ride his horse home without giving
+time to the animal to drink his gruel, and therefore made his way into
+the little breakfast-parlor, where Molly had a cup of tea and buttered
+toast ready for him. He of course told her first of the grand occurrence
+of the day,--how the two packs of hounds had mixed themselves together,
+how violently the two masters had fallen out and had nearly flogged each
+other, how Mr. Harkaway had sworn horribly,--who had never been heard to
+swear before,--how a final attempt had been made to seize a second
+covert, and how, at last, it had come to pass that he had distinguished
+himself. "Do you mean to say that you absolutely rode over the
+unfortunate man?" asked Molly.
+
+"I did. Not that the man had the worst of it,--or very much the worse.
+There we were both down, and the two horses, all in a heap together."
+
+"Oh, Joshua, suppose you had been kicked!"
+
+"In that case I should have been--kicked."
+
+"But a kick from an infuriated horse!"
+
+"There wasn't much infuriation about him. The man had ridden all that
+out of the beast."
+
+"You are sure to laugh at me, Joshua, because I think what terrible
+things might have happened to you. Why do you go putting yourself so
+forward in every danger, now that you have got somebody else to depend
+upon you and to care for you? It's very, very wrong."
+
+"Somebody had to do it, Molly. It was most important, in the interests
+of hunting generally, that those hounds should not have been allowed to
+get into that covert. I don't think that outsiders ever understand how
+essential it is to maintain your rights. It isn't as though it were an
+individual. The whole county may depend upon it."
+
+"Why shouldn't it be some man who hasn't got a young woman to look
+after?" said Molly, half laughing and half crying.
+
+"It's the man who first gets there who ought to do it," said Joshua. "A
+man can't stop to remember whether he has got a young woman or not."
+
+"I don't think you ever want to remember." Then that little quarrel was
+brought to the usual end with the usual blandishments, and Joshua went
+on to discuss with her that other source of trouble, her brother's fall.
+"Harry is awfully cut up," said the brewer.
+
+"You mean these affairs about his uncle?"
+
+"Yes. It isn't only the money he feels, or the property, but people
+look askew at him. You ought all of you to be very kind to him."
+
+"I am sure we are."
+
+"There is something in it to vex him. That stupid old fool, your
+uncle--I beg your pardon, you know, for speaking of him in that way--"
+
+"He is a stupid old fool."
+
+"Is behaving very badly. I don't know whether he shouldn't be treated as
+I did that fellow up at the covert."
+
+"Ride over him?"
+
+"Something of that kind. Of course Harry is sore about it, and when a
+man is sore he frets at a thing like that more than he ought to do. As
+for that aunt of mine at Buntingford, there seems to be some hitch in
+it. I should have said she'd have married the Old Gentleman had he asked
+her."
+
+"Don't talk like that, Joshua."
+
+"But there is some screw loose. Simpson came up to my father about it
+yesterday, and the governor let enough of the cat out of the bag to make
+me know that the thing is not going as straight as she wishes."
+
+"He has offered, then?"
+
+"I am sure he has asked her."
+
+"And your aunt will accept him?" asked Molly.
+
+"There's probably some difference about money. It's all done with the
+intention of injuring poor Harry. If he were my own brother I could not
+be more unhappy about him. And as to Aunt Matilda, she's a fool. There
+are two fools together. If they choose to marry we can't hinder them.
+But there is some screw loose, and if the two young lovers don't know
+their own minds things may come right at last." Then, with some farther
+blandishments, the prosperous brewer walked away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+PERSECUTION.
+
+
+In the mean time Florence Mountjoy was not passing her time pleasantly
+at Brussels. Various troubles there attended her. All her friends around
+her were opposed to her marriage with Harry Annesley. Harry Annesley had
+become a very unsavory word in the mouths of Sir Magnus and the British
+Embassy generally. Mrs. Mountjoy told her grief to her brother-in-law,
+who thoroughly took her part, as did also, very strongly, Lady Mountjoy.
+It got to be generally understood that Harry was a _mauvais sujet_. Such
+was the name that was attached to him, and the belief so conveyed was
+thoroughly entertained by them all. Sir Magnus had written to friends in
+London, and the friends in London bore out the reports that were so
+conveyed. The story of the midnight quarrel was told in a manner very
+prejudicial to poor Harry, and both Sir Magnus and his wife saw the
+necessity of preserving their niece from anything so evil as such a
+marriage. But Florence was very firm, and was considered to be very
+obstinate. To her mother she was obstinate but affectionate To Sir
+Magnus she was obstinate and in some degree respectful. But to Lady
+Mountjoy she was neither affectionate nor respectful. She took a great
+dislike to Lady Mountjoy, who endeavored to domineer; and who, by the
+assistance of the two others, was in fact tyrannical. It was her opinion
+that the girl should be compelled to abandon the man, and Mrs. Mountjoy
+found herself constrained to follow this advice. She did love her
+daughter, who was her only child. The main interest of her life was
+centred in her daughter. Her only remaining ambition rested on her
+daughter's marriage. She had long revelled in the anticipation of being
+the mother-in-law of the owner of Tretton Park. She had been very proud
+of her daughter's beauty.
+
+Then had come the first blow, when Harry Annesley had come to Montpelier
+Place and had been welcomed by Florence. Mrs. Mountjoy had seen it all
+long before Florence had been aware of it. And the first coming of Harry
+had been long before the absolute disgrace of Captain Scarborough,--at
+any rate, before the tidings of that disgrace had reached Cheltenham.
+Mrs. Mountjoy had been still able to dream of Tretton Park, after the
+Jews had got their fingers on it,--even after the Jews had been forced to
+relinquish their hold. It can hardly be said that up to this very time
+Mrs. Mountjoy had lost all hope in her nephew, thinking that as the
+property had been entailed some portion of it must ultimately belong to
+him. She had heard that Augustus was to have it, and her desires had
+vacillated between the two. Then Harry had positively declared himself,
+and Augustus had given her to understand how wretched, how mean, how
+wicked had been Harry's conduct. And he fully explained to her that
+Harry would be penniless. She had indeed been aware that Buston,--quite a
+trifling thing compared to Tretton,--was to belong to him. But entails
+were nothing nowadays. It was part of the radical abomination to which
+England was being subjected. Not even Buston was now to belong to Harry
+Annesley. The small income which he had received from his uncle was
+stopped. He was reduced to live upon his fellowship,--which would be
+stopped also if he married. She even despised him because he was the
+fellow of a college;--she had looked for a husband for her daughter so
+much higher than any college could produce. It was not from any lack of
+motherly love that she was opposed to Florence, or from any innate
+cruelty that she handed her daughter over to the tender mercies of Lady
+Mountjoy.
+
+And since she had been at Brussels there had come up farther hopes.
+Another mode had shown itself of escaping Harry Annesley, who was of all
+catastrophes the most dreaded and hated. Mr. Anderson, the second
+secretary of legation,--he whose business it was to ride about the
+boulevard with Sir Magnus,--had now declared himself in form. "Never saw
+a fellow so bowled over," Sir Magnus had declared, by which he had
+intended to signify that Mr. Anderson was now truly in love. "I've seen
+him spooney a dozen times," Sir Magnus had said, confidentially, to his
+sister-in-law, "but he has never gone to this length. He has asked a lot
+of girls to have him, but he has always been off it again before the
+week was over. He has written to his mother now."
+
+And Mr. Anderson showed his love by very unmistakable signs. Sir Magnus
+too, and Lady Mountjoy, were evidently on the same side as Mr. Anderson.
+Sir Magnus thought there was no longer any good in waiting for his
+nephew, the captain, and of that other nephew, Augustus, he did not
+entertain any very high idea. Sir Magnus had corresponded lately with
+Augustus, and was certainly not on his side. But he so painted Mr.
+Anderson's prospects in life, as did also Lady Mountjoy, as to make it
+appear that if Florence could put up with young Anderson she would do
+very well with herself.
+
+"He's sure to be a baronet some of these days, you know," said Sir
+Magnus.
+
+"I don't think that would go very far with Florence," said her mother.
+
+"But it ought. Look about in the world and you'll see that it does go a
+long way. He'd be the fifth baronet."
+
+"But his elder brother is alive."
+
+"The queerest fellow you ever saw in your born days, and his life is not
+worth a year's purchase. He's got some infernal disease,--nostalgia, or
+what 'd'ye call it?--which never leaves him a moment's peace, and then
+he drinks nothing but milk. Sure to go off;--cock sure."
+
+"I shouldn't like Florence to count upon that."
+
+"And then Hugh Anderson, the fellow here, is very well off as it is. He
+has four hundred pounds here, and another five hundred pounds of his
+own. Florence has, or will have, four hundred pounds of her own. I
+should call them deuced rich. I should, indeed, as beginners. She could
+have her pair of ponies here, and what more would she want?"
+
+These arguments did go very far with Mrs. Mountjoy, the farther because
+in her estimation Sir Magnus was a great man. He was the greatest
+Englishman, at any rate, in Brussels, and where should she go for advice
+but to an Englishman? And she did not know that Sir Magnus had succeeded
+in borrowing a considerable sum of money from his second secretary of
+legation.
+
+"Leave her to me for a little;--just leave her to me," said Lady
+Mountjoy.
+
+"I would not say anything hard to her," said the mother, pleading for
+her naughty child.
+
+"Not too hard, but she must be made to understand. You see there have
+been misfortunes. As to Mountjoy Scarborough, he's past hoping for."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Altogether. When a man has disappeared there's an end of him. There was
+Lord Baltiboy's younger son disappeared, and he turned out to be a
+Zouave corporal in a French regiment. They did get him out, of course,
+but then he went preaching in America. You may take it for granted, that
+when a man has absolutely vanished from the clubs, he'll never be any
+good again as a marrying man."
+
+"But there's his brother, who, they say, is to have the property."
+
+"A very cold-blooded sort of young man, who doesn't care a straw for his
+own family." He had received very sternly the overtures for a loan from
+Sir Magnus. "And he, as I understand, has never declared himself in
+Florence's favor. You can't count upon Augustus Scarborough."
+
+"Not just count upon him."
+
+"Whereas there's young Anderson, who is the most gentleman-like young
+man I know, all ready. It will have been such a turn of luck your coming
+here and catching him up."
+
+"I don't know that it can be called a turn of luck. Florence has a very
+nice fortune of her own--"
+
+"And she wants to give it to this penniless reprobate. It is just one of
+those cases in which you must deal roundly with a girl. She has to be
+frightened, and that's about the truth of it."
+
+After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with
+herself into her morning-room. When her mother told her that her aunt
+wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to
+see her aunt. Her mother declared that in her aunt's house she was bound
+to go when her aunt sent for her. To this Florence demurred. She was,
+she thought, her aunt's guest, but by no means at her aunt's disposal.
+But at last she obeyed her mother. She had resolved that she would obey
+her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to
+her aunt's chamber.
+
+But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and
+taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room. "My
+dear," he said, "just come in here for two minutes."
+
+"I am on my way up to my aunt."
+
+"I know it, my dear. Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me.
+Upon my word you can't do anything better than take young Anderson."
+
+"I can't do that, Uncle Magnus."
+
+"Why not? There's poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray."
+
+"There is no question of my cousin."
+
+"And Augustus is no better."
+
+"There is no question of Augustus either."
+
+"As to that other chap, he isn't any good;--he isn't indeed."
+
+"You mean Mr. Annesley?"
+
+"Yes; Harry Annesley, as you call him. He hasn't got a shilling to bless
+himself with, or wouldn't have if he was to marry you."
+
+"But I have got something."
+
+"Not enough for both of you, I'm afraid. That uncle of his has
+disinherited him."
+
+"His uncle can't disinherit him."
+
+"He's quite young enough to marry and have a family, and then Annesley
+will be disinherited. He has stopped his allowance, anyway, and you
+mustn't think of him. He did something uncommonly unhandsome the other
+day, though I don't quite know what."
+
+"He did nothing unhandsome, Uncle Magnus."
+
+"Of course a young lady will stand up for her lover, but you will
+really have to drop him. I'm not a hard sort of man, but this was
+something that the world will not stand. When he thought the man had
+been murdered he didn't say anything about it for fear they should tax
+him with it. And then he swore he had never seen him. It was something
+of that sort."
+
+"He never feared that any one would suspect him."
+
+"And now young Anderson has proposed. I should not have spoken else, but
+it's my duty to tell you about young Anderson. He's a gentleman all
+round."
+
+"So is Mr. Annesley."
+
+"And Anderson has got into no trouble at all. He does his duty here
+uncommonly well. I never had less trouble with any young fellow than I
+have had with him. No licking him into shape,--or next to none,--and he
+has a very nice private income. You together would have plenty, and
+could live here till you had settled on apartments. A pair of ponies
+would be just the thing for you to drive about and support the British
+interests. You think of it, my dear, and you'll find that I'm right."
+Then Florence escaped from that room and went up to receive the much
+more severe lecture which she was to have from her aunt.
+
+"Come in, my dear," said Lady Mountjoy, in her most austere voice. She
+had a voice which could assume austerity when she knew her power to be
+in the ascendant. As Florence entered the room Miss Abbott left it by a
+door on the other side. "Take that chair, Florence. I want to have a few
+minutes' conversation with you." Then Florence sat down. "When a young
+lady is thinking of being married, a great many things have to be taken
+into consideration." This seemed to be so much a matter of fact that
+Florence did not feel it necessary to make any reply. "Of course I am
+aware you are thinking of being married."
+
+"Oh yes," said Florence.
+
+"But to whom?"
+
+"To Harry Annesley," said Florence, intending to imply that all the
+world knew that.
+
+"I hope not; I hope not. Indeed, I may say that it is quite out of the
+question. In the first place, he is a beggar."
+
+"He has begged from none," said Florence.
+
+"He is what the world calls a beggar, when a young man without a penny
+thinks of being married."
+
+"I'm not a beggar, and what I've got will be his."
+
+"My dear, you're talking about what you don't understand. A young lady
+cannot give her money away in that manner; it will not be allowed.
+Neither your mother, nor Sir Magnus, nor will I permit it." Here
+Florence restrained herself, but drew herself up in her chair as though
+prepared to speak out her mind if she should be driven. Lady Mountjoy
+would not permit it! She thought that she would feel herself quite able
+to tell Lady Mountjoy that she had neither power nor influence in the
+matter, but she determined to be silent a little longer. "In the first
+place, a gentleman who is a gentleman never attempts to marry a lady for
+her money."
+
+"But when a lady has the money she can express herself much more clearly
+than she could otherwise."
+
+"I don't quite understand what you mean by that, my dear."
+
+"When Mr. Annesley proposed to me he was the acknowledged heir to his
+uncle's property."
+
+"A trumpery affair at the best of it."
+
+"It would have sufficed for me. Then I accepted him."
+
+"That goes for nothing from a lady. Of course your acceptance was
+contingent on circumstances."
+
+"It was so;--on my regard. Having accepted him, and as my regard remains
+just as warm as ever, I certainly shall not go back because of anything
+his uncle may do. I only say this to explain that he was quite justified
+in his offer. It was not for my small fortune that he came to me."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that."
+
+"But if my money can be of any use to him, he's quite welcome to it. Sir
+Magnus spoke to me about a pair of ponies. I'd rather have him than a
+pair of ponies."
+
+"I'm coming to that just now. Here is Mr. Anderson."
+
+"Oh yes; he's here."
+
+There was certainly a touch of impatience in the tone in which this was
+uttered. It was as though she had said that Mr. Anderson had so
+contrived that she could have no doubt whatever about his continued
+presence. Mr. Anderson had made himself so conspicuous as to be visible
+to her constantly. Lady Mountjoy, who intended at present to sing Mr.
+Anderson's praises, felt this to be impertinent.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that. Mr. Anderson has behaved himself
+quite like a gentleman, and you ought to be very proud of any token you
+may receive of his regard and affection."
+
+"But I'm not bound to return to it."
+
+"You are bound to think of it when those who are responsible for your
+actions tell you to do so."
+
+"Mamma, you mean?"
+
+"I mean your uncle, Sir Magnus Mountjoy." She did not quite dare to say
+that she had meant herself. "I suppose you will admit that Sir Magnus is
+a competent judge of young men's characters?"
+
+"He may be a judge of Mr. Anderson, because Mr. Anderson is his clerk."
+
+There was something of an intention to depreciate in the word "clerk."
+Florence had not thought much of Mr. Anderson's worth, nor, as far as
+she had seen them, of the duties generally performed at the British
+Embassy. She was ignorant of the peculiar little niceties and
+intricacies which required the residence at Brussels of a gentleman with
+all the tact possessed by Sir Magnus. She did not know that while the
+mere international work of the office might be safely intrusted to Mr.
+Blow and Mr. Bunderdown, all those little niceties, that smiling and
+that frowning, that taking off of hats and only half taking them off,
+that genial, easy manner, and that stiff hauteur, formed the peculiar
+branch of Sir Magnus himself,--and, under Sir Magnus, of Mr. Anderson.
+She did not understand that even to that pair of ponies which was
+promised to her were to be attached certain important functions, which
+she was to control as the deputy of the great man's deputy And now she
+had called the great man's deputy a clerk!
+
+"Mr. Anderson is no such thing," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"His young man, then,--or private secretary;--only somebody else is
+that."
+
+"You are very impertinent and very ungrateful. Mr. Anderson is second
+secretary of legation. There is no officer attached to our establishment
+of more importance. I believe you say it on purpose to anger me. And
+then you compare this gentleman to Mr. Annesley, a man to whom no one
+will speak."
+
+"I will speak to him." Had Harry heard her say that, he ought to have
+been a happy man in spite of his trouble.
+
+"You! What good can you do him?" Florence nodded her head, almost
+imperceptibly, but still there was a nod, signifying more than she could
+possibly say. She thought that she could do him a world of good if she
+were near him, and some good, too, though she were far away. If she were
+with him she could hang on to his arm,--or perhaps at some future time
+round his neck,--and tell him that she would be true to him though all
+others might turn away. And she could be just as true where she was,
+though she could not comfort him by telling him so with her own words.
+Then it was that she resolved upon writing that letter. He should
+already have what little comfort she might administer in his absence.
+"Now, listen to me, Florence. He is a thorough reprobate."
+
+"I will not hear him so called. He is no reprobate."
+
+"He has behaved in such a way that all England is crying out about him.
+He has done that which will never allow any gentleman to speak to him
+again."
+
+"Then there will be more need that a lady should do so. But it is not
+true."
+
+"You put your knowledge of character against that of Sir Magnus."
+
+"Sir Magnus does not know the gentleman; I do. What's the good of
+talking of it, aunt? Harry Annesley has my word, and nothing on earth
+shall induce me to go back from it. Even were he what you say I would be
+true to him."
+
+"You would?"
+
+"Certainly I would. I could not willingly begin to love a man whom I
+knew to be base; but when I had loved him I would not turn because of
+his baseness;--I couldn't do it. It would be a great--a terrible
+misfortune; but it would have to be borne. But here--I know all the
+story to which you allude."
+
+"I know it too."
+
+"I am quite sure that the baseness has not been on his part. In defence
+of my name he has been silent. He might have spoken out, if he had known
+all the truth then. I was as much his own then as I am now. One of these
+days I suppose I shall be more so."
+
+"You mean to marry him, then?"
+
+"Most certainly I do, or I will never be married; and as he is poor now,
+and I must have my own money when I am twenty-four, I suppose I shall
+have to wait till then."
+
+"Will your mother's word go for nothing with you?"
+
+"Poor mamma! I do believe that mamma is very unhappy, because she makes
+me unhappy. What may take place between me and mamma I am not bound, I
+think, to tell you. We shall be away soon, and I shall be left to mamma
+alone."
+
+And mamma would be left alone to her daughter, Lady Mountjoy thought.
+The visit must be prolonged so that at last Mr. Anderson might be
+enabled to prevail.
+
+The visit had been originally intended for a month, but was now
+prolonged indefinitely. After that conversation between Lady Mountjoy
+and her niece two or three things happened, all bearing upon our story.
+Florence at once wrote her letter. If things were going badly in England
+with Harry Annesley, Harry should at any rate have the comfort of
+knowing what were her feelings,--if there might be comfort to him in
+that. "Perhaps, after all, he won't mind what I may say," she thought to
+herself; but only pretended to think it, and at once flatly contradicted
+her own "perhaps." Then she told him most emphatically not to reply. It
+was very important that she should write. He was to receive her letter,
+and there must be an end of it. She was quite sure that he would
+understand her. He would not subject her to the trouble of having to
+tell her own people that she was maintaining a correspondence, for it
+would amount to that. But still when the time came for the answer she
+had counted it up to the hour. And when Sir Magnus sent for her and
+handed to her the letter,--having discussed that question with her
+mother,--she fully expected it, and felt properly grateful to her uncle.
+She wanted a little comfort, too, and when she had read the letter she
+knew that she had received it.
+
+There had been a few words spoken between the two elder ladies after the
+interview between Florence and Lady Mountjoy. "She is a most self-willed
+young woman," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"Of course she loves her lover," said Mrs. Mountjoy, desirous of making
+some excuse for her own daughter. The girl was very troublesome, but not
+the less her daughter. "I don't know any of them that don't who are
+worth anything."
+
+"If you regard it in that light, Sarah, she'll get the better of you. If
+she marries him she will be lost; that is the way you have got to look
+at it. It is her future happiness you must think of--and respectability.
+She is a headstrong young woman, and has to be treated accordingly."
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"I would be very severe."
+
+"But what am I to do? I can't beat her; I can't lock her up in her
+room."
+
+"Then you mean to give it up?"
+
+"No, I don't. You shouldn't be so cross to me," said poor Mrs. Mountjoy.
+When it had reached this the two ladies had become intimate. "I don't
+mean to give it up at all; but what am I to do?"
+
+"Remain here for the next month, and--and worry her; let Mr. Anderson
+have his chance with her. When she finds that everything will smile
+with her if she accepts him, and that her life will be made a burden to
+her if she still sticks to her Harry Annesley, she'll come round, if she
+be like other girls. Of course a girl can't be made to marry a man, but
+there are ways and means." By this Lady Mountjoy meant that the utmost
+cruelty should be used which would be compatible with a good breakfast,
+dinner, and bedroom. Now, Mrs. Mountjoy knew herself to be incapable of
+this, and knew also, or thought that she knew, that it would not be
+efficacious.
+
+"You stay here,--up to Christmas, if you like it," said Sir Magnus to his
+sister-in-law. "She can't but see Anderson every day, and that goes a
+long way. She, of course, puts on a resolute air as well as she can.
+They all know how to do that. Do you be resolute in return. The deuce is
+in it if we can't have our way with her among us. When you talk of ill
+usage nobody wants you to put her in chains. There are different ways of
+killing a cat. You get friends to write to you from England about young
+Annesley, and I'll do the same. The truth, of course, I mean."
+
+"Nothing can be worse than the truth," said Mrs. Mountjoy, shaking her
+head, sorrowfully.
+
+"Just so," said Sir Magnus, who was not at all sorrowful to hear so bad
+an account of the favored suitor. "Then we'll read her the letters. She
+can't help hearing them. Just the true facts, you know. That's fair;
+nobody can call that cruel. And then, when she breaks down and comes to
+our call, we'll all be as soft as mother's milk to her. I shall see her
+going about the boulevards with a pair of ponies yet." Mrs. Mountjoy
+felt that when Sir Magnus spoke of Florence coming to his call he did
+not know her daughter. But she had nothing better to do than to obey Sir
+Magnus. Therefore she resolved to stay at Brussels another period of six
+weeks and told Florence that she had so resolved. Just at present
+Brussels and Cheltenham would be all the same to Florence.
+
+"It will be a dreadful bore having them so long," said poor Lady
+Mountjoy, piteously, to her husband. For in the presence of Sir Magnus
+she was by no means the valiant woman that she was with some of her
+friends.
+
+"You find everything a bore. What's the trouble?"
+
+"What am I to do with them?"
+
+"Take 'em about in the carriage. Lord bless my soul! what have you got a
+carriage for?"
+
+"Then, with Miss Abbott, there's never room for any one else."
+
+"Leave Miss Abbott at home, then. What's the good of talking to me about
+Miss Abbott? I suppose it doesn't matter to you whom my brother's
+daughter marries?" Lady Mountjoy did not think that it did matter much;
+but she declared that she had already evinced the most tender
+solicitude. "Then stick to it. The girl doesn't want to go out every
+day. Leave her alone, where Anderson can get at her."
+
+"He's always out riding with you."
+
+"No, he's not; not always. And leave Miss Abbott at home. Then there'll
+be room for two others. Don't make difficulties. Anderson will expect
+that I shall do something for him, of course."
+
+"Because of the money," said Lady Mountjoy, whispering.
+
+"And I've got to do something for her too." Now, there was a spice of
+honesty about Sir Magnus. He knew that as he could not at once pay back
+these sums, he was bound to make it up in some other way. The debts
+would be left the same. But that would remain with Providence.
+
+Then came Harry's letter, and there was a deep consultation. It was
+known to have come from Harry by the Buntingford post-mark. Mrs.
+Mountjoy proposed to consult Lady Mountjoy; but to that Sir Magnus would
+not agree. "She'd take her skin off her if she could, now that she's
+angered," said the lady's husband, who no doubt knew the lady well. "Of
+course she'll learn that the letter has been written, and then she'll
+throw it in our teeth. She wouldn't believe that it had gone astray in
+coming here. We should give her a sort of a whip-hand over us." So it
+was decided that Florence should have her letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+FLORENCE'S REQUEST.
+
+
+Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson's way.
+Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding. There
+were moments in which even he was off duty. And Sir Magnus contrived to
+ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the
+carriage was still out on its rounds. Lady Mountjoy certainly did her
+duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so
+that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson. She
+could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as
+yet become so bad as that. Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to
+her. She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous
+in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this
+time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her
+she would tell him the exact truth of the case. As a gentleman, and as a
+young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her. The one enemy
+whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy. She too had felt that her aunt
+could "take her skin off her," as Sir Magnus had said. She had not heard
+the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy
+was in proportion. It cannot be said that she was afraid. She did not
+intend to leave her skin in her aunt's hands. For every inch of skin
+taken she resolved to have an inch in return. She was not acquainted
+with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but
+she was prepared for all such attacks. For Sir Magnus himself, since he
+had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.
+
+Behind the British minister's house, which, though entitled to no such
+name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which,
+though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a
+valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for
+exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his
+riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man
+was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the
+glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw
+in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair
+of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the
+sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes
+really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A
+secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy
+wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary
+of legation,--the second secretary, he told himself,--was bound, if he
+married at all, to have a pretty and _distinguée_ wife. He knew all
+about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own
+hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have
+been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not
+want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets
+of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.
+There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called
+"sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his
+own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very
+fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were
+little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great
+esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court,
+and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of
+no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself
+in a carriage. It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.
+
+He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and
+he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,--as
+behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in
+love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.
+He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight
+she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be
+always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz,
+she had nothing to say for herself at three o'clock in the morning. And
+he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl
+without a shilling. "It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to
+do unless he's sure of his position," he had said on such an occasion to
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother's state of
+health. When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was
+always considered to allude to his brother's health. In this way he had
+nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given
+some trouble to Sir Magnus. But now he was quite sure. "It's all there
+all round," he had said to Arbuthnot more than once. Arbuthnot said that
+it was there--"all round, all round." Waxlight and daylight made no
+difference to her. She was always graceful. "Nobody with an eye in his
+head can doubt that," said Anderson. "I should think not, by Jove!"
+replied Arbuthnot. "And for talking,--you never catch her out; never." "I
+never did, certainly," said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was
+obedient and kind-hearted. "And then look at her money. Of course a
+fellow wants something to help him on. My position is so uncertain that
+I cannot do without it." "Of course not." "Now, with some girls it's so
+deuced hard to find out. You hear that a girl has got money, but when
+the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn't think of
+dying;--damme, doesn't think of it."
+
+"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all
+about it. When she's twenty-four,--only twenty-four,--she'll have ten
+thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that's
+beastly." "Nobody can say that of me. Circumstanced as I am, I want
+something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,--quite as much
+as I want,--quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in
+the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid
+the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells
+me that if I'll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There's some
+fellow in England has just touched her heart,--just touched it, you
+know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a
+fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome
+fellows without conduct and without courage." "I've known lots of 'em,"
+said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him
+in my life, but that's what Sir Magnus says. He has done something
+awfully disreputable. I don't quite understand what it is, but it's
+something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. Nobody knows
+the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "Nobody
+does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that
+conversation was brought to an end.
+
+One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother
+and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and
+Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half
+an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said.
+
+"Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I'm never in better company."
+
+"So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn't be all alone, would
+you?"
+
+"Not if you were with me."
+
+"That's what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the
+world at large. Mayn't they?"
+
+"I don't understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used
+to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast
+could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same sort of thing."
+
+"Why shouldn't he?"
+
+"Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it.
+Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and
+then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?"
+
+"I don't understand the joke."
+
+"She had been told she couldn't break an egg in an empty stocking. Then
+she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains. I
+don't know what made me tell you that story."
+
+"It's a very good story. I'll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night. She
+believes everything."
+
+"And everybody? Then she's a happy woman."
+
+"I wish you'd believe everybody."
+
+"So I do;--nearly everybody. There are some inveterate liars whom nobody
+can believe."
+
+"I hope I am not regarded as one."
+
+"You? certainly not. If anybody were to speak of you as such behind your
+back no one would take your part more loyally than I. But nobody would."
+
+"That's something, at any rate. Then you do believe that I love you?"
+
+"I believe that you think so."
+
+"And that I don't know my own heart?"
+
+"That's very common, Mr. Anderson. I wasn't quite sure of my own heart
+twelve months ago, but I know it now." He felt that his hopes ran very
+low when this was said. She had never before spoken to him of his rival,
+nor had he to her. He knew, or fancied that he knew, that "her heart had
+been touched," as he had said to Arbuthnot. But the "touch" must have
+been very deep if she felt herself constrained to speak to him on the
+subject. It had been his desire to pass over Mr. Annesley, and never to
+hear the name mentioned between them. "You were speaking of your own
+heart."
+
+"Well I was, no doubt. It is a silly thing to talk of, I dare say."
+
+"I'm going to tell you of my heart, and I hope you won't think it silly.
+I do so because I believe you to be a gentleman, and a man of honor." He
+blushed at the words and the tone in which they were spoken, but his
+heart fell still lower. "Mr. Anderson, I am engaged." Here she paused a
+moment, but he had nothing to say. "I am engaged to marry a gentleman
+whom I love with all my heart, and all my strength, and all my body. I
+love him so that nothing can ever separate me from him, or, at least,
+from the thoughts of him. As regards all the interests of life, I feel
+as though I were already his wife. If I ever marry any man I swear to
+you that it will be him." Then Mr. Anderson felt that all hope had
+utterly departed from him. She had said that she believed him to be a
+man of truth. He certainly believed her to be a true-speaking woman. He
+asked himself, and he found it to be quite impossible to doubt her word
+on this subject. "Now I will go on and tell you my troubles. My mother
+disapproves of the man. Sir Magnus has taken upon himself to disapprove,
+and Lady Mountjoy disapproves especially. I don't care two straws about
+Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy. As to Lady Mountjoy, it is simply an
+impertinence on her part, interfering with me." There was something in
+her face as she said this which made Mr. Anderson feel that if he could
+only succeed in having her and the pair of ponies he would be a prouder
+man than the ambassador at Paris. But he knew that it was hopeless. "As
+to my mother, that is indeed a sorrow. She has been to me the dearest
+mother, putting her only hopes of happiness in me. No mother was ever
+more devoted to a child, and of all children I should be the most
+ungrateful were I to turn against her. But from my early years she has
+wished me to marry a man whom I could not bring myself to love. You have
+heard of Captain Scarborough?"
+
+"The man who disappeared?"
+
+"He was and is my first cousin."
+
+"He is in some way connected with Sir Magnus."
+
+"Through mamma. Mamma is aunt to Captain Scarborough, and she married
+the brother of Sir Magnus. Well, he has disappeared and been
+disinherited. I cannot explain all about it, for I don't understand it;
+but he has come to great trouble. It was not on that account that I
+would not marry him. It was partly because I did not like him, and
+partly because of Harry Annesley. I will tell you everything because I
+want you to know my story. But my mother has disliked Mr. Annesley,
+because she has thought that he has interfered with my cousin."
+
+"I understand all that."
+
+"And she has been taught to think that Mr. Annesley has behaved very
+badly. I cannot quite explain it, because there is a brother of Captain
+Scarborough who has interfered. I never loved Captain Scarborough, but
+that man I hate. He has spread those stories. Captain Scarborough has
+disappeared, but before he went he thought it well to revenge himself on
+Mr. Annesley. He attacked him in the street late at night, and
+endeavored to beat him."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Why indeed. That such a trumpery cause as a girl's love should operate
+with such a man!"
+
+"I can understand it; oh yes,--I can understand it."
+
+"I believe he was tipsy, and he had been gambling, and had lost all his
+money--more than all his money. He was a ruined man, and reckless and
+wretched. I can forgive him, and so does Harry. But in the struggle
+Harry got the best of it, and left him there in the street. No weapons
+had been used, except that Captain Scarborough had a stick. There was no
+reason to suppose him hurt, nor was he much hurt. He had behaved very
+badly, and Harry left him. Had he gone for a policeman he could only
+have given him in charge. The man was not hurt, and seems to have walked
+away."
+
+"The papers were full of it."
+
+"Yes, the papers were full of it, because he was missing. I don't know
+yet what became of him, but I have my suspicions."
+
+"They say that he has been seen at Monaco."
+
+"Very likely. But I have nothing to do with that. Though he was my
+cousin, I am touched nearer in another place. Young Mr. Scarborough,
+who, I suspect, knows all about his brother, took upon himself to
+cross-question Mr. Annesley. Mr. Annesley did not care to tell anything
+of that struggle in the streets, and denied that he had seen him. In
+truth, he did not want to have my name mentioned. My belief is that
+Augustus Scarborough knew exactly what had taken place when he asked the
+question. It was he who really was false. But he is now the heir to
+Tretton and a great man in his way, and in order to injure Harry
+Annesley he has spread abroad the story which they all tell here."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"He does;--that is all I know. But I will not be a hypocrite. He chose to
+wish that I should not marry Harry Annesley. I cannot tell you farther
+than that. But he has persuaded mamma, and has told every one. He shall
+never persuade me."
+
+"Everybody seems to believe him," said Mr. Anderson, not as intending to
+say that he believed him now, but that he had done so.
+
+"Of course they do. He has simply ruined Harry. He too has been
+disinherited now. I don't know how they do these things, but it has been
+done. His uncle has been turned against him, and his whole income has
+been taken from him. But they will never persuade me. Nor, if they did,
+would I be untrue to him. It is a grand thing for a girl to have a
+perfect faith in the man she has to marry, as I have--as I have. I know
+my man, and will as soon disbelieve in Heaven as in him. But were he
+what they say he is, he would still have to become my husband. I should
+be broken-hearted, but I should still be true. Thank God, though,--thank
+God,--he has done nothing and will do nothing to make me ashamed of him.
+Now you know my story."
+
+"Yes; now I know it." The tears came very near the poor man's eyes as he
+answered.
+
+"And what will you do for me?"
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"Yes; what will you do? I have told you all my story, believing you to
+be a fine-tempered gentleman. You have entertained a fancy which has
+been encouraged by Sir Magnus. Will you promise me not to speak to me of
+it again? Will you relieve me of so much of my trouble? Will you;--will
+you?" Then, when he turned away, she followed him, and put both her
+hands upon his arm. "Will you do that little thing for me?"
+
+"A little thing!"
+
+"Is it not a little thing,--when I am so bound to that other man that
+nothing can move me? Whether it be little or whether it be much, will
+you not do it?" She still held him by the arm, but his face was turned
+from her so that she could not see it. The tears, absolute tears, were
+running down his cheeks. What did it behoove him as a man to do? Was he
+to believe her vows now and grant her request, and was she then to give
+herself to some third person and forget Harry Annesley altogether? How
+would it be with him then? A faint heart never won a fair lady. All is
+fair in love and war. You cannot catch cherries by holding your mouth
+open. A great amount of wisdom such as this came to him at the spur of
+the moment. But there was her hand upon his arm, and he could not elude
+her request. "Will you not do it for me?" she asked again.
+
+"I will," he said, still keeping his face turned away.
+
+"I knew it;--I knew you would. You are high-minded and honest, and cannot
+be cruel to a poor girl. And if in time to come, when I am Harry
+Annesley's wife, we shall chance to meet each other,--as we will,--he
+shall thank you."
+
+"I shall not want that. What will his thanks do for me? You do not think
+that I shall be silent to oblige him?" Then he walked forth from out of
+the garden, and she had never seen his tears. But she knew well that he
+was weeping, and she sympathized with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+MR. ANDERSON IS ILL.
+
+
+When they went down to dinner that day it became known that Mr. Anderson
+did not intend to dine with them. "He's got a headache," said Sir
+Magnus. "He says he's got a headache. I never knew such a thing in my
+life before." It was quite clear that Sir Magnus did not think that his
+lieutenant ought to have such a headache as would prevent his coming to
+dinner, and that he did not quite believe in the headache. There was a
+dinner ready, a very good dinner, which it was his business to provide.
+He always did provide it, and took a great deal of trouble to see that
+it was good. "There isn't a table so well kept in all Brussels," he used
+to boast. But when he had done his share he expected that Anderson and
+Arbuthnot should do theirs, especially Anderson. There had been
+sometimes a few words,--not quite a quarrel but nearly so,--on the subject
+of dining out. Sir Magnus only dined out with royalty, cabinet
+ministers, and other diplomats. Even then he rarely got a good
+dinner--what he called a good dinner. He often took Anderson with him.
+He was the _doyen_ among the diplomats in Brussels, and a little
+indulgence was shown to him. Therefore he thought that Anderson should
+be as true to him as was he to Anderson. It was not for Anderson's sake,
+indeed, who felt the bondage to be irksome;--and Sir Magnus knew that his
+subordinate sometimes groaned in spirit. But a good dinner is a good
+dinner,--especially the best dinner in Brussels,--and Sir Magnus felt that
+something ought to be given in return. He had not that perfect faith in
+mankind which is the surest evidence of a simple mind. Ideas crowded
+upon him. Had Anderson a snug little dinner-party, just two or three
+friends, in his own room? Sir Magnus would not have been very angry,--he
+was rarely very angry,--but he should like to show his cleverness by
+finding it out. Anderson had been quite well when he was out riding, and
+he did not remember him ever before to have had a headache. "Is he very
+bad, Arbuthnot?"
+
+"I haven't seen him, sir, since he was riding."
+
+"Who has seen him?"
+
+"He was in the garden with me," said Florence, boldly.
+
+"I suppose that did not give him a headache."
+
+"Not that I perceived."
+
+"It is very singular that he should have a headache just when dinner is
+ready," continued Sir Magnus.
+
+"You had better leave the young man alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+And one who knew the ways of living at the British Embassy would be sure
+that after this Sir Magnus would not leave the young man alone. His
+nature was not simple. It seemed to him again that there might be a
+little dinner-party, and that Lady Mountjoy knew all about it.
+"Richard," he said to the butler, "go into Mr. Anderson's room and see
+if he is very bad." Richard came back, and whispered to the great man
+that Anderson was not in his room. "This is very remarkable. A bad
+headache, and not in his room! Where is he? I insist on knowing where
+Mr. Anderson is!"
+
+"You had better leave him alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"Leave a man alone because he's ill! He might die."
+
+"Shall I go and see?" said Arbuthnot.
+
+"I wish you would, and bring him in here, if he's well enough to show. I
+don't approve of a young man going without his dinner. There's nothing
+so bad."
+
+"He'll be sure to get something, Sir Magnus," said Lady Mountjoy. But
+Sir Magnus insisted that Mr. Arbuthnot should go and look after his
+friend.
+
+It was now November, and at eight o'clock was quite dark, but the
+weather was fine, and something of the mildness of autumn remained.
+Arbuthnot was not long in discovering that Mr. Anderson was again
+walking in the garden. He had left Florence there and had gone to the
+house, but had found himself to be utterly desolate and miserable. She
+had exacted from him a promise which was not compatible with any kind of
+happiness to which he could now look forward. In the first place, all
+Brussels knew that he had been in love with Florence Mountjoy. He
+thought that all Brussels knew it. And they knew that he had been in
+earnest in this love. He did believe that all Brussels had given him
+credit for so much. And now they would know that he had suddenly ceased
+to make love. It might be that this should be attributed to gallantry on
+his part,--that it should be considered that the lady had been deserted.
+But he was conscious that he was not so good a hypocrite as not to show
+that he was broken-hearted. He was quite sure that it would be seen that
+he had got the worst of it. But when he asked himself questions as to
+his own condition he told himself that there was suffering in store for
+him more heavy to bear than these. There could be no ponies, with
+Florence driving them, and a boy in his own livery behind, seen upon the
+boulevards. That vision was gone, and forever. And then came upon him an
+idea that the absence of the girl from other portions of his life might
+touch him more nearly. He did feel something like actual love. And the
+more she had told him of her devotion to Harry Annesley, the more
+strongly he had felt the value of that devotion. Why should this man
+have it and not he? He had not been disinherited. He had not been
+knocked about in a street quarrel. He had not been driven to tell a lie
+as to his having not seen a man when he had, in truth, knocked him down.
+He had quite agreed with Florence that Harry was justified in the lie;
+but there was nothing in it to make the girl love him the better for it.
+
+And then, looking forward, he could perceive the possibility of an event
+which, if it should occur, would cover him with confusion and disgrace.
+If, after all, Florence were to take, not Harry Annesley, but somebody
+else? How foolish, how credulous, how vain would he have been then to
+have made the promise! Girls did such things every day. He had promised,
+and he thought that he must keep his promise; but she would be bound by
+no promise! As he thought of it, he reflected that he might even yet
+exact such a promise from her.
+
+But when the dinner-time came he really was sick with love,--or sick with
+disappointment. He felt that he could not eat his dinner under the
+battery of raillery which was always coming from Sir Magnus, and
+therefore he had told the servants that as the evening progressed he
+would have something to eat in his own room. And then he went out to
+wander in the dusk beneath the trees in the garden. Here he was
+encountered by Mr. Arbuthnot, with his dress boots and white cravat.
+"What the mischief are you doing here, old fellow?"
+
+"I'm not very well. I have an awfully bilious headache."
+
+"Sir Magnus is kicking up a deuce of a row because you're not there."
+
+"Sir Magnus be blowed! How am I to be there if I've got a bilious
+headache? I'm not dressed. I could not have dressed myself for a
+five-pound note."
+
+"Couldn't you, now? Shall I go back and tell him that? But you must have
+something to eat. I don't know what's up, but Sir Magnus is in a
+taking."
+
+"He's always in a taking. I sometimes think he's the biggest fool out."
+
+"And there's the place kept vacant next to Miss Mountjoy. Grascour
+wanted to sit there, but her ladyship wouldn't let him. And I sat next
+Miss Abbott because I didn't want to be in your way."
+
+"Tell Grascour to go and sit there, or you may do so. It's all nothing
+to me." This he said in the bitterness of his heart, by no means
+intending to tell his secret, but unable to keep it within his own
+bosom.
+
+"What's the matter, Anderson?" asked the other piteously.
+
+"I am clean broken-hearted. I don't mind telling you. I know you're a
+good fellow, and I'll tell you everything. It's all over."
+
+"All over--with Miss Mountjoy?" Then Anderson began to tell the whole
+story; but before he had got half through, or a quarter through, another
+message came from Sir Magnus. "Sir Magnus is becoming very angry
+indeed," whispered the butler. "He says that Mr. Arbuthnot is to go
+back."
+
+"I'd better go, or I shall catch it."
+
+"What's up with him, Richard?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Well, if you ask me, Mr. Anderson, I think he's--a-suspecting of
+something."
+
+"What does he suspect?"
+
+"I think he's a-thinking that perhaps you are having a jolly time of
+it." Richard had known his master many years, and could almost read his
+inmost thoughts. "I don't say as it so, but that's what I am thinking."
+
+"You tell him I ain't. You tell him I've a bad bilious headache, and
+that the air in the garden does it good. You tell him that I mean to
+have something to eat up-stairs when my head is better; and do you mind
+and let me have it, and a bottle of claret."
+
+With this the butler went back, and so did Arbuthnot, after asking one
+other question: "I'm so sorry it isn't all serene with Miss Mountjoy?"
+
+"It isn't then. Don't mind now, but it isn't serene. Don't say a word
+about her; but she has done me. I think I shall get leave of absence and
+go away for two months. You'll have to do all the riding, old fellow. I
+shall go,--but I don't know where I shall go. You return to them now, and
+tell them I've such a bilious headache I don't know which way to turn
+myself."
+
+Arbuthnot went back, and found Sir Magnus quarrelling grievously with
+the butler. "I don't think he's doing anything as he shouldn't," the
+butler whispered, having seen into his master's mind.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Do let the matter drop," said Lady Mountjoy, who had also seen into her
+husband's mind, and saw, moreover, that the butler had done so. "A young
+man's dinner isn't worth all this bother."
+
+"I won't let the matter drop. What does he mean when he says that he
+isn't doing anything that he shouldn't? I've never said anything about
+what he was doing."
+
+"He isn't dressed, Sir Magnus. He finds himself a little better now, and
+means to have something up-stairs." Then there came an awful silence,
+during which the dinner was eaten. Sir Magnus knew nothing of the truth,
+simply suspecting the headache to be a myth. Lady Mountjoy, with a
+woman's quickness, thought that there had been some words between
+Florence and her late lover, and, as she disliked Florence, was inclined
+to throw all the blame upon her. A word had been said to Mrs.
+Mountjoy,--"I don't think he'll trouble me any more, mamma,"--which Mrs.
+Mountjoy did not quite understand, but which she connected with the
+young man's absence. But Florence understood it all, and liked Mr.
+Anderson the better. Could it really be that for love of her he would
+lose his dinner? Could it be that he was so grievously afflicted at the
+loss of a girl's heart? There he was, walking out in the dark and the
+cold, half-famished, all because she loved Harry Annesley so well that
+there could be no chance for him! Girls believe so little in the truth
+of the love of men that any sign of its reality touches them to the
+core. Poor Hugh Anderson! A tear came into her eye as she thought that
+he was wandering there in the dark, and all for the love of her. The
+rest of the dinner passed away in silence, and Sir Magnus hardly became
+cordial and communicative with M. Grascour, even under the influence of
+his wine.
+
+On the next morning just before lunch Florence was waylaid by Mr.
+Anderson as she was passing along one of the passages in the back part
+of the house. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I want to ask from your great
+goodness the indulgence of a few words."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Could you come into the garden?"
+
+"If you will give me time to go and change my boots and get a shawl. We
+ladies are not ready to go out always, as are you gentlemen."
+
+"Anywhere will do. Come in here," and he led the way into a small parlor
+which was not often used.
+
+"I was so sorry to hear last night that you were unwell, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"I was not very well, certainly, after what I had heard before dinner."
+He did not tell her that he so far recovered as to be able to drink a
+bottle of claret and to smoke a couple of cigars in his bedroom. "Of
+course you remember what took place yesterday."
+
+"Remember! Oh yes. I shall not readily forget it."
+
+"I made you a promise--"
+
+"You did--very kindly."
+
+"And I mean to keep it."
+
+"I'm sure you do, because you're a gentleman."
+
+"I don't think I ought to have made it."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+
+"I don't think I ought. See what I am giving up."
+
+"Nothing, except the privilege of troubling me."
+
+"But if it should be something else? Do not be angry with me, but,
+loving you as I do, of course my mind is full of it. I have promised,
+and must be dumb."
+
+"And I shall be spared great vexation."
+
+"But suppose I were to hear that in six months' time you had married
+some one else?"
+
+"Mr. Annesley, you mean. Not in six months."
+
+"Somebody else. Not Mr. Annesley."
+
+"There is nobody else."
+
+"But there might be."
+
+"It is impossible. After all that I told you, do not you understand?"
+
+"But if there were?" The poor man, as he made the suggestion, looked
+very piteous. "If there were, I think you should promise me I shall be
+that somebody else. That would be no more than fair."
+
+She paused a moment to think, frowning the while. "Certainly not."
+
+"Certainly not?"
+
+"I can make no such promise, nor should you ask it. I am to promise that
+under certain circumstances I would become your wife, when I know that
+under no circumstances I would do so."
+
+"Under no circumstances?"
+
+"Under none. What would you have me say, Mr. Anderson? Supposing
+yourself engaged to marry a girl--"
+
+"I wish I were--to you."
+
+"To a girl who loved you, and whom you loved?"
+
+"There's no doubt about my loving her."
+
+"You can follow my meaning, and I wish that you would do so. What would
+you think if you were to hear that she had promised to marry some one
+else in the event of your deserting her? It is out of the question. I
+mean to be the wife of Harry Annesley. Say that it is not to be so, and
+you will simply destroy me. Of one thing I may be sure,--that I will
+marry him or nobody. You promised me, not because your promise was
+necessary for that, but to spare me from trouble till that time shall
+come. And I am grateful,--very grateful." Then she left him suffering
+from another headache.
+
+"Was there anything said between you and Mr. Anderson yesterday?" her
+aunt inquired, that afternoon.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because it is necessary that I should know."
+
+"I do not see the necessity. Mr. Anderson has, at any rate, your
+permission to say what he likes to me, but I am not on that account
+bound to tell you all that he does say. But I will tell you. He has
+promised to trouble me no farther. I told him that I was engaged to Mr.
+Annesley, and he, like a gentleman, has assured me that he will desist."
+
+"Just because you asked him?"
+
+"Yes, aunt; just because I asked him."
+
+"He will not be bound by such a promise for a moment. It is a thing not
+to be heard of. If that kind of thing is to go on, any young lady will
+be entitled to ask any young gentleman not to say a word of marriage,
+just at her request."
+
+"Some of the young ladies would not care for that, perhaps."
+
+"Don't be impertinent."
+
+"I should not, for one, aunt; only that I am already engaged."
+
+"And of course the young ladies would be bound to make such requests,
+which would go for nothing at all. I never heard of anything so
+monstrous. You are not only to have the liberty of refusing, but are to
+be allowed to bind a gentleman not to ask!"
+
+"He has promised."
+
+"Pshaw! It means nothing."
+
+"It is between him and me. I asked him because I wished to save myself
+from being troubled."
+
+"As for that other man, my dear, it is quite out of the question. From
+all that I hear, it is on the cards that he may be arrested and put into
+prison. I am quite sure that at any rate he deserves it. The letters
+which Sir Magnus gets about him are fearful. The things that he has
+done,--well, penal servitude for life would be the proper punishment. And
+it will come upon him sooner or later. I never knew a man of that kind
+escape. And you now to come and tell us that you intend to be his wife!"
+
+"I do," said Florence, bobbing her head.
+
+"And what your uncle says to you has no effect?"
+
+"Not the least in the world; nor what my aunt says. I believe that
+neither the one nor the other know what they are talking about. You have
+been defaming a gentleman of the highest character, a Fellow of a
+college, a fine-hearted, noble, high-spirited man, simply
+because--because--because--" Then she burst into tears and rushed out of
+the room; but she did not break down before she had looked at her aunt,
+and spoken to her aunt with a fierce indignation which had altogether
+served to silence Lady Mountjoy for the moment.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+MR. BARRY.
+
+
+"Good-bye, sir. You ought not to be angry with me. I am sure it will be
+better for us both to remain as we are." This was said by Miss Dorothy
+Grey, as a gentleman departed from her and made his way out of the
+front-door at the Fulham Manor-house. Miss Grey had received an offer of
+marriage, and had declined it. The offer had been made by a worthy man,
+he being no other than her father's partner, Mr. Barry.
+
+It may be remembered that, on discussing the affairs of the firm with
+her father, Dolly Grey had been accustomed to call this partner "the
+Devil." It was not that she had thought this partner to be specially
+devilish, nor was he so. It had ever been Miss Grey's object to have the
+affairs of the firm managed with an integrity which among lawyers might
+be called Quixotic. Her father she had dubbed "Reason," and herself
+"Conscience;" but in calling Mr. Barry "the Devil" she had not intended
+to signify any defalcation from honesty more than ordinary in lawyers'
+offices. She did, in fact, like Mr. Barry. He would occasionally come
+out and dine with her father. He was courteous and respectful, and
+performed his duties with diligence. He spent nobody's money but his
+own, and not all of that; nor did he look upon the world as a place to
+which men were sent that they might play. He was nearly forty years old,
+was clean, a little bald, and healthy in all his ways. There was nothing
+of a devil about him, except that his conscience was not peculiarly
+attentive to abstract honesty and abstract virtue. There must, according
+to him, be always a little "give and take" in the world; but in the
+pursuit of his profession he gave a great deal more than he took. He
+thought himself to be an honest practitioner, and yet in all domestic
+professional conferences with her father Mr. Barry had always been Miss
+Grey's "Devil."
+
+The possibility of such a request as had been now made had been already
+discussed between Dolly and her father. Dolly had said that the idea was
+absurd. Mr. Grey had not seen the absurdity. There had been nothing more
+common, he had said, than that a young partner should marry an old
+partner's daughter. "It's not put into the partnership deed?" Dolly had
+rejoined. But Dolly had never believed that the time would come. Now it
+had come.
+
+Mr. Barry had as yet possessed no more than a fourth of the business. He
+had come in without any capital, and had been contented with a fourth.
+He now suggested to Dolly that on their marriage the business should be
+equally divided. And he had named the house in which they would live.
+There was a pleasant, genteel residence on the other side of the water,
+at Putney. Miss Grey had suggested that the business might be divided in
+a manner that would be less burdensome to Mr. Barry. As for the house,
+she could not leave her father. Upon the whole, she had thought that it
+would be better for both of them that they should remain as they were.
+By that Miss Grey had not intended to signify that Mr. Barry was to
+remain single, but that he would have to do so in reference to Miss
+Grey.
+
+When he was gone Dolly Grey spent the remainder of the afternoon in
+contemplating what would have been her condition had she agreed to join
+her lot to that of Mr. Barry, and she came to the conclusion that it
+would have been simply unendurable. There was nothing of romance in her
+nature; but as she looked at matrimony, with all its blisses,--and Mr.
+Barry among them,--she told herself that death would be preferable. "I
+know myself," she said. "I should come to hate him with a miserable
+hatred. And then I should hate myself for having done him so great an
+evil." And as she continued thinking she assured herself that there was
+but one man with whom she could live, and that that was her father. And
+then other questions presented themselves to her, which were not so
+easily answered. What would become of her when he should go? He was now
+sixty-six, and she was only thirty-two. He was healthy for his age, but
+would complain of his work. She knew that he must in course of nature go
+much the first. Ten years he might live, while she might probably be
+called upon to endure for thirty more. "I shall have to do it all
+alone," she said; "all alone; without a companion, without one soul to
+whom I can open my own. But if I were to marry Mr. Barry," she
+continued, "I should at once be encumbered with a soul to whom I could
+not open my own. I suppose I shall be enabled to live through it, as do
+others." Then she began to prepare for her father's coming. As long as
+he did remain with her she would make the most of him.
+
+"Papa," she said, as she took him by the hand as he entered the house
+and led him into the dining-room,--"who do you think has been here?"
+
+"Mr. Barry."
+
+"Then he has told you?"
+
+"Not a word,--not even that he was coming. But I saw him as he left the
+chambers, and he had on a bright hat and a new coat."
+
+"And he thought that those could move me."
+
+"I have not known that he has wanted to move you. You asked me to guess,
+and I have guessed right, it seems."
+
+"Yes; you have guessed right."
+
+"And why did he come?"
+
+"Only to ask me to be his wife."
+
+"And what did you say to him, Dolly?"
+
+"What did I say to the Devil?" She still held him by the hand, and now
+she laughed lightly as she looked into his face. "Cannot you guess what
+I said to him?"
+
+"I am sorry for it;--that's all."
+
+"Sorry for it? Oh, papa, do not say that you are sorry. Do you want to
+lose me?"
+
+"I do not want to think that for my own selfish purposes I have retained
+you. So he has asked you?"
+
+"Yes; he has asked me."
+
+"And you have answered him positively?"
+
+"Most positively."
+
+"And for my sake?"
+
+"No, papa; I have not said that. I was joking when I asked whether you
+wished to lose me. Of course you do not want to lose me." Then she wound
+her arm round him, and put up her face to be kissed. "But now come and
+dress yourself, as you call it. The dinner is late. We will talk about
+it again after dinner."
+
+But immediately after dinner the conversation went away to Mr.
+Scarborough and the Scarborough matters. "I am to see Augustus, and he
+is to tell me something about Mountjoy and his affairs. They say that
+Mountjoy is now in Paris. The money can be given to them now, if he will
+consent and will sign the deed releasing the property. But the men have
+not all as yet agreed to accept the simple sums which they advanced.
+That fellow Hart stands out, and says that he would sooner lose it all."
+
+"Then he will lose it all," said Dolly.
+
+"But the squire will consent to pay nothing unless they all agree.
+Augustus is talking about his excessive generosity."
+
+"It is generous on his part," said Dolly.
+
+"He sees his own advantage, though I cannot quite understand where. He
+tells Tyrrwhit that as there is so great an increase to the property he
+is willing, for the sake of the good name of the family, to pay all that
+has been in truth advanced; but he is most anxious to do it now, while
+his father is alive. I think he fears that there will be lawsuits, and
+that they may succeed. I doubt whether he thanks his father."
+
+"But why should his father lie for his sake, since they are on such bad
+terms?"
+
+"Because his father was on worse terms with Mountjoy when he told the
+lie. That is what I think Augustus thinks. But his father told no lie at
+that time, and cannot now go back to falsehood. My belief is that if he
+were confident that such is the fact he would not surrender a shilling
+to pay these men their moneys. He may stop a lawsuit, which is like
+enough, though they could only lose it. And if Mountjoy should turn out
+to be the heir, which is impossible, he will be able to turn round and
+say that by his efforts he had saved so much of the property."
+
+"My head becomes so bewildered," said Dolly, "that I can hardly
+understand it yet."
+
+"I think I understand it; but I can only guess at his mind. But he has
+got Tyrrwhit to accept forty thousand pounds, which is the sum he, in
+truth, advanced. The stake is too great for the man to lose it without
+ruin. He can get it back now, and save himself. But Hart was the more
+determined blackguard. He, with two others, has a claim for thirty-five
+thousand pounds, for which he has given but ten thousand pounds in hard
+cash, and he thinks that he may get some profit out of Tyrrwhit's money,
+and holds out."
+
+"For how much?"
+
+"For the entire debt, he tells me; but I know that he is trying to deal
+with Tyrrwhit. Tyrrwhit would pay him five thousand, I think, so as to
+secure the immediate payment of his own money. Then there are a host of
+others who are contented to take what they have advanced, but not
+contented if Hart was to have more. There are other men in the background
+who advanced the money. All the rascaldom of London is let loose upon
+me. But Hart was the one man who holds his head the highest."
+
+"But if they will accept no terms they will get nothing," said Dolly.
+"If once they attempt to go to law all will be lost."
+
+"There are wheels within wheels. When the old man dies Mountjoy himself
+will probably put in a claim to the entire estate, and will get some
+lawyer to take up the case for him."
+
+"You would not?"
+
+"Certainly not, because I know that Augustus is the eldest legitimate
+son. As far as I can make it out, Augustus is at present allowing
+Mountjoy the money on which he lives. His father does not. But the old
+man must know that Augustus does, though he pretends to be ignorant."
+
+"But why is Hart to get money out of Tyrrwhit?"
+
+"To secure the payment of the remainder. Mr. Tyrrwhit would be very glad
+to get his forty thousand pounds back; would pay five thousand pounds to
+get the forty back. But nothing will be paid unless they all agree to
+join in freeing the property. Therefore Hart, who is the sharpest rascal
+of the lot, stands out for some share of his contemplated plunder."
+
+"And you must be joined in such an arrangement?"
+
+"Not at all. I cannot help surmising what is to be done. In dealing with
+the funds of the property I go to the men, and say to them so much, and
+so much, and so much you have actually lost. Agree among yourselves to
+accept that, and it shall be paid to you. That is honest?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"But I do. Every shilling that the son of my client has had from them my
+client is ready to pay. There is some hitch among them, and I make my
+surmises. But I have no dealings with them. It is for them to come to me
+now." Dolly only shook her head. "You cannot touch pitch and not be
+defiled." That was what Dolly said, but said it to herself. And then she
+went on and declared to herself still farther, that Mr. Barry was pitch.
+She knew that Mr. Barry had seen Hart, and had seen Tyrrwhit, and had
+been bargaining with them. She excused her father because he was her
+father; but according to her thinking there should have been no
+dealings with such men as these, except at the end of a pair of tongs.
+
+"And now, Dolly," said her father, after a long pause, "tell me about
+Mr. Barry."
+
+"There is nothing more to be told."
+
+"Not of what you said to him, but of the reasons which have made you so
+determined. Would it not be better for you to be married?"
+
+"If I could choose my husband."
+
+"Whom would you choose?"
+
+"You."
+
+"That is nonsense. I am your father."
+
+"You know what I mean. There is no one else among my circle of
+acquaintances with whom I should care to live. There is no one else with
+whom I should care to do more than die. When I look at it all round it
+seems to be absolutely impossible. That I should on a sudden entertain
+habits of the closest intimacy with such a one as Mr. Barry! What should
+I say to him when he went forth in the morning? How should I welcome him
+when he came back at night? What would be our breakfast, and what would
+be our dinner? Think what are yours and mine,--all the little
+solicitudes, all the free abuse, all the certainty of an affection which
+has grown through so many years; all the absolute assurance on the part
+of each that the one does really know the inner soul of the other."
+
+"It would come."
+
+"With Mr. Barry? That is your idea of my soul with which you have been
+in communion for so many years? In the first place, you think that I am
+a person likely to be able to transfer myself suddenly to the first man
+that comes my way?"
+
+"Gradually you might do so,--at any rate so as to make life possible. You
+will be all alone. Think what it will be to have to live all alone."
+
+"I have thought. I do know that it would be well that you should be able
+to take me with you."
+
+"But I cannot."
+
+"No. There is the hardship. You must leave me, and I must be alone. That
+is what we have to expect. But for her sake, and for mine, we may be
+left while we can be left. What would you be without me? Think of that."
+
+"I should bear it."
+
+"You couldn't. You'd break your heart and die. And if you can imagine my
+living there, and pouring out Mr. Barry's tea for him, you must imagine
+also what I should have to say to myself about you. 'He will die, of
+course. But then he has come to that sort of age at which it doesn't
+much signify.' Then I should go on with Mr. Barry's tea. He'd come to
+kiss me when he went away, and I--should plunge a knife into him."
+
+"Dolly!"
+
+"Or into myself, which would be more likely. Fancy that man calling me
+Dolly." Then she got up and stood behind his chair and put her arm round
+his neck. "Would you like to kiss him?--or any man, for the matter of
+that? There is no one else to whom my fancy strays, but I think that I
+should murder them all,--or commit suicide. In the first place, I should
+want my husband to be a gentleman. There are not a great many gentlemen
+about."
+
+"You are fastidious."
+
+"Come now;--be honest; is our Mr. Barry a gentleman?" Then there was a
+pause, during which she waited for a reply. "I will have an answer. I
+have a right to demand an answer to that question, since you have
+proposed the man to me as a husband."
+
+"Nay, I have not proposed him."
+
+"You have expressed a regret that I have not accepted him. Is he a
+gentleman?"
+
+"Well;--yes; I think he is."
+
+"Mind; we are sworn, and you are bound to speak the truth. What right
+has he to be a gentleman? Who was his father and who was his mother? Of
+what kind were his nursery belongings? He has become an attorney, and so
+have you. But has there been any one to whisper to him among his
+teachings that in that profession, as in all others, there should be a
+sense of high honor to guide him? He must not cheat, or do anything to
+cause him to be struck off the rolls; but is it not with him what his
+client wants, and not what honor demands? And in the daily intercourse
+of life would he satisfy what you call my fastidiousness?"
+
+"Nothing on earth will ever do that."
+
+"You do. I agree with you that nothing else on earth ever will. The man
+who might, won't come. Not that I can imagine such a man, because I know
+that I am spoiled. Of course there are gentlemen, though not a great
+many. But he mustn't be ugly and he mustn't be good-looking. He mustn't
+seem to be old, and certainly he mustn't seem to be young. I should not
+like a man to wear old clothes, but he mustn't wear new. He must be well
+read, but never show it. He must work hard, but he must come home to
+dinner at the proper time." Here she laughed, and gently shook her head.
+"He must never talk about his business at night. Though, dear, darling
+old father, he shall do that if he will talk like you. And then, which
+is the hardest thing of all, I must have known him intimately for at any
+rate, ten years. As for Mr. Barry, I never should know him intimately,
+though I were married to him for ten years."
+
+"And it has all been my doing?"
+
+"Just so. You have made the bed and you must lie on it. It hasn't been a
+bad bed."
+
+"Not for me. Heaven knows it has not been bad for me."
+
+"Nor for me, as things go; only that there will come an arousing before
+we shall be ready to get up together. Your time will probably be the
+first. I can better afford to lose you than you to lose me."
+
+"God send that it shall be so!"
+
+"It is nature," she said. "It is to be expected, and will on that
+account be the less grievous because it has been expected. I shall have
+to devote myself to those Carroll children. I sometimes think that the
+work of the world should not be made pleasant to us. What profit will it
+be to me to have done my duty by you? I think there will be some profit
+if I am good to my cousins."
+
+"At any rate, you won't have Mr. Barry?" said the father.
+
+"Not if I know it," said the daughter; "and you, I think, are a wicked
+old man to suggest it." Then she bade him good-night and went to bed,
+for they had been talking now till near twelve.
+
+But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had
+progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first
+opportunity. He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house,
+and resolved as to certain little changes which should be made. Thus one
+room should look here, and the nursery should look there. The walk to
+the railway would only take five minutes, and there would be five
+minutes again from the Temple Station in London. He thought it would do
+very well for domestic felicity. And as for a fortune, half the business
+would not be bad. And then the whole business would follow, and he in
+his turn would be enabled to let some young fellow in who should do the
+greater part of the work and take the smaller part of the pay, as had
+been the case with himself.
+
+But it had not occurred to him that the young lady had meant what she
+said when she refused him. It was the ordinary way with young ladies. Of
+course he had expected no enthusiasm of love;--nor had he wanted it. He
+would wait for three weeks and then he would go to Fulham again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MR. JUNIPER.
+
+
+Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly
+when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,--as when she
+said that she would "stick a knife" into Mr. Barry,--still there was a
+seriousness in all she said which was more than grave. She was pathetic
+and melancholy. She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay
+with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom
+she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred. And she knew that it
+would be a good thing to be married,--if only the right man would come.
+The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same
+house with him to the end. The right man must be a _preux chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche_. The right man must be strong-minded and
+masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded
+always for good. And where was she to find such a man as this? she who
+was only an attorney's daughter,--plain, too, and with many
+eccentricities. She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only
+man who came in her way was her father's partner, for whom, in regard to
+a share in the business, she might be desirable.
+
+Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty. The two eldest
+girls she absolutely did hate, and their father. To hate the father,
+because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could
+not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous
+sin. Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her. Their
+amusements, their literature, their clothes, their manners,--especially
+in regard to men,--their gestures and color, were distasteful to her.
+"They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery," said Dolly to
+her father. He had replied by telling her that she was nasty. "No; but,
+unfortunately, I cannot but see nastiness." Dolly herself was clean to
+fastidiousness. Take off her coarse frock, and there the well-dressed
+lady began. "Look at the heels of Sophie's boots! Give her a push, and
+she'd fall off her pins as though they were stilts. They're always
+asking to have a shoemaker's bill paid, and yet they won't wear stout
+boots." "I'll pay the man," she said to Amelia one day, "if you'll
+promise to wear what I'll buy you for the next six months." But Amelia
+had only turned up her nose. These were the relatives to whom it would
+become her duty to devote her life!
+
+The next morning she started off to call in Bolsover Terrace with an
+intention, not to begin her duty, but to make a struggle at the adequate
+performance of it. She took with her some article of clothing intended
+for one of the younger children, but which the child herself was to
+complete. But when she entered the parlor she was astounded at finding
+that Mr. Carroll was there. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and at that
+time Mr. Carroll never was there. He was either in bed, or at
+Tattersall's, or--Dolly did not care where. She had long since made up
+her mind that there must be a permanent quarrel between herself and her
+uncle, and her desire was generally respected. Now, unfortunately, he
+was present, and with him were his wife and two elder daughters. To be
+devoted, thought Dolly to herself, to such a family as this,--and without
+anybody else in the world to care for! She gave her aunt a kiss, and
+touched the girls' hands, and made a very distant bow to Mr. Carroll.
+Then she began about the parcel in her hands, and, having given her
+instructions, was preparing to depart.
+
+But her aunt stopped her. "I think you ought to know, Dorothea."
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Carroll. "It is quite right that your cousin
+should know."
+
+"If you think it proper, I'm sure I can't object," said Amelia.
+
+"She won't approve, I'm sure," said Sophie.
+
+"Her young man has come forward and spoken," said Mr. Carroll.
+
+"And quite in a proper spirit," said Amelia.
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Carroll, "we are not to expect too much. Though
+we are respectable in birth, and all that, we are poor. Mr. Carroll has
+got nothing to give her."
+
+"I've been the most unfortunate man in the world," said Mr. Carroll.
+
+"We won't talk about that now," continued Mrs. Carroll. "Here we are
+without anything."
+
+"You have decent blood," said Dolly; "at any rate on one side,"--for she
+did not believe in the Carrolls.
+
+"On both,--on both," said Mr. Carroll, rising up, and putting his hand
+upon his heart. "I can boast of royal blood among my ancestors."
+
+"But here we are without anything," said Mrs. Carroll again. "Mr.
+Juniper is a most respectable man."
+
+"He has been attached to some of the leading racing establishments in
+the kingdom," said Mr. Carroll. Dolly had heard of Mr. Juniper as a
+trainer, though she did not accurately know what a trainer meant.
+
+"He is almost as great a man as the owner, for the matter of that," said
+Amelia, standing up for her lover.
+
+"He is not to say young,--perhaps forty," said Mrs. Carroll, "and he has
+a very decent house of his own at Newmarket." Dolly immediately began to
+think whether this might be for the better or for the worse. Newmarket
+was a long way off, and the girl would be taken away; and it might be a
+good thing to dispose of one of such a string of daughters, even to Mr.
+Juniper. Of course there would be the disagreeable nature of the
+connection. But, as Dolly had once said to her father, their share of
+the world's burdens had to be borne, and this was one of them. Her first
+cousin must marry the trainer. She, who had spoken so enthusiastically
+about gentlemen, must put up with it. She knew that Mr. Juniper was but
+a small man in his own line, but she would never disown him by word of
+mouth. He should be her cousin Juniper. But she did hope that she might
+not be called upon to see him frequently. After all, he might be much
+more respectable than Mr. Carroll.
+
+"I am glad he has a house of his own," said Dolly.
+
+"It is a much better house than Fulham Manor," said Amelia.
+
+Dolly was angered, not at the comparison between the houses, but at the
+ingratitude and insolence of the girl. "Very well," said she, addressing
+herself to her aunt; "if her parents are contented, of course it is not
+for me or for papa to be discontented. The thing to think of is the
+honesty of the man and his industry,--not the excellence of the house."
+
+"But you seemed to think that we were to live in a pigsty," said Amelia.
+
+"Mr. Juniper stands very high on the turf," said Mr. Carroll. "Mr.
+Leadabit's horses have always run straight, and Mousetrap won the
+Two-year-old Trial Stakes last spring, giving two pounds to
+Box-and-Cox. A good-looking, tall fellow. You remember seeing him here
+once last summer." This was addressed to Miss Grey; but Miss Grey had
+made up her mind never to exchange a word with Mr. Carroll.
+
+"When is it to be, my dear?" said Miss Grey, turning to the ladies, but
+intending to address herself to Amelia. She had already made up her mind
+to forgive the girl for her insolence about the house. If the girl was
+to be taken away, there was so much the more reason for forgiving her
+that and other things.
+
+"Oh! I thought that you did not mean to speak to me at all," said
+Amelia. "I supposed the cut was to be extended from papa to me."
+
+"Amelia, how can you be so silly?" said the mother.
+
+"If you think I'm going to put up with that kind of thing, you're
+mistaken," said Amelia. She had got not only a lover but a husband in
+prospect, and was much superior to her cousin,--who had neither one or
+the other, as far as she was aware. "Mr. Juniper, with an excellent
+house and a plentiful income, is quite good enough for me, though he
+hasn't got any regal ancestors." She did not intend to laugh at her
+father, but was aware that something had been said about ancestors by
+her cousin. "A gentleman who has the management of horses is almost the
+same as owning them."
+
+"But when is it to be?" again asked Dolly.
+
+"That depends a little upon my brother," said Mrs. Carroll, in a voice
+hardly above a whisper. "Mr. Juniper has spoken about a day."
+
+"Then it will depend chiefly on himself and the young lady, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, Dorothea, there are money difficulties. There's no denying it."
+
+"I wish I could shower gold into her lap," said Mr. Carroll, "only for
+the accursed conventionalities of the world."
+
+"Bother, papa!" said Sophia.
+
+"It will be the last of it, as far as I am concerned," said Amelia.
+
+"Mr. Juniper has said something about a few hundred pounds," said Mrs.
+Carroll. "It isn't much that he wants."
+
+Then Miss Grey spoke in a severe tone. "You must speak to my father
+about that."
+
+"I am not to have your good word, I suppose," said Amelia. Human flesh
+and blood could not but remember all that had been done, and always with
+her consent. "Five hundred pounds is not a great deal for portioning off
+a girl when that is to be the last that she is ever to have." One of
+six nieces whose father and mother were maintained, and that without the
+slightest claim! It was so that Dorothy argued; but her arguments were
+kept to her own bosom. "But I must trust to my dear uncle. I see that I
+am not to have a word from you."
+
+The matter was now becoming serious. Here was the eldest girl, one of
+six daughters, putting in her claim for five hundred pounds portion.
+This would amount to three thousand pounds for the lot, and, as the
+process of marrying them went on, they would all have to be maintained
+as at present. What with their school expenses and their clothes, the
+necessary funds for the Carroll family amounted to six hundred pounds a
+year. That was the regular allowance, and there were others whenever Mr.
+Carroll wanted a pair of trousers. And Dolly's acerbation was aroused by
+a belief on her part that the money asked for trousers took him
+generally to race-courses. And now five hundred pounds was boldly
+demanded so as to induce a groom to make one of the girls his wife! She
+almost regretted that in former years she had promised to assist her
+father in befriending the Carroll relations. "Perhaps, Dorothea, you
+won't mind stepping into my bedroom with me, just for a moment." This
+was said by Mrs. Carroll, and Dolly most unwillingly followed her aunt
+up-stairs.
+
+"Of course I know all that you've got to say," began Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"Then, aunt, why bring me in here?"
+
+"Because I wish to explain things a little. Don't be ill-natured,
+Dorothea."
+
+"I won't if I can help it."
+
+"I know your nature, how good it is." Here Dorothy shook her head. "Only
+think of me and of my sufferings! I haven't come to this without
+suffering." Then the poor woman began to cry.
+
+"I feel for you through it all,--I do," said Dolly.
+
+"That poor man! To have to be always with him, and always doing my best
+to keep him out of mischief!"
+
+"A man who will do nothing else must do harm."
+
+"Of course he must. But what can he do now? And the children! I can
+see--of course I know that they are not all that they ought to be. But
+with six of them, and nobody but myself, how can I do it all? And they
+are his children as well as mine." Dolly's heart was filled with pity as
+she heard this, which she knew to be so true! "In answering you they
+have uppish, bad ways. They don't like to submit to one so near their
+own age."
+
+"Not a word that has come from the mouth of one of them addressed to
+myself has ever done them any harm with my father. That is what you
+mean?"
+
+"No,--but with yourself."
+
+"I do not take anger--against them--out of the room with me."
+
+"Now, about Mr. Juniper."
+
+"The question is one much too big for me. Am I to tell my father?"
+
+"I was thinking that--if you would do so!"
+
+"I cannot tell him that he ought to find five hundred pounds for Mr.
+Juniper."
+
+"Perhaps four would do."
+
+"Nor can I ask him to drive a bargain."
+
+"How much would he give her--to be married?"
+
+"Why should he give her anything? He feeds her and gives her clothes. It
+is only fit that the truth should be explained to you. Girls so
+circumstanced, when they are clothed and fed by their own fathers, must
+be married without fortunes or must remain unmarried. As Sophie, and
+Georgina, and Minna, and Brenda come up, the same requests will be
+made."
+
+"Poor Potsey!" said the mother. For Potsey was a plain girl.
+
+"If this be done for Amelia, must it not be done for all of them? Papa
+is not a rich man, but he has been very generous. Is it fair to ask him
+for five hundred pounds to give to--Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"A gentleman nowadays does not like not to get something."
+
+"Then a gentleman must go where something is to be got. The truth has to
+be told, Aunt Carroll. My father is willing enough to do what he can for
+you and the girls, but I do not think that he will give five hundred
+pounds to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"It is once for all. Four hundred pounds, perhaps, would do."
+
+"I do not think that he can make a bargain, nor that he will pay any sum
+to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"To get one of them off would be so much! What is to become of them? To
+have one married would be the way for others. Oh, Dorothy, if you would
+only think of my condition! I know your papa will do what you tell him."
+
+Dolly felt that her father would be more likely to do it if she were
+not to interfere at all; but she could not say that. She did feel the
+request to be altogether unreasonable. She struggled to avert from her
+own mind all feeling of dislike for the girl, and to look at it as she
+might have done if Amelia had been her special friend.
+
+"Aunt Carroll," she said, "you had better go up to London and see my
+father there--in his chambers. You will catch him if you go at once."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes, alone. Tell him about the girl's marriage, and let him judge what
+he ought to do."
+
+"Could not you come with me?"
+
+"No. You don't understand. I have to think of his money. He can say what
+he will do with his own."
+
+"He will never give it without coming to you."
+
+"He never will if he does come to me. You may prevail with him. A man
+may throw away his own money as he pleases. I cannot tell him that he
+ought to do it. You may say that you have told me, and that I have sent
+you to him. And tell him, let him do what he will, that I shall find no
+fault with him. If you can understand me and him you will know that I
+can do nothing for you beyond that." Then Dolly took her leave and went
+home.
+
+The mother, turning it all over in her mind, did understand something of
+her niece, and went off to London as quick as the omnibus could take
+her. There she did see her brother, and he came back, in consequence, to
+dinner a little earlier than usual.
+
+"Why did you send my sister to me?" were the first words which he said to
+Dolly.
+
+"Because it was your business, and not mine."
+
+"How dare you separate my business and yours? What do you think I have
+done?"
+
+"Given the young lady five hundred pounds down on the nail."
+
+"Worse than that."
+
+"Worse?"
+
+"Much worse. But why did you send my sister to my chambers?"
+
+"But what have you done, papa? You don't mean that you have given the
+shark more than he demands?"
+
+"I don't know that he's a shark. Why shouldn't the man want five hundred
+pounds with his wife? Mr. Barry would want much more with you, and would
+be entitled to ask for much more."
+
+"You are my father."
+
+"Yes; but those poor girls have been taught to look upon me almost as
+their father."
+
+"But what have you done?"
+
+"I have promised them each three hundred and fifty pounds on their
+wedding day,--three hundred pounds to go to their husbands, and fifty
+pounds for wedding expenses,--on condition that they marry with my
+approval. I shall not be so hard to please for them as for you."
+
+"And you have approved of Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"I have already set on foot inquiries down at Newmarket; and I have made
+an exception in favor of Mr. Juniper. He is to have four hundred and
+fifty pounds. Jane only asked four hundred pounds to begin with. You are
+not to find fault with me."
+
+"No; that is part of the bargain. I wonder whether my aunt knew what a
+thoroughly good-natured thing I did. We must have no more puddings now,
+and you must come down by the omnibus."
+
+"It is not quite so bad as that, Dolly."
+
+"When one has given away one's money extravagantly one ought to be made
+to feel the pinch one's self. But dear, dear, darling old man! why
+shouldn't you give away your money as you please? I don't want it. I am
+not in the least afraid but what there will be plenty for me. But when
+the girl talks about her five hundred pounds so glibly, as though she
+had a right to expect it, and spoke of this jockey with such inward
+pride of heart--"
+
+"A girl ought to be proud of her husband."
+
+"Your niece ought not to be proud of marrying a groom. But she angered
+me, and so did my aunt,--though I pitied her. Then I reflected that they
+could get nothing from me in my anger,--not even a promise of a good
+word. So I sent her to you. It was, at any rate, the best thing I could
+do for them." Mr. Grey thought that it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+MR. BARRY AND MR. JUNIPER.
+
+
+The joy in Bolsover Terrace was intense when Mrs. Carroll returned home.
+"We are all to have three hundred and fifty pound fortunes when we get
+husbands!" said Georgina, anticipating at once the pleasures of
+matrimony.
+
+"I am to have four hundred and fifty," said Amelia. "I do think he might
+have made it five hundred pounds. If I had it to give away, I never
+would show the cloven foot about the last fifty pounds!"
+
+"But he's only to have four hundred pounds," said Sophia. "Your things
+are to be bought with the other fifty pounds."
+
+"I never can do it for fifty pounds," said Amelia. "I did not expect
+that I was to find my own trousseau out of my own fortune."
+
+"Girls, how can you be so ungrateful?" said their mother.
+
+"I'm not ungrateful, mamma," said Potsey. "I shall be very much obliged
+when I get my three hundred and fifty pounds. How long will it be?"
+
+"You've got to find the young man first, Potsey. I don't think you'll
+ever do that," said Georgina, who was rather proud of her own good
+looks.
+
+This took place on the evening of the day on which Mrs. Carroll had gone
+to London, where Mr. Carroll was about attending to some of those duties
+of conviviality in the performance of which he was so indefatigable. On
+the following morning at twelve o'clock he was still in bed. It was a
+well-known fact in the family that on such an occasion he would lie in
+bed, and that before twelve o'clock he would have managed to extract
+from his wife's little hoardings at any rate two bottles of soda-water
+and two glasses of some alcoholic mixture which was generally called
+brandy. "I'll have a gin-and-potash, Sophie," he had said on this
+occasion, with reference to the second dose, "and do make haste. I wish
+you'd go yourself, because that girl always drinks some of the
+sperrits."
+
+"What! go to the gin-shop?"
+
+"It's a most respectable publican's,--just round the corner."
+
+"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. You've no feeling about your
+daughters at all!" But Sophie went on her errand, and in order to
+protect her father's small modicum of "sperrits" she slipped on her
+cloak and walked out so as to be able to watch the girl. Still, I think
+that the maiden managed to get a sip as she left the bar. The father, in
+the mean-time with his head between his hands, was ruminating on the
+"cocked-up way which girls have who can't do a turn for their father."
+
+But with the gin-and-potash, and with Sophie, Mr. Juniper made his
+appearance. He was a well-featured, tall man, but he looked the stable
+and he smelled of it. His clothes, no doubt, were decent, but they were
+made by some tailor who must surely work for horsey men and no others.
+There is a class of men who always choose to show by their outward
+appearance that they belong to horses, and they succeed. Mr. Juniper was
+one of them. Though good-looking he was anything but young, verging by
+appearance on fifty years.
+
+"So he has been at it again, Miss Sophie," said Juniper. Sophie, who did
+not like being detected in the performance of her filial duties, led the
+way in silence into the house, and disappeared up-stairs with the
+gin-and-potash. Mr. Juniper turned into the parlor, where was Mrs.
+Carroll with the other girls. She was still angry, as angry as she could
+be, with her husband, who on being informed that morning of what his
+wife had done had called her brother "a beastly, stingy old beau,"
+because he had cut Amelia off with four hundred and fifty instead of
+five hundred pounds. Mr. Carroll probably knew that Mr. Juniper would
+not take his daughter without the entirety of the sum stipulated, and
+would allow no portion of it to be expended on wedding-dresses.
+
+"Oh, Dick, is this you?" said Amelia. "I suppose you've come for your
+news." (Mr. Juniper's Christian-name was Richard.) On this occasion he
+showed no affectionate desire to embrace his betrothed.
+
+"Yes, it's me," he said, and then gave his hand all round, first to Mrs.
+Carroll and then to the girls.
+
+"I've seen Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Carroll. But Dick Juniper held his
+tongue and sat down and twiddled his hat.
+
+"Where have you come from?" asked Georgina.
+
+"From the Brompton Road. I come down on a 'bus."
+
+"You've come from Tattersall's, young man!" said Amelia.
+
+"Then I just didn't!" But to tell the truth he had come from
+Tattersall's, and it might be difficult to follow up the workings of his
+mind and find out why he had told the lie. Of course it was known that
+when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall's. But the
+horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his
+trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus prepared
+for a gratuitous lie.
+
+"Uncle's gone a deal farther than ever I expected," said Amelia.
+
+"He's been most generous to all the girls," said Mrs. Carroll, moved
+nearly to tears.
+
+Mr. Juniper did not care very much about "all the girls," thinking that
+the uncle's affection at the present moment should be shown to the one
+girl who had found a husband, and thinking also that if the husband was
+to be secured, the proper way of doing so would be by liberality to him.
+Amelia had said that her uncle had gone farther than she expected. Mr.
+Juniper concluded from this that he had not gone as far as he had been
+asked, and boldly resolved, at the spur of the moment, to stand by his
+demand. "Five hundred pounds ain't much," he said.
+
+"Dick, don't make a beast of yourself!" said Amelia. Upon this Dick only
+smiled.
+
+He continually twiddled his hat for three or four minutes, and then rose
+up straight. "I suppose," said he, "I had better go up-stairs and talk
+to the old man. I seed Miss Sophie taking a pick-up to him, so I suppose
+he'll be able to talk."
+
+"Why shouldn't he talk?" said Mrs. Carroll. But she quite understood
+what Mr. Juniper's words were intended to imply.
+
+"It don't always follow," said Juniper, as he walked out of the room.
+
+"Now there'll be a row in the house;--you see if there isn't!" said
+Amelia. But Mrs. Carroll expressed her opinion that the man must be the
+most ungrateful of creatures if he kicked up a row on the present
+occasion. "I don't know so much about that, mamma," said Amelia.
+
+Mr. Juniper walked up-stairs with heavy, slow steps, and knocked at the
+door of the marital chamber. There are men who can't walk up-stairs as
+though to do so were an affair of ordinary life. They perform the task
+as though they walked up-stairs once in three years. It is to be
+presumed that such men always sleep on the ground-floor, though where
+they find their bed-rooms it is hard to say. Mr. Juniper was admitted by
+Sophie, who stepped out as he went in. "Well, old fellow! B.--and--S.,
+and plenty of it. That's the ticket, eh?"
+
+"I did have a little headache this morning. I think it was the cigars."
+
+"Very like,--and the stuff as washed 'em down. You haven't got any more
+of the same, have you?"
+
+"I'm uncommonly sorry," said the sick man, rising up on his elbow, "but
+I'm afraid there is not. To tell the truth, I had the deuce of a job to
+get this from the old woman."
+
+"It don't matter," said the impassive Mr. Juniper, "only I have been
+down among the 'orses at the yard till my throat is full of dust. So
+your lady has been and seen her brother?"
+
+"Yes; she's done that."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He ain't altogether a bad un--isn't old Grey. Of course he's an
+attorney."
+
+"I never think much of them chaps."
+
+"There's good and bad, Juniper. No doubt my brother-in-law has made a
+little money."
+
+"A pot of it,--if all they say's true."
+
+"But all they say isn't true. All they say never is true."
+
+"I suppose he's got something?"
+
+"Yes, he's got something."
+
+"And how is it to be?"
+
+"He's given the girl four hundred pounds on the nail,"--upon this Mr.
+Juniper turned up his nose,--"and fifty pounds for her wedding-clothes."
+
+"He'd better let me have that."
+
+"Girls think so much of it,"--Mr. Juniper only shook his head,--"and, upon
+my word, it's more than she had a right to expect."
+
+"It ain't what she had a right to expect; but I,"--here Mr. Carroll shook
+his head,--"I said five hundred pounds out, and I means to hold by it.
+That's about it. If he wants to get the girl married, why--he must open
+his pocket. It isn't very much that I'm asking. I'm that sort of a
+fellow that, if I didn't want it, I'd take her without a shilling."
+
+"But you are that sort of fellow that always does want it."
+
+"I wants it now. It's better to speak out, ain't it? I must have the five
+hundred pounds before I put my neck into the noose, and there must be no
+paring off for petticoats and pelisses."
+
+"And Mr. Grey says that he must make inquiries into character," said
+Carroll.
+
+"Into what?"
+
+"Into character. He isn't going to give his money without knowing
+something about the man."
+
+"I'm all straight at Newmarket. I ain't going to stand any inquiries
+into me, you know. I can stand inquiries better than some people. He's
+got a partner named Barry, ain't he?"
+
+"There is such a gentleman. I don't know much about the business ways of
+my respected brother-in-law. Mr. Barry is, I believe, a good sort of a
+man."
+
+"It's he as is acting for Captain Scarborough."
+
+"Is it, now? It may be, for anything I know."
+
+Then there came a long conversation, during which Mr. Juniper told some
+details of his former life, and expressed himself very freely upon
+certain points. It appeared that in the event of Mr. Scarborough having
+died, as was expected, in the course of the early summer, and of Captain
+Scarborough succeeding to the property in the accustomed manner, Mr.
+Juniper would have been one of those who would have come forward with a
+small claim upon the estate. He had lent, he said, a certain sum of
+money to help the captain in his embarrassment, and expected to get it
+back again. Now, latterly inquiries had been made very disagreeable in
+their nature to Mr. Juniper; but Mr. Juniper, seeing how the the land
+lay,--to use his own phrase,--consented only to accept so much as he had
+advanced. "It don't make much difference to me," he had said. "Let me
+have the three hundred and fifty pounds which the captain got in hard
+money." Then the inquiries were made by Mr. Barry,--that very Mr. Barry
+to whom subsequent inquiries were committed,--and Mr. Barry could not
+satisfy himself as to the three hundred and fifty pounds which the
+captain was said to have got in hard money. There had been words spoken
+which seemed to Mr. Juniper to make it very inexpedient,--and we may say
+very unfair,--that these farther inquiries into his character as a
+husband should be intrusted to the same person. He regarded Mr. Barry as
+an enemy to the human race, from whom, in the general confusion of
+things, no plunder was to be extracted. Mr Barry had asked for the check
+by which the three hundred and fifty pounds had been paid to Captain
+Scarborough in hard cash. There had been no check, Mr. Juniper had said.
+Such a small sum as that had been paid in notes at Newmarket. He said
+that he could not, or, rather, that he would not, produce any evidence
+as to the money. Mr. Barry had suggested that even so small a sum as
+three hundred and fifty pounds could not have come and could not have
+gone without leaving some trace. Mr. Juniper very indignantly had
+referred to an acknowledgment on a bill-stamp for six hundred pounds
+which he had filled in, and which the captain had undoubtedly signed.
+"It's not worth the paper it's written on," Mr. Barry had said.
+
+"We'll see about that," said Mr. Juniper. "As soon as the breath is out
+of the old squire's body we'll see whether his son is to repudiate his
+debts in that way. Ain't that the captain's signature?" and he slapped
+the bill with his hand.
+
+The old ceremony was gone through of explaining that the captain had no
+right to a shilling of the property. It had become an old ceremony now.
+"Mr. Augustus Scarborough is going to pay out of his own good will only
+those sums of the advance of which he has indisputable testimony."
+
+"Ain't he my testimony of this?" said Mr. Juniper.
+
+"This bill is for six hundred pounds."
+
+"In course it is."
+
+"Why don't you say you advanced him five hundred and fifty pounds
+instead of three hundred and fifty pounds?"
+
+"Because I didn't."
+
+"Why do you say three hundred and fifty pounds instead of one hundred
+and fifty pounds?"
+
+"Because I did."
+
+"Then we have only your bare word. We are not going to pay any one a
+shilling on such a testimony." Then Mr. Juniper had sworn an awful oath
+that he would have every man bearing the name of Scarborough hanged. But
+Mr. Barry's firm did not care much for any law proceedings which might
+be taken by Mr. Juniper alone. No law proceedings would be taken. The
+sum to be regained would not be worth the while of any lawyer to insure
+the hopeless expense of fighting such a battle. It would be shown in
+court, on Mr. Barry's side, that the existing owner of the estate, out
+of his own generosity, had repaid all sums of money as to which evidence
+existed that they had been advanced to the unfortunate illegitimate
+captain. They would appear with clean hands; but poor Mr. Juniper would
+receive the sympathy of none. Of this Mr. Juniper had by degrees become
+aware, and was already looking on his claim on the Scarborough property
+as lost. And now, on this other little affair of his, on this
+matrimonial venture, it was very hard that inquiries as to his character
+should be referred to the same Mr. Barry.
+
+"I'm d---- if I stand it!" he said, thumping his fist down on Mr.
+Carroll's bed, on which he was sitting.
+
+"It isn't any of my doing. I'm on the square with you."
+
+"I don't know so much about that."
+
+"What have I done? Didn't I send her to the girl's uncle, and didn't she
+get from him a very liberal promise?"
+
+"Promises! Why didn't he stump up the rhino? What's the good of
+promises? There's as much to do about a beggarly five hundred pounds as
+though it were fifty thousand pounds. Inquiries!" Of course he knew very
+well what that meant. "It's a most ungentlemanlike thing for one
+gentleman to take upon himself to make inquiries about another. He is
+not the girl's father. What right has he to make inquiries?"
+
+"I didn't put it into his head," said Carroll, almost sobbing.
+
+"He must be a low-bred, pettifogging lawyer."
+
+"He is a lawyer," said Carroll, on whose mind the memory of the great
+benefit he had received had made some impression. "I have admitted
+that."
+
+"Pshaw!"
+
+"But I don't think he's pettifogging; not Mr. Grey. Four hundred pounds
+down, with fifty pounds for dress, and the same, or most the same, to
+all the girls, isn't pettifogging. If you ever comes to have a family,
+Juniper--"
+
+"I ain't in the way."
+
+"But when you are, and there comes six of 'em, you won't find an uncle
+pettifogging when he speaks out like Mr. Grey."
+
+The conversation was carried on for some time farther, and then Mr.
+Juniper left the house without again visiting the ladies. His last word
+was that if inquiries were made into him they might all go to--Bath! If
+the money were forthcoming, they would know where to find him; but it
+must be five hundred pounds "square," with no parings made from it on
+behalf of petticoats and pelisses. With this last word Mr. Juniper
+stamped down the stairs and out of the house.
+
+"He's a brute, after all!" said Sophie.
+
+"No, he isn't. What do you know about brutes? Of course a gentleman has
+to make the best fight he can for his money." This was what Amelia said
+at the moment; but in the seclusion of their own room she wept bitterly.
+"Why didn't he come in to see me and just give me one word? I hadn't
+done anything amiss. It wasn't my fault if Uncle John is stingy."
+
+"And he isn't so very stingy, after all," said Sophie.
+
+"Of course papa hasn't got anything, and wouldn't have anything, though
+you were to pour golden rivers into his lap."
+
+"There are worse than papa," said Sophie.
+
+"But he knows all that, and that our uncle isn't any more than an uncle.
+And why should he be so particular just about a hundred pounds? I do
+think gentlemen are the meanest creatures when they are looking after
+money! Ladies ain't half so bad. He'd no business to expect five hundred
+pounds all out."
+
+This was very melancholy, and the house was kept in a state of silent
+sorrow for four or five days, till the result of the inquiries had
+come. Then there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mr. Barry came to
+Bolsover Terrace to communicate the result of the inquiry, and was shut
+up for half an hour with poor Mrs. Carroll. He was afraid that he could
+not recommend the match. "Oh, I'm sorry for that,--very sorry!" said Mrs.
+Carroll. "The young lady will be--disappointed." And her handkerchief
+went up to her eyes. Then there was silence for awhile, till she asked
+why an opinion so strongly condemnatory had been expressed.
+
+"The gentleman, ma'am,--is not what a gentleman should be. You may take
+my word for it. I must ask you not to repeat what I say to him."
+
+"Oh dear, no."
+
+"But perhaps the least said the soonest mended. He is not what a
+gentleman should be."
+
+"You mean a--fine gentleman."
+
+"He is not what a man should be. I cannot say more than that. It would
+not be for the young lady's happiness that she should select such a
+partner for her life."
+
+"She is very much attached to him."
+
+"I am sorry that it should be so. But it will be better that she
+should--live it down. At any rate, I am bound to communicate to you Mr.
+Grey's decision. Though he does not at all mean to withhold his bounty
+in regard to any other proposed marriage, he cannot bring himself to pay
+money to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"Nothing at all?" asked Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"He will make no payment that will go into the pocket of Mr. Juniper."
+
+Then Mr. Barry went, and there was weeping and wailing in the house in
+Bolsover Terrace. So cruel an uncle as Mr. Grey had never been heard of
+in history, or even in romance. "I know it's that old cat, Dolly," said
+Amelia. "Because she hasn't managed to get a husband for herself, she
+doesn't want any one else to get one."
+
+"My poor child," said Mr. Carroll, in a maudlin condition, "I pity thee
+from the bottom of my heart!"
+
+"I wish that Mr. Barry may be made to marry a hideous old maid past
+forty," said Georgina.
+
+"I shouldn't care what they said, but would take him straight off," said
+Sophie.
+
+Upon this Mrs. Carroll shook her head. "I don't suppose that he is quite
+all that he ought to be."
+
+"Who is, I should like to know?" said Amelia.
+
+"But my brother has to give his money according to his judgment." As
+she said this the poor woman thought of those other five who in process
+of time might become claimants. But here the whole family attacked her,
+and almost drove her to confess that her brother was a stingy old
+curmudgeon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+"GURNEY & MALCOLMSON'S."
+
+
+In Red Lion Square, on the first floor of a house which partakes of the
+general dinginess of the neighborhood, there are two rooms which bear on
+the outside door the well-sounding names of Gurney & Malcolmson; and on
+the front door to the street are the names of Gurney & Malcolmson,
+showing that the business transacted by Messrs. Gurney & Malcolmson
+outweighs in importance any others conducted in the same house. In the
+first room, which is the smaller of the two occupied, sits usually a
+lad, who passes most of his time in making up and directing circulars,
+so that a stranger might be led to suppose that the business of Gurney &
+Malcolmson was of an extended nature.
+
+But on the occasion to which we are about to allude the door of the
+premises was closed, and the boy was kept on the alert posting, or
+perhaps delivering, the circulars which were continually issued. This
+was the place of business affected by Mr. Tyrrwhit, or at any rate one
+of them. Who were Gurney & Malcolmson it is not necessary that our
+chronicle should tell. No Gurney or no Malcolmson was then visible; and
+though a part of the business of the firm in which it is to be supposed
+that Gurney & Malcolmson were engaged was greatly discussed, their name
+on the occasion was never mentioned.
+
+A meeting had been called at which the presiding genius was Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. You might almost be led to believe that, from the manner in
+which he made himself at home, Mr. Tyrrwhit was Gurney & Malcolmson. But
+there was another there who seemed to be almost as much at home as Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and this was Mr. Samuel Hart, whom we last saw when he had
+unexpectedly made himself known to his friend the captain at Monaco. He
+had a good deal to say for himself; and as he sat during the meeting
+with his hat on, it is to be presumed that he was not in awe of his
+companions. Mr. Juniper also was there. He took a seat at one corner of
+the table, and did not say much. There was also a man who, in speaking
+of himself and his own affairs, always called himself Evans & Crooke.
+And there was one Spicer, who sat silent for the most part, and looked
+very fierce. In all matters, however, he appeared to agree with Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. He is especially named, as his interest in the matter
+discussed was large. There were three or four others, whose affairs were
+of less moment, though to them they were of intense interest. These
+gentlemen assembled were they who had advanced money to Captain
+Scarborough, and this was the meeting of the captain's creditors, at
+which they were to decide whether they were to give up their bonds on
+payment of the sums they had actually advanced, or whether they would
+stand out till the old squire's death, and then go to law with the owner
+of the estate.
+
+At the moment at which we may be presumed to be introduced, Mr. Tyrrwhit
+had explained the matter in a nervous, hesitating manner, but still in
+words sufficiently clear. "There's the money down now if you like to
+take it, and I'm for taking it." These were the words with which Mr.
+Tyrrwhit completed his address.
+
+"Circumstances is different," said the man with his hat on.
+
+"I don't know much about that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Circumstances is different. I can't 'elp whether you know it or not."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"They is different,--and that's all about it. It'll perhaps shuit you and
+them other shentlemen to take a pershentage."
+
+"It won't suit Evans & Crooke," said the man who represented that firm.
+
+"But perhaps Messrs. Evans & Crooke may be willing to save so much of
+their property," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"They'd like to have what's due to 'em."
+
+"We should all like that," said Spicer, and he gnashed his teeth and
+shook his head.
+
+"But we can't get it all," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Speak for yourself, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Hart. "I think I can get mine.
+This is the most almighty abandoned swindle I ever met in all my born
+days." The whole meeting, except Mr. Tyrrwhit, received this assertion
+with loudly expressed applause. "Such a blackguard, dirty, thieving job
+never was up before in my time. I don't know 'ow to talk of it in
+language as a man isn't ashamed to commit himself to. It's downright
+robbery."
+
+"I say so too," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"By George!" continued Mr. Hart, "we come forward to 'elp a shentleman
+in his trouble and to wait for our moneys till the father is dead, and
+then when 'e's 'ad our moneys the father turns round and says that 'is
+own son is a--Oh, it's too shocking! I 'aven't slept since I 'eard
+it,--not a regular night's rest. Now, it's my belief the captain 'as no
+'and in it."
+
+Here Mr. Juniper scratched his head and looked doubtful, and one or two
+of the other silent gentlemen scratched their heads. Messrs. Evans &
+Crooke scratched his head. "It's a matter on which I would not like to
+give an opinion one way or the other," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"No more wouldn't I," said Spicer.
+
+"Let every man speak as he finds," continued Hart. "That's my belief. I
+don't mind giving up a little of my claim, just a thousand or so, for
+ready cash. The old sinner ought to be dead, and can't last long. My
+belief is when 'e's gone I'm so circumstanced I shall get the whole.
+Whether or no, I've gone in for 'elping the captain with all my savings,
+and I mean to stick to them."
+
+"And lose everything," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Why don't we go and lug the old sinner into prison?" said Evans &
+Crooke.
+
+"Certainly that's the game," said Juniper, and there was another loud
+acclamation of applause from the entire room.
+
+"Gentlemen, you don't know what you're talking about, you don't indeed,"
+said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"I don't believe as we do," said Spicer.
+
+"You can't touch the old gentleman. He owes you nothing, nor have you a
+scratch of his pen. How are you to lug an old gentleman to prison when
+he's lying there cut up by the doctors almost to nothing? I don't know
+that anybody can touch him. The captain perhaps might, if the present
+story be false; and the younger son, if the other be true. And then
+they'd have to prove it. Mr. Grey says that no one can touch him."
+
+"He's in the swim as bad as any of 'em," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"Of course he is," said Hart. "But let everybody speak for himself. I've
+gone in to 'earn a 'eavy stake honestly."
+
+"That's all right," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"And I mean to 'ave it or nothing. Now, Mr. Tyrrwhit, you know a piece
+of my mind. It's a biggish lot of money."
+
+"We know what your claim is."
+
+"But no man knows what the captain got, and I don't mean 'em to know."
+
+"About fifteen thousand," came in a whisper from some one in the room.
+
+"That's a lie," said Mr. Hart; "so there's no getting out of that. If
+the shentleman will mind 'is own concerns I'll mind mine. Nobody
+knows,--barring the captain, and he like enough has forgot,--and nobody's
+going to know. What's written on these eight bits of paper everybody may
+know," and he pulled out of a large case or purse, which he carried in
+his breast coat-pocket, a fat sheaf of bills. "There are five thou'
+written on each of them, and for five thou' on each of them I means to
+stand out. 'It or miss. If any shentleman chooses to talk to me about
+ready money I'll take two thou' off. I like ready money as well as
+another."
+
+"We can all say the same as that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"No doubt. And if you think you can get it, I advise you to stick to it.
+If you thought you could get it you would say the same. But I should
+like to get that old man's 'ead between my fists. Wouldn't I punch it!
+Thief! scoundrel! 'orrid old man! It ain't for myself that I'm speaking
+now, because I'm a-going to get it,--I think I'm a-going to get it;--it's
+for humanity at large. This kind of thing wiolates one's best feelings."
+
+"'Ear, 'ear, 'ear!" said one of the silent gentlemen.
+
+"Them's the sentiments of Evans & Crooke," said the representative of
+that firm.
+
+"They're all our sentiments, in course," said Spicer; "but what's the
+use?"
+
+"Not a ha'p'orth," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Asking your pardon, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Mr. Hart, "but, as this is a
+meeting of creditors who 'ave a largish lot of money to deal with, I
+don't think they ought to part without expressing their opinions in the
+way of British commerce. I say crucifying 'd be too good for 'im."
+
+"You can't get at him to crucify him."
+
+"There's no knowing about that," said Mr. Hart.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, drawing out his watch, "I expect Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough to call upon us."
+
+"You can crucify _him_," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"It is the old man, and neither of the sons, as have done it," said
+Hart.
+
+"Mr. Scarborough," continued Tyrrwhit, "will be here, and will expect to
+learn whether we have accepted his offer. He will be accompanied by Mr.
+Barry. If one rejects, all reject."
+
+"Not at all," said Hart.
+
+"He will not consent to pay anything unless he can make a clean hit of
+it. He is about to sacrifice a very large sum of money."
+
+"Sacrifice!" said Juniper.
+
+"Yes; sacrifice a very large sum of money. His father cannot pay it
+without his consent. The father may die any day, and then the money will
+belong altogether to the son. You have, none of you, any claim upon him.
+It is likely he may think you will have a claim on the estate, not
+trusting his own father."
+
+"I wouldn't trust him, not 'alf as far as I could see him, though he was
+twice my father." This again came from Mr. Hart.
+
+"I want to explain to these gentlemen how the matter stands."
+
+"They understand," said Hart.
+
+"I'm for securing my own money. It's very hard,--after all the risk. I
+quite agree with Mr. Hart in what he says about the squire. Such a piece
+of premeditated dishonesty for robbing gentlemen of their property I
+never before heard. It's awful."
+
+"'Orrid old man!" said Mr. Hart.
+
+"Just so. But half a loaf is better than no bread. Now, here is a list,
+prepared in Mr. Grey's chambers."
+
+"'E's another, nigh as 'orrid."
+
+"On this list we're all down, with the sums he says we advanced. Are we
+to take them? If so we must sign our names, each to his own figure."
+Then he passed the list down the table.
+
+The men there assembled all crowded to look at the list, and among
+others Mr. Juniper. He showed his anxiety by the eager way in which he
+nearly annihilated Messrs. Evans & Crooke, by leaning over him as he
+struggled to read the paper. "Your name ain't down at all," said Evans &
+Crooke. Then a tremendous oath, very bitter and very wicked, came from
+the mouth of Mr. Juniper, most unbefitting a young man engaged to marry
+a young lady. "I tell you it isn't here," said Evans & Crooke, trying to
+extricate himself.
+
+"I shall know how to right myself," said Juniper, with another oath.
+And he then walked out of the room.
+
+"The captain, when he was drunk one night, got a couple of ponies from
+him. It wasn't a couple all out. And Juniper made him write his name for
+five hundred pounds. It was thought then that the squire 'd have been
+dead next day, and Juniper 'd 've got a good thing."'
+
+"I 'ate them ways," said Mr. Hart. "I never deal with a shentleman if
+he's, to say--drunk. Of course it comes in my way, but I never does."
+
+Now there was heard a sound of steps on the stairs, and Mr. Tyrrwhit
+rose from his chair so as to perform the duty of master of the
+ceremonies to the gentlemen who were expected. Augustus Scarborough
+entered the room, followed by Mr. Barry. They were received with
+considerable respect, and seated on two chairs at Mr. Tyrrwhit's right
+hand. "Gentlemen, you most of you know these two gentlemen. They are Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry, junior partner in the firm of
+Messrs. Grey & Barry."
+
+"We knows 'em," said Hart.
+
+"My client has made a proposition to you," said Mr. Barry. "If you will
+give up your bonds against his brother, which are not worth the paper
+they are written on--"
+
+"Gammon!" said Mr. Hart.
+
+"I will sign checks paying to you the sums of money written on that
+list. But you must all agree to accept such sums in liquidation in full.
+I see you have not signed the paper yet. No time is to be lost. In fact,
+you must sign it now, or my client will withdraw from his offer."
+
+"Withdraw; will 'e?" said Hart. "Suppose we withdraw? 'O does your
+client think is the honestest man in this 'ere swim?"
+
+Mr. Barry seemed somewhat abashed by this question. "It isn't necessary
+to go into that, Mr. Hart," said he.
+
+Mr. Hart laughed long and loud, and all the gentlemen laughed. There was
+something to them extremely jocose in their occupying, as it were, the
+other side of the question, and appearing as the honest, injured party.
+They enjoyed it thoroughly, and Mr. Hart was disposed to make the most
+of it. "No; it ain't necessary; is it? There ain't no question of
+honesty to be asked in this 'ere business. We quite understand that."
+
+Then up and spoke Augustus Scarborough. He rose to his feet, and the
+very fact of his doing so quieted for a time the exuberant mirth of the
+party. "Gentlemen, Mr. Hart speaks to you of honesty. I am not going to
+boast of my own. I am here to consent to the expenditure of a very large
+sum of money, for which I am to get nothing, and which, if not paid to
+you, will all go into my own pocket;--unless you believed that you
+wouldn't be here to meet me."
+
+"We don't believe nothing," said Hart.
+
+"Mr. Hart, you should let Mr. Scarborough speak," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Vell, let 'im speak. Vat's the odds?"
+
+"I do not wish to delay you, nor to delay myself," continued Augustus.
+"I can go, and will go, at once. But I shall not come back. There is no
+good discussing this matter any longer."
+
+"Oh no; not the least. Ve don't like discussion; do ve, captain?" said
+Mr. Hart. "But you ain't the captain; is you?"
+
+"As there seems to be no intention of signing that document, I shall
+go," said Augustus. Then Mr. Tyrrwhit took the paper, and signed it on
+the first line with his own name at full length. He wrote his name to a
+very serious sum of money, but it was less than half what he and others
+had expected to receive when the sum was lent. Had that been realized
+there would have been no farther need for the formalities of Gurney &
+Malcolmson, and that young lad must have found other work to do than the
+posting of circulars. The whole matter, however, had been much
+considered, and he signed the document. Mr. Hart's name came next, but
+he passed it on. "I ain't made up my mind yet. Maybe I shall have to
+call on Mr. Barry. I ain't just consulted my partner." Then the document
+went down to Mr. Spicer, who signed it, grinning horribly; as did also
+Evans & Crooke and all the others. They did believe that was the only
+way in which they could get back the money they had advanced. It was a
+great misfortune, a serious blow. But in this way there was something
+short of ruin. They knew that Scarborough was about to pay the money, so
+that he might escape a lawsuit, which might go against him; but then
+they also wished to avoid the necessity of bringing the lawsuit. Looking
+at the matter all round, we may say that the lawyers were the persons
+most aggrieved by what was done on that morning. They all signed it as
+they sat there,--except Mr. Hart, who passed it on, and still wore his
+hat.
+
+"You won't agree, Mr. Hart?" said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Not yet I von't," said Hart. "I ain't thought it out. I ain't in the
+same boat with the rest. I'm not afraid of my money. I shall get that
+all right."
+
+"Then I may as well go," said Augustus.
+
+"Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit. "Things of this
+kind can't be done just in a moment." But Augustus explained that they
+must be done in a very few moments, if they were to be done at all. It
+was not his intention to sit there in Gurney & Malcolmson's office
+discussing the matter with Mr. Hart. Notice of his intention had been
+given, and they might take his money or leave it.
+
+"Just so, captain," said Mr. Hart. "Only I believe you ain't the
+captain. Where's the captain now? I see him last at Monte Carlo, and he
+had won a pot of money. He was looking uncommon well after his little
+accident in the streets with young Annesley."
+
+Mr. Tyrrwhit contrived to get all the others out of the room, he
+remaining there with Hart and Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry. And
+then Hart did sign the document with altered figures: only that so much
+was added on to the sum which he agreed to accept, and a similar
+deduction made from that to which Mr. Tyrrwhit's name was signed. But
+this was not done without renewed expostulation from the latter
+gentleman. It was very hard, he said, that all the sacrifice should be
+made by him. He would be ruined, utterly ruined by the transaction. But
+he did sign for the altered sum, and Mr. Hart also signed the paper.
+"Now, Mr. Barry, as the matter is completed, I think I will withdraw,"
+said Augustus.
+
+"It's five thousand pounds clean gone out of my pocket," said Hart, "and
+I vas as sure of it as ever I vas in my life. There vas no better money
+than the captain's. Vell, vell! This vorld's a queer place." So saying,
+he followed Augustus and Mr. Barry out of the room, and left Mr.
+Tyrrwhit alone in his misery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+VICTORIA STREET.
+
+
+Lounging in an arm-chair in a small but luxuriously furnished room in
+Victoria Street sat Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, and opposite to him,
+equally comfortably placed, as far as externals were concerned, but
+without any of that lounging look which the captain affected, sat his
+brother. It was nearly eight o'clock, and the sound of the dinner-plates
+could be heard through the open doors from the next room. It was
+evident, or at any rate was the fact, that Augustus found his brother's
+presence a bore, and as evident that the captain intended to disregard
+the dissatisfaction evinced by the owner of the chambers. "Do shut the
+door, Mountjoy," said the younger. "I don't suppose we want the servant
+to hear everything that we say."
+
+"He's welcome for me," said Mountjoy, without moving. Then Augustus got
+up and banged the door. "Don't be angry because I sometimes forget that
+I am no longer considered to be your elder brother," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Bother about elder brothers! I suppose you can shut a door?"
+
+"A man is sometimes compelled by circumstances to think whether he can
+or not. I'd've shut the door for you readily enough the other day. I
+don't know that I can now. Ain't we going to have some dinner? It's
+eight o'clock."
+
+"I suppose they'll get dinner for you;--I'm not going to dine here." The
+two men were both dressed and after this they remained silent for the
+next five minutes. Then the servant came in and said that dinner was
+ready.
+
+All this happened in December. It must be explained that the captain had
+come to London at his brother's instance, and was there, in his rooms,
+at his invitation. Indeed, we may say that he had come at his brother's
+command. Augustus had during the last few months taken upon himself to
+direct the captain's movements; and though he had not always been
+obeyed, still, upon the whole, his purposes had been carried out as well
+as he could expect. He had offered to supply the money necessary for the
+captain's tour, and had absolutely sent a servant to accompany the
+traveller. When the traveller had won money at Monaco he had been
+unruly, but this had not happened very often. When we last saw him he
+had expressed his intention to Mr. Hart of making a return journey to
+the Caucasian provinces. But he got no farther than Genoa on his way to
+the Caucasus, and then, when he found that Mr. Hart was not at his back,
+he turned round and went back to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo, of all places
+on the world's surface, had now charms for him.
+
+There was no longer a club open to him, either in London or Paris, at
+which he could win or lose one hundred pounds. At Monte Carlo he could
+still do so readily; and, to do so, need not sink down into any
+peculiarly low depth of social gathering. At Monte Carlo the _ennui_ of
+the day was made to disappear. At Monte Carlo he could lie in bed till
+eleven, and then play till dinner-time. At Monte Carlo there was always
+some one who would drink a glass of wine with him without inquiring too
+closely as to his antecedents. He had begun by winning a large sum of
+money. He had got some sums from his brother, and when at last he was
+summoned home he was penniless. Had his pocket been still full of money
+it may be doubted whether he would have come, although he understood
+perfectly the importance of the matter on which he had been recalled.
+
+He had been sent for in order that he might receive from Mr. Grey a
+clear statement of what it was intended to do in reference to the
+payment of money to the creditors. Mr. Grey had, in the first place,
+endeavored to assure him that his co-operation was in no respect made
+necessary by the true circumstances of the case, but in order to satisfy
+the doubts of certain persons. The money to be paid was the joint
+property of his father and his brother,--of his father, as far as the use
+of it for his life was concerned, and of his brother, as to its
+continued and perpetual enjoyment. They were willing to pay so much for
+the redemption of the bonds given by him, the captain. As far as these
+bonds were concerned the captain would thus be a free man. There could
+be no doubt that nothing but benefit was intended for him,--as though he
+were himself the heir. "Though as to that I have no hesitation in
+telling you that, you will at your father's death have no right to a
+shilling of the property." The captain had said that he was quite
+willing, and had signed the deed. He was glad that these bonds should be
+recovered so cheaply. But as to the property,--and here he spoke with
+much spirit to Mr. Grey,--it was his purpose at his father's death to
+endeavor to regain his position. He would never believe, he said, that
+his mother was--Then he turned away, and, in spite of all that had come
+and gone, Mr. Grey respected him.
+
+But he had signed the deed, and the necessity for his presence was over.
+What should his brother do with him now? He could not keep him
+concealed,--or not concealed,--in his rooms. But something must be done.
+Some mode of living must be invented for him. Abroad! Augustus said to
+himself,--and to Septimus Jones, who was his confidential friend,--that
+Mountjoy must live "abroad."
+
+"Oh yes; he must go abroad. There's no doubt about that. It's the only
+place for him." So spoke Septimus Jones, who, though confidential
+friend, was not admitted to the post of confidential adviser. Augustus
+liked to have a depositary for his resolutions, but would admit no
+advice. And Septimus Jones had become so much his creature that he had
+to obey him in all things.
+
+We are apt to think that a man may be disposed of by being made to go
+abroad; or, if he is absolutely penniless and useless, by being sent to
+the colonies,--that he may become a shepherd and drink himself out of the
+world. To kill the man, so that he may be no longer a nuisance, is
+perhaps the chief object in both cases. But it was not easy to get the
+captain to go abroad unless, indeed, he was sent back to Monte Carlo.
+Some Monte Carlo, such as a club might be with stakes practically
+unlimited, was the first desire of his heart. But behind that, or
+together with it, was an anxious longing to remain near Tretton and "see
+it out," as he called it, when his father should die. His father must
+die very shortly, and he would like "to see it out," as he told Mr.
+Grey; and, with this wish, there was a longing also for the company of
+Florence Mountjoy.
+
+He used to tell himself, in those moments of sad thoughts,--thoughts
+serious as well as sad, which will come even to a gambler,--that if he
+could have Tretton and Florence Mountjoy he would never touch another
+card. And there was present to him an assurance that his aunt, Mrs.
+Mountjoy, would still be on his side. If he could talk over his
+circumstances with Mrs. Mountjoy, he thought that he might be encouraged
+to recover his position as an English gentleman. His debts at the club
+had already been paid, and he had met on the sly a former friend, who
+had given him some hope that he might be re-admitted. But at the present
+moment his mind turned to Brussels. He had learned that Florence and her
+mother were at the embassy there, and, though he hesitated, still he
+desired to go. But this was not the "abroad" contemplated by Augustus.
+Augustus did not think it well that his father's bastard son, who had
+been turned out of a London club for not paying his card debts, and had
+then disappeared in a mysterious way for six months, should show himself
+at the British embassy, and there claim admittance and relationship. Nor
+was he anxious that his brother should see Florence Mountjoy. He had
+suggested a prolonged tour in South America, which he had declared to be
+the most interesting country in the world. "I think I had rather go to
+Brussels," Mountjoy had answered, gallantly, keeping his seat in the
+arm-chair and picking his teeth the while. This occurred on the evening
+before that on which we found them just now. On the morning of that day
+Mountjoy had had his interview with Mr. Grey.
+
+Augustus had declared that he intended to dine out. This he had said in
+disgust at his brother's behavior. No doubt he could get his dinner at
+ten minutes' notice. He had not been expelled from his club. But he had
+ordered the dinner on that day with a view to eat it himself, and in
+effect he carried out his purpose. The captain got up, thinking to go
+alone when the dinner was announced, but expressed himself gratified
+when his brother said that he "had changed his mind." "You made yourself
+such an ass about shutting the door that I resolved to leave you to
+yourself. But come along." And he accompanied the captain into the other
+room.
+
+A very pretty little dinner was prepared,--quite such as one loving
+friend might give to another, when means are sufficient,--such a dinner
+as the heir of Tretton might have given to his younger brother. The
+champagne was excellent, and the bottle of Leoville. Mountjoy partook of
+all the good things with much gusto, thinking all the while that he
+ought to have been giving the dinner to his younger brother. When that
+conversation had sprung up about going to Brussels or South America,
+Mountjoy had suggested a loan. "I'll pay your fare to Rio, and give you
+an order on a banker there." Mountjoy had replied that that would not at
+all suit his purpose. Then Augustus had felt that it would be almost
+better to send his brother even to Brussels than to keep him concealed
+in London. He had been there now for three or four days, and, even in
+respect of his maintenance, had become a burden. The pretty little
+dinners had to be found every day, and were eaten by the captain alone,
+when left alone, without an attempt at an apology on his part. Augustus
+had begun with some intention of exhibiting his mode of life. He would
+let his brother know what it was to be the heir of Tretton. No doubt he
+did assume all the outward glitter of his position, expecting to fill
+his brother's heart with envy. But Mountjoy had seen and understood it
+all; and remembering the days, not long removed, when he had been the
+heir, he bethought himself that he had never shown off before his
+brother. And he was determined to express no gratitude or thankfulness.
+He would go on eating the little dinners exactly as though they had been
+furnished by himself. It certainly was dull. There was no occupation for
+him, and in the matter of pocket-money he was lamentably ill-supplied.
+But he was gradually becoming used to face the streets again and had
+already entered the shops of one or two of his old tradesmen. He had
+quite a confidential conversation with his boot-maker, and had ordered
+three or four new pairs of boots.
+
+Nobody could tell how the question of the property would be decided till
+his father should have died. His father had treated him most cruelly,
+and he would only wait for his death. He could assure the boot-maker
+that when that time came he should look for his rights. He knew that
+there was a suspicion abroad that he was in a conspiracy with his father
+and brother to cheat his creditors. No such thing. He himself was
+cheated. He pledged himself to the boot-maker that, to the best of his
+belief, his father was robbing him, and that he would undoubtedly assert
+his right to the Tretton property as soon as the breath should be out of
+his father's body. The truth of what he told the boot-maker he certainly
+did believe. There was some little garnishing added to his tale,--which,
+perhaps, under the circumstances, was to be forgiven. The blow had come
+upon him so suddenly, he said, that he was not able even to pay his card
+account, and had left town in dismay at the mine which had been exploded
+under his feet. The boot-maker believed him so far that he undertook to
+supply his orders.
+
+When the dinner had been eaten the two brothers lit their cigars and
+drew to the fire. "There must, unfortunately, come an end to this, you
+know," said Augustus.
+
+"I certainly can't stand it much longer," said Mountjoy.
+
+"You, at any rate, have had the best of it. I have endeavored to make my
+little crib comfortable for you."
+
+"The grub is good, and the wine. There's no doubt about that. Somebody
+says somewhere that nobody can live upon bread alone. That includes the
+whole _menu_, I suppose."
+
+"What do you suggest to do with yourself?"
+
+"You said, go abroad."
+
+"So I did--to Rio."
+
+"Rio is a long way off,--somewhere across the equator, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe it is."
+
+"I think we'd better have it out clearly between us, Augustus. It won't
+suit me to be at Rio Janeiro when our father dies."
+
+"What difference will his death make to you?"
+
+"A father's death generally does make a difference to his eldest son,
+particularly if there is any property concerned."
+
+"You mean to say that you intend to dispute the circumstances of your
+birth?"
+
+"Dispute them! Do you think that I will allow such a thing to be said of
+my mother without disputing it? Do you suppose that I will give up my
+claim to one of the finest properties in England without disputing it?"
+
+"Then I had better stop the payment of that money, and let the gentlemen
+know that you mean to raise the question on their behalf."
+
+"That's your affair. The arrangement is a very good one for me; but you
+made it."
+
+"You know very well that your present threat means nothing. Ask Mr.
+Grey. You can trust him."
+
+"But I can't trust him. After having been so wickedly deceived by my own
+father, I can trust no one. Why did not Mr. Grey find it out before, if
+it be true? I give you my word, Augustus, the lawyers will have to fight
+it out before you will be allowed to take possession."
+
+"And yet you do not scruple to come and live here at my cost."
+
+"Not in the least. At whose cost can I live with less scruple than at
+yours? You, at any rate, have not robbed our mother of her good name, as
+my father has done. The only one of the family with whom I could not
+stay is the governor. I could not sit at the table with a man who has so
+disgraced himself."
+
+"Upon my word I am very much obliged to you for the honor you do me."
+
+"That's my feeling. The chance of the game and his villany have given
+you for the moment the possession of all the good things. They are all
+mine by rights."
+
+"Cards have had nothing to do with it."
+
+"Yes; they have. But they have had nothing to do with my being the
+eldest legitimate son of my father. The cards have been against me, but
+they have not affected my mother. Then there came the blow from the
+governor, and where was I to look for my bread but to you? I suppose, if
+the truth be known, you get the money from the governor."
+
+"Of course I do. But not for your maintenance."
+
+"On what does he suppose that I have been living since last June? It
+mayn't be in the bond, but I suppose he has made allowance for my
+maintenance. Do you mean to say that I am not to have bread-and-cheese
+out of Tretton?"
+
+"If I were to turn you out of these rooms you'd find it very difficult
+to get it."
+
+"I don't think you'll do that."
+
+"I'm not so sure."
+
+"You're meditating it,--are you? I shouldn't go just at present, because
+I have not got a sovereign in the world. I was going to speak to you
+about money. You must let me have some."
+
+"Upon my word, I like your impudence!"
+
+"What the devil am I to do? The governor has asked me to go down to
+Tretton, and I can't go without a five-pound note in my pocket."
+
+"The governor has asked you to Tretton?"
+
+"Why not? I got a letter from him this morning." Then Augustus asked to
+see the letter, but Mountjoy refused to show it. From this there arose
+angry words, and Augustus told his brother that he did not believe him.
+"Not believe me? You do believe me! You know that what I say is the
+truth, He has asked me with all his usual soft soap. But I have refused
+to go. I told him that I could not go to the house of one who had
+injured my mother so seriously."
+
+All that Mountjoy said as to the proposed visit to Tretton was true. The
+squire had written to him without mentioning the name of Augustus, and
+had told him that, for the present, Tretton would be the best home for
+him. "I will do what I can to make you happy, but you will not see a
+card," the squire had said. It was not the want of cards which prevented
+Mountjoy, but a feeling on his part that for the future there could be
+nothing but war between him and his father. It was out of the question
+that he should accept his father's hospitality without telling him of
+his intention, and he did not know his father well enough to feel that
+such a declaration would not affect him at all. He had, therefore,
+declined.
+
+Then Harry Annesley's name was mentioned. "I think I've done for that
+fellow," said Augustus.
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"I've cooked his goose. In the first place, his uncle has stopped his
+allowance, and in the second place the old fellow is going to marry a
+wife. At any rate, he has quarrelled with Master Harry _à outrance_.
+Master Harry has gone back to the parental parsonage, and is there
+eating the bread of affliction and drinking the waters of poverty.
+Flossy Mountjoy may marry him if she pleases. A girl may marry a man now
+without leave from anybody. But if she does my dear cousin will have
+nothing to eat."
+
+"And you have done this?"
+
+"'Alone I did it, boy.'"
+
+"Then it's an infernal shame. What harm had he ever done you? For me I
+had some ground of quarrel with him, but for you there was none."
+
+"I have my own quarrel with him also."
+
+"I quarrelled with him--with a cause. I do not care if I quarrel with
+him again. He shall never marry Florence Mountjoy if I can help it. But
+to rob a fellow of his property I think a very shabby thing." Then
+Augustus got up and walked out of the chambers into the street, and
+Mountjoy soon followed him.
+
+"I must make him understand that he must leave this at once," said
+Augustus to himself, "and if necessary I must order the supplies to be
+cut off."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE SCARBOROUGH CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+
+It was as Mountjoy had said. The squire had written to him a letter
+inviting him to Tretton, and telling him that it would be the best home
+for him till death should have put Tretton into other hands. Mountjoy
+had thought the matter over, sitting in the easy-chair in his brother's
+room, and had at last declined the invitation. As his letter was
+emblematic of the man, it may be as well to give it to the reader:
+
+"My dear father,--I don't think it will suit me to go down to Tretton at
+present. I don't mind the cards, and I don't doubt that you would make
+it better than this place. But, to tell the truth, I don't believe a
+word of what you have told to the world about my mother, and some of
+these days I mean to have it out with Augustus. I shall not sit quietly
+by and see Tretton taken out of my mouth. Therefore I think I had better
+not go to Tretton.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH."
+
+This had not at all surprised the father, and had not in the least
+angered him. He rather liked his son for standing up for his mother, and
+was by no means offended at the expression of his son's incredulity. But
+what was there in the prospect of a future lawsuit to prevent his son
+coming to Tretton? There need be no word spoken as to the property.
+Tretton would be infinitely more comfortable than those rooms in
+Victoria Street, and he was aware that the hospitality of Victoria
+Street would not be given in an ungrudging spirit. "I shouldn't like
+it," said the old squire to himself as he lay quiet on his sofa. "I
+shouldn't like at all to be the humble guest of Augustus. Augustus would
+certainly say a nasty word or two."
+
+The old man knew his younger son well, and he had known, too, the
+character of his elder son; but he had not calculated enough on the
+change which must have been made by such a revelation as he, his father,
+had made to him. Mountjoy had felt that all the world was against him,
+and that, as best he might, he would make use of all the world,
+excepting only his father, who of all the world was the falsest and the
+most cruel. As for his brother, he would bleed his brother to the very
+last drop without any compunction. Every bottle of champagne that came
+into the house was, to Mountjoy's thinking, his own, bought with his
+money, and therefore fit to be enjoyed by him. But as for his father, he
+doubted whether he could remain with his father without flying at his
+throat.
+
+The old man decidedly preferred his elder son of the two. He had found
+that Augustus could not bear success, and had first come to dislike him,
+and then to hate him. What had he not done for Augustus? And with what a
+return! No doubt Augustus had, till the spring of this present year,
+been kept in the background; but no injury had come to him from that.
+His father, of his own good will, with infinite labor and successful
+ingenuity, had struggled to put him back in the place which had been
+taken from him. Augustus might, not unnaturally, have expressed himself
+as angry. He had not done so but had made himself persistently
+disagreeable, and had continued to show that he was waiting impatiently
+for his father's death. It had come to pass that at their last meeting
+he had hardly scrupled to tell his father that the world would be no
+world for him till his father had left it. This was the reward which the
+old man received for having struggled to provide handsomely and
+luxuriously for his son! He still made his son a sufficient allowance
+befitting the heir of a man of large property, but he had resolved never
+to see him again. It was true that he almost hated him, and thoroughly
+despised him.
+
+But since the departure and mysterious disappearance of his eldest son
+his regard for the sinner had returned. He had become apparently a
+hopeless gambler. His debts had been paid and repaid. At last the
+squire had learned that Mountjoy owed so much on post-obits that the
+farther payment of them was an impossibility. There was no way of saving
+him. To save the property he must undo the doings of his early youth,
+and prove that the elder son was illegitimate. He had still kept the
+proofs, and he did it.
+
+To the great disgust of Mr. Grey, to the dismay of creditors, to the
+incredulous wonder of Augustus, and almost to the annihilation of
+Mountjoy himself, he had done it. But there had been nothing in
+Mountjoy's conduct which had in truth wounded him. Mountjoy's vices had
+been dangerous, destructive, absurdly foolish, but not, to his father, a
+shame. He ridiculed gambling as a source of excitement. No man could win
+much without dishonest practices, and fraud at cards would certainly be
+detected. But he did not on that account hate cards. There was no reason
+why Mountjoy should not become to him as pleasant a companion as ever
+for the few days that might be left to him, if only he would come. But,
+when asked, he refused to come. When the squire received the letter
+above given he was not in the least angry with his son, but simply
+determined, if possible, that he should be brought to Tretton.
+Mountjoy's debts would now be paid, and something, if possible, should
+be done for him. He was so angry with Augustus that he would, if
+possible, revoke his last decision;--but that, alas! would be impossible.
+
+Sir William Brodrick had, when he last saw him, expressed some hope,--not
+of his recovery, which was by all admitted to be impossible,--but of his
+continuance in the land of the living for another three months, or
+perhaps six, as Sir William had finally suggested, opening out, as he
+himself seemed to think, indefinite hope. "The most wonderful
+constitution, Mr. Scarborough, I ever saw in my life. I've never known a
+dog even so cut about, and yet bear it." Mr. Scarborough bowed and
+smiled, and accepted the compliment. He would have taken the hat off his
+head, had it been his practice to wear a hat in his sitting-room. Mr.
+Merton had gone farther. Of course he did not mean, he said, to set up
+his opinion against Sir William's; but if Mr. Scarborough would live
+strictly by rule, Mr. Merton did not see why either three months or six
+should be the end of it. Mr. Scarborough had replied that he could not
+undertake to live precisely by rule, and Mr. Merton had shaken his head.
+But from that time forth Mr. Scarborough did endeavor to obey the
+injunctions given to him. He had something worth doing in the six months
+now offered to him.
+
+He had heard lately very much of the story of Harry Annesley, and had
+expressed great anger at the ill-usage to which that young man had been
+subjected. It had come to his ears that it was intended that Harry
+should lose the property he had expected, and that he had already lost
+his immediate income. This had come to him through Mr. Merton, between
+whom and Augustus Scarborough there was no close friendship. And the
+squire understood that Florence Mountjoy had been the cause of Harry's
+misfortune. He himself recognized it as a fact that his son Mountjoy was
+unfit to marry any young lady. Starvation would assuredly stare such
+young lady in the face. But not the less was he acerbated and disgusted
+at the idea that Augustus should endeavor to take the young lady to
+himself. "What!" he had exclaimed to Mr. Merton; "he wants both the
+property and the girl. There is nothing on earth that he does not want.
+The greater the impropriety in his craving, the stronger the craving."
+Then he picked up by degrees all the details of the midnight feud
+between Harry and Mountjoy, and set himself to work to undermine
+Augustus. But he had steadily carried out the plan for settling with the
+creditors, and, with the aid of Mr. Grey, had, as he thought, already
+concluded that business. Conjunction with Augustus had been necessary,
+but that had been obtained.
+
+It is not too much to say that, at the present moment of his life, the
+idea of doing some injury to Augustus was the one object which exercised
+Mr. Scarborough's mind. Since he had fallen into business relations with
+his younger son he had become convinced that a more detestable young man
+did not exist. The reader will, perhaps, agree with Mr. Scarborough, but
+it can hardly be hoped that he should entertain the opinion as strongly.
+
+Augustus was now the recognized eldest legitimate son of the squire; and
+as the property was entailed it must no doubt belong to him. But the
+squire was turning in his mind all means of depriving that condition as
+far as was possible of its glory. When he had first heard of the injury
+that had been done to Harry Annesley, he thought that he would leave to
+our hero all the furniture, all the gems, all the books, all the wine,
+all the cattle which were accumulated at Tretton. Augustus should have
+the bare acres, and still barer house, but nothing else. In thinking of
+this he had been actuated by a conviction that it would be useless for
+him to leave them to Mountjoy. Whatever might be left to Mountjoy would
+in fact be left to the creditors; and therefore Harry Annesley with his
+injuries had been felt to be a proper recipient, not of the squire's
+bounty, but of the results of his hatred for his son.
+
+To run counter to the law! That had ever been the chief object of the
+squire's ambition. To arrange everything so that it should be seen that
+he had set all laws at defiance! That had been his great pride. He had
+done so notably, and with astonishing astuteness, in reference to his
+wife and two sons. But now there had come up a condition of things in
+which he could again show his cleverness. Augustus had been most anxious
+to get up all the post-obit bonds which the creditors held, feeling, as
+his father well understood, that he would thus prevent them from making
+any farther inquiry when the squire should have died. Why should they
+stir in the matter by going to law when there would be nothing to be
+gained? Those bonds had now been redeemed, and were in the possession of
+Mr. Grey. They had been bought up nominally by himself, and must be
+given to him. Mr. Grey, at any rate, would have the proof that they had
+been satisfied. They could not be used again to gratify any spite that
+Augustus might entertain. The captain, therefore, could now enjoy any
+property which might be left to him. Of course, it would all go to the
+gaming-table. It might even yet be better to leave it to Harry Annesley.
+But blood was thicker than water,--though it were but the blood of a
+bastard. He would do a good turn for Harry in another way. All the
+furniture, and all the gems, and all the money, should again be the
+future property of Mountjoy.
+
+But in order that this might be effected before he died he must not let
+the grass grow under his feet. He thought of the promised three months,
+with a possible extension to six, as suggested by Sir William. "Sir
+William says three months," he said to Mr. Merton, speaking in the
+easiest way of the possibility of his living.
+
+"He said six."
+
+"Ah! that is, if I do what I'm told. But I shall not exactly do that.
+Three or six would be all the same, only for a little bit of business I
+want to get through. Sir William's orders would include the abandonment
+of my business."
+
+"The less done the better. Then I do not see why Sir William should
+limit you to six months."
+
+"I think that three will nearly suffice."
+
+"A man does not want to die, I suppose," said Merton.
+
+"There are various ways of looking at that question," replied the
+squire. "Many men desire the prolongation of life as a lengthened period
+of enjoyment. There is, perhaps, something of that feeling with me; but
+when you see how far I am crippled and curtailed, how my enjoyments are
+confined to breathing the air, to eating and drinking, and to the
+occasional reading of a few pages, you must admit that there cannot be
+much of that. A conversation with you is the best of it. Some want to
+live for the sake of their wives and children. In the ordinary
+acceptation of the words, that is all over with me. Many desire to live
+because they fear to die. There is nothing of that in me, I can assure
+you. I am not afraid to meet my Creator. But there are those who wish
+for life that their purposes of love, or stronger purposes of hatred,
+may be accomplished. I am among the number. But, on that account, I only
+wish it till those purposes have been completed. I think I'll go to
+sleep for an hour; but there are a couple of letters I want you to write
+before post-time." Then Mr. Scarborough turned himself round and thought
+of the letters he was to write. Mr. Merton went out, and as he wandered
+about the park in the dirt and slush of December tried to make up his
+mind whether he most admired his patron's philosophy or condemned his
+general lack of principle.
+
+At the proper hour he appeared again, and found Mr. Scarborough quite
+alert. "I don't know whether I shall have the three months, unless I
+behave better," he said. "I have been thinking about those letters, and
+very nearly made an attempt to write them. There are things about a son
+which a father doesn't wish to communicate to any one." Merton only
+shook his head. "I'm not a bit afraid of you, nor do I care for your
+knowing what I have to say. But there are words which it would be
+difficult even to write, and almost impossible to dictate." But he did
+make the attempt, though he did not find himself able to say all that he
+had intended. The first letter was to the lawyer:
+
+"My dear Mr. Grey,--You will be surprised at my writing to summon you
+once again to my bedside. I think there was some kind of a promise made
+that the request should not be repeated; but the circumstances are of
+such a nature that I do not well know how to avoid it. However, if you
+refuse to come, I will give you my instructions. It is my purpose to
+make another will, and to leave everything that I am capable of leaving
+to my son Mountjoy. You are aware that he is now free from debt, and
+capable of enjoying any property that he may possess. As circumstances
+are at present he would on my death be absolutely penniless, and Heaven
+help the man who should find himself dependent on the mercy of Augustus
+Scarborough.
+
+"What I possess would be the balance at the bank, the house in town, and
+everything contained in and about Tretton, as to which I should wish
+that the will should be very explicit in making it understood that every
+conceivable item of property is to belong to Mountjoy. I know the
+strength of an entail, and not for worlds would I venture to meddle with
+anything so holy." There came a grin of satisfaction over his face as he
+uttered these words, and his scribe was utterly unable to keep from
+laughing. "But as Augustus must have the acres, let him have them bare."
+
+"Underscore that word, if you please;" and the word was underscored. "If
+I had time I would have every tree about the place cut down."
+
+"I don't think you could under the entail," said Merton.
+
+"I would use up every stick in building the farmers' barns and mending
+the farmers' gates, and I would cover an acre just in front of the house
+with a huge conservatory. I respect the law, my boy, and they would find
+it difficult to prove that I had gone beyond it. But there is no time
+for that kind of finished revenge."
+
+Then he went on with the letter: "You will understand what I mean. I
+wish to divide my property so that Mountjoy may have everything that is
+not strictly entailed. You will of course say that it will all go to the
+gambling-table. It may go to the devil, so that Augustus does not have
+it. But it need not go to the gambling-table. If you would consent to
+come down to me once more we might possibly devise some scheme for
+saving it. But whether we can do so or not, it is my request that my
+last will may be prepared in accordance with these instructions.
+
+"Very faithfully yours,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"And now for the other," said Mr. Scarborough.
+
+"Had you not better rest a bit?" asked Merton.
+
+"No; this is a kind of work at which a man does not want to rest. He is
+carried on by his own solicitudes and his own eagerness. This will be
+very short, and when it is done then, perhaps, I may sleep."
+
+The second letter was as follows:
+
+"My dear Mountjoy,--I think you are foolish in allowing yourself to be
+prevented from coming here by a sentiment. But in truth, independently
+of the pleasure I should derive from your company, I wish you to be here
+on a matter of business which is of some importance to yourself. I am
+about to make a new will; and although I am bound to pay every respect
+to the entail, and would not for worlds do anything in opposition to the
+law, still I may be enabled to do something for your benefit. Your
+brother has kindly interfered for the payment of your creditors; and as
+all the outstanding bonds have been redeemed, you would now, by his
+generosity, be enabled to enjoy any property which might be left to you.
+There are a few tables and chairs at my disposal, and a gem or two, and
+some odd volumes which perhaps you might like to possess. I have written
+to Mr. Grey on the subject, and I would wish you to see him. This you
+might do, whether you come here or not. But I do not the less wish that
+you should come.
+
+"Your affectionate father,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"I think that the odd volumes will fetch him. He was always fond of
+literature."
+
+"I suppose it means the entire library?" replied Merton.
+
+"And he likes tables and chairs. I think he will come and look after the
+tables and chairs."
+
+"Why not beds and washhand-stands?" said Mr. Merton.
+
+"Well, yes; he may have the beds and washhand-stands. Mountjoy is not a
+fool, and will understand very well what I mean. I wonder whether I
+could scrape the paper off the drawing-room walls, and leave the scraps
+to his brother, without interfering with the entail? But now I am tired,
+and will rest."
+
+But he did not even then go to rest, but lay still scheming, scheming,
+scheming, about the property. There was now another letter to be
+written, for the writing of which he would not again summon Mr. Merton.
+He was half ashamed to do so, and at last sent for his sister. "Martha,"
+said he, "I want you to write a letter for me."
+
+"Mr. Merton has been writing letters for you all the morning."
+
+"That's just the reason why you should write one now. I am still in some
+slight degree afraid of his authority, but I am not at all afraid of
+yours."
+
+"You ought to be quiet, John; indeed you ought."
+
+"And, in order that I may be quiet, you must write this letter. It's
+nothing particular, or I should not have asked you to do it. It's only
+an invitation."
+
+"An invitation to ask somebody here?"
+
+"Yes; to ask somebody to come here. I don't know whether he'll come."
+
+"Do I know him?"
+
+"I hope you may, if he comes. He's a very good-looking young man, if
+that is anything."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, John."
+
+"But I believe he's engaged to another young lady, with whom I must beg
+you not to interfere. You remember Florence?"
+
+"Florence Mountjoy? Of course I remember my own niece."
+
+"The young man is engaged to her."
+
+"She was intended for poor Mountjoy."
+
+"Poor Mountjoy has put himself beyond all possibility of a wife."
+
+"Poor Mountjoy!"--and the soft-hearted aunt almost shed tears.
+
+"But we haven't to do with Mountjoy now. Sit down there and begin. 'Dear
+Mr. Annesley--'"
+
+"Oh! It's Mr. Annesley, is it?"
+
+"Yes, it is. Mr. Annesley is the handsome young man. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+"Only people do say--"
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"Of course I don't know; only I have heard--"
+
+"That he is a scoundrel!"
+
+"Scoundrel is very strong," said the old lady, shocked.
+
+"A villain, a liar, a thief, and all the rest of it. That's what you
+have heard. And I'll tell you who has been your informant. Either first
+or second hand, it has come to you from Mr. Augustus Scarborough. Now
+we'll begin again. 'Dear Mr. Annesley--'" The old lady paused a moment,
+and then, setting herself firmly to the task, commenced and finished her
+letter, as follows:
+
+"Dear Mr. Annesley,--You spent a few days here on one occasion, and I
+want to renew the pleasure which your visit gave me. Will you extend
+your kindness so far as to come to Tretton for any time you may please
+to name beyond two or three days? I am sorry to say that your friend
+Augustus Scarborough cannot be here to meet you. My other son, Mountjoy,
+may be here. If you wish to escape him, I will endeavor so to fix the
+time when I shall have heard from you. But I think there need be no ill
+blood there. Neither of you did anything of which you are, probably,
+ashamed; though as an old man I am bound to express my disapproval."
+
+("Surely he must be ashamed," said Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Never you mind. Believe me, you know nothing about it." Then he went on
+with his letter.)
+
+"But it is not merely for the pleasure of your society that I ask you. I
+have a word to say to you which may be important. Yours faithfully,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+HOW THE LETTERS WERE RECEIVED.
+
+
+We must now describe the feelings of Mr. Scarborough's correspondents as
+they received his letters. When Mr. Grey begun to read that which was
+addressed to him he declared that on no consideration would he go down
+to Tretton. But when he came to inquire within himself as to his
+objection he found that it lay chiefly in his great dislike to Augustus
+Scarborough. For poor Mountjoy, as he called him, he entertained a
+feeling of deep pity,--and pity we know, is akin to love. And for the
+squire, he in his heart felt but little of that profound dislike which
+he was aware such conduct as the squire's ought to have generated. "He
+is the greatest rascal that I ever knew," he said again and again, both
+to Dolly and to Mr. Barry. But yet he did not regard him as an honest
+man regards a rascal, and was angry with himself in consequence. He knew
+that there remained with him even some spark of love for Mr.
+Scarborough, which to himself was inexplicable. From the moment in which
+he had first admitted the fact that Augustus Scarborough was the true
+heir-at-law, he had been most determined in taking care that that
+heirship should be established. It must be known to all men that
+Mountjoy was not the eldest son of his father, as the law required him
+to be for the inheritance of the property, and that Augustus was the
+eldest son; but in arranging that these truths should be notorious it
+had come to pass that he had learned to hate Augustus with an intensity
+that had redounded to the advantage both of Mountjoy and their father.
+It must be so. Augustus must become Augustus Scarborough, Esquire, of
+Tretton,--but the worse luck for Tretton and all connected with it. And
+Mr. Grey did resolve that, when that day should come, all relation
+between himself and Tretton should cease.
+
+It had never occurred to him that, by redeeming the post-obit bonds,
+Mountjoy would become capable of owning and enjoying any property that
+might be left to him. With Tretton, all the belongings of Tretton, in
+the old-fashioned way, would, of course, go to the heir. The belongings
+of Tretton, which were personal property, would, in themselves, amount
+to wealth for a younger son. That which Mr. Scarborough would in this
+way be able to bequeath might, probably, be worth thirty thousand
+pounds. Out of the proceeds of the real property the debts had been
+paid. And because Augustus had consented so to pay them he was now to be
+mulcted of those loose belongings which gave its charm to Tretton!
+Because Augustus had paid Mountjoy's debts Mountjoy was to be enabled to
+rob Augustus! There was a wickedness in this redolent of the old squire.
+But it was a wickedness in arranging which Mr. Grey hesitated to
+participate. As he thought of it, however, he could not but feel what a
+very clever man he had for a client.
+
+"It will all go to the gambling-table, of course," he said that night to
+Dolly.
+
+"It is no affair of ours."
+
+"No; but when a lawyer is consulted he has to think of the prudent or
+imprudent disposition of property."
+
+"Mr. Scarborough hasn't consulted you, papa."
+
+"I must look at it as though he had. He tells me what he intends to do,
+and I am bound to give him my advice. I cannot advise him to bestow all
+these things on Augustus, whom I regard as a long way the worst of the
+family."
+
+"You need not care about that."
+
+"And here, again," continued Mr. Grey, "comes up the question,--what is
+it that duty demands? Augustus is the eldest son, and is entitled to
+what the law allots him; but Mountjoy was brought up as the eldest son,
+and is certainly entitled to what provision the father can make him."
+
+"You cannot provide for such a gambler."
+
+"I don't know that that comes within my duty. It is not my fault that
+Mountjoy is a gambler, any more than that it is my fault that Augustus
+is a beast. Gambler and beast, there they are. And, moreover, nothing
+will turn the squire from his purpose. I am only a tool in his hands,--a
+trowel for the laying of his mortar and bricks. Of course I must draw
+his will, and shall do it with some pleasure, because it will dispossess
+Augustus."
+
+Then Mr. Grey went to bed, as did also Dolly; but she was not at all
+surprised at being summoned to his couch after she had been an hour in
+her own bed.
+
+"I think I shall go down to Tretton," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"You declared that you would never go there again."
+
+"So I did; but I did not know then how much I might come to hate
+Augustus Scarborough."
+
+"Would you go to Tretton merely to injure him?" said his daughter.
+
+"I have been thinking about that," said Mr. Grey. "I don't know that I
+would go simply to do him an injury; but I think that I would go to see
+that justice is properly done."
+
+"That can be arranged without your going to Tretton."
+
+"By putting our heads together I think we can contrive that the deed
+shall be more effectually performed. What we must attempt to do is to
+save this property from going to the gambling-table. There is only one
+way that occurs to me."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"It must be left to his wife."
+
+"He hasn't a wife."
+
+"It must be left to some woman whom he will consent to marry. There are
+three objects:--to keep it from Augustus; to give the enjoyment of it to
+Mountjoy; and to prevent Mountjoy from gambling with it. The only thing
+I can see is a wife."
+
+"There is a girl he wants to marry," said Dolly.
+
+"But she doesn't want to marry him, and I doubt whether he can be got to
+marry any one else. There is still a peck of difficulties."
+
+"Oh, papa, I wish you would wash your hands of the Scarboroughs."
+
+"I must go to Tretton first," said he. "And now, my dear, you are doing
+no good by sitting up here and talking to me." Then, with a smile, Dolly
+took herself off to her own chamber.
+
+Mountjoy, when he got his letter, was sitting over a late breakfast in
+Victoria Street. It was near twelve o'clock, and he was enjoying the
+delicious luxury of having his breakfast to eat, with a cigar after it,
+and nothing else that he need do. But the fruition of all these comforts
+was somewhat marred by the knowledge that he had no such dinner to
+expect. He must go out and look for a dinner among the eating-houses.
+The next morning would bring him no breakfast, and if he were to remain
+longer in Victoria Street he must do so in direct opposition to the
+owner of the establishment. He had that morning received notice to quit,
+and had been told that the following breakfast would be the last meal
+served to him. "Let it be good of its kind," Mountjoy had said.
+
+"I believe you care for nothing but eating and drinking."
+
+"There's little else that you can do for me." And so they had parted.
+
+Mountjoy had taken the precaution of having his letters addressed to the
+house of the friendly bootmaker; and now, as he was slowly pouring out
+his first cup of coffee, and thinking how nearly it must be his last,
+his father's letter was brought to him. The letter had been delayed one
+day, as he himself had omitted to call for it. It was necessarily a sad
+time for him. He was a man who fought hard against melancholy, taking it
+as a primary rule of life that, for such a one as he had become, the
+pleasures of the immediate moment should suffice. If one day, or better
+still, one night of excitement was in store for him, the next day should
+be regarded as the unlimited future, for which no man can be
+responsible. But such philosophy will too frequently be insufficient for
+the stoutest hearts. Mountjoy's heart would occasionally almost give
+way, and then his thoughts would be dreary enough. Hunger, absolute
+hunger, without the assured expectation of food, had never yet come upon
+him; but in order to put a stop to its cravings, if he should find it
+troublesome to bear, he had already provided himself with pistol and
+bullets.
+
+And now, with his cup of coffee before him, aromatic, creamy, and hot,
+with a filleted sole rolled up before him on a little dish, three or
+four plover's eggs, on which to finish, lying by, and, on the distance
+of the table, a chasse of brandy, of which he already well knew the
+virtues, he got his father's letter. He did not at first open it,
+disliking all thoughts as to his father. Then gradually he tore the
+envelope, and was slow in understanding the full meaning of the last
+lines. He did not at once perceive the irony of "his brother's kindly
+interference," and of the "generosity" which had enabled him, Mountjoy,
+to be a recipient of property. But his father purposed to do something
+for his benefit. Gradually it dawned upon him that his father could only
+do that something effectually because of his brother's dealings with the
+creditors.
+
+Then the chairs and the tables, and the gem or two, and the odd
+volumes, one by one, made themselves intelligible. That a father should
+write so to one son, and should so write of another, was marvellous. But
+then his father was a marvellous man, whose character he was only
+beginning to understand. His father, he told himself, had, fortunately,
+taken it into his head to hate Augustus, and intended, in consequence,
+to strip Tretton and the property generally of all their outside
+personal belongings.
+
+Yes; he thought that, with such an object before him, he would certainly
+go and see Mr. Grey. And if Mr. Grey should so advise him he would go
+down to Tretton. On such business as this he would consent to see his
+father. He did not think that just at present he need have recourse to
+his pistol for his devices. He could not on the very day go to Tretton,
+as it would be necessary that he should write to his father first. His
+brother would probably extend his hospitality for a couple of days when
+he should hear of the proposed journey, and, if not, would lend him
+money for his present purposes, or under existing circumstances he might
+probably be able to borrow it from Mr. Grey. With a heart elevated to
+almost absolute bliss he ate his breakfast, and drank his chasse, and
+smoked his cigar, and then rose slowly, that he might proceed to Mr.
+Grey's chambers. But at this moment Augustus came in. He had only
+breakfasted at his own club, much less comfortably than he would have
+done at home, in order that he might not sit at table with his brother.
+He had now returned so that he might see to Mountjoy's departure. "After
+all, Augustus, I am going down to Tretton," said the elder brother as he
+folded up his father's letter.
+
+"What argument has the old man used now?" Mountjoy did not think it well
+to tell his brother the exact nature of the arguments used, and
+therefore put the letter into his pocket.
+
+"He wishes to say something to me about property," said Mountjoy.
+
+Then some idea of the old squire's scheme fell with a crushing weight of
+anticipated sorrow on Augustus. In a moment it all occurred to him what
+his father might do, what injuries he might inflict; and,--saddest of all
+feelings,--there came the immediate reflection that it had all been
+rendered possible by his own doings. With the conviction that so much
+might be left away from him, there came also a farther feeling that,
+after all, there was a chance that his father had invented the story of
+his brother's illegitimacy, that Mountjoy was now free from debt, and
+that Tretton, with all its belongings, might now go back to him. That
+his father would do it if it were possible he did not doubt. From week
+to week he had waited impatiently for his father's demise, and had
+expected little or none of that mental activity which his father had
+exercised. "What a fool he had been," he said to himself, sitting
+opposite to Mountjoy, who in the vacancy of the moment had lighted
+another cigar; "what an ass!" Had he played his cards better, had he
+comforted and flattered and cosseted the old man, Mountjoy might have
+gone his own way to the dogs. Now, at the best, Tretton would come to
+him stripped of everything; and,--at the worst,--no Tretton would come to
+him at all. "Well, what are you going to do?" he said, roughly.
+
+"I think I shall, probably, go down and just see the governor."
+
+"All your feelings about your mother, then, are blown to the winds?"
+
+"My feelings about your mother are not blown to the winds at all; but to
+speak of her to you would be wasting breath."
+
+"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing her," said Augustus. "And I am not
+aware that she did me any great kindness in bringing me into the world.
+Do you go to Tretton this afternoon?"
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"Or to-morrow?"
+
+"Possibly to-morrow," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Because I shall find it convenient to have your room."
+
+"To-day, of course, I cannot stir. To-morrow morning I should, at any
+rate, like to have my breakfast." Here he paused for a reply, but none
+came from his brother. "I must have some money to go down to Tretton
+with; I suppose you can lend it me just for the present?"
+
+"Not a shilling," said Augustus, in thorough ill-humor.
+
+"I shall be able to pay you very shortly."
+
+"Not a shilling. The return I have had from you for all that I have done
+is not of a nature to make me do more."
+
+"If I had ever thought that you had expended a sovereign except for the
+object of furthering some plot of your own, I should have been grateful.
+As it is I do not know that we owe very much to each other." Then he
+left the room, and, getting into a cab, went away to Lincoln's Inn.
+
+Harry Annesley received Mr. Scarborough's letter down at Buston, and was
+much surprised by it. He had not spent the winter hitherto very
+pleasantly. His uncle he had never seen, though he had heard from day
+to day sundry stories of his wooing. He had soon given up his hunting,
+feeling himself ashamed, in his present nameless position, to ride
+Joshua Thoroughbung's horses. He had taken to hard reading, but the hard
+reading had failed, and he had been given up to the miseries of his
+position. The hard reading had been continued for a fortnight or three
+weeks, during which he had, at any rate, respected himself, but in an
+evil hour he had allowed it to escape from him, and now was again
+miserable. Then the invitation from Tretton had been received. "I have
+got a letter; 'tis from Mr. Scarborough of Tretton."
+
+"What does Mr. Scarborough say?"
+
+"He wants me to go down there."
+
+"Do you know Mr. Scarborough? I believe you have altogether quarrelled
+with his son?"
+
+"Oh yes; I have quarrelled with Augustus, and have had an encounter with
+Mountjoy not on the most friendly terms. But the father and Mountjoy
+seem to be reconciled. You can see his letter. I, at any rate, shall go
+there." To this Mr. Annesley senior had no objection to make.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+VISITORS AT TRETTON.
+
+
+It so happened that the three visitors who had been asked to Tretton all
+agreed to go on the same day. There was, indeed, no reason why Harry
+should delay his visit, and much why the other two should expedite
+theirs. Mr. Grey knew that the thing, if done at all, should be done at
+once; and Mountjoy, as he had agreed to accept his father's offer, could
+not put himself too quickly under the shelter of his father's roof. "You
+can have twenty pounds," Mr. Grey had said when the subject of the money
+was mooted. "Will that suffice?" Mountjoy had said that it would suffice
+amply, and then, returning to his brother's rooms, had waited there with
+what patience he possessed till he sallied forth to The Continental to
+get the best dinner which that restaurant could afford him. He was
+beginning to feel that his life was very sad in London, and to look
+forward to the glades of Tretton with some anticipation of rural
+delight.
+
+He went down by the same train with Mr. Grey,--"a great grind," as
+Mountjoy called it, when Mr. Grey proposed a departure at ten o'clock.
+Harry followed so as to reach Tretton only in time for dinner. "If I may
+venture to advise you," said Mr. Grey in the train, "I should do in this
+matter whatever my father asked me." Hereupon Mountjoy frowned. "He is
+anxious to make some provision for you."
+
+"I'm not grateful to my father, if you mean that."
+
+"It is hard to say whether you should be grateful. But, from the first,
+he has done the best he could for you, according to his lights."
+
+"You believe all this about my mother?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"I don't. That's the difference. And I don't think that Augustus
+believes it."
+
+"The story is undoubtedly true."
+
+"You must excuse me if I will not accept it."
+
+"At any rate, you had parted with your share in the property."
+
+"My share was the whole."
+
+"After your father's death," said Mr. Grey; "and that was gone."
+
+"We needn't discuss the property. What is it that he expects me to do
+now?"
+
+"Simply to be kind in your manner to him, and to agree to what he says
+about the personal property. It is his intention, as far as I understand
+it, to leave you everything."
+
+"He is very kind."
+
+"I think he is."
+
+"Only it would all have been mine if he had not cheated me of my
+birthright."
+
+"Or Mr. Tyrrwhit's, and Mr. Hart's, and Mr. Spicer's."
+
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit, and Mr. Hart, and Mr. Spicer could not have robbed me of
+my name. Let them have done what they would with their bonds, I should
+have been, at any rate, Scarborough of Tretton. My belief is that I need
+not blush for my mother. He has made it appear that I should do so. I
+can't forgive him because he gives me the chairs and tables."
+
+"They will be worth thirty thousand pounds," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"I can't forgive him."
+
+The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough's face as he said
+this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him. If something
+could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his
+mother,--who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his
+mother,--it would be a good thing to do. Augustus had entertained no
+such feeling. He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his
+brother, that "he had not known the lady." When the facts as to the
+distribution of the property had been made known to him he had cared
+nothing for the injury done by the story to his mother's name. The story
+was too true. Mr. Grey knew that it was true; but he could not on that
+account do other than feel an intense desire to confer some benefit on
+Mountjoy Scarborough. He put his hand out affectionately and laid it on
+the other man's knee. "Your father has not long to live, Captain
+Scarborough."
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"And he is at present anxious to make what reparation is in his power.
+What he can leave you will produce, let us say, fifteen hundred a year.
+Without a will from him you would have to live on your brother's
+bounty."
+
+"By Heaven, no!" said Mountjoy, thinking of the pistol and the bullets.
+
+"I see nothing else."
+
+"I see, but I cannot explain."
+
+"Do you not think that fifteen hundred a year would be better than
+nothing,--with a wife, let us say?" said Mr. Grey, beginning to introduce
+the one argument on which he believed so much must depend.
+
+"With a wife?"
+
+"Yes; with a wife."
+
+"With what wife? A wife may be very well, but a wife must depend on who
+it is. Is there any one that you mean?"
+
+"Not exactly any particular person," said the lawyer, lamely.
+
+"Pshaw! What do I want with a wife? Do you mean to say that my father
+has told you that he intends to clog his legacy with the burden of a
+wife? I would not accept it with such a burden,--unless I could choose
+the wife myself. To tell the truth, there is a girl--"
+
+"Your cousin?"
+
+"Yes; my cousin. When I was well-to-do in the world I was taught to
+believe that I could have her. If she will be mine, Mr. Grey, I will
+renounce gambling altogether. If my father can manage that I will
+forgive him,--or will endeavor to do so. The property which he can leave
+me shall be settled altogether upon her. I will endeavor to reform
+myself, and so to live that no misfortune shall come upon her. If that
+is what you mean, say so."
+
+"Well, not quite that."
+
+"To no other marriage will I agree. That has been the dream of my life
+through all those moments of hot excitement and assured despair which I
+have endured. Her mother has always told me that it should be so, and
+she herself in former days did not deny it. Now you know it all. If my
+father wishes to see me married, Florence Mountjoy must be my wife."
+Then he sunk back on his seat, and nothing more was said between them
+till they had reached Tretton.
+
+The father and son had not met each other since the day on which the
+former had told the latter the story of his birth. Since then Mountjoy
+had disappeared from the world, and for a few days his father had
+thought that he had been murdered. But now they met as they might have
+done had they seen each other a week ago. "Well, Mountjoy, how are you?"
+And, "How are you, sir?" Such were the greetings between them. And no
+others were spoken. In a few minutes the son was allowed to go and look
+after the rural joys he had anticipated, and the lawyer was left
+closeted with the squire.
+
+Mr. Grey soon explained his proposition. Let the property be left to
+trustees who should realize from it what money it should fetch, and keep
+the money in their own hands, paying Mountjoy the income. "There could,"
+he said, "be nothing better done, unless Mountjoy would agree to marry.
+He is attached, it seems, to his cousin," said Mr. Grey, "and he is
+unwilling at present to marry any one else."
+
+"He can't marry her," said the squire.
+
+"I do not know the circumstances."
+
+"He can't marry her. She is engaged to the young man who will be here
+just now. I told you,--did I not?--that Harry Annesley is coming here. My
+son knows that he will be here to-day."
+
+"Everybody knows the story of Mr. Annesley and the captain."
+
+"They are to sit down to dinner together, and I trust they may not
+quarrel. The lady of whom you are speaking is engaged to young Annesley,
+and Mountjoy's suit in that direction is hopeless."
+
+"Hopeless, you think?"
+
+"Utterly hopeless. Your plan of providing him with a wife would be very
+good if it were feasible. I should be very glad to see him settled. But
+if he will marry no one but Florence Mountjoy he must remain unmarried.
+Augustus has had his hand in that business, and don't let us dabble in
+it." Then the squire gave the lawyer full instructions as to the will
+which was to be made. Mr. Grey and Mr. Bullfist were to be named as
+trustees, with instructions to sell everything which it would be in the
+squire's legal power to bequeath. The books, the gems, the furniture,
+both at Tretton and in London, the plate, the stock, the farm-produce,
+the pictures on the walls, and the wine in the cellars, were all named.
+He endeavored to persuade Mr. Grey to consent to a cutting of the
+timber, so that the value of it might be taken out of the pocket of the
+younger brother and put into that of the elder. But to this Mr. Grey
+would not assent. "There would be an air of persecution about it," he
+said, "and it mustn't be done." But to the general stripping of Tretton
+for the benefit of Mountjoy he gave a cordial agreement.
+
+"I am not quite sure that I have done with Augustus as yet," said the
+squire. "I had made up my mind not to be put out by trifles; not to be
+vexed at a little. My treatment of my children has been such that,
+though I have ever intended to do them good, I must have seemed to each
+at different periods to have injured him. I have not, therefore,
+expected much from them. But I have received less than nothing from
+Augustus. It is possible that he may hear from me again." To this Mr.
+Grey said nothing, but he had taken his instructions about the drawing
+of the will.
+
+Harry came down by the train in time for dinner. On the journey down he
+had been perplexed in his mind, thinking of various things. He did not
+quite understand why Mr. Scarborough had sent for him. His former
+intimacy had been with Augustus, and though there had been some
+cordiality of friendship shown by the old man to the son's companion, it
+had amounted to no more than might be expected from one who was notably
+good-natured. A great injury had been done to Harry, and he supposed
+that his visit must have some reference to that injury. He had been told
+in so many words that, come when he might, he would not find Augustus at
+Tretton. From this and from other signs he almost saw that there existed
+a quarrel between the squire and his son. Therefore he felt that
+something was to be said as to the state of his affairs at Buston.
+
+But if, as the train drew near to Tretton, he was anxious as to his
+meeting with the squire, he was much more so as to the captain. The
+reader will remember all the circumstances under which they two had last
+seen each other Harry had been furiously attacked by Mountjoy, and had
+then left him sprawling,--dead, as some folks had said on the following
+day,--under the rail. His only crime had been that he was drunk. If the
+disinherited one would give him his hand and let by-gones be by-gones,
+he would do the same. He felt no personal animosity. But there was a
+difficulty.
+
+As he was driven up to the door in a cab belonging to the squire there
+was Mountjoy, standing before the house. He too had thought of the
+difficulties, and had made up his mind that it would not do for him to
+meet his late foe without some few words intended for the making of
+peace. "I hope you are well, Mr. Annesley," he said, offering his hand
+as the other got out of the cab. "It may be as well that I should
+apologize at once for my conduct. I was at that moment considerably
+distressed, as you may have heard. I had been declared to be penniless,
+and to be nobody. The news had a little unmanned me, and I was beside
+myself."
+
+"I quite understand it; quite understand it," said Annesley, giving his
+hand. "I am very glad to see you back again, and in your father's
+house." Then Mountjoy turned on his heel, and went through the hall,
+leaving Harry to the care of the butler. The captain thought that he had
+done enough, and that the affair in the street might now be regarded as
+a dream. Harry was taken up to shake hands with the old man, and in due
+time came down to dinner, where he met Mr. Grey and the young doctor.
+They were all very civil to him, and upon the whole, he spent a pleasant
+evening. On the next day, about noon, the squire sent for him. He had
+been told at breakfast that it was the squire's intention to see him in
+the middle of the day, and he had been unable, therefore, to join
+Mountjoy's shooting-party.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Annesley," said the old man. "You were surprised, no
+doubt, when you got my invitation?"
+
+"Well, yes; perhaps so; but I thought it very kind."
+
+"I meant to be kind; but still, it requires some explanation. You see, I
+am such an old cripple that I cannot give invitations like anybody else.
+Now you are here I must not eat and drink with you, and in order to say
+a few words to you I am obliged to keep you in the house till the doctor
+tells me I am strong enough to talk."
+
+"I am glad to find you so much better than when I was here before."
+
+"I don't know much about that. There will never be a 'much better' in
+my case. The people about me talk with the utmost unconcern of whether I
+can live one month or possibly two. Anything beyond that is quite out of
+the question." The squire took a pride in making the worst of his case,
+so that the people to whom he talked should marvel the more at his
+vitality. "But we won't mind my health now. It is true, I fear, that you
+have quarrelled with your uncle."
+
+"It is quite true that he has quarrelled with me."
+
+"I am afraid that that is more important. He means, if he can, to cut
+you out of the entail."
+
+"He does not mean that I shall have the property if he can prevent it."
+
+"I don't think very much of entails myself," said the squire. "If a man
+has a property he should be able to leave it as he pleases; or--or else
+he doesn't have it."
+
+"That is what the law intends, I suppose," said Harry.
+
+"Just so; but the law is such an old woman that she never knows how to
+express herself to any purpose. I haven't allowed the law to bind me. I
+dare say you know the story."
+
+"About your two sons,--and the property? I think all the world knows the
+story."
+
+"I suppose it has been talked about a little," said the squire, with a
+chuckle. "My object has been to prevent the law from handing over my
+property to the fraudulent claims which my son's creditors were enabled
+to make, and I have succeeded fairly well. On that head I have nothing
+to regret. Now your uncle is going to take other means."
+
+"Yes; he is going to take means which, are, at any rate, lawful."
+
+"But which will be tedious, and may not, perhaps, succeed. He is
+intending to have an heir of his own."
+
+"That I believe is his purpose," said Harry.
+
+"There is no reason why he shouldn't;--but he mayn't, you know."
+
+"He is not married yet."
+
+"No;--he is not married yet. And then he has also stopped the allowance
+he used to make you." Harry nodded assent. "Now, all this is a great
+shame."
+
+"I think so."
+
+"The poor gentleman has been awfully bamboozled."
+
+"He is not so very old," said Harry, "I don't think he is more than
+fifty."
+
+"But he is an old goose. You'll excuse me, I know. Augustus Scarborough
+got him up to London, and filled him full of lies."
+
+"I am aware of it."
+
+"And so am I aware of it. He has told him stories as to your conduct
+with Mountjoy which, added to some youthful indiscretions of your own--"
+
+"It was simply because I didn't like to hear him read sermons."
+
+"That was an indiscretion, as he had the power in his hands to do you an
+injury. Most men have got some little bit of petty tyranny in their
+hearts. I have had none." To this Harry could only bow. "I let my two
+boys do as they pleased, only wishing that they should lead happy lives.
+I never made them listen to sermons, or even to lectures. Probably I was
+wrong. Had I tyrannized over them, they would not have tyrannized over
+me as they have done. Now I'll tell you what it is that I propose to do.
+I will write to your uncle, or will get Mr. Merton to write for me, and
+will explain to him, as well as I can, the depth, and the blackness, and
+the cruelty,--the unfathomable, heathen cruelty, together with the
+falsehoods, the premeditated lies, and the general rascality on all
+subjects,--of my son Augustus. I will explain to him that, of all men I
+know, he is the least trustworthy. I will explain to him that, if led in
+a matter of such importance by Augustus Scarborough, he will be surely
+led astray. And I think that between us,--between Merton and me, that
+is,--we can concoct a letter that shall be efficacious. But I will get
+Mountjoy also to go and see him, and explain to him out of his own mouth
+what in truth occurred that night when he and you fell out in the
+streets. Mr. Prosper must be a more vindictive man than I take him to be
+in regard to sermons if he will hold out after that." Then Mr.
+Scarborough allowed him to go out, and if possible find the shooters
+somewhere about the park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH GOES TO BUSTON.
+
+
+Mr. Grey returned to London after staying but one night, having received
+fresh instructions as to the will. The will was to be prepared at once,
+and Mr. Barry was to bring it down for execution. "Shall I not inform
+Augustus?" asked Mr. Grey.
+
+But this did not suit with Mr. Scarborough's views of revenge. "I think
+not. I would do by him whatever honesty requires; but I have never told
+him that I mean to leave him anything. Of course he knows that he is to
+have the estate. He is revelling in the future poverty of poor Mountjoy.
+He turned him out of his house just now because Mountjoy would not obey
+him by going to--Brazil. He would turn him out of this house if he could
+because I won't at once go--to the devil. He is something overmasterful,
+is Master Augustus, and a rub or two will do him good. I'd rather you
+wouldn't tell him, if you please." Then Mr. Grey departed, without
+making any promise, but he determined that he would be guided by the
+squire's wishes. Augustus Scarborough was not of a nature to excite very
+warmly the charity of any man.
+
+Harry remained for two or three days' shooting with Mountjoy, and once
+or twice he saw the squire again. "Merton and I have managed to concoct
+that letter," said the squire. "I'm afraid your uncle will find it
+rather long. Is he impatient of long letters?"
+
+"He likes long sermons."
+
+"If anybody will listen to his reading. I think you have a deal to
+answer for yourself, when you could not make so small a sacrifice to the
+man to whom you were to owe everything. But he ought to look for a wife
+in consequence of that crime, and not falsely allege another. If, as I
+fear, he finds the wife-plan troublesome, our letter may perhaps move
+him, and Mountjoy is to go down and open his eyes. Mountjoy hasn't made
+any difficulty about it."
+
+"I shall be greatly distressed--" Harry begun.
+
+"Not at all. He must go. I like to have my own way in these little
+matters. He owes you as much reparation as that, and we shall be able to
+see what members of the Scarborough family you would trust the most."
+
+Harry, during the two days, shot some hares in company with Mountjoy,
+but not a word more was said about the adventure in London. Nor was the
+name of Florence Mountjoy ever mentioned between the two suitors. "I'm
+going to Buston, you know," Mountjoy said once.
+
+"So your father told me."
+
+"What sort of a fellow shall I find your uncle?"
+
+"He's a gentleman, but not very wise." No more was said between them on
+that head, but Mountjoy spoke at great length about his own brother and
+his father's will.
+
+"My father is the most singular man you ever came across."
+
+"I think he is."
+
+"I am not going to say a good word for him. I wouldn't let him think
+that I had said a good word for him. In order to save the property he
+has maligned my mother, and has cheated me and the creditors most
+horribly--most infernally. That's my conviction, though Grey thinks
+otherwise. I can't forgive him,--and won't; and he knows it. But after
+that he is going to do the best thing he can for me. And he has begun by
+making me a decent allowance again as his son. But I'm to have that only
+as long as I remain here at Tretton. Of course I have been fond of
+cards."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Not a doubt of it. But I haven't touched a card now for a month nearly.
+And then he is going to leave me what property he has to leave. And he
+and my brother have paid off those Jews among them. I'm not a bit
+obliged to my brother. He's got some game of his own which I don't quite
+clearly see, and my father is doing this for me simply to spite my
+brother. He'd cut down every tree upon the place if Grey would allow it.
+And yet, to give Augustus the property, my father has done this gross
+injustice."
+
+"I suppose the money-lenders would have had the best of it had he not."
+
+"That's true. They would have had it all. They had measured every yard
+of it, and had got my name down for the full value. Now they're paid."
+
+"That's a comfort."
+
+"Nothing's a comfort. I know that they're right, and that if I got the
+money into my own hand it would be gone to-morrow. I should be off to
+Monte Carlo like a shot; and, of course it would go after the other.
+There is but one thing would redeem me."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Never mind. We won't talk of it." Then he was silent, but Harry
+Annesley knew very well that he had alluded to Florence Mountjoy.
+
+Then Harry went, and Mountjoy was left to the companionship of Mr.
+Merton, and such pleasure as he could find in a daily visit to his
+father. He was, at any rate, courteous in his manner to the old man, and
+abstained from those irritating speeches which Augustus had always
+chosen to make. He had on one occasion during this visit told his father
+what he thought about him, but this the squire had taken quite as a
+compliment.
+
+"I believe, you know, that you've done a monstrous injustice to
+everybody concerned."
+
+"I rather like doing what you call injustices."
+
+"You have set the law at defiance."
+
+"Well, yes; I think I have done that."
+
+"According to my belief, it's all untrue."
+
+"You mean about your mother. I like you for that; I do, indeed. I like
+you for sticking up for your poor mother. Well, now you shall have fifty
+pounds a month,--say twelve pounds ten a week,--as long as you remain at
+Tretton, and you may have whom you like here, as long as they bring no
+cards with them. And if you want to hunt there are horses, and if they
+ain't good enough you can get others. But if you go away from Tretton
+there's an end of it. It will all be stopped the next day."
+Nevertheless, he did make arrangements by which Mountjoy should proceed
+to Buston, stopping two nights as he went to London. "There isn't a club
+he can enter," said the squire, comforting himself, "nor a Jew that will
+lend him a five-pound note."
+
+Mountjoy had told the truth when he had said that nothing was a comfort.
+Though it seemed to his father and to the people around him at Tretton
+that he had everything that a man could want, he had, in fact,
+nothing,--nothing to satisfy him. In the first place, he was quite alive
+to the misery of that decision given by the world against him, which had
+been of such comfort to his father. Not a club in London would admit
+him. He had been proclaimed a defaulter after such a fashion that all
+his clubs had sent to him for some explanation; and as he had given
+none, and had not answered their letters, his name had been crossed out
+in the books of them all. He knew himself to be a man disgraced, and
+when he had fled from London he had gone under the conviction that he
+would certainly never return. There were the pistol and bullet as his
+last assured resource; but a certain amount of good-fortune had awaited
+him,--enough to save him from having recourse to their aid. His brother
+had supplied him with small sums of money, and from time to time a
+morsel of good luck had enabled him to gamble, not to his heart's
+content, but still in some manner so as to make his life bearable. But
+now he was back in his own country, and he could gamble not at all, and
+hardly even see those old companions with whom he had lived. It was not
+only for the card-tables that he sighed, but for the companions of the
+card-table. And though he knew that he had been scratched out from the
+lists of all clubs as a dishonest man, he knew also, or thought that he
+knew, that he had been as honest as the best of those companions. As
+long as he could by any possibility raise money he had paid it away,
+and by no false trick had he ever endeavored to get it back again.
+
+Had a little time been allowed him all would have been paid; and all had
+been paid. He knew that by the rules of such institutions time could not
+be granted; but still he did not feel himself to have been a dishonest
+man. Yet he had been so disgraced that he could hardly venture to walk
+about the streets of London in the daylight. And then there came upon
+him, when he found himself alone at Tretton, an irrepressible desire for
+gambling. It was as though his throat were parched with an implacable
+thirst. He walked about ever meditating certain fortunate turns of the
+cards; and when he had worked himself up to some realization of his old
+excitement he would remember that it was all a vain and empty bubble. He
+had money in his pocket, and could rush up to London if he would, and if
+he did so he could, no doubt, find some coarse hell at which he could
+stake it till it would be all gone; but the gates of the A---- and the
+B---- and the C---- would be closed against him; and he would then be
+driven to feel that he had indeed fallen into the nethermost pit. Were
+he once to play at such places as his mind painted to him he could never
+play at any other; and yet when the day drew nigh on which he was to go
+to London, on his way to Buston, he did bethink himself where these
+places were to be found. His throat was parched, and the thirst upon him
+was extreme. Cards were the weapons he had used. He had played ecarte,
+piquet, whist, and baccarat, with an occasional night of some foolish
+game such as cribbage or vingt-et-un. Though he had always lost, he had
+always played with men who had played honestly. There is much that is,
+in truth, dishonest even in honest play. A man who can keep himself
+sober after dinner plays with one who flusters himself with drink. The
+man with a trained memory plays with him who cannot remember a card. The
+cool man plays with the impetuous; the man who can hold his tongue with
+him who cannot but talk; the man whose practised face will tell no
+secrets with him who loses a point every rubber by his uncontrolled
+grimaces. And then there is the man who knows the game, and plays with
+him who knows it not at all. Of course, the cool, the collected, the
+thoughtful, the practised,--they who have given up their whole souls to
+the study of cards,--will play at a great advantage, which in their
+calculations they do not fail to recognize. See the man standing by and
+watching the table, and leaving all the bets he can on A and B as against
+C and D; and, however ignorant you may be, you will soon become sure
+that A and B know the game, whereas C and D are simply infants. That is
+all fair and acknowledged; but looking at it from a distance, as you lie
+under your apple-trees in your orchard, far from the shout of "Two by
+honors," you will come to doubt the honesty of making your income after
+such a fashion.
+
+Such as it is, Mountjoy sighed for it bitterly,--sighed for it, but could
+not see where it was to be found. He had a gentleman's horror of those
+resorts in gin-shops, or kept by the disciples of gin-shops, where he
+would surely be robbed,--which did not appal him,--but robbed in bad
+company. Thinking of all this, he went up to London late in the
+afternoon, and spent an uncomfortable evening in town. It was absolutely
+innocent as regarded the doings of the night itself, but was terrible to
+him. There was a slow drizzling rain; but not the less after dinner at
+his hotel he started off to wander through the streets. With his
+great-coat and his umbrella he was almost hidden; and as he passed
+through Pall Mall, up St. James's Street, and along Piccadilly, he could
+pause and look in at the accustomed door. He saw men entering whom he
+knew, and knew that within five minutes they could be seated at their
+tables. "I had an awfully heavy time of it last night," one said to
+another as he went up the steps; and Mountjoy, as he heard the words,
+envied the speaker. Then he passed back and went again a tour of all the
+clubs. What had he done that he, like a poor Peri, should be unable to
+enter the gates of all these paradises? He had now in his pocket fifty
+pounds. Could he have been made absolutely certain that he would have
+lost it, he would have gone into any paradise and have staked his money
+with that certainty.
+
+At last, having turned up Waterloo Place, he saw a man standing in the
+door-way of one of these palaces, and he was aware at once that the man
+had seen him. He was a man of such a nature that it would be impossible
+that he should have seen a worse. He was a small, dry, good-looking
+little fellow, with a carefully preserved mustache, and a head from the
+top of which age was beginning to move the hair. He lived by cards, and
+lived well. He was called Captain Vignolles, but it was only known of
+him that he was a professional gambler. He probably never cheated. Men
+who play at the clubs scarcely ever cheat,--there are so many with whom
+they play sharp enough to discover them; and with the discovered gambler
+all in this world is over. Captain Vignolles never cheated; but he found
+that an obedience to those little rules which I have named above stood
+him well in lieu of cheating. He was not known to have any particular
+income, but he was known to live on the best of everything as far as
+club life was concerned.
+
+He immediately followed Mountjoy down into the street and greeted him.
+"Captain Scarborough as I am a living man!"
+
+"Well, Vignolles; how are you?"
+
+"And so you have come back once more to the land of the living! I was
+awfully sorry for you, and think that they treated you uncommon harshly.
+As you've paid your money, of course they'll let you in again." In
+answer to this, Mountjoy had very little to say: but the interview ended
+by his accepting an invitation from Captain Vignolles to supper for the
+following evening. If Captain Scarborough would come at eleven o'clock
+Captain Vignolles would ask a few fellows to meet him, and they would
+have--just a little rubber of whist. Mountjoy knew well the nature of
+the man who asked him, and understood perfectly what would be the
+result; but there thrilled through his bosom, as he accepted the
+invitation, a sense of joy which he could himself hardly understand.
+
+On the following morning Mountjoy was up, for him, very early, and
+taking a return ticket went down to Buston. He had written to Mr.
+Prosper, sending his compliments, and saying that he would do himself
+the honor of calling at a certain hour.
+
+At the hour named he drew up at Buston Hall in a fly from Buntingford
+Station, and was told by Matthew, the old butler, that his master was at
+home. If Captain Mountjoy would step into the drawing-room Mr. Prosper
+should be informed. Mountjoy did as he was bidden, and after half an
+hour he was joined by Mr. Prosper. "You have received a letter from my
+father," he began by saying.
+
+"A very long letter," said the Squire of Buston.
+
+"I dare say; I did not see it, and have in fact very little to say as to
+its contents. I do not know, indeed, what they were."
+
+"The letter refers to my nephew, Mr. Henry Annesley."
+
+"I suppose so. What I have to say refers to Mr. Henry Annesley also."
+
+"You are kind,--very kind."
+
+"I don't know about that; but I have come altogether at my father's
+instance, and I think, indeed, that, in fairness, I ought to tell you
+the truth as to what took place between me and your nephew."
+
+"You are very good; but your father has already given me his
+account,--and I suppose yours."
+
+"I don't know what my father may have done, but I think that you ought
+to desire to hear from my lips an account of the transaction. An untrue
+account has been told to you."
+
+"I have heard it all from your own brother."
+
+"An untrue account has been told to you. I attacked your nephew."
+
+"What made you do that?" asked the squire.
+
+"That has nothing to do with it; but I did."
+
+"I understood all that before."
+
+"But you didn't understand that Mr. Annesley behaved perfectly well in
+all that occurred."
+
+"Did he tell a lie about it afterward?"
+
+"My brother no doubt lured him on to make an untrue statement."
+
+"A lie!"
+
+"You may call it so if you will. If you think that Augustus was to have
+it all his own way, I disagree with you altogether. In point of fact,
+your nephew behaved through the whole of that matter as well as a man
+could do. Practically, he told no lie at all. He did just what a man
+ought to do, and anything that you have heard to the contrary is
+calumnious and false. As I am told that you have been led by my
+brother's statement to disinherit your nephew--"
+
+"I have done nothing of the kind."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. He has not, at any rate, deserved it; and I
+have felt it to be my duty to come and tell you."
+
+Then Mountjoy retired, not without hospitality having been coldly
+offered by Mr. Prosper, and went back to Buntingford and to London. Now
+at last would come, he said to himself through the whole afternoon, now
+at last would come a repetition of those joys for which his very soul
+had sighed so eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS.
+
+
+Mountjoy, when he reached Captain Vignolles's rooms, was received
+apparently with great indifference. "I didn't feel at all sure you
+would come. But there is a bit of supper, if you like to stay. I saw
+Moody this morning, and he said he would look in if he was passing this
+way. Now sit down and tell me what you have been doing since you
+disappeared in that remarkable manner." This was not at all what
+Mountjoy had expected, but he could only sit down and say that he had
+done nothing in particular. Of all club men, Captain Vignolles would be
+the worst with whom to play alone during the entire evening. And
+Mountjoy remembered now that he had never been inside four walls with
+Vignolles except at a club. Vignolles regarded him simply as a piece of
+prey whom chance had thrown up on the shore. And Moody, who would no
+doubt show himself before long, was another bird of the same covey,
+though less rapacious. Mountjoy put his hand up to his breast-pocket,
+and knew that the fifty pounds was there, but he knew also that it would
+soon be gone.
+
+Even to him it seemed to be expedient to get up and at once to go. What
+delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face
+opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that
+of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance of the room, no
+pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality
+with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed
+his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent
+who would be as reckless as was he himself. He looked round. The room
+was gloomy and uncomfortable. Captain Vignolles watched him, and was
+afraid that his prey was about to escape. "Won't you light a cigar?"
+Mountjoy took the cigar, and then felt that he could not go quite at
+once. "I suppose you went to Monaco?"
+
+"I was there for a short time."
+
+"Monaco isn't bad,--though there is, of course, the pull which the tables
+have against you. But it's a grand thing to think that skill can be of
+no avail. I often think that I ought to play nothing but rouge et noir."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; I. I don't deny that I'm the luckiest fellow going; but I never
+can remember cards. Of course I know my trade. Every fellow knows his
+trade, and I'm up pretty nearly in all that the books tell you."
+
+"That's a great deal."
+
+"Not when you come to play with men who know what play is. Look at
+Grossengrannel. I'd sooner bet on him than any man in London.
+Grossengrannel never forgets a card. I'll bet a hundred pounds that he
+knows the best card in every suit throughout the entire day's play.
+That's his secret. He gives his mind to it,--which I can't. Hang it! I'm
+always thinking of something quite different,--of what I'm going to eat,
+or that sort of thing. Grossengrannel is always looking at the cards,
+and he wins the odd rubber out of every eleven by his attention. Shall
+we have a game of piquet?"
+
+Now on the moment, in spite of all that he had felt during the entire
+day, in the teeth of all his longings, in opposition to all his thirst,
+Mountjoy for a minute or two did think that he could rise and go. His
+father was about to put him on his legs again,--if only he would abstain.
+But Vignolles had the card-table open, with clean packs, and chairs at
+the corners, before he could decide. "What is it to be? Twos on the game
+I suppose." But Mountjoy would not play piquet. He named ecarte, and
+asked that it might be only ten shillings a game. It was many months now
+since he had played a game of ecarte. "Oh, hang it!" said Vignolles,
+still holding the pack in his hands. When thus appealed to Mountjoy
+relented, and agreed that a pound should be staked on each game. When
+they had played seven games Vignolles had won but one pound, and
+expressed an opinion that that kind of thing wouldn't suit them at all.
+"School-girls would do better," he said. Then Mountjoy pushed back his
+chair as though to go, when the door opened and Major Moody entered the
+room. "Now we'll have a rubber at dummy," said Captain Vignolles.
+
+Major Moody was a gray-headed old man of about sixty, who played his
+cards with great attention, and never spoke a word,--either then or at
+any other period of his life. He was the most taciturn of men, and was
+known not at all to any of his companions. It was rumored of him that he
+had a wife at home, whom he kept in moderate comfort on his winnings. It
+seemed to be the sole desire of his heart to play with reckless, foolish
+young men, who up to a certain point did not care what they lost. He was
+popular, as being always ready to oblige every one, and, as was
+frequently said of him, was the very soul of honor. He certainly got no
+amusement from the play, working at it very hard,--and very constantly.
+No one ever saw him anywhere but at the club. At eight o'clock he went
+home to dinner, let us hope to the wife of his bosom, and at eleven he
+returned, and remained as long as there were men to play with. A tedious
+and unsatisfactory life he had, and it would have been well for him
+could his friends have procured on his behoof the comparative ease of a
+stool in a counting-house. But, as no such Elysium was opened to him,
+the major went on accepting the smaller profits and the harder work of
+club life. In what regiment he had been a major no one knew or cared to
+inquire. He had been received as Major Moody for twenty years or more,
+and twenty years is surely time enough to settle a man's claim to a
+majority without reference to the Army List.
+
+"How are you, Major Moody?" asked Mountjoy.
+
+"Not much to boast of. I hope you're pretty well, Captain Scarborough."
+Beyond that there was no word of salutation, and no reference to
+Mountjoy's wonderful absence.
+
+"What's it to be:--twos and tens?" said Captain Vignolles, arranging the
+cards and the chairs.
+
+"Not for me," said Mountjoy, who seemed to have been enveloped by a most
+unusual prudence.
+
+"What! are you afraid,--you who used to fear neither man nor devil?"
+
+"There is so much in not being accustomed to it," said Mountjoy. "I
+haven't played a game of whist since I don't knew when."
+
+"Twos and tens is heavy against dummy," said Major Moody.
+
+"I'll take dummy, if you like it," said Vignolles. Moody only looked at
+him.
+
+"We'll each have our own dummy, of course," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Just as you please," said Vignolles. "I'm host here, and of course will
+give way to anything you may propose. What's it to be, Scarborough?"
+
+"Pounds and fives. I shan't play higher than that." There came across
+Mountjoy's mind, as he stated the stakes for which he consented to play,
+a remembrance that in the old days he had always been called Captain
+Scarborough by this man who now left out the captain. Of course he had
+fallen since that,--fallen very low. He ought to feel obliged to any man,
+who had in the old days been a member of the same club with him, who
+would now greet him with the familiarity of his unadorned name. But the
+remembrance of the old sounds came back upon his ear; and the
+consciousness that, before his father's treatment of him, he had been
+known to the world at large as Captain Scarborough, of Tretton.
+
+"Well, well; pounds and fives," said Vignolles. "It's better than
+pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game. Of course a man could win
+something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate
+so quickly it amounts to nothing. You've got the first dummy,
+Scarborough. Where will you sit? Which cards will you take? I do believe
+that at whist everything depends upon the cards,--or else on the hinges.
+I've known eleven rubbers running to follow the hinges. People laugh at
+me because I believe in luck. I speak as I find it; that's all. You've
+turned up an honor already. When a man begins with an honor he'll always
+go on with honors; that's my observation. I know you're pretty good at
+this game, Moody, so I'll leave it to you to arrange the play, and will
+follow up as well as I can. You lead up to the weak, of course." This
+was not said till the card was out of his partner's hand. "But when your
+adversary has got ace, king, queen in his own hand there is no weak.
+Well, we've saved that, and it's as much as we can expect. If I'd begun
+by leading a trump it would have been all over with us. Won't you light
+a cigar, Moody?"
+
+"I never smoke at cards."
+
+"That's all very well for the club, but you might relax a little here.
+Scarborough will take another cigar." But even Mountjoy was too prudent.
+He did not take the cigar, but he did win the rubber. "You're in for a
+good thing to-night, I feel as certain of it as though the money were in
+your pocket."
+
+Mountjoy, though he would not smoke, did drink. What would they have,
+asked Vignolles. There was champagne, and whiskey, and brandy. He was
+afraid there was no other wine. He opened a bottle of champagne, and
+Mountjoy took the tumbler that was filled for him. He always drank
+whiskey-and-water himself,--so he said, and filled for himself a glass in
+which he poured a very small allowance of alcohol. Major Moody asked for
+barley-water. As there was none, he contented himself with sipping
+Apollinaris.
+
+A close record of the events of that evening would make but a tedious
+tale for readers. Mountjoy of course lost his fifty pounds. Alas! he
+lost much more than his fifty pounds. The old spirit soon came upon him,
+and the remembrance of what his father was to do for him passed away
+from him, and all thoughts of his adversaries,--who and what they were.
+The major pertinaciously refused to increase his stakes, and, worse
+again, refused to play for anything but ready money. "It's a kind of
+thing I never do. You may think me very odd, but it's a kind of thing I
+never do." It was the longest speech he made through the entire evening.
+Vignolles reminded him that he did in fact play on credit at the club.
+"The committee look to that," he murmured, and shook his head. Then
+Vignolles offered again to take the dummy, so that there should be no
+necessity for Moody and Scarborough to play against each other, and
+offered to give one point every other rubber as the price to be paid for
+the advantage. But Moody, whose success for the night was assured by the
+thirty pounds which he had in his pocket, would come to no terms. "You
+mean to say you're going to break us up," said Vignolles. "That'll be
+hard on Scarborough."
+
+"I'll go on for money," said the immovable major.
+
+"I suppose you won't have it out with me at double dummy?" said
+Vignolles to his victim. "But double dummy is a terrible grind at this
+time of night." And he pushed all the cards up together, so as to show
+that the amusement for the night was over. He too saw the difficulty
+which Moody so pertinaciously avoided. He had been told wondrous things
+of the old squire's intentions toward his eldest son, but he had been
+told them only by that eldest son himself. No doubt he could go on
+winning. Unless in the teeth of a most obstinate run of cards, he would
+be sure to win against Scarborough's apparent forgetfulness of all
+rules, and ignorance of the peculiarities of the game he was playing.
+But he would more probably obtain payment of the two hundred and thirty
+pounds now due to him,--that or nearly that,--than of a larger sum. He
+already had in his possession the other twenty pounds which poor
+Mountjoy had brought with him. So he let the victim go. Moody went
+first, and Vignolles then demanded the performance of a small ceremony.
+"Just put your name to that," said Vignolles. It was a written promise
+to pay to Captain Vignolles the exact sum of two hundred and
+twenty-seven pounds on or before that day week. "You'll be punctual,
+won't you?"
+
+"Of course I'll be punctual," said Mountjoy, scowling.
+
+"Well, yes; no doubt. But there have been mistakes."
+
+"I tell you you'll be paid. Why the devil did you win it of me if you
+doubt it?"
+
+"I saw you just roaming about, and I meant to be good-natured."
+
+"You know as well as any man what chances you should run, and when to
+hold your hand. If you tell me about mistakes, I shall make it
+personal."
+
+"I didn't say anything, Scarborough, that ought to be taken up in that
+way."
+
+"Hang your Scarborough! When one gentleman talks another about mistakes
+he means something." Then he smashed down his hat upon his head and left
+the room.
+
+Vignolles emptied the bottle of champagne, in which one glass was left,
+and sat himself down with the document in his hand. "Just the same
+fellow," he said to himself; "overbearing, reckless, pig-headed, and a
+bully. He'd lose the Bank of England if he had it. But then he don't
+pay! He hasn't a scruple about that. If I lose I have to pay. By Jove,
+yes! Never didn't pay a shilling I lost in my life! It's deuced hard,
+when a fellow is on the square like that, to make two ends meet when he
+comes across defaulters. Those fellows should be hung. They're the very
+scum of the earth. Talk of welchers! They're worse than any welcher.
+Welcher is a thing you needn't have to do with if you're careful. But
+when a fellow turns round upon you as a defaulter at cards, there is no
+getting rid of him. Where the play is all straightforward and honorable,
+a defaulter when he shows himself ought to be well-nigh murdered."
+
+Such were Captain Vignolles's plaints to himself, as he sat there
+looking at the suspicious document which Mountjoy had left in his hands.
+To him it was a fact that he had been cruelly used in having such a bit
+of paper thrust upon him instead of being paid by a check which on the
+morning would be honored. And as he thought of his own career; his
+ready-money payments; his obedience to certain rules of the game,--rules,
+I mean, against cheating; as he thought of his hands, which in his own
+estimation were beautifully clean; his diligence in his profession,
+which to him was honorable; his hard work; his late hours; his devotion
+to a task which was often tedious; his many periods of heart-rending
+loss, which when they occurred would drive him nearly mad; his small
+customary gains; his inability to put by anything for old age; of the
+narrow edge by which he himself was occasionally divided from
+defalcation, he spoke to himself of himself as of an honest,
+hard-working professional man upon whom the world was peculiarly hard.
+
+But Major Moody went home to his wife quite content with the thirty
+pounds which he had won.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+MR. PROSPER IS VISITED BY HIS LAWYERS.
+
+
+Mr. Prosper had not been in good spirits at the time at which Mountjoy
+Scarborough had visited him. He had received some time previously a
+letter from Mr. Grey, as described in a previous chapter, and had also
+known exactly what proposal had been made by Mr. Grey to Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson. An equal division of the lady's income, one half to go to the
+lady herself, and the other half to Mr. Prosper, with an annuity of two
+hundred and fifty pounds out of the estate for the lady if Mr. Prosper
+should die first: these were the terms which had been offered to Miss
+Thoroughbung with the object of inducing her to become the wife of Mr.
+Prosper. But to these terms Miss Thoroughbung had declined to accede,
+and had gone about the arrangement of her money-matters in a most
+precise and business-like manner. A third of her income she would give
+up, since Mr. Prosper desired it; but more than that she "would owe it
+to herself and her friends to decline to abandon." The payment for the
+fish and the champagne must be omitted from any agreement on her part.
+As to the ponies, and their harness, and the pony-carriage, she would
+supply them. The ponies and the carriage would be indispensable to her
+happiness. But the maintenance of the ponies must be left to Mr.
+Prosper. As for the dower, she could not consent to accept less than
+four hundred--or five hundred, if no house was to be provided. She
+thought that seven hundred and fifty would be little enough if there
+were no children, as in that case there was no heir for whom Mr. Prosper
+was especially anxious. But as there probably would be children, Miss
+Thoroughbung thought that this was a matter to which Mr. Prosper would
+not give much consideration. Throughout it all she maintained a
+beautiful equanimity, and made two or three efforts to induce Mr.
+Prosper to repeat his visit to Marmaduke Lodge. She herself wrote to him
+saying that she thought it odd that, considering their near alliance, he
+should not come and see her. Once she said that she had heard that he
+was ill, and offered to go to Buston Hall to visit him.
+
+All this was extremely distressing to a gentleman of Mr. Prosper's
+delicate feelings. As to the proposals in regard to money, the letters
+from Soames & Simpson to Grey & Barry, all of which came down to Buston
+Hall, seemed to be innumerable.
+
+With Soames & Simpson Mr. Prosper declined to have any personal
+communication. But every letter from the Buntingford attorneys was
+accompanied by a farther letter from the London attorneys, till the
+correspondence became insupportable. Mr. Prosper was not strong enough
+to stick firmly to his guns as planted for him by Messrs. Grey & Barry.
+He did give way in some matters, and hence arose renewed letters which
+nearly drove him mad. Messrs. Soames & Simpson's client was willing to
+accept four hundred pounds as the amount of the dower without reference
+to the house, and to this Mr. Prosper yielded. He did not much care
+about any heir as yet unborn, and felt by no means so certain in regard
+to children as did the lady. But he fought hard about the ponies. He
+could not undertake that his wife should have ponies. That must be left
+to him as master of the house. He thought that a pair of carriage-horses
+for her use would be sufficient. He had always kept a carriage, and
+intended to do so. She might bring her ponies if she pleased, but if he
+thought well to part with them he would sell them. He found himself
+getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire, till he began to doubt
+whether he should be able to extricate himself unmarried if he were
+anxious to do so. And all the while there came affectionate little notes
+from Miss Thoroughbung asking after his health, and recommending him
+what to take, till he entertained serious thoughts of going to Cairo for
+the winter.
+
+Then Mr. Barry came down to see him after Mountjoy had made his visit.
+It was now January, and the bargaining about the marriage had gone on
+for more than two months. The letter which he had received from the
+Squire of Tretton had moved him; but he had told himself that the
+property was his own, and that he had a right to enjoy it as he liked
+best.
+
+Whatever might have been Harry's faults in regard to that midnight
+affair, it had certainly been true that he had declined to hear the
+sermons. Mr. Prosper did not exactly mention the sermons to himself, but
+there was present to him a feeling that his heir had been wilfully
+disobedient, and the sermons no doubt had been the cause. When he had
+read the old squire's letter he did not as yet wish to forgive his
+nephew. He was becoming very tired of his courtship, but in his
+estimation the wife would be better than the nephew. Though he had been
+much put out by the precocity of that embrace, there was nevertheless a
+sweetness about it which lingered on his lips. Then Mountjoy had come
+down, and he had answered Mountjoy very stoutly: "A lie!" he had
+exclaimed. "Did he tell a lie?" he had asked, as though all must be over
+with a young man who had once allowed himself to depart from the rigid
+truth. Mountjoy had made what excuse he could, but Mr. Prosper had been
+very stern.
+
+On the very day after Mountjoy's coming Mr. Barry came. His visit had
+been arranged, and Mr. Prosper was, with great care, prepared to
+encounter him. He was wrapped in his best dressing-gown, and Matthew had
+shaved him with the greatest care. The girls over at the parsonage
+declared that their uncle had sent into Buntingford for a special pot of
+pomatum. The story was told to Joe Thoroughbung in order that it might
+be passed on to his aunt, and no doubt it did travel as it was intended.
+But Miss Thoroughbung cared nothing for the pomatum with which the
+lawyer from London was to be received. It would be very hard to laugh
+her out of her lover while the title-deeds to Buston held good. But Mr.
+Prosper had felt that it would be necessary to look his best, so that
+his marriage might be justified in the eyes of the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Barry was shown into the book-room at Buston, in which Mr. Prosper
+was seated ready to receive him. The two gentlemen had never before met
+each other, and Mr. Prosper did no doubt assume something of the manner
+of an aristocratic owner of land. He would not have done so had Mr. Grey
+come in his partner's place. But there was a humility about Mr. Barry on
+an occasion such as the present, which justified a little pride on the
+part of the client. "I am sorry to give you the trouble to come down,
+Mr. Barry," he said. "I hope the servant has shown you your room."
+
+"I shall be back in London to-day, Mr. Prosper, thank you. I must see
+these lawyers here, and when I have received your final instructions I
+will return to Buntingford." Then Mr. Prosper pressed him much to stay.
+He had quite expected, he said, that Mr. Barry would have done him the
+pleasure of remaining at any rate one night at Buston. But Mr. Barry
+settled the question by saying that he had not brought a dress-coat. Mr.
+Prosper did not care to sit down to dinner with guests who did not bring
+their dress-coats. "And now," continued Mr. Barry, "what final
+instructions are we to give to Soames & Simpson?"
+
+"I don't think much of Messrs. Soames & Simpson."
+
+"I believe they have the name of being honest practitioners."
+
+"I dare say; I do not in the least doubt it. But they are people to whom
+I am not at all desirous of intrusting my own private affairs. Messrs.
+Soames & Simpson have not, I think, a large county business. I had no
+idea that Miss Thoroughbung would have put this affair into their
+hands."
+
+"Just so, Mr. Prosper. But I suppose it was necessary for her to employ
+somebody. There has been a good deal of correspondence."
+
+"Indeed there has, Mr. Barry."
+
+"It has not been our fault, Mr. Prosper. Now what we have got to decide
+is this: What are the final terms which you mean to propose? I think,
+sir, the time has come when some final terms should be suggested."
+
+"Just so. Final terms--must be what you call--the very last. That is,
+when they have once been offered, you must--must--"
+
+"Just stick to them, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"Exactly, Mr. Barry. That is what I intend. There is nothing I dislike
+so much as this haggling about money, especially with a lady. Miss
+Thoroughbung is a lady for whom I have the highest possible esteem."
+
+"That's of course."
+
+"For whom, I repeat, I have the highest possible esteem. But she has
+friends who have their own ideas as to money. The brewery in Buntingford
+belongs to them, and they are very worthy people. I should explain to
+you, Mr. Barry, as you are my confidential adviser, that were I about to
+form a matrimonial alliance in the heyday of my youth, I should probably
+not have thought of connecting myself with the Thoroughbungs. As I have
+said before, they are most respectable people; but they do not exactly
+belong to that class in which I should, under those circumstances, have
+looked for a wife. I might probably have ventured to ask for the hand of
+the daughter of some county family. But years have slipped by me, and
+now wishing in middle life to procure for myself the comfort of wedded
+happiness, I have looked about, and have found no one more likely to
+give it me, than Miss Thoroughbung. Her temper is excellent, and her
+person pleasing." Mr. Prosper, as he said this, thought of the kiss
+which had been bestowed upon him. "Her wit is vivacious, and I think
+that upon the whole she will be desirable as a companion. She will not
+come to this house empty-handed; but of her pecuniary affairs you
+already know so much that I need, perhaps, tell you nothing farther.
+But though I am exceedingly desirous to make this lady my wife, and am,
+I may say, warmly attached to her, there are certain points which I
+cannot sacrifice. Now about the ponies--"
+
+"I think I understand about the ponies. She may bring them on trial."
+
+"I'm not to be bound to keep any ponies at all. There are a pair of
+carriage-horses which must suffice. On second thoughts, she had better
+not bring the ponies." This decision had at last come from some little
+doubt on his mind as to whether he was treating Harry justly.
+
+"And four hundred pounds is the sum fixed on for her jointure."
+
+"She is to have her own money for her own life," said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"That's a matter of course."
+
+"Don't you think that, under these circumstances, four hundred will be
+quite enough?"
+
+"Quite enough, if you ask me. But we must decide."
+
+"Four hundred it shall be."
+
+"And she is to have two-thirds of her own money for her own expenses
+during your life?" asked Mr. Barry.
+
+"I don't see why she should want six hundred a year for herself; I don't
+indeed. I am afraid it will only lead to extravagance!" Barry assumed a
+look of despair. "Of course, as I have said so, I will not go back from
+my word. She shall have two-thirds. But about the ponies my mind is
+quite made up. There shall be no ponies at Buston. I hope you understand
+that, Mr. Barry?" Mr. Barry said that he did understand it well, and
+then, folding up his papers, prepared to go, congratulating himself that
+he would not have to pass a long evening at Buston Hall.
+
+But before he went, and when he had already put on his great-coat in the
+hall, Mr. Prosper called him back to ask him one farther question; and
+for that purpose he shut the door carefully, and uttered his words in a
+whisper. Did Mr. Barry know anything of the life and recent adventures
+of Mr. Henry Annesley? Mr. Barry knew nothing; but he thought that his
+partner, Mr. Grey, knew something. He had heard Mr. Grey mention the
+name of Mr. Henry Annesley. Then as he stood there, enveloped in his
+great-coat, with his horse standing in the cold, Mr. Prosper told him
+much of the story of Harry Annesley, and asked him to induce Mr. Grey to
+write and tell him what he thought of Harry's conduct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+MR. PROSPER'S TROUBLES.
+
+
+As Mr. Prosper sunk into his arm-chair after the fatigue of the
+interview with his lawyer, he reflected that, when all was considered,
+Harry Annesley was an ungrateful pig,--it was thus he called him,--and
+that Miss Thoroughbung had many attractions. Miss Thoroughbung had
+probably done well to kiss him, though the enterprise had not been
+without its peculiar dangers. He often thought of it when alone, and, as
+"distance lent enchantment to the view," he longed to have the
+experiment repeated. Perhaps she had been right. And it would be a good
+thing, certainly, to have dear little children of his own. Miss
+Thoroughbung felt very certain on the subject, and it would be foolish
+for him to doubt. Then he thought of the difference between a pretty
+fair haired little boy and that ungrateful pig, Harry Annesley. He told
+himself that he was very fond of children. The girls over at the
+parsonage would not have said so, but they probably did not know his
+character.
+
+When Harry had come back with his fellowship, his uncle had for a few
+weeks been very proud of him,--had declared that he should never be
+called upon to earn his bread, and had allowed him two hundred and fifty
+pounds a year to begin with: but no return had been made to this favor.
+Harry had walked in and out of the Hall as though it had already
+belonged to him,--as many a father delights to see his eldest son doing.
+But the uncle in this instance had not taken any delight in seeing it.
+An uncle is different from a father,--an uncle who has never had a child
+of his own. He wanted deference,--what he would have called respect;
+while Harry was at first prepared to give him a familiar affection based
+on equality,--on an equality in money matters and worldly
+interests,--though I fear that Harry allowed to be seen his own
+intellectual superiority. Mr. Prosper, though an ignorant man, and by no
+means clever, was not such a fool as not to see all this. Then had come
+the persistent refusal to hear the sermons, and Mr. Prosper had
+sorrowfully declared to himself that his heir was not the young man that
+he should have been.
+
+He did not then think of marrying, nor did he stop the allowance; but he
+did feel that his heir was not what he should have been. But then the
+terrible disgrace of that night in London had occurred, and his eyes
+had been altogether opened by that excellent young man, Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough; then he began to look about him. Then dim ideas of the
+charms and immediate wealth of Miss Thoroughbung flitted before his
+eyes, and he told himself again and again of the prospects and undoubted
+good birth of Miss Puffle. Miss Puffle had disgraced herself, and
+therefore he had thrown Buston Hall at the feet of Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+But now he had heard stories about that "excellent young man, Augustus
+Scarborough," which had shaken his faith. He had been able to exclaim
+indignantly that Harry Annesley had told a lie. "A lie!" He had been
+surprised to find that a young man who had lived so much in the
+fashionable world as Captain Scarborough had cared nothing for this. And
+as Miss Thoroughbung became more and more exacting in regard to money,
+he thought, himself, less and less of the lie. It might be well that
+Harry should ultimately have the property, though he should never again
+be taken into favor, and there should be no farther question of the
+allowance. As Miss Thoroughbung reiterated her demands for the ponies,
+he began to feel that the acres of Buston would not be disgraced forever
+by the telling of that lie. But the sermons remained, and he would never
+willingly again see his nephew. As he turned all this in his mind, the
+idea of spending what was left of the winter at Cairo returned to him.
+He would go to Cairo for the winter, and to the Italian lakes for the
+spring, and to Switzerland for the summer. Then he might return to
+Cairo. At the present moment Buston Hall and the neighborhood of
+Buntingford had few charms for him. He was afraid that Miss Thoroughbung
+would not give way about the ponies; and against the ponies he was
+resolved.
+
+He was sitting in this state with a map before him, and with the
+squire's letter upon the map, when Matthew, the butler, opened the door
+and announced a visitor. As soon as Mr. Barry had gone, he had supported
+nature by a mutton-chop and a glass of sherry, and the debris were now
+lying on the side-table. His first idea was to bid Matthew at once
+remove the glass and the bone, and the unfinished potato and the crust
+of bread. To be taken with such remnants by any visitor would be bad,
+but by this visitor would be dreadful. Lunch should be eaten in the
+dining-room, where chop bones and dirty glasses would be in their place.
+But here in his book-room they would be disgraceful. But then, as
+Matthew was hurriedly collecting the two plates and the salt-cellar, his
+master began to doubt whether this visitor should be received at all.
+It was no other than Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+Mr. Prosper, in order to excuse his slackness in calling on the lady,
+had let it be known that he was not quite well, and Miss Thoroughbung
+had responded to this move by offering her services as nurse to her
+lover. He had then written to herself that, though he had been a little
+unwell, "suffering from a cold in the chest, to which at this inclement
+season of the year it was peculiarly liable," he was not in need of
+anything beyond a little personal attention, and would not trouble her
+for those services, for the offer of which he was bound to be peculiarly
+grateful. Thus he had thought to keep Miss Thoroughbung at a distance;
+but here she was with those hated ponies at his very door. "Matthew," he
+said, making a confidant, in the distress of the moment of his butler,
+"I don't think I can see her."
+
+"You must, sir; indeed you must."
+
+"Must!"
+
+"Well, yes; I'm afraid so. Considering all things,--the matrimonial
+prospects and the rest of it,--I think you must, sir."
+
+"She hasn't a right to come here, you know,--as yet." It will be
+understood that Mr. Prosper was considerably discomposed when he spoke
+with such familiar confidence to his servant. "She needn't come in here,
+at any rate."
+
+"In the drawing-room, if I might be allowed to suggest, sir."
+
+"Show Miss Thoroughbung into the drawing-room," said he with all his
+dignity. Then Matthew retired, and the Squire of Buston felt that five
+minutes might be allowed to collect himself, and the mutton-chop bone
+need not be removed.
+
+When the five minutes were over, with slow steps he walked across the
+intervening billiard-room, and slowly opened the drawing-room door.
+Would she rush into his arms, and kiss him again as he entered? He
+sincerely hoped that there would be no such attempt; but if there were,
+he was sternly resolved to repudiate it. There should be nothing of the
+kind till she had clearly declared, and had put it under writing by
+herself and her lawyers, that she would consent to come to Buston
+without the ponies. But there was no such attempt. "How do you do, Mr.
+Prosper?" she said, in a loud voice, standing up in the middle of the
+room. "Why don't you ever come and see me? I take it very ill of you;
+and so does Miss Tickle. There is no one more partial to you than Miss
+Tickle. We were talking of you only last night over a despatched crab
+that we had for supper." Did they have despatched crabs for supper every
+night? thought Mr. Prosper to himself. It was certainly a strong reason
+against his marriage. "I told her that you had a cold in your head."
+
+"In my chest," said Mr. Prosper, meekly.
+
+"'Bother colds!' said Miss Tickle. 'When people are keeping company
+together they ought to see each other.' Those were Miss Tickle's very
+words."
+
+That it should be said of him, Mr. Prosper, of Buston, that he was
+"keeping company" with any woman! He almost resolved, on the spur of the
+moment, that under no circumstances could he now marry Miss
+Thoroughbung. But unfortunately his offer had been made, and the terms
+of the settlement, as suggested by himself, placed in the hands of his
+lawyer. If Miss Thoroughbung chose to hold him to his offer, he must
+marry her. It was not that he feared an action for breach of promise,
+but that, as a gentleman, it would behoove him to be true to his word.
+He need not, however, marry Miss Tickle. He had offered no terms in
+respect to Miss Tickle. With great presence of mind he resolved at once
+that Miss Tickle should never find a permanent resting-place for her
+foot at Buston Hall. "I am extremely indebted to Miss Tickle," said he.
+
+"Why haven't you come over just to have a little chat in a friendly way?
+It's all because of those stupid lawyers, I suppose. What need you and I
+care for the lawyers? They can do their work without troubling us,
+except that they will be sure to send in their bills fast enough."
+
+"I have had Mr. Barry, from the firm of Messrs. Grey & Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, with me this morning."
+
+"I know you have. I saw the little man at Soames & Simpson's, and drove
+out here immediately, after five minutes' conversation. Now, Mr.
+Prosper, you must let me have those ponies."
+
+That was the very thing which he was determined not to do. The ponies
+grew in imagination, and became enormous horses capable of consuming any
+amount of oats. Mr. Prosper was not of a stingy nature, but he had
+already perceived that his escape, if it were effected, must be made
+good by means of those ponies. A steady old pair of carriage-horses had
+been kept by him, and by his father before him, and he was not going to
+be driven out of the old family ways by a brewer's daughter. And he had,
+but that morning, instructed his lawyer to stand out against the ponies.
+He felt that this was the moment for firmness. Now, this instant, he
+must be staunch, or he would be saddled with this woman,--and with Miss
+Tickle,--for the whole of his life. She had left him no time for
+consideration, but had come upon him as soon almost as the words spoken
+to the lawyer had been out of his mouth. But he would be firm. Miss
+Thoroughbung opened out instantly about the ponies, and he at once
+resolved that he would be firm. But was it not very indelicate on her
+part to come to him and to press him in this manner? He began to hope
+that she also would be firm about the ponies, and that in this way the
+separation might be effected. At the present moment he stood dumb.
+Silence would not in this case be considered as giving consent. "Now,
+like a good man, do say that I shall have the ponies," she continued. "I
+can keep 'em out of my own money, you know, if that's all." He perceived
+at once that the offer amounted to a certain yielding on her part, but
+he was no longer anxious that she should give way. "Do'ee now say yes,
+like a dear old boy." She came closer to him, and took hold of his arm,
+as though she were going to perform that other ceremony. But he was
+fully aware of the danger. If there came to be kissing between them it
+would be impossible for him to go back afterward in such a manner but
+that the blame of the kiss should rest with him. When he should desire
+to be "off," he could not plead that the kissing had been all her doing.
+A man in Mr. Prosper's position has difficulties among which he must be
+very wary. And then the ridicule of the world is so strong a weapon, and
+is always used on the side of the women! He gave a little start, but he
+did not at once shake her off. "What's the objection to the ponies,
+dear?"
+
+"Two pair of horses! It's more than we ought to keep." He should not
+have said "we." He felt, when it was too late, that he should not have
+said "we."
+
+"They aren't horses."
+
+"It's the same, as far as the stables are concerned."
+
+"But there's room enough, Lord bless you! I've been in to look. I can
+assure you that Dr. Stubbs says they are required for my health. You ask
+him else. It's just what I'm up to--is driving. I've only taken to them
+lately, and I cannot bring myself to give 'em up. Do'ee love. You're not
+going to throw over your own Matilda for a couple of little beasts like
+that!"
+
+Every word that came out of her mouth was an offence. But he could not
+tell her so; nor could he reject her on that score. He should have
+thought beforehand what kind of words might probably come out of her
+mouth. Was her name Matilda? Of course he knew the fact. Had any one
+asked him he could have said, with two minutes' consideration, that her
+name was Matilda. But it had never become familiar to his ears, and now
+she spoke of it as though he had called her Matilda since their earliest
+youth. And to be called "Love!" It might be very nice when he had first
+called her "Love" a dozen times; but now it sounded extravagant--and
+almost indelicate. And he was about to throw her over for a couple of
+little beasts. He felt that that was his intention, and he blushed
+because it was so. He was a true gentleman, who would not willingly
+depart from his word. If he must go on with the ponies he must. But he
+had never yet yielded about the ponies. He felt now that they were his
+only hope. But as the difficulties of his position pressed upon him the
+sweat stood out upon his brow. She saw it all and understood it all, and
+deliberately determined to take advantage of his weakness. "I don't
+think that there is anything else astray between us. We've settled about
+the jointure,--four hundred a year. It's too little, Soames & Simpson
+say; but I'm soft, and in love, you know." Here she leered at him, and
+he began to hate her. "You oughtn't to want a third of my income, you
+know. But you're to be lord and master, and you must have your own way.
+All that's settled."
+
+"There is Miss Tickle," he said, in a voice that was almost cadaverous.
+
+"Miss Tickle is of course to come. You said that from the very first
+moment when you made the offer."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Oh, Peter, how can you say so!" He shrunk visibly from the sound of his
+own Christian name. But she determined to persevere. The time must come
+when she should call him Peter, and why not commence the practice now,
+at once? Lovers always do call each other Peter and Matilda. She wasn't
+going to stand any nonsense, and if he intended to marry her and use a
+large proportion of her fortune, Peter he should be to her. "You did,
+Peter. You know you told me how much attached you were to her."
+
+"I didn't say anything about her coming with you."
+
+"Oh, Peter, how can you be so cruel? Do you mean to say that you will
+deprive me of the friend of my youth?"
+
+"At any rate, there shall never be a pony come into my yard!" He knew
+when he made this assertion that he was abandoning his objection to Miss
+Tickle. She had called him cruel, and his conscience told him that if he
+received Miss Thoroughbung and refused admission to Miss Tickle he
+would be cruel. Miss Tickle, for aught that he knew, might have been a
+friend of her youth. At any rate, they had been constant companions for
+many years. Therefore, as he had another solid ground on which to stand,
+he could afford to yield as to Miss Tickle. But as he did so, he
+remembered that Miss Tickle had accused him of "keeping company," and he
+declared to himself that it would be impossible to live in the same
+house with her.
+
+"But Miss Tickle may come?" said Miss Thoroughbung. Was the solid
+ground--the rock, as he believed it to be, of the ponies, about to sink
+beneath his feet? "Say that Miss Tickle may come. I should be nothing
+without Miss Tickle. You cannot be so hard-hearted as that."
+
+"I don't see what is the good of talking about Miss Tickle till we have
+come to some settlement about the ponies. You say that you must have the
+ponies. To tell you the truth, Miss Thoroughbung, I don't like any such
+word as 'must.' And a good many things have occurred to me."
+
+"What kind of things, deary?"
+
+"I think you are inclined to be--gay--"
+
+"Me! gay!"
+
+"While I am sober, and perhaps a little grave in my manners of life. I
+am thinking only of domestic happiness, while your mind is intent upon
+social circles. I fear that you would look for your bliss abroad."
+
+"In France or Germany?"
+
+"When I say abroad, I mean out of your own house. There is perhaps some
+discrepancy of taste of which I ought earlier to have taken cognizance."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," said Miss Thoroughbung. "I am quite content to
+live at home and do not want to go abroad, either to France nor yet to
+any other English county. I should never ask for anything, unless it be
+for a single month in London."
+
+Here was a ground upon which he perhaps could make his stand. "Quite
+impossible!" said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"Or for a fortnight," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I never go up to London except on business."
+
+"But I might go alone, you know--with Miss Tickle. I shouldn't want to
+drag you away. I have always been in the habit of having a few weeks in
+London about the Exhibition time."
+
+"I shouldn't wish to be left by my wife."
+
+"Of course we could manage all that. We're not to settle every little
+thing beforehand, and put it into the deeds. A precious sum we should
+have to pay the lawyers!"
+
+"It's as well we should understand each other."
+
+"I think it pretty nearly is all settled that has to go into the deeds.
+I thought I'd just run over, after seeing Mr. Barry, and give the final
+touch. If you'll give way, dear, about Miss Tickle and the ponies, I'll
+yield in everything else. Nothing, surely, can be fairer than that."
+
+He knew that he was playing the hypocrite, and he knew also that it did
+not become him as a gentleman to be false to a woman. He was aware that
+from minute to minute, and almost from word to word, he was becoming
+ever more and more averse to this match which he had proposed to
+himself. And he knew that in honesty he ought to tell her that it was
+so. It was not honest in him to endeavor to get rid of her by a
+side-blow, as it were. And yet this was the attempt which he had
+hitherto been making. But how was he to tell her the truth? Even Mr.
+Barry had not understood the state of his mind. Indeed, his mind had
+altered since he had seen Mr. Barry.
+
+He had heard within the last half hour many words spoken by Miss
+Thoroughbung which proved that she was altogether unfit to be his wife.
+It was a dreadful misfortune that he should have rushed into such peril;
+but was he not bound as a gentleman to tell her the truth? "Say that I
+shall have Jemima Tickle!" The added horrors of the Christian name
+operated upon him with additional force. Was he to be doomed to have the
+word Jemima hallooed about his rooms and staircases for the rest of his
+life? And she had given up the ponies, and was taking her stand upon
+Miss Tickle, as to whom at last he would be bound to give way. He could
+see now that he should have demanded her whole income, and have allowed
+her little or no jointure. That would have been grasping, monstrous,
+altogether impracticable, but it would not have been ungentleman-like.
+This chaffering about little things was altogether at variance with his
+tastes,--and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that
+he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this
+morning. Then,--for that morning,--some benign god preserved him.
+
+Matthew came into the room and whispered into his ear that a gentleman
+wished to see him. "What gentleman?" Matthew again whispered that it was
+his brother-in-law. "Show him in," said Mr. Prosper, with a sudden
+courage. He had not seen Mr. Annesley since the day of his actual
+quarrel with Harry. "I shall have the ponies?" said Miss Thoroughbung
+during the moment that was allowed to her.
+
+"We are interrupted now. I am afraid that the rest of this interview
+must be postponed." It should never be renewed, though he might have to
+leave the country forever. Of that he gave himself assurance. Then the
+parson was shown into the room.
+
+The constrained introduction was very painful to Mr. Prosper, but was
+not at all disagreeable to the lady. "Mr. Annesley knows me very well.
+We are quite old friends. Joe is going to marry his eldest girl. I hope
+Molly is quite well." The rector said that Molly was quite well. When he
+had come away from home just now he had left Joe at the parsonage.
+"You'll find him there a deal oftener than at the brewery," said Miss
+Thoroughbung. "You know what we're going to do, Mr. Annesley. There are
+no fools like old fools." A thunder-black cloud came across Mr.
+Prosper's face. That this woman should dare to call him an old fool! "We
+were discussing a few of our future arrangements. We've arranged
+everything about money in the most amicable manner, and now there is
+merely a question of a pair of ponies."
+
+"We need not trouble Mr. Annesley about that, I think."
+
+"And Miss Tickle! I'm sure the rector will agree with me that old
+friends like me and Miss Tickle ought not to be separated. And it isn't
+as though there was any dislike between them, because he has already
+said that he finds Miss Tickle charming."
+
+"D---- Miss Tickle!" he said; whereupon the rector looked astonished, and
+Miss Thoroughbung jumped a foot from off the ground. "I beg the lady's
+pardon," said Mr. Prosper, piteously, "and yours, Miss Thoroughbung,--and
+yours, Mr. Annesley." It was as though a new revelation of character had
+been given. No one except Matthew had ever heard the Squire of Buston
+swear. And with Matthew the cursings had been by no means frequent, and
+had been addressed generally to some article of his clothing, or to some
+morsel of food prepared with less than the usual care. But now the oath
+had been directed against a female, and the chosen friend of his
+betrothed. And it had been uttered in the presence of a clergyman, his
+brother-in-law, and the rector of his parish. Mr. Prosper felt that he
+was disgraced forever. Could he have overheard them laughing over his
+ebullition in the drawing-room half an hour afterward, and almost
+praising his violence, some part of the pain might have been removed.
+As it was he felt at the time that he was disgraced forever.
+
+"We will return to the subject when next we meet," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"I am very sorry that I should so far have forgotten myself," said Mr.
+Prosper, "but--"
+
+"It does not signify,--not as far as I am concerned;" and she made a
+little motion to the clergyman, half bow and half courtesy. Mr. Annesley
+bowed in return, as though declaring that neither did it signify very
+much as far as he was concerned. Then she left the room, and Matthew
+handed her into the carriage, when she took the ponies in hand with
+quite as much composure as though her friend had not been sworn at.
+
+"Upon my word, sir," said Prosper, as soon as the door was shut, "I beg
+your pardon. But I was so moved by certain things which have occurred
+that I was carried much beyond my usual habits."
+
+"Don't mention it."
+
+"It is peculiarly distressing to me that I should have been induced to
+forget myself in the presence of a clergyman of the parish and my
+brother-in-law. But I must beg you to forget it."
+
+"Oh, certainly. I will tell you now why I have come over."
+
+"I can assure you that such is not my habit," continued Mr. Prosper, who
+was thinking much more of the unaccustomed oath which he had sworn than
+of his brother-in-law's visit, strange as it was. "No one, as a rule, is
+more guarded in his expressions than I am. How it should have come to
+pass that I was so stirred I can hardly tell. But Miss Thoroughbung had
+said certain words which had moved me very much." She had called him
+"Peter" and "deary," and had spoken of him as "keeping company" with
+her. All these disgusting terms of endearment he could not repeat to his
+brother-in-law, but felt it necessary to allude to them.
+
+"I trust that you may be happy with her when she is your wife."
+
+"I can't say. I really don't know. It's a very important step to take at
+my age, and I'm not quite sure that I should be doing wisely."
+
+"It's not too late," said Mr. Annesley.
+
+"I don't know. I can't quite say." Then Mr. Prosper drew himself up,
+remembering that it would not become him to discuss the matter of his
+marriage with the father of his heir.
+
+"I have come over here," said Mr. Annesley, "to say a few words about
+Harry." Mr. Prosper again drew himself up. "Of course you're aware that
+Harry is at present living with us." Here Mr. Prosper bowed. "Of course,
+in his altered circumstances, it will not do that he shall be idle, and
+yet he does not like to take a final step without letting you know what
+it is." Here Mr. Prosper bowed twice. "There is a gentleman of fortune
+going out to the United States on a mission which will probably occupy
+him for three or four years. I am not exactly warranted in mentioning
+his name, but he has taken in hand a political project of much
+importance." Again Mr. Prosper bowed. "Now he has offered Harry the
+place of private secretary, on condition that Harry will undertake to
+stay the entire term. He is to have a salary of three hundred a year,
+and his travelling expenses will of course be paid for him. If he goes,
+poor boy! he will in all probability remain in his new home and become a
+citizen of the United States. Under these circumstances I have thought
+it best to step up and tell you in a friendly manner what his plans
+are." Then he had told his tale, and Mr. Prosper again bowed.
+
+The rector had been very crafty. There was no doubt about the wealthy
+gentleman with the American project, and the salary had been offered.
+But in other respects there had been some exaggeration. It was well
+known to the rector that Mr. Prosper regarded America and all her
+institutions with a religious hatred. An American was to him an
+ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature, to have any
+acquaintance with whom was a disgrace. Could he have had his way, he
+would have reconstituted the United States as British Colonies at a
+moment's notice. Were he to die without having begotten another heir,
+Buston must become the property of Harry Annesley; and it would be
+dreadful to him to think that Buston should be owned by an American
+citizen. "The salary offered is too good to be abandoned," said Mr.
+Annesley, when he saw the effect which his story had produced.
+
+"Everything is going against me!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper.
+
+"Well: I will not talk about that. I did not come here to discuss Harry
+or his sins,--nor, for the matter of that, his virtues. But I felt it
+would be improper to let him go upon his journey without communicating
+with you." So saying, he took his departure and walked back to the
+rectory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+A DETERMINED YOUNG LADY.
+
+
+When this offer had been made to Harry Annesley he found it to be
+absolutely necessary that he should write a farther letter to Florence.
+He was quite aware that he had been forbidden to write. He had written
+one letter since that order had been given to him, and no reply had come
+to him. He had not expected a reply; but still her silence had been
+grievous to him. It might be that she was angry with him, really angry.
+But let that be as it might, he could not go to America, and be absent
+for so long a period, without telling her. She and her mother were still
+at Brussels when January came. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there, as he had
+understood, for a month, and was still at the embassy when three months
+had passed. "I think I shall stay here the winter," Mrs. Mountjoy had
+said to Sir Magnus, "but we will take lodgings. I see that very nice
+sets of apartments are to be let." But Sir Magnus would not hear of
+this. He said, and said truly, that the ministerial house was large; and
+at last he declared the honest truth. His sister-in-law had been very
+kind to him about money, and had said not a word on that troubled
+subject since her arrival. Mrs. Mountjoy, with that delicacy which still
+belongs to some English ladies, would have suffered extreme poverty
+rather than have spoken on such a matter. In truth she suffered nothing,
+and hardly thought about it. But Sir Magnus was grateful, and told her
+that if she went to look for lodgings he should go to the lodgings and
+say that they were not wanted. Therefore Mrs. Mountjoy remained where
+she was, entertaining a feeling of increased good-will toward Sir
+Magnus.
+
+Life went on rather sadly with Florence. Anderson was as good as his
+word. He pleaded his own cause no farther, telling both Sir Magnus and
+Lady Mountjoy of the pledge he had made. He did in fact tell two or
+three other persons, regarding himself as a martyr to chivalry. All this
+time he went about his business looking very wretched. But though he did
+not speak for himself, he could not hinder others from speaking for him.
+Sir Magnus took occasion to say a word on the subject once daily to his
+niece. Her mother was constant in her attacks. But Lady Mountjoy was the
+severest of the three, and was accounted by Florence as her bitterest
+enemy. The words which passed between them were not the most
+affectionate in the world. Lady Mountjoy would call her 'miss,' to which
+Florence would reply by addressing her aunt as 'my lady.' "Why do you
+call me 'my lady?' It isn't usual in common conversation." "Why do you
+call me 'miss?' If you cease to call me 'miss,' I'll cease to call you
+'my lady.'" But no reverence was paid by the girl to the wife of the
+British Minister. It was this that Lady Mountjoy specially felt,--as she
+complained to her companion, Miss Abbott. Then another cause for trouble
+sprang up during the winter, of which mention must be made farther on.
+The result was that Florence was instant with her mother to take her
+back to England.
+
+We will return, however, to Harry Annesley, and give the letter,
+verbatim, which he wrote to Florence:
+
+"DEAR FLORENCE,--I wonder whether you ever think of me or ever remember
+that I exist? I know you do. I cannot have been forgotten like that. And
+you yourself are the truest girl that ever owned to loving a man. But
+there comes a chill across my heart when I think how long it is since I
+wrote to you, and that I have not had a line even to acknowledge my
+letter. You bade me not to write, and you have not even forgiven me for
+disobeying your order. I cannot but get stupid ideas into my mind, which
+one word from you would dissipate.
+
+"Now, however, I must write again, order or no order. Between a man and
+a woman circumstanced as you and I, things will arise which make it
+incumbent on one or the other to write. It is absolutely necessary that
+you should now know what are my intentions, and understand the reasons
+which have actuated me. I have found myself left in a most unfortunate
+condition by my uncle's folly. He is going on with a stupid marriage for
+the purpose of disinheriting me, and has in the mean time stopped the
+allowance which he had made me since I left college. Of course I have no
+absolute claim on him. But I cannot understand how he can reconcile
+himself to do so, when he himself prevented my going to the Bar, saying
+that it would be unnecessary.
+
+"But so it is, I am driven to look about for myself. It is very hard at
+my time of life to find an opening in any profession. I think I told you
+before that I had ideas of going to Cambridge and endeavoring to get
+pupils, trusting to my fellowship rather than to my acquirements. But
+this I have always looked upon with great dislike, and would only have
+taken to it if nothing else was to be had. Now there has come forward
+an old college acquaintance, a man who is three or four years my senior,
+who has offered to take me to America as his private secretary. He
+proposes to remain there for three years. I of course shall not bind
+myself to stay as long; but I may not improbably do so. He is to pay my
+expenses and to give me a salary of three hundred a year. This will,
+perhaps, lead to nothing else, but will for the present be better than
+nothing. I am to start in just a month from the present time.
+
+"Now you know it all except that the man's name is Sir William Crook. He
+is a decent sort of a fellow, and has got a wife who is to go with him.
+He is the hardest working man I know, but, between you and me, will
+never set the Thames on fire. If the Thames is to be illumined at all, I
+rather think that I shall be expected to do it.
+
+"Now, my own one, what am I to say about you, and of myself, as your
+husband that is to be? Will you wait, at any rate, for three years with
+the conviction that the three years will too probably end in your having
+to wait again?
+
+"I do feel that in my altered position I ought to give you back your
+troth, and tell you that things shall be as they used to be before that
+happy night at Mrs. Armitage's party. I do not know but that it is
+clearly my duty. I almost think that it is. But I am sure of this,--that
+it is the one thing in the world that I cannot do. I don't think that a
+man ought to be asked to tear himself altogether in pieces because some
+one has ill-treated him. At any rate I cannot. If you say that it must
+be so, you shall say it. I don't suppose it will kill me, but it will go
+a long way.
+
+"In writing so far I have not said a word of love, because, as far as I
+understand you, that is a subject on which you expect me to be silent.
+When you order me not to write, I suppose you intend that I am to write
+no love-letters. This, therefore, you will take simply as a matter of
+business, and as such, I suppose, you will acknowledge it. In this way I
+shall at any rate see your handwriting.
+
+"Yours affectionately,
+
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+
+Harry, when he had written this letter, considered that it had been
+cold, calm, and philosophical. He could not go to America for three
+years without telling her of his purpose; nor could he mention that
+purpose, as he thought, in any language less glowing. But Florence, when
+she received it, did not regard it in the same light.
+
+To her thinking the letter was full of love, and of love expressed in
+the warmest possible language. "Sir William Crook!" she said to herself.
+"What can he want of Harry in America for three years? I am sure he is a
+stupid man. Will I wait? Of course I will wait. What are three years?
+And why should I not wait? But, for the matter of that--" Then thoughts
+came into her mind which even to herself she could not express in words.
+Sir William Crook had got a wife, and why should not Harry take a wife
+also? She did not see why a private secretary should not be a married
+man; and as for money, there would be plenty for such a style of life as
+they would live. She could not exactly propose this, but she thought
+that if she were to see Harry just for one short interview before he
+started, that he might probably then propose it himself.
+
+"Things be as they used to be!" she exclaimed to herself. "Never! Things
+cannot be as they used to be. I know what is his duty. It is his duty
+not to think of anything of the kind. Remember that he exists," she
+said, turning back to the earlier words of the letter. "That of course
+is his joke. I wonder whether he knows that every moment of my life is
+devoted to him. Of course I bade him not to write. But I can tell him
+now that I have never gone to bed without his letter beneath my pillow."
+This and much more of the same kind was uttered in soliloquies, but need
+not be repeated at length to the reader.
+
+But she had to think what steps she must first take. She must tell her
+mother of Harry's intention. She had never for an instant allowed her
+mother to think that her affection had dwindled, or her purpose failed
+her. She was engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and marry him some day she
+would. That her mother should be sure of that was the immediate purpose
+of her life. And in carrying out that purpose she must acquaint her
+mother with the news which this letter had brought to her. "Mamma, I
+have got something to tell you."
+
+"Well, my dear?"
+
+"Harry Annesley is going to America!" There was something pleasing to
+Mrs. Mountjoy in the sound of these words. If Harry Annesley went to
+America he might be drowned, or it might more probably be that he would
+never come back. America was, to her imagination, a long way off. Lovers
+did not go to America except with the intention of deserting their
+ladyloves. Such were her ideas. She felt at the moment that Florence
+would be more easily approached in reference either to her cousin
+Mountjoy or to Mr. Anderson. Another lover had sprung up, too, in
+Brussels, of whom a word shall be said by-and-by. If her Harry, the
+pernicious Harry, should have taken himself to America, the chances of
+all these three gentlemen would be improved. Any one of them would now
+be accepted by Mrs. Mountjoy as a bar fatal to Harry Annesley. Mountjoy
+was again the favorite with her. She had heard that he had returned to
+Tretton, and was living amicably with his father. She knew, even, of the
+income allotted to him for the present,--of the six hundred pounds a
+year,--and had told Florence that as a preliminary income it was more
+than double that two hundred and fifty pounds which had been taken away
+from Harry,--taken away never to be restored. There was not much in this
+argument, but still she thought well to use it. The captain was living
+with his father, and she did not believe a word about the entail having
+been done away with. It was certain that Harry's uncle had quarrelled
+with him, and she did understand that a baby at Buston would altogether
+rob Harry of his chance. And then look at the difference in the
+properties! It was thus that she argued the matter. But in truth her
+word had been pledged to Mountjoy Scarborough, and Mountjoy Scarborough
+had ever been a favorite with her. Though she could talk about the
+money, it was not the money that touched her feelings. "Well;--he may go
+to America. It is a dreadful destiny for a young man, but in his case it
+may be the best thing that he can do."
+
+"Of course he intends to come back again."
+
+"That is as it may be."
+
+"I do not understand what you mean by a dreadful destiny, mamma. I don't
+see that it is a destiny at all. He is getting a very good offer for a
+year or two, and thinks it best to take it. I might go with him, for
+that matter."
+
+A thunder-bolt had fallen at Mrs. Mountjoy's feet! Florence go with him
+to America! Among all the trials which had come upon her with reference
+to this young man there had been nothing so bad as this proposal. Go
+with him! The young man was to start in a month! Then she began to think
+whether it would be within her power to stop her daughter. What would
+all the world be to her with one daughter, and she in America, married
+to Harry Annesley? Her quarrel with Florence was not at all as was the
+quarrel of Lady Mountjoy. Lady Mountjoy would be glad to get rid of the
+girl, whom she thought to be impertinent and believed to be false. But
+to her mother Florence was the very apple of her eye. It was because she
+thought that Mountjoy Scarborough was a grand fellow, and because she
+thought all manner of evil of Harry Annesley, that she wished Florence
+to marry her cousin, and to separate herself forever from the other.
+When she had heard that Harry was to go to America she had rejoiced, as
+though he was to be transported to Botany Bay. Her ideas were
+old-fashioned. But when it was hinted that Florence was to go with him
+she nearly fell to the ground.
+
+Florence certainly had behaved badly in making the suggestion. She had
+not intended to make it,--had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her
+mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come
+upon him,--as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be
+hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,--then her spirit rose
+within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never
+asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to
+share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her
+only child in the hands of those American savages. She threw herself on
+to a sofa, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.
+
+"I don't say that I am going, mamma."
+
+"My darling--my dearest--my child!"
+
+"Only that there is no reason why I shouldn't, except that it would not
+suit him. At least I suppose it would not."
+
+"Has he said so?"
+
+"He has said nothing about it."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that! He does not intend to rob me of my child."
+
+"But, mamma, I am to be his wife."
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"It is that that I want to make you understand. You know nothing of his
+character;--nothing."
+
+"I do know that he told a base falsehood."
+
+"Nothing of the kind! I will not admit it. It is of no use going into
+that again, but there was nothing base about it. He has got an
+appointment in the United States, and is going out to do the work. He
+has not asked me to go with him. The two things would probably not be
+compatible." Here Mrs. Mountjoy rose from the sofa and embraced her
+child, as though liberated from her deepest grief. "But, mamma, you must
+remember this:--that I have given him my word, and will never be induced
+to abandon it." Here her mother threw up her hands and again began to
+weep. "Either to-day or to-morrow, or ten years hence,--if he will wait
+as long, I will,--we shall be married. As far as I can see we need not
+wait ten years, or perhaps more than one or two. My money will suffice
+for us."
+
+"He proposes to live upon you?"
+
+"He proposes nothing of the kind. He is going to America because he will
+not propose it. Nor am I proposing it,--just at present."
+
+"At any rate I am glad of that."
+
+"And now, mamma, you must take me back home as soon as possible."
+
+"When he has started."
+
+"No, mamma. I must be there before he starts. I cannot let him go
+without seeing him. If I am to remain here, here he must come."
+
+"Your uncle would never receive him."
+
+"I should receive him."
+
+This was dreadful--this flying into actual disobedience. Whatever did
+she mean? Where was she to receive him? "How could you receive a young
+man in opposition to the wishes, and indeed to the commands, of all your
+friends?"
+
+"I'm not going to be at all shamefaced about it, mamma. I am the woman
+he has selected to be his wife, and he is the man I have selected to be
+my husband. If he were coming I should go to my uncle and ask to have
+him received."
+
+"Think of your aunt."
+
+"Yes; I do think of her. My aunt would make herself very disagreeable.
+Upon the whole, mamma, I think it would be best that you should take me
+back to England. There is this M. Grascour here, who is a great trouble,
+and you may be sure of this, that I intend to see Harry Annesley before
+he starts for America."
+
+So the interview was ended; but Mrs. Mountjoy was left greatly in doubt
+as to what she might best do. She felt sure that were Annesley to come
+to Brussels, Florence would see him,--would see him in spite of all that
+her uncle and aunt, and Mr. Anderson, and M. Grascour could do to
+prevent it. That reprobate young man would force his way into the
+embassy, or Florence would force her way out. In either case there would
+be a terrible scene. But if she were to take Florence back to
+Cheltenham, interviews to any extent would be arranged for her at the
+house of Mrs. Armitage. As she thought of all this, the idea came across
+her that when a young girl is determined to be married nothing can
+prevent it.
+
+Florence in the mean time wrote an immediate answer to her lover, as
+follows:
+
+"DEAR HARRY,--Of course you were entitled to write when there was
+something to be said which it was necessary that I should know. When you
+have simply to say that you love me, I know that well enough without any
+farther telling.
+
+"Go to America for three years! It is very, very serious. But of course
+you must know best, and I shall not attempt to interfere. What are three
+years to you and me? If we were rich people, of course we should not
+wait; but as we are poor, of course we must act as do other people who
+are poor. I have about four hundred a year; and it is for you to say how
+far that may be sufficient. If you think so, you will not find that I
+shall want more.
+
+"But there is one thing necessary before you start. I must see you.
+There is no reason on earth for our remaining here, except that mamma
+has not made up her mind. If she will consent to go back before you
+start, it will be best so. Otherwise, you must take the trouble to come
+here,--where, I am afraid, you will not be received as a welcome guest. I
+have told mamma that if I cannot see you here in a manner that is
+becoming, I shall go out and meet you in the streets, in a manner that
+is unbecoming.
+
+"Your affectionate--wife that is to be,
+
+"FLORENCE MOUNTJOY."
+
+This letter she took to her mother, and read aloud to her in her own
+room. Mrs. Mountjoy could only implore that it might not be sent, but
+prevailed not at all. "There is not a word in it about love," said
+Florence. "It is simply a matter of business, and as such I must send
+it. I do not suppose my uncle will go to the length of attempting to
+lock me up. He would, I think, find it difficult to do so." There was a
+look in Florence's face as she said this which altogether silenced her
+mother. She did not think that Sir Magnus would consent to lock Florence
+up, and she did think that were he to attempt to do so he would find the
+task very difficult.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+M. GRASCOUR.
+
+
+M. Grascour was a Belgian, about forty years old, who looked as though
+he were no more than thirty, except that his hair was in patches
+beginning to be a little gray. He was in the government service of his
+country, well educated, and thoroughly a gentleman. As is the case with
+many Belgians, he would have been taken to be an Englishman were his
+country not known. He had dressed himself in English mirrors, living
+mostly with the English. He spoke English so well that he would only be
+known to be a foreigner by the correctness of his language. He was a man
+of singularly good temper, and there was running through all that he did
+somewhat of a chivalric spirit, which came from study rather than
+nature. He had looked into things and seen whether they were good, or at
+any rate popular, and endeavored to grasp and to make his own whatever
+he found to be so. He was hitherto unmarried, and was regarded generally
+by his friends as a non-marrying man. But Florence Mountjoy was powerful
+over him, and he set to work to make her his wife. He was intimate at
+the house of Sir Magnus, and saw, no doubt, that Anderson was doing the
+same thing. But he saw also that Anderson did not succeed. He had told
+himself from the first that if Anderson did succeed he would not wish to
+do so. The girl who would be satisfied with Anderson would hardly
+content him. He remained therefore quiet till he saw that Anderson had
+failed. The young man at once took to an altered mode of life which was
+sufficiently marked. He went, like Sir Proteus, ungartered. Everything
+about him had of late "demonstrated a careless desolation." All this M.
+Grascour observed, and when he saw it he felt that his own time had
+come.
+
+He took occasion at first to wait upon Lady Mountjoy. He believed that
+to be the proper way of going to work. He was very intimate with the
+Mountjoys, and was aware that his circumstances were known to them.
+There was no reason, on the score of money, why he should not marry the
+niece of Sir Magnus. He had already shown some attention to Florence,
+which, though it had excited no suspicion in her mind, had been seen and
+understood by her aunt; and it had been understood also by Mr. Anderson.
+"That accursed Belgian! If, after all, she should take up with him! I
+shall tell her a bit of my mind if anything of that kind should occur."
+
+"My niece, M. Grascour!"
+
+"Yes, my lady." M. Grascour had not quite got over the way of calling
+Lady Mountjoy "my lady." "It is presumption, I know."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"I have not spoken to her. Nor would I do so till I had first addressed
+myself to you or to her mother. May I speak to Mrs. Mountjoy?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. I do not in the least know what the young lady's ideas
+are. She has been much admired here and elsewhere, and that may have
+turned her head."
+
+"I think not."
+
+"You may be the better judge, M. Grascour."
+
+"I think that Miss Mountjoy's head has not been turned by any
+admiration. She does not appear to be a young lady whose head would
+easily be turned. It is her heart of which I am thinking." The interview
+ended by Lady Mountjoy passing the Belgian lover on to Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Florence!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Mountjoy;--I have the great honor of asking your permission. I
+am well known to Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and they can tell what
+are my circumstances. I am forty years of age."
+
+"Oh yes; everything is, I am sure, quite as it should be. But my
+daughter thinks about these things for herself." Then there was a pause,
+and M. Grascour was about to leave the room, having obtained the
+permission he desired, when Mrs. Mountjoy thought it well to acquaint
+him with something of her daughter's condition. "I ought to tell you
+that my daughter has been engaged."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; and I hardly know how to explain the circumstances. I should say
+that she had been promised to her cousin, Captain Scarborough; but to
+this she will not give her assent. She has since met a gentleman, Mr.
+Annesley, for whom she professes an attachment. Neither can I, nor can
+her uncle and aunt, hear of Mr. Annesley as a husband for Florence. She
+is therefore at present disengaged. If you can gain her affections, you
+have my leave." With this permission M. Grascour departed, professing
+himself to be contented.
+
+He did not see Florence for two or three days, no doubt leaving the
+matter to be discussed with her by her mother and her aunt. To him it
+was quite indifferent what might be the fate of Captain Scarborough, or
+of Mr. Annesley, or indeed of Mr. Anderson. And, to tell the truth, he
+was not under any violent fear or hope as to his own fate. He admired
+Miss Mountjoy, and thought it would be well to secure for a wife such a
+girl, with such a fortune as would belong to her. But he did not intend
+to go "ungartered," nor yet to assume an air of "desolation." If she
+would come to him, it would be well; if she would not, why, it would
+still be well. The only outward difference made by his love was that he
+brushed his clothes and his hair a little more carefully, and had his
+boots brought to a higher state of polish than was usual.
+
+Her mother spoke to her first. "My dear, M. Grascour is a most excellent
+man."
+
+"I am sure he is, mamma."
+
+"And he is a great friend to your uncle and Lady Mountjoy."
+
+"Why do you say this, mamma? What can it matter to me?"
+
+"My dear, M. Grascour wishes you to--to--to become his wife."
+
+"Oh, mamma, why didn't you tell him that it is impossible?"
+
+"How was I to know, my dear?"
+
+"Mamma, I am engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and no word shall ever
+turn me from that purpose, unless it be spoken by himself. The crier may
+say that all round the town if he wishes. You must know that it is so.
+What can be the use of sending M. Grascour or any other gentleman to me?
+It is only giving me pain and him too. I wish, mamma, you could be got
+to understand this." But Mrs. Mountjoy could not altogether be got as
+yet to understand the obstinacy of her daughter's character.
+
+There was one point on which Florence received information from these
+two suitors who had come to her at Brussels. They were both favored, one
+after the other, by her mother; and would not have been so favored had
+her mother absolutely believed in Captain Mountjoy. It seemed to her as
+though her mother would be willing that she should marry any one, so
+long as it was not Harry Annesley. "It is a pity that there should be
+such a difference," she said to herself. "But we will see what firmness
+can do."
+
+Then Lady Mountjoy spoke to her. "You have heard of M. Grascour, my
+dear?"
+
+"Yes; I have heard of him, aunt."
+
+"He intends to do you the honor of asking you to be his wife."
+
+"So mamma tells me."
+
+"I have only to say that he is a man most highly esteemed here. He is
+well known at the court, and is at the royal parties. Should you become
+his wife, you would have all the society of Brussels at your feet."
+
+"All the society of Brussels would do no good."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Nor the court and the royal parties."
+
+"If you choose to be impertinent when I tell you what are his advantages
+and condition in life, I cannot help it."
+
+"I do not mean to be impertinent."
+
+"What you say about the royal parties and the court is intended for
+impertinence, knowing as you do know your uncle's position."
+
+"Not at all. You know my position. I am engaged to marry another man,
+and cannot therefore marry M. Grascour. Why should he be sent to me,
+except that you won't believe me when I tell you that I am engaged?"
+Then she marched out of the room, and considered within her own bosom
+what answer she would give to this new Belgian suitor.
+
+She was made perfectly aware when the Belgian suitor was about to
+arrive. On the day but one after the interview with her aunt she was
+left alone when the other ladies went out, and suspected that even the
+footmen knew what was to happen, when M. Grascour was shown into the
+drawing-room. There was a simple mode of dealing with the matter on his
+part,--very different from that state of agitation into which Harry had
+been thrown when he had made his proposition. She was quite prepared to
+admit that M. Grascour's plan might be the wisest; but Harry's manner
+had been full of real love, and had charmed her. M. Grascour was not in
+the least flustered, whereas poor Harry had been hardly able to speak
+his mind. But it had not mattered much whether Harry spoke his mind or
+not, whereas all the eloquence in the world could have done no good for
+M. Grascour. Florence had known that Harry did love her, whereas of M.
+Grascour she only knew that he wanted to make her his wife.
+
+"Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I am charmed to find you here. Allow me to
+add that I am charmed to find you alone." Florence, who knew all about
+it, only bowed. She had to go through it, and thought that she would be
+able to do so with equanimity. "I do not know whether your aunt or your
+mother have done me the honor of mentioning my name to you."
+
+"They have both spoken to me."
+
+"I thought it best that they should have the opportunity of doing so. In
+our country these things are arranged chiefly by the lady's friends.
+With your people I know it is different. Perhaps it is much better that
+it should be so in a matter in which the heart has to be concerned."
+
+"It would come to the same thing with me. I must decide for myself."
+
+"I am sure of it. May I venture to feel a hope that ultimately that
+decision may not go against me?" M. Grascour, as he said this, did throw
+some look of passion into his face. "But I have spoken nothing as yet of
+my own feelings."
+
+"It is unnecessary."
+
+This might be taken in either one of two senses; but the gentleman was
+not sufficiently vain to think that the lady had intended to signify to
+him that she would accept his love as a thing of which she could have no
+doubt. "Ah, Miss Mountjoy," he continued, "if you would allow me to say
+that since you have been at Brussels not a day has passed in which
+mingled love and respect have not grown within my bosom. I have sat by
+and watched while my excellent young friend Mr. Anderson has endeavored
+to express his feelings. I have said to myself that I would bide my
+time. If you could give yourself to him, why then the aspiration should
+be quenched within my own breast. But you have not done so, though, as I
+am aware, he has been assisted by my friend Sir Magnus. I have seen, and
+have heard, and have said to myself at last, 'Now, too, my turn may
+come.' I have loved much, but I have been very patient. Can it be that
+my turn should have come at last?" Though he had spoken of Mr. Anderson,
+he had not thought it expedient to say a word either of Captain
+Scarborough or of Mr. Annesley. He knew quite as much of them as he did
+of Mr. Anderson. He was clever, and had put together with absolute
+correctness what Mrs. Mountjoy had told him, with other little facts
+which had reached his ears.
+
+"M. Grascour, I suppose I am very much obliged to you. I ought to be."
+Here he bowed his head. "But my only way of being grateful is to tell
+you the truth." Again he bowed his head. "I am in love with another man.
+That's the truth." Here he shook his head with the smallest possible
+shake, as though deprecating her love, but not doing so with any
+harshness. "I engaged to marry him, too." There was another shake of the
+head, somewhat more powerful. "And I intend to marry him." This she said
+with much bold assurance. "All my old friends know that it is so, and
+ought not to have sent you to me. I have given a promise to Harry
+Annesley, and Harry Annesley alone can make me depart from it." This she
+said in a low voice, but almost with violence, because there had come
+another shake of the head in reply to her assurance that she meant to
+marry Annesley. "And though he were to make me depart from it,--which he
+will never do,--I should be just the same as regards anybody else. Can't
+you understand that when a girl has given herself, heart and soul, to a
+man, she won't change?"
+
+"Girls do change--sometimes."
+
+"You may know them; I don't,--not girls that are worth anything."
+
+"But when all your friends are hostile?"
+
+"What can they do? They can't make me marry another person. They may
+hinder my happiness; but they can't hand me over, like a parcel of
+goods, to any one else. Do you mean to say that you would accept such a
+parcel?"
+
+"Oh yes--such a parcel!"
+
+"You would accept a girl who would come to you telling you that she
+loved another man? I don't believe it of you."
+
+"I should know that my tenderness would beget tenderness in you."
+
+"It wouldn't do anything of the kind. It would be all horror,--horror. I
+should kill myself, or else you, or perhaps both."
+
+"Is your aversion so strong?"
+
+"No, not at all;--not at present. I like you very much. I do indeed. I'd
+do anything for you--in the way of friendship. I believe you to be a
+real gentleman."
+
+"But you would kill me!"
+
+"You make me talk of a condition of things which is quite, quite
+impossible. When I say that I like you, I am talking of the present
+condition of things. I have not the least desire to kill you, or myself,
+or anybody. I want to be taken back to England, and there to be allowed
+to marry Mr. Henry Annesley. That's what I want. But I intend to remain
+engaged to him. That's my purpose, and no man and no woman shall stir me
+from it." He smiled, and again shook his head, and she began to doubt
+whether she did like him so much. "Now I've told you all about myself,"
+she said, rising to her feet. "You may believe me or not, as you please;
+but, as I have believed you, I have told you all." Then she walked out
+of the room.
+
+M. Grascour, as soon as he was alone, left the room and the house, and,
+making his way into the park, walked round it twice, turning in his mind
+his success and his want of success. For, in truth, he was not at all
+dispirited by what had occurred. With her other Belgian lover,--that is,
+with Mr. Anderson,--Florence had at any rate succeeded in making the
+truth appear to be the truth. He did believe that she had taken such a
+fancy to that "fellow Harry Annesley" that there would be no overcoming
+it. He had got a glimpse into the firmness of her character which was
+denied to M. Grascour. M. Grascour, as he walked up and down the shady
+paths of the park, told himself that such events as this so-called love
+on the part of Florence were very common in the lives of English young
+ladies. "They are the best in the world," he said to himself, "and they
+make the most charming wives; but their education is such that there is
+no preventing these accidents." The passion displayed in the young
+lady's words he attributed solely to her power of expression. One girl
+would use language such as had been hers, and such a girl would be
+clever, eloquent, and brave; another girl would hum and haw, with half a
+"yes" and a quarter of a "no," and would mean just the same thing. He
+did not doubt but that she had engaged herself to Harry Annesley; nor
+did he doubt that she had been brought to Brussels to break off that
+engagement; and he thought it most probable that her friends would
+prevail. Under these circumstances, why should he despair?--or why,
+rather, as he was a man not given to despair, should he not think that
+there was for him a reasonable chance of success? He must show himself
+to be devoted, true, and not easily repressed.
+
+She had used, he did not doubt, the same sort of language in silencing
+Anderson. Mr. Anderson had accepted her words, but he knew too well the
+value of words coming from a young lady's mouth to take them at their
+true meaning. He had at this interview affected a certain amount of
+intimacy with Florence of which he thought that he appreciated the
+value. She had told him that she would kill him,--of course in joke; and
+a joke from a girl on such an occasion was worth much. No Belgian girl
+would have joked. But then he was anxious to marry Florence because
+Florence was English. Therefore, when he went back to his own home he
+directed that the system of the high polish should be continued with his
+boots.
+
+"I don't suppose he will come again," Florence had said to her mother,
+misunderstanding the character of her latest lover quite as widely as he
+misunderstood hers. But M. Grascour, though he did not absolutely renew
+his offer at once, gave it to be understood that he did not at all
+withdraw from the contest. He obtained permission from Lady Mountjoy to
+be constantly at the Embassy, and succeeded even in obtaining a promise
+of support from Sir Magnus. "You're quite up a tree," Sir Magnus had
+said to his Secretary of Legation. "It's clear she won't look at you."
+
+"I have pledged myself to abstain," said poor Anderson, in a tone which
+seemed to confess that all chance was over with him.
+
+"I suppose she must marry some one, and I don't see why Grascour should
+not have as good a chance as another." Anderson had stalked away,
+brooding over the injustice of his position, and declaring to himself
+that this Belgian should never be allowed to marry Florence Mountjoy in
+peace.
+
+But M. Grascour continued his attentions; and this it was which had
+induced Florence to tell her mother that the Belgian was "a great
+trouble," which ought to be avoided by a return to England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+FLORENCE BIDS FAREWELL TO HER LOVERS.
+
+
+"Mamma, had you not better take me back to Cheltenham at once?"
+
+"Has that unfortunate young man written to you?"
+
+"Yes. The young man whom you call unfortunate has written. Of course I
+cannot agree to have him so called. And, to tell the truth, I don't
+think he is so very unfortunate. He has got a girl who really loves him,
+and that, I think, is a step to happiness."
+
+Every word of this was said by Florence as though with the purpose of
+provoking her mother; and so did Mrs. Mountjoy feel it. But behind this
+purpose there was that other fixed resolution to get Harry at last
+accepted as her husband, and perhaps the means taken were the best. Mrs
+Mountjoy was already beginning to feel that there would be nothing for
+her but to give up the battle, and to open her motherly arms to Harry
+Annesley. Sir Magnus had told her that M. Grascour would probably
+prevail. M. Grascour was said to be exactly the man likely to be
+effective with such a girl as Florence. That had been the last opinion
+expressed by Sir Magnus. But Mrs. Mountjoy had found no comfort in it.
+Florence was going to have her own way. Her mother knew that it was so,
+and was very unhappy. But she was still anxious to continue a weak,
+ineffective battle. "It was very impertinent of him writing," she said.
+
+"When he was going to America for years! Dear mamma, do put yourself in
+my place. How was it possible that he should not write?"
+
+"A young man has no business to come and insinuate himself into a family
+in that way; and then, when he knows he is not welcome, to open a
+correspondence."
+
+"But, mamma, he knows that he is welcome. If he had gone to America
+without writing to me--Oh, it would have been impossible! I should have
+gone after him."
+
+"No,--no;--never!"
+
+"I am quite in earnest, mamma. But it is no good talking about what
+could not have taken place."
+
+"We ought to have prevented you from receiving or sending letters." Here
+Mrs. Mountjoy touched on a subject on which the practice of the English
+world has been much altered during the last thirty or forty
+years;--perhaps we may say fifty or sixty years. Fifty years ago young
+ladies were certainly not allowed to receive letters as they chose, and
+to write them, and to demand that this practice should be carried on
+without any supervision from their elder friends. It is now usually the
+case that they do so. A young lady, before she falls into a
+correspondence with a young man, is expected to let it be understood
+that she does so. But she does not expect that his letters, either
+coming or going, shall be subject to any espial, and she generally feels
+that the option of obeying or disobeying the instructions given to her
+rests with herself. Practically the use of the post-office is in her own
+hands. And, as this spirit of self-conduct has grown up, the morals and
+habits of our young ladies have certainly not deteriorated. In America
+they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young
+gentlemen walk about with each other. In America the young ladies are as
+well-behaved as with us,--as well-behaved as they are in some Continental
+countries in which they are still watched close till they are given up
+as brides to husbands with whom they have had no means of becoming
+acquainted. Whether the latch-key system, or that of free
+correspondence, may not rob the flowers of some of that delicate aroma
+which we used to appreciate, may be a question; but then it is also a
+question whether there does not come something in place of it which in
+the long-run is found to be more valuable. Florence, when this remark
+was made as to her own power of sending and receiving letters, remained
+silent, but looked very firm. She thought that it would have been
+difficult to silence her after this fashion. "Sir Magnus could have done
+it, at any rate, if I had not been able."
+
+"Sir Magnus could have done nothing, I think, which would not have been
+within your power. But it is useless talking of this. Will you not take
+me back to England, so as to prevent the necessity of Harry coming
+here?"
+
+"Why should he come?"
+
+"Because, mamma, I intend to see my future husband before he goes from
+me for so great a distance, and for so long a time. Don't you feel any
+pity for me, mamma?"
+
+"Do you feel pity for me?"
+
+"Because one day you wish me to marry my cousin Scarborough, and the
+next Mr. Anderson, and then the next M. Grascour? How can I pity you for
+that? It is all done because you have taken it in your head to think ill
+of one whom I believe to be especially worthy. You began by disliking
+him, because he interfered with your plans about Mountjoy. I never would
+have married my cousin Mountjoy. He is not to my taste, and he is a
+gambler. But you have thought that you could do what you liked with me."
+
+"It has always been for your own happiness."
+
+"But I must be the judge of that. How could I be happy with any of these
+men, seeing that I do not care for them in the least? It would be
+utterly impossible for me to have myself married to either of them. To
+Harry Annesley I have given myself altogether; but you, because you are
+my mother, are able to keep us apart. Do you not pity me for the sorrow
+and trouble which I must suffer?"
+
+"I suppose a mother always pities the sufferings of a child."
+
+"And removes them when she can do so. But now, mamma, is he to come
+here, or will you take me back to England?"
+
+This was a question which Mrs. Mountjoy found it very difficult to
+answer. On the spur of the moment she could not answer it, as it would
+be necessary that she should first consult Sir Magnus. Could Sir Magnus
+undertake to confine her daughter within the precincts of the Embassy,
+and to exclude the lover during such time as Harry Annesley night remain
+in Brussels?
+
+As she thought of the matter in her own room she conceived that there
+would be a great difficulty. All the world of Brussels would become
+aware of what was going on. The young lady would endeavor to get out,
+and could only be constrained by the co-operation of the servants; and
+the young gentleman, in his endeavors to get in, could only be prevented
+by the assistance of the police. Dim ideas presented themselves to her
+mind of farther travel. But wherever she went there would be a
+post-office, and she was aware that the young man could pursue her much
+quicker than she could fly. How good it would be that in such an
+emergency she might have the privilege of locking her daughter up in
+some convent! And yet it must be a Protestant convent, as all things
+savoring of the Roman Catholic religion were abhorrent to her.
+Altogether, as she thought of her own condition and that of her
+daughter, she felt that the world was sadly out of joint.
+
+"Coming here, is he?" said Sir Magnus. "Then he will just have to go
+back again as wise as he came."
+
+"But can you shut your doors against him?"
+
+"Shut my doors! Of course I can. He'll never be able to get his nose in
+here if once an order has been given for his exclusion. Who's Mr.
+Annesley? I don't suppose he knows an Englishman in Brussels."
+
+"But she will go out to meet him."
+
+"What! in the streets?" said Sir Magnus, in horror.
+
+"I fear she would."
+
+"By George! she must be a stiff-necked one if she'll do that." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy, with tears in her eyes, began to explain with very many
+epithets that her daughter was the best girl in all the world. She was
+entirely worthy of confidence. Those who knew her were aware that no
+better behaved young woman could exist. She was conscientious,
+religious, and high-principled. "But she'll go out in the streets and
+walk with a young man when all her friends tell her not. Is that her
+idea of religion?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with some touch of anger in the
+tone of her voice, said that she would return to England, and carry her
+daughter with her. "What the deuce can I do, Sarah, when the young lady
+is so unruly? I can give orders to have him shut out, and can take care
+that they are obeyed; but I cannot give orders to have her shut in. I
+should be making her a prisoner, and everybody would talk about it. In
+that matter you must give her the orders;--only you say that she would
+not comply with them."
+
+On the following day Mrs. Mountjoy informed her daughter that they would
+go back to Cheltenham. She did not name an immediate day, because it
+would be well, she thought, to stave off the evil hour. Nor did she name
+a distant day, because, were she to do so, the terrible evil of Harry
+Annesley's arrival in Brussels would not be prevented. At first she
+wished to name no day, thinking that it would be a good thing to cross
+Harry on the road. But here Florence was too strong for her, and at last
+a day was fixed. In a week's time they would take their departure and go
+home by slow stages. With this arrangement Florence expressed herself
+well pleased, and of course made Harry acquainted with the probable time
+of their arrival.
+
+M. Grascour, when he heard that the day had been suddenly fixed for the
+departure of Mrs. Mountjoy and her daughter, not unnaturally conceived
+that he himself was the cause of the ladies' departure. Nor did he on
+that account resign all hope. The young lady's mother was certainly on
+his side, and he thought it quite possible that were he to appear in
+England he might be successful. But when he had heard of her coming
+departure of course it was necessary that he should say some special
+farewell. He dined one evening at the British Embassy, and took an
+opportunity during the evening of finding himself alone with Florence.
+"And so, Miss Florence," he said, "you and your estimable mamma are
+about to return to England?"
+
+"We have been here a very long time, and are going home at last."
+
+"It seems to me but the other day when you came." said M. Grascour, with
+all a lover's eagerness.
+
+"It was in autumn, and the weather was quite mild and soft. Now we are
+in the middle of January."
+
+"I suppose so. But still the time has gone only too rapidly. The heart
+can hardly take account of days and weeks." As this was decidedly
+lover's talk, and was made in terms which even a young lady cannot
+pretend to misunderstand, Florence was obliged to answer it in some
+manner equally direct. And now she was angry with him. She had informed
+him that she was in love with another man. In doing so she had done much
+more than the necessity of the case demanded, and had told him, as the
+best way of silencing him, that which she might have been expected to
+keep as her own secret. And yet here he was talking to her about his
+heart! She made him no immediate answer, but frowned at him and looked
+stern. It was clear to her intelligence that he had no right to talk to
+her about his heart after the information she had given him. "I hope,
+Miss Mountjoy, that I may look forward to the pleasure of seeing you
+when I go over to England."
+
+"But we don't live in London, or near it. We live down in the
+country--at Cheltenham."
+
+"Distance would be nothing."
+
+This was very bad, and must be stopped, thought Florence. "I suppose I
+shall be married by that time. I don't know where we may live, but I
+shall be happy to see you if you call."
+
+She had here made a bold assertion, and one which M. Grascour did not at
+all believe. He was speaking of a visit which he might make, perhaps, in
+a month or six weeks, and the young lady told him that he would find her
+married! And yet, as he knew very well, her mother and her uncle and her
+aunt were all opposed to this marriage. And she spoke of it without a
+blush,--without any reticence! Young ladies were much emancipated, but he
+did not think that they generally carried their emancipation so far as
+this. "I hope not that," he said.
+
+"I don't know why you should be so ill-natured as to hope it. The fact
+is, M. Grascour, you don't believe what I told you the other day.
+Perhaps as a young lady I ought not to have alluded to it, but I did so
+in order to set the matter at rest altogether. Of course I can't tell
+when you may come. If you come quite at once I shall not be married."
+
+"No;--not married."
+
+"But I shall be as much engaged as is possible for a girl to be. I have
+given my word, and nothing will make me false to it. I don't suppose you
+will come on my account."
+
+"Solely on your account."
+
+"Then stay at home. I am quite in earnest. And now I must say good-bye."
+
+She departed, and left him seated alone on the sofa. He at first told
+himself that she was unfeminine. There was a hard way with her of
+talking about herself which he almost pronounced to be unladylike. An
+unmarried girl should, he thought, under no circumstances speak of the
+gentleman to whom her affections had been given as Miss Mountjoy spoke
+of Mr. Annesley. But nevertheless he would sooner possess her as his own
+wife than any other girl he had ever met. Something of the real passion
+of unsatisfied love made him feel chill at his heart. Who was this Harry
+Annesley, for whom she professed so warm a feeling? Her mother declared
+Harry Annesley to be a scapegrace, and something of the story of a
+discreditable midnight street quarrel between him and the young lady's
+cousin had reached his ears. He did not suppose it to be possible that
+the young lady could actually get married without her mother's
+co-operation, and therefore he thought that he still would go to
+England. In one respect he was altogether untouched. If he could
+ultimately succeed in marrying the young lady, she would not be a bit
+the worse as his wife because she had been attached to Harry Annesley.
+That was a kind of folly which a girl could very quickly get over when
+she had not been allowed to have her own way. Therefore, upon the whole,
+he thought that he would go to England.
+
+But the parting with Anderson had also to be endured, and must
+necessarily be more difficult. She owed him a debt for having abstained,
+and she could not go without paying the debt by some expression of
+gratitude. That she would have done so had he kept aloof was a matter of
+course; but equally a matter of course was it that he would not keep
+aloof. "I shall want to see you for just five minutes to-morrow morning
+before you take your departure," he said, in a lugubrious voice, during
+her last evening.
+
+He had kept his promise to the very letter, mooning about in his
+desolate manner very conspicuously. The desolation had been notorious,
+and very painful to Florence,--but the promise had been kept, and she was
+grateful. "Oh, certainly, if you wish it," she said.
+
+"I do wish it." Then he made an appointment and she promised to keep it.
+
+It was in the ball-room, a huge chamber, very convenient for its
+intended purpose, and always handsome at night-time, but looking as
+desolate in the morning as did poor Anderson himself. He was stalking up
+and down the long room when she entered it, and being at the farther
+end, stalked up to her and addressed her with words which he had chosen
+for the purpose. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "you found me here a happy,
+light-hearted young man."
+
+"I hope I leave you soon to be the same, in spite of this little
+accident."
+
+He did not say that he was a blighted being, because the word had, he
+thought, become ridiculous; but he would have used it had he dared, as
+expressing most accurately his condition.
+
+"A cloud has passed over me, and its darkness will never be effaced. It
+has certainly been your doing."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! what can I say?"
+
+"I have loved before,--but never like this."
+
+"And so you will again."
+
+"Never! When I declare that, I expect my word to be respected," He
+paused for an answer, but what could she say? She did not at all respect
+his word on such a subject, but she did respect his conduct. "Yes; I
+call upon you to believe me when I say that for me all that is over. But
+it can be nothing to you."
+
+"It will be very much to me."
+
+"I shall go on in the same disconsolate, miserable way, I suppose I
+shall stay here, because I shall be as well here as anywhere else. I
+might move to Lisbon,--but what good would that do me? Your image would
+follow me to whatever capital I might direct my steps. But there is one
+thing you can do." Here he brightened up, putting on quite an altered
+face.
+
+"I will do anything, Mr. Anderson--in my power."
+
+"If--if--if you should change--"
+
+"I shall never change!" she said, with an angry look.
+
+"If you should change, I think you should remember the promise you
+exacted and the fidelity with which it has been kept."
+
+"I do remember it."
+
+"And then I should be allowed to come again and have my chance. Wherever
+I may be, at the court of the Shah of Persia or at the Chinese capital,
+I will instantly come. I promised you when you asked me. Will you not
+now promise me?"
+
+"I cannot promise anything--so impossible."
+
+"It will bind you to nothing but to let me know that Mr. Annesley has
+gone his way." But she had to explain to him that it was impossible she
+should make any promise founded on the idea that Mr. Henry Annesley
+should ever go any way in which she would not accompany him. With that
+he had to be as well satisfied as the circumstances of the case would
+admit, and he left her with an assurance, not intended to be quite
+audible, that he was and ever should be a blighted individual.
+
+When the carriage was at the door Sir Magnus came down into the hall,
+full of smiles and good-humor; but at that moment Lady Mountjoy was
+saying a last word of farewell to her relatives in her own chamber.
+"Good-bye, my dear; I hope you will get well through all your troubles."
+This was addressed to Mrs. Mountjoy. "And as for you, my dear," she
+said, turning to Florence, "if you would only contrive to be a little
+less stiff-necked, I think the world would go easier with you."
+
+"I think my stiff neck, aunt, as you call it, is what I have chiefly to
+depend upon,--I mean in reference to other advice than mamma's. Good-bye,
+aunt."
+
+"Good-bye, Florence." And the two parted, hating each other as only
+female enemies can hate. But Florence, when she was in the carriage,
+threw herself on to her mother's neck and kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MR. PROSPER CHANGES HIS MIND.
+
+
+When Florence with her mother reached Cheltenham she found a letter
+lying for her, which surprised her much. The the letter was from Harry,
+and seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had lately
+displayed. But it was very short:
+
+"DEAREST FLORENCE,--When can I come down? It is absolutely necessary
+that I should see you. All my plans are likely to be changed in the most
+extraordinary manner.
+
+"Nobody can say that this is a love-letter.
+
+"Yours affectionately, H. A."
+
+Florence, of course, showed the letter to her mother, who was much
+frightened by its contents. "What am I to say to him when he comes?" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"If you will be so very, very good as to see him you must not say
+anything unkind."
+
+"Unkind! How can I say anything else than what you would call unkind? I
+disapprove of him altogether. And he is coming here with the express
+object of taking you away from me."
+
+"Oh no;--not at once."
+
+"But at some day,--which I trust may be very distant. How can I speak to
+him kindly when I feel that he is my enemy?" But the matter was at last
+set at rest by a promise from Florence that she would not marry her
+lover in less than three years without her mother's express consent.
+Three years is a long time, was Mrs. Mountjoy's thought, and many things
+might occur within that term. Harry, of whom she thought all manner of
+unnatural things, might probably in that time have proved himself to be
+utterly unworthy. And Mountjoy Scarborough might again have come forward
+in the light of the world. She had heard of late that Mountjoy had been
+received once more into his father's full favor. And the old man had
+become so enormously rich through the building of mills which had been
+going on at Tretton, that, as Mrs. Mountjoy thought, he would be able to
+make any number of elder sons. On the subject of entail her ideas were
+misty; but she felt sure that Mountjoy Scarborough would even yet become
+a rich man. That Florence should be made to change on that account she
+did not expect. But she did think that when she should have learned that
+Harry was a murderer, or a midnight thief, or a wicked conspirator, she
+would give him up. Therefore she agreed to receive him with not actually
+expressed hostility when he should call at Montpelier Place.
+
+But now, in the proper telling of our story, we must go back to Harry
+Annesley himself. It will be remembered that his father had called upon
+Mr. Prosper, to inform him of Harry's projected journey to America; that
+Mountjoy Scarborough had also called at Buston Hall; and that previous
+to these two visits old Mr. Scarborough had himself written a long
+letter giving a detailed account of the conflict which had taken place
+in the London streets. These three events had operated strongly on Mr.
+Prosper's mind; but not so strongly as the conduct of Miss Thoroughbung
+and Messrs. Soames & Simpson. It had been made evident to him, from the
+joint usage which he had received from these persons, that he was simply
+"made use of," with the object of obtaining from him the best possible
+establishment for the lady in question.
+
+After that interview, at which the lady, having obtained in way of
+jointure much more than was due to her, demanded also for Miss Tickle a
+life-long home, and for herself a pair of ponies, he received a farther
+letter from the lawyers. This offended him greatly. Nothing on earth
+should induce him to write a line to Messrs. Soames & Simpson. Nor did
+he see his way to writing again to Messrs. Grey & Barry about such
+trifles as those contained in the letter from the Buntingford lawyers.
+Trifles to him they were not; but trifles they must become, if put into
+a letter addressed to a London firm. "Our client is anxious to know
+specifically that she is to be allowed to bring Miss Tickle with her,
+when she removes to Buston Hall. Her happiness depends greatly on the
+company of Miss Tickle, to which she had been used now for many years.
+Our client wishes to be assured also that she shall be allowed to keep a
+pair of ponies in addition to the carriage-horses, which will be
+maintained, no doubt, chiefly for your own purposes." These were the
+demands as made by Messrs. Soames & Simpson, and felt by Mr. Prosper to
+be altogether impossible. He recollected the passionate explosion of
+wrath to which the name of Miss Tickle had already brought him in
+presence of the clergyman of his parish. He would endure no farther
+disgrace on behalf of Miss Tickle. Miss Tickle should never be an inmate
+of his house, and as for the ponies, no pony should ever be stabled in
+his stalls. A pony was an animal which of its very nature was
+objectionable to him. There was a want of dignity in a pony to which
+Buston Hall should never be subjected. "And also," he said to himself at
+last, "there is a lack of dignity about Miss Thoroughbung herself which
+would do me an irreparable injury."
+
+But how should he make known his decision to the lady herself? and how
+should he escape from the marriage in such a manner as to leave no stain
+on his character as a gentleman? If he could have offered her a sum of
+money, he would have done so at once; but that he thought would not be
+gentleman-like,--and would be a confession on his own part that he had
+behaved wrongly.
+
+At last he determined to take no notice of the lawyers' letter, and
+himself to write to Miss Thoroughbung, telling her that the objects
+which they proposed to themselves by marriage were not compatible, and
+that therefore their matrimonial intentions must be allowed to subside.
+He thought it well over, and felt assured that very much of the success
+of such a measure must depend upon the wording of the letter. There need
+be no immediate haste. Miss Thoroughbung would not come to Buston again
+quite at once to disturb him by a farther visit. Before she would come
+he would have flown to Italy. The letter must be courteous, and somewhat
+tender, but it must be absolutely decisive. There must be no loop-hole
+left by which she could again entangle him, no crevice by which she
+could creep into Buston. The letter should be a work of time. He would
+give himself a week or ten days for composing it. And then, when it
+should have been sent, he would be off to Italy.
+
+But before he could allow himself to go upon his travels he must settle
+the question about his nephew, which now lay heavy upon his conscience.
+He did feel that he had ill treated the young man. He had been so told
+in very strong language by Mr. Scarborough of Tretton, and Mr.
+Scarborough of Tretton was a man of very large property, and much talked
+about in the world. Very wonderful things were said about Mr.
+Scarborough, but they all tended to make Mr. Prosper believe that he was
+a man of distinction. And he had also heard lately about Mr.
+Scarborough's younger son,--or, indeed, his only son, according to the
+new way of speaking of him,--tidings which were not much in that young
+man's favor. It was from Augustus Scarborough that he had heard those
+evil stories about his own nephew. Therefore his belief was shaken; and
+it was by no means clear to him that there could be any other heir for
+their property.
+
+Miss Thoroughbung had proved herself to be altogether unfit for the high
+honor he had intended her. Miss Puffle had gone off with Farmer
+Tazlehurst's son. Mr. Prosper did not think that he had energy enough to
+look for a third lady who might be fit at all points to become his wife.
+And now another evil had been added to all these. His nephew had
+declared his purpose of emigrating to the United States and becoming an
+American. It might be true that he should be driven to do so by absolute
+want. He, Mr. Prosper, had stopped his allowance, and had done so after
+deterring him from following any profession by which he might have
+earned his bread. He had looked into the law, and, as far as he could
+understand it, Buston must become the property of his nephew, even
+though his nephew should become an American citizen. His conscience
+pricked him sorely as he thought of the evil which might thus accrue,
+and of the disgrace which would be attached to his own name. He
+therefore wrote the following letter to his nephew, and sent it across
+to the parsonage, done up in a large envelope, and sealed carefully with
+the Buston arms. And on the corner of the envelope "Peter Prosper" was
+written very legibly:
+
+"MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,--
+
+"Under existing circumstances you will, I think, be surprised at a
+letter written in my handwriting; but facts have arisen which make it
+expedient that I should address you.
+
+"You are about, I am informed, to proceed to the United States, a
+country against which I acknowledge I entertain a serious antipathy.
+They are not a gentlemanlike people, and I am given to understand that
+they are generally dishonest in all their dealings. Their President is a
+low person, and all their ideas of government are pettifogging. Their
+ladies, I am told, are very vulgar, though I have never had the pleasure
+of knowing one of them. They are an irreligious nation, and have no
+respect for the Established Church of England and her bishops. I should
+be very sorry that my heir should go among them.
+
+"With reference to my stopping the income which I have hitherto allowed
+you, it was a step I took upon the best advice, nor can I allow it to be
+thought that there is any legal claim upon me for a continuance of the
+payment. But I am willing for the present to continue it, on the full
+understanding that you at once give up your American project.
+
+"But there is a subject on which it is essentially necessary that I
+should receive from you, as my heir, a full and complete explanation.
+Under what circumstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets
+late on the night of the 3d of June last? And how did it come to pass
+that you left him bleeding, speechless, and motionless on that occasion?
+
+"As I am about to continue the payment of the sum hitherto allowed, I
+think it only fitting that I should receive this explanation under your
+own hand.--I am your affectionate uncle,
+
+"PETER PROSPER.
+
+"P.S.--A rumor may probably have reached you of a projected alliance
+between me and a young lady belonging to a family with which your sister
+is about to connect herself. It is right that I should tell you that
+there is no truth in this report."
+
+This letter, which was much easier to write than the one intended for
+Miss Thoroughbung, was unfortunately sent off a little before the
+completion of the other. A day's interval had been intended. But the
+missive to Miss Thoroughbung was, under the press of difficulties,
+delayed longer than was intended.
+
+There was, we grieve to say, much of joy but more of laughter at the
+rectory when this letter was received. As usual, Joe Thoroughbung was
+there, and it was found impossible to keep the letter from him. The
+postscript burst upon them all as a surprise, and was welcomed by no one
+with more vociferous joy than by the lady's nephew. "So there is an end
+forever to the hope that a child of the Buntingford Brewery should sit
+upon the throne of the Prospers." It was thus that Joe expressed
+himself.
+
+"Why shouldn't he have sat there?" said Polly. "A Thoroughbung is as
+good as a Prosper any day." But this was not said in the presence of
+Mrs. Annesley, who on that subject entertained views very different from
+her daughter.
+
+"I wonder what his idea is of the Church of England?" said Mr.
+Annesley. "Does he think that the Archbishop of Canterbury is supreme in
+all religious matters in America?"
+
+"How on earth he knows that the women are all vulgar, when he has never
+seen one of them, is a mystery," said Harry.
+
+"And that they are dishonest in all their dealings," said Joe. "I
+suppose he got that out of some of the radical news papers." For Joe,
+after the manner of brewers, was a staunch Tory.
+
+"And their President, too, is vulgar as well as the ladies," said Mr.
+Annesley. "And this is the opinion of an educated Englishman, who is not
+ashamed to own that he entertains serious antipathies against a whole
+nation!"
+
+But at the parsonage they soon returned to a more serious consideration
+of the matter. Did Uncle Prosper intend to forgive the sinner
+altogether? And was he coerced into doing so by a conviction that he had
+been told lies, or by the uncommon difficulties which presented
+themselves to him in reference to another heir? At any rate, it was
+agreed by them all that Harry must meet his uncle half-way, and write
+the "full and complete explanation," as desired. "'Bleeding, speechless,
+and motionless!'" said Harry. "I can't deny that he was bleeding; he
+certainly was speechless, and for a few moments may have been
+motionless. What am I to say?" But the letter was not a difficult one to
+write, and was sent across on the same day to the Hall. There Mr.
+Prosper gave up a day to its consideration,--a day which would have been
+much better devoted to applying the final touch to his own letter to
+Miss Thoroughbung. And he found at last that his nephew's letter
+required no rejoinder.
+
+But Harry had much to do. It was first necessary that he should see his
+friend, and explain to him that causes over which he had no control
+forbade him to go to America. "Of course, you know, I can't fly in my
+uncle's face. I was going because he intended to disinherit me; but he
+finds that more troublesome than letting me alone, and therefore I must
+remain. You see what he says about the Americans." The gentleman, whose
+opinion about our friends on the other side of the Atlantic was very
+different from Mr. Prosper's, fell into a long argument on the subject.
+But he was obliged at last to give up his companion.
+
+Then came the necessity of explaining the change in all his plans to
+Florence Mountjoy, and with this view he wrote the short letter given at
+the beginning of the chapter, following it down in person to
+Cheltenham. "Mamma, Harry is here," said Florence to her mother.
+
+"Well, my dear? I did not bring him."
+
+"But what am I to say to him?"
+
+"How can I tell? Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Of course he must come and see me," said Florence. "He has sent a note
+to say that he will be here in ten minutes."
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Do you mean to be present, mamma? That is what I want to know." But
+that was the question which at the moment Mrs. Mountjoy could not
+answer. She had pledged herself not to be unkind, on condition that no
+marriage should take place for three years. But she could not begin by
+being kind, as otherwise she would immediately have been pressed to
+abandon that very condition. "Perhaps, mamma, it would be less painful
+if you would not see him."
+
+"But he is not to make repeated visits."
+
+"No, not at present; I think not."
+
+"He must come only once," said Mrs. Mountjoy, firmly. "He was to have
+come because he was going to America. But now he has changed all his
+plans. It isn't fair, Florence."
+
+"What can I do? I cannot send him to America because you thought he was
+to go there. I thought so too; and so did he. I don't know what has
+changed him; but it wasn't likely that he'd write and say he wouldn't
+come because he had altered his plans. Of course he wants to see me; and
+so do I want to see him--very much. Here he is!"
+
+There was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Mountjoy was driven to resolve
+what she would do at the moment. "You mustn't be above a quarter of an
+hour. I won't have you together for above a quarter of an hour,--or
+twenty minutes at the farthest." So saying, Mrs. Mountjoy escaped from
+the room, and within a minute or two Florence found herself in Harry
+Annesley's arms.
+
+The twenty minutes had become forty before Harry had thought of
+stirring, although he had been admonished fully a dozen times that he
+must at that moment take his departure. Then the maid knocked at the
+door, and brought word "that missus wanted to see Miss Florence in her
+bedroom."
+
+"Now, Harry, you must go. You really shall go,--or I will. I am very,
+very happy to hear what you have told me."
+
+"But three years!"
+
+"Unless mamma will agree."
+
+"It is quite out of the question. I never heard of anything so absurd."
+
+"Then you must get mamma to consent. I have promised her for three
+years, and you ought to know that I will keep my word. Harry, I always
+keep my word; do I not? If she will consent, I will. Now, sir, I really
+must go." Then there was a little form of farewell which need not be
+especially explained, and Florence went up stairs to her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES GETS HIS MONEY.
+
+
+When we last left Captain Scarborough, he had just lost an additional
+sum of two hundred and twenty-seven pounds to Captain Vignolles, which
+he was not able to pay, besides the sum of fifty pounds which he had
+received the day before, as the first instalment of his new allowance.
+This was but a bad beginning of the new life he was expected to lead
+under the renewed fortunes which his father was preparing for him. He
+had given his promissory note for the money at a week's date, and had
+been extremely angry with Captain Vignolles because that gentleman had,
+under the circumstances, been a little anxious about it. It certainly
+was not singular that he should have been so, as Captain Scarborough had
+been turned out of more than one club in consequence of his inability to
+pay his card debts. As he went home to his lodgings, with Captain
+Vignolles's champagne in his head, he felt very much as he had done that
+night when he attacked Harry Annesley. But he met no one whom he could
+consider as an enemy, and therefore got himself to bed, and slept off
+the fumes of the drink.
+
+On that day he was to return to Tretton; but, when he awoke, he felt
+that before he did so he must endeavor to make some arrangements for
+paying the amount due at the end of the week. He had already borrowed
+twenty pounds from Mr. Grey, and had intended to repay him out of the
+sum which his father had given him; but that sum now was gone, and he
+was again nearly penniless. In this emergency there was nothing left to
+him but again to go to Mr. Grey.
+
+As he was shown up the stairs to the lawyer's room he did feel
+thoroughly ashamed of himself. Mr. Grey knew all the circumstances of
+his career, and it would be necessary now to tell him of this last
+adventure. He did tell himself, as he dragged himself up the stairs,
+that for such a one as he was there could be no redemption. "It would be
+better that I should go back," he said, "and throw myself from the
+Monument." But yet he felt that if Florence Mountjoy could still be his,
+there might yet be a hope that things would go well with him.
+
+Mr. Grey began by expressing surprise at seeing Captain Scarborough in
+town. "Oh yes, I have come up. It does not matter why, because, as
+usual, I have put my foot in it. It was at my father's bidding; but that
+does not matter."
+
+"How have you put your foot in it?" said the attorney. There was one way
+in which the captain was always "putting" both his "feet in it;" but,
+since he had been turned out of his clubs, Mr. Grey did not think that
+that way was open to him.
+
+"The old story."
+
+"Do you mean that you have been gambling again?"
+
+"Yes;--I met a friend last night and he asked me to his rooms."
+
+"And he had the cards ready?"
+
+"Of course he had. What else would any one have ready for me?"
+
+"And he won that remnant of the twenty pounds which you borrowed from
+me, and therefore you want another?" Hereupon the captain shook his
+head. "What is it, then, that you do want?"
+
+"Such a man as I met," said the captain, "would not be content with the
+remnant of twenty pounds. I had received fifty from my father, and had
+intended to call here and pay you."
+
+"That has all gone too?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. And in addition to that I have given him a note for two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I must take up in a week's time.
+Otherwise I must disappear again,--and this time forever."
+
+"It is a bottomless gulf," said the attorney. Captain Scarborough sat
+silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but
+his heart within him certainly was not smiling. "A bottomless gulf,"
+repeated the attorney. Upon this the captain frowned. "What is it that
+you wish me to do for you? I have no money of your father's in my hands,
+nor could I give it you if I had it."
+
+"I suppose not. I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so."
+Then it was the lawyer's turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of
+it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go.
+"I won't trouble you any more Mr. Grey," he said.
+
+"Sit down," said Mr. Grey. But the captain still remained standing. "Sit
+down. Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this
+sum of money;--nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in
+explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would
+repay me. And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy
+about my money, whether he did so or not. But would it be wise? On your
+own account would it be wise?"
+
+"I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,--unless you could
+cut my throat."
+
+"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father,
+the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew--"
+
+"I shall never believe all this about my mother."
+
+"Never mind that now. We will pass that by for the present. He has
+disinherited you."
+
+"That will be a question some day for the lawyers--should I live."
+
+"But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you
+another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I
+sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for
+your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all
+things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months
+longer."
+
+"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."
+
+"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges
+him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make
+you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the
+captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all
+the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going
+to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk
+will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for
+life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or
+in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"
+
+"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."
+
+"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you
+have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."
+
+"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."
+
+"This man who had your money last;--does he not live on it as a
+profession? Why should he win always, and you lose?"
+
+"It is my luck."
+
+"Luck! There is no such thing as luck. Toss up, right hand against left
+for an hour together, and the result will be the same. If not for an
+hour, then do it for six hours. Take the average, and your cards will be
+the same as another man's."
+
+"Another man has his skill," said Mountjoy.
+
+"And uses it against the unskillful to earn his daily bread. That is the
+same as cheating. But what is the use of all this? You must have thought
+of it all before."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"And thinking of it, you are determined to persevere. You are impetuous,
+not thoughtless, with your brain clouded with drink, and for the mere
+excitement of the thing, you are determined to risk all in a contest for
+which there is no chance for you,--and by which you acknowledge you will
+be driven to self-destruction, as the only natural end."
+
+"I fear it is so," said the captain.
+
+"How much shall I draw it for?" said the attorney, taking out his
+check-book,--"and to whom shall I make it payable? I suppose I may date
+it to-day, so that the swindler who gets it may think that there is
+plenty more behind for him to get."
+
+"Do you mean that you are going to lend it me?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"And how do you mean to get it again?"
+
+"I must wait, I suppose, till you have won it back among your friends.
+If you will tell me that you do not intend to look for it in that
+fashion, then I shall have no doubt as to your making me a legitimate
+payment in a very short time. Two hundred and twenty pounds won't ruin
+you, unless you are determined to ruin yourself." Mr. Grey the meanwhile
+went on writing the check. "Here is provided for you a large sum of
+money," and he laid his hand upon the will, "out of which you will be
+able to pay me without the slightest difficulty. It is for you to say
+whether you will or not."
+
+"I will."
+
+"You need not say it in that fashion;--that's easy. You must say it at
+some moment when the itch of play is on you; when there shall be no one
+by to hear: when the resolution if held, shall have some meaning in it.
+Then say, 'there's that money which I had from old Grey. I am bound to
+pay it. But if I go in there I know what will be the result. The very
+coin that should go into his coffers will become a part of the prey on
+which those harpies will feed.' There's the check for the two hundred
+and twenty-seven pounds. I have drawn it exact, so that you may send the
+identical bit of paper to your friend. He will suppose that I am some
+money-lender who has engaged to supply your needs while your recovered
+fortune lasts. Tell your father he shall have the will to-morrow. I
+don't suppose I can send Smith with it to-day."
+
+Then it became necessary that Scarborough should go; but it would be
+becoming that he should first utter some words of thanks. "I think you
+will get it back, Mr. Grey."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for
+a while from the gambling-table."
+
+"You don't look for more than that?"
+
+"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure
+me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."
+
+"Some woman?"
+
+"Well;--it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her
+comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember
+what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to
+Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I send you your money. Send back the note.
+
+"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the
+check,--"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That
+Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be
+a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over
+in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an
+industrious professional worker.
+
+But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for
+a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave
+him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be
+comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening
+Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the
+Carrolls,--how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother
+because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly,
+whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be
+kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had
+told her in confidence that Carroll _pere_ had come home the night
+before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey
+had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with
+the secret of the money which he had lent.
+
+Therefore Dolly did not put out her candle, and arrayed herself for bed
+in the costume with which she was wont to make her nocturnal visits. She
+had perceived that her father had something on his mind which it would
+be necessary that he should tell. She was soon summoned, and having
+seated herself on the bed, began the conversation: "I knew you would
+want me to-night."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because you've got something to tell. It's about Mr. Barry."
+
+"No indeed."
+
+"That's well. Just at this moment I seem to care about Mr. Barry more
+than any other trouble. But I fear that he has forgotten me
+altogether,--which is not complimentary."
+
+"Mr. Barry will turn up all in proper time," said her father. "I have
+got nothing to say about Mr. Barry just at present, so if you are
+love-lorn you had better go to bed."
+
+"Very well. When I am love-lorn I will. Now, what have you got to tell
+me?"
+
+"I have lent a man a large sum of money,--two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds!"
+
+"You are always lending people large sums of money."
+
+"I generally get it back again."
+
+"From Mr. Carroll, for instance,--when he borrows it for a pair of
+breeches and spends it in gin-and-water."
+
+"I never lent him a shilling. He is a burr, and has to be pacified, not
+by loans but gifts. It is too late now for me to prevent the
+brother-in-lawship of poor Carroll."
+
+"Who has got this money?"
+
+"A professed gambler, who never wins anything, and constantly loses more
+than he is able to pay. Yet I do think this man will pay me some day."
+
+"It is Captain Scarborough," said Dolly. "Seeing that his father is a
+very rich man indeed, and as far as I can understand gives you a great
+deal more trouble than he is worth, I don't see why you should lend a
+large sum of money to his son."
+
+"Simply because he wanted it."
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!"
+
+"He wanted it very much. He had gone away a ruined man because of his
+gambling; and now, when he had come back and was to be put upon his legs
+again, I could not see him again ruined for the need of such a sum. It
+was very foolish."
+
+"Perhaps a little rash, papa."
+
+"But now I have told you; and so there may be an end of it. But I'll
+tell you what, Dolly: I'll bet you a new straw hat he pays me within a
+month of his father's death." Then Dolly was allowed to escape and
+betake herself to her bed.
+
+On that same day Mountjoy Scarborough went down to Tretton, and was at
+once closeted with his father. Mr. Scarborough had questions to ask
+about Mr. Prosper, and was anxious to know how his son had succeeded in
+his mission. But the conversation was soon turned from Mr. Prosper to
+Captain Vignolles and Mr. Grey. Mountjoy had determined, as soon as he
+had got the check from Mr. Grey, to say nothing about it to his father.
+He had told Mr. Grey in order that he need not tell his father,--if the
+money were forthcoming. But he had not been five minutes in his father's
+room before he rushed to the subject. "You got among those birds of prey
+again?" said his father.
+
+"There was only one bird,--or at least two. A big bird and a small one."
+
+"And you lost how much?" Then the captain told the precise sum. "And
+Grey has lent it you?" The captain nodded his head. "Then you must ride
+into Tretton and catch the mail to-night with a check to repay him. That
+you should have been able in so short a time to have found a man willing
+to fleece you! I suppose it's hopeless?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"Altogether hopeless."
+
+"What am I to say, sir? If I make a promise it will go for nothing."
+
+"For absolutely nothing."
+
+"Then what would be the use of my promising?"
+
+"You are quite logical, and look upon the matter in altogether a proper
+light. As you have ruined yourself so often, and done your best to ruin
+those that belong to you, what hope can there be? About this money that
+I have left you, I do not know that anything farther can be said,--unless
+I leave it all to an hospital. It is better that you should have it and
+throw it away among the gamblers, than that it should fall into the
+hands of Augustus. Besides, the demand is moderate. No doubt it is only
+a beginning, but we will see."
+
+Then he got out his check-book, and made Mountjoy himself write the
+check, including the two sums which had been borrowed. And he dictated
+the letter to Mr. Grey:
+
+"MY DEAR GREY,--I return the money which Mountjoy has had from you,--two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and twenty. That, I think, is right.
+You are the most foolish man I know with your money. To have given it to
+such a scapegrace as my son Mountjoy! But you are the sweetest and
+finest gentleman I ever came across. You have got your money now, which
+is a great deal more than you can have expected or ought to have
+obtained. However, on this occasion you have been in great luck.
+
+"Yours faithfully,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+This letter his son himself was forced to write, though it dealt
+altogether with his own delinquencies; and yet, as he told himself, he
+was not sorry to write it, as it would declare to Mr. Grey that he had
+himself acknowledged at once his own sin. The only farther punishment
+which his father exacted was that his son should himself ride into
+Tretton and post the letter before he ate his dinner.
+
+"I've got my money," said Mr. Grey, waving the check as he went into his
+dressing-room, with Dolly at his heels.
+
+"Who has paid it?"
+
+"Old Scarborough; and he made Mountjoy write the letter himself, calling
+me an old fool for lending it. I don't think I was such a fool at all.
+However, I've got my money, and you may pay the bet and not say anything
+more about it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE LAST OF MISS THOROUGHBUNG.
+
+
+Mr. Prosper, with that kind of energy which was distinctively his own,
+had sent off his letter to Harry Annesley, with his postscript in it
+about his blighted matrimonial prospects,--a letter easy to be
+written,--before he had completed his grand epistle to Miss Thoroughbung.
+The epistle to Miss Thoroughbung was one requiring great consideration.
+It had to be studied in every word, and re-written again and again with
+the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an
+epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop
+expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for
+the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop.
+The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had
+heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its
+legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident,
+and, in writing it, had forgotten the intercourse between his
+brother-in-law's house and the Buntingford people. He had known well of
+the proposed marriage; but he was a man who could not think of two
+things at the same time, and thus had committed the blunder.
+
+Perhaps it was better for him as it was; and the blow came to him with a
+rapidity which created less of suffering than might have followed the
+slower mode of proceeding which he had intended. He was actually making
+the fifth copy of the letter, rendered necessary by that violent full
+stop, when Matthew came to him and announced that Miss Thoroughbung was
+in the drawing-room. "In the house!" ejaculated Mr. Prosper.
+
+"She would come into the hall; and then where was I to put her?"
+
+"Matthew Pike, you will not do for my service." This had been said about
+once every three months throughout the long course of years in which
+Matthew had lived with his master.
+
+"Very well, sir. I am to take it for a month's warning, of course."
+Matthew understood well enough that this was merely an expression of his
+master's displeasure, and, being anxious for his master's welfare, knew
+that it was decorous that some decision should be come to at once as to
+Miss Thoroughbung, and that time should not be lost in his own little
+personal quarrel. "She is waiting, you know, sir, and she looks uncommon
+irascible. There is the other lady left outside in the carriage."
+
+"Miss Tickle! Don't let her in, whatever you do. She is the worst. Oh
+dear! oh dear! Where are my coat and waistcoat, and my braces? And I
+haven't brushed my hair. And these slippers won't do. What business has
+she to come at this time of day, without saying a word to anybody?" Then
+Matthew went to work, and got his master into decent apparel, with as
+little delay as possible. "After all," said Mr. Prosper, "I don't think
+I'll see her. Why should I see her?"
+
+"She knows you are at home, sir."
+
+"Why does she know I'm at home? That's your fault. She oughtn't to know
+anything about it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!" These last ejaculations
+arose from his having just then remembered the nature of his postscript
+to Harry Annesley, and the engagement of Joe Thoroughbung to his niece.
+He made up his mind at the moment,--or thought that he had made up his
+mind,--that Harry Annesley should not have a shilling as long as he
+lived. "I am quite out of breath. I cannot see her yet. Go and offer the
+lady cake and wine, and tell her that you had found me very much
+indisposed. I think you will have to tell her that I am not well enough
+to receive her to-day."
+
+"Get it over, sir, and have done with it."
+
+"It's all very well to say have done with it. I shall never have done
+with it. Because you have let her in to-day she'll think that she can
+come always. Good Lord! There she is on the stairs! Pick up my
+slippers." Then the door was opened, and Miss Thoroughbung herself
+entered the room. It was an up-stairs chamber, known as Mr. Prosper's
+own: and from it was the door into his bedroom. How Miss Thoroughbung
+had learned her way to it he never could guess. But she had come up the
+stairs as though she had been acquainted with all the intricacies of the
+house from her childhood.
+
+"Mr. Prosper," she said, "I hope I see you quite well this morning, and
+that I have not disturbed you at your toilet." That she had done so was
+evident, from the fact that Matthew, with the dressing-gown and
+slippers, was seen disappearing into the bedroom.
+
+"I am not very well, thank you," said Mr. Prosper, rising from his
+chair, and offering her his hand with the coldest possible salutation.
+
+"I am sorry for that,--very. I hope it is not your indisposition which
+has prevented you from coming to see me. I have been expecting you every
+day since Soames wrote his last letter. But it's no use pretending any
+longer. Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him
+absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should,
+first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling
+him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening
+for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to
+say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me
+into ridicule glibly enough."
+
+"I have never done so."
+
+"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up
+all thoughts of having me?"
+
+"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther,
+at the moment, than this utterance of the young man's Christian name.
+
+"Yes, Joe,--Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you
+not write and tell him that everything was over?"
+
+"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have
+dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."
+
+"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn't write to Joe himself, you
+wrote to somebody."
+
+"I may have written to somebody, certainly."
+
+"And told them that you didn't mean to have anything farther to say to
+me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a
+man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding,
+speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;--worse
+even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle. Harry had
+committed such a sin that no shilling of allowance should evermore be
+paid to him. Even at this moment there went through Mr. Prosper's brain
+an idea that there might be some unmarried female in England besides
+Miss Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung. "Peter Prosper, why don't you answer
+like a man, and tell me the honest truth?" He had never before been
+called Peter Prosper in his whole life.
+
+"Perhaps you had better let me make a communication by letter," he said.
+At that very moment the all but completed epistle was lying on the table
+before him, where even her eyes might reach it. In the flurry of the
+moment he covered it up.
+
+"Perhaps that is the letter which has taken you so long to write?" she
+said.
+
+"It is the letter."
+
+"Then hand it me over, and save yourself the penny stamp." In his
+confusion he gave her the letter, and threw himself down on the sofa
+while she read it. "You have been very careful in choosing your
+language, Mr. Prosper: 'It will be expedient that I should make known to
+you the entire truth.' Certainly, Mr. Prosper, certainly. The entire
+truth is the best thing,--next to entire beer, my brother would say."
+"The horrid vulgar woman!" Mr. Prosper ejaculated to himself. "'There
+seems to have been a complete misunderstanding with regard to that
+amiable lady, Miss Tickle.' No misunderstanding at all. You said you
+liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty
+years with a female companion, who hasn't sixpence in the world to buy a
+rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should
+turn her out for any man?"
+
+"An annuity might have been arranged, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Bother an annuity! That's all you think about feelings! Was she to go
+and live alone and desolate because you wanted some one to nurse you?
+And then those wretched ponies. I tell you, Peter Prosper, that let me
+marry whom I will, I mean to drive a pair of ponies, and am able to do
+so out of my own money. Ponies, indeed! It's an excuse. Your heart has
+failed you. You've come to know a woman of spirit, and now you are
+afraid that she'll be too much for you. I shall keep this letter, though
+it has not been sent."
+
+"You can do as you please about that, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Oh yes; of course I shall keep it, and shall give it to Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson. They are most gentlemanlike men, and will be shocked at such
+conduct as this from the Squire of Buston. The letter will be published
+in the newspapers, of course. It will be very painful to me, no doubt,
+but I shall owe it to my sex to punish you. When all the county are
+talking of your conduct to a lady, and saying that no man could have
+done it, let alone no gentleman, then you will feel it. Miss Tickle,--and
+a pair of ponies! You expected to get my money and nothing to give for
+it. Oh, you mean man!"
+
+She must have been aware that every word she spoke was a dagger. There
+was a careful analysis of his peculiar character displayed in every word
+of reproach which she uttered. Nothing could have wounded him more than
+the comparison between himself and Soames & Simpson. They were
+gentlemen! "The vulgarest men in all Buntingford!" he declared to
+himself, and always ready for any sharp practice. Whereas he was no man,
+Miss Thoroughbung said,--a mean creature, altogether unworthy to be
+regarded as a gentleman. He knew himself to be Mr. Prosper of Buston
+Hall, with centuries of Prospers for his ancestors; whereas Soames was
+the son of a tax-gatherer, and Simpson had come down from London as a
+clerk from a solicitor's office in the City. And yet it was true that
+people would talk of him as did Miss Thoroughbung! His cruelty would be
+in every lady's mouth. And then his stinginess about the ponies would be
+the gossip of the county for twelve months. And, as he found out what
+Miss Thoroughbung was, the disgrace of even having wished to marry her
+loomed terribly large before him.
+
+But there was a twinkle of jest in the lady's eyes all the while which
+he did not perceive, and which, had he perceived it, he could not have
+understood. Her anger was but simulated wrath. She, too, had thought
+that it might be well, under circumstances, if she were to marry Mr.
+Prosper, but had quite understood that those circumstances might not be
+forthcoming. "I don't think it will do at all, my dear," she had said to
+Miss Tickle. "Of course an old bachelor like that won't want to have
+you."
+
+"I beg you won't think of me for a moment," Miss Tickle had answered,
+with solemnity.
+
+"Bother! why can't you tell the truth? I'm not going to throw you over,
+and of course you'd be just nowhere if I did. I shan't break my heart
+for Mr. Prosper. I know I should be an old fool if I were to marry him;
+and he is more of an old fool for wanting to marry me. But I did think
+he wouldn't cut up so rough about the ponies." And then, when no answer
+came to the last letter from Soames & Simpson, and the tidings reached
+her, round from the brewery, that Mr. Prosper intended to be off, she
+was not in the least surprised. But the information, she thought, had
+come to her in an unworthy manner. So she determined to punish the
+gentleman, and went out to Buston Hall and called him Peter Prosper. We
+may doubt, however, whether she had ever realized how terribly her
+scourges would wale him.
+
+"And to think that you would let it come round to me in that way,
+through the young people,--writing about it just as a joke!"
+
+"I never wrote about it like a joke," said Mr. Prosper, almost crying.
+
+"I remember now. It was to your nephew; and of course everybody at the
+rectory saw it. Of course they were all laughing at you." There was one
+thing now written in the book of fate, and sealed as certainly as the
+crack of doom: no shilling of allowance should ever be paid to Harry
+Annesley. He would go abroad. He said so to himself as he thought of
+this, and said also that, if he could find a healthy young woman
+anywhere, he would marry her, sacrificing every idea of his own
+happiness to his desire of revenge upon his nephew. This, however, was
+only the passionate feeling of the moment. Matrimony had become
+altogether so distasteful to him, since he had become intimately
+acquainted with Miss Thoroughbung, as to make any release in that manner
+quite impossible to him. "Do you propose to make me any amends?" asked
+Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"Money?" said he.
+
+"Yes; money. Why shouldn't you pay me money? I should like to keep three
+ponies, and to have Miss Tickle's sister to come and live with me."
+
+"I do not know whether you are in earnest, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Quite in earnest, Peter Prosper. But perhaps I had better leave that
+matter in the hands of Soames & Simpson,--very gentleman-like men,--and
+they'll be sure to let you know how much you ought to pay. Ten thousand
+pounds wouldn't be too much, considering the distress to my wounded
+feelings." Here Miss Thoroughbung put her handkerchief up to her eyes.
+
+There was nothing that he could say. Whether she were laughing at him,
+as he thought to be most probable, or whether there was some grain of
+truth in the demand which she made, he found it equally impossible to
+make any reply. There was nothing that he could say; nor could he
+absolutely turn her out of the room. But after ten minutes' farther
+continuation of these amenities, during which it did at last come home
+to his brain that she was merely laughing at him, he began to think that
+he might possibly escape, and leave her there in possession of his
+chamber.
+
+"If you will excuse me, Miss Thoroughbung, I will retire," he said,
+rising from the sofa.
+
+"Regularly chaffed out of your own den!" she said, laughing.
+
+"I do not like this interchange of wit on subjects that are so serious."
+
+"Interchange! There is very little interchange, according to my idea.
+You haven't said anything witty. What an idea of interchange the man
+has!"
+
+"At any rate I will escape from your rudeness."
+
+"Now, Peter Prosper, before you go let me ask you one question. Which of
+the two has been the rudest to the other? You have come and asked me to
+marry you, and have evidently wished to back out of it from the moment
+in which you found that I had ideas of my own about money. And now you
+call me rude, because I have my little revenge. I have called you Peter
+Prosper, and you can't stand it. You haven't spirit enough to call me
+Matty Thoroughbung in reply. But good-bye, Mr. Prosper,--for I never will
+call you Peter again. As to what I said to you about money, that, of
+course, is all bosh. I'll pay Soames's bill, and will never trouble you.
+There's your letter, which, however, would be of no use, because it is
+not signed. A very stupid letter it is. If you want to write naturally
+you should never copy a letter. Good-bye, Mr. Prosper--Peter that never
+shall be." Then she got up and walked out of the room.
+
+Mr. Prosper, when he was left alone, remained for a while nearly
+paralyzed. That he should have ever entertained the idea of making that
+woman his wife! Such was his first thought. Then he reflected that he
+had, in truth, escaped from her more easily than he had hoped, and that
+she had certainly displayed some good qualities in spite of her
+vulgarity and impudence. She did not, at any rate, intend to trouble him
+any farther. He would never again hear himself called Peter by that
+terribly loud voice. But his anger became very fierce against the whole
+family at the rectory. They had ventured to laugh at him, and he could
+understand that, in their eyes, he had become very ridiculous.
+
+He could see it all,--the manner in which they had made fun of him, and
+had been jocose over his intended marriage. He certainly had not
+intended to be funny in their eyes. But, while he had been exercising
+the duty of a stern master over them, and had been aware of his own
+extreme generosity in his efforts to forgive his nephew, that very
+nephew had been laughing at him, in conjunction with the nephew of her
+whom he had intended to make his wife! Not a shilling, again, should
+ever be allowed to Harry Annesley. If it could be so arranged, by any
+change of circumstances, he might even yet become the father of a family
+of his own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+MR. PROSPER IS TAKEN ILL.
+
+
+When Harry Annesley returned from Cheltenham, which he did about the
+beginning of February, he was a very happy man. It may be said, indeed,
+that within his own heart he was more exalted than is fitting for a man
+mortal,--for a human creature who may be cut off from his joys to-morrow,
+or may have the very source of his joy turned into sorrow. He walked
+like a god, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it
+was so by any assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing
+within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all
+but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had
+it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly
+bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it
+must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of
+himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting
+himself kissed by a young woman.
+
+Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether
+believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved
+him,--not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to
+be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving
+himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply
+because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that
+half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own
+pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all
+that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May God do so to
+me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all
+affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that
+he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.
+Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.
+
+From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with
+all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much
+about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and
+he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or
+two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his
+Florence.
+
+"But you will have to know her--well."
+
+"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able
+to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that
+they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.
+
+There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken
+place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe
+who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars
+leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very
+discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first
+place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew
+was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow."
+That had been Matthew's assurance, made with much sorrow to the
+house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared
+that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had
+been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but
+be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of
+ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either
+directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem
+that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly,
+and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of
+Harry.
+
+"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and
+has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind
+leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant
+hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her
+money."
+
+"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.
+
+"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would
+be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."
+
+"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.
+
+"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the
+whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at
+the appellation.
+
+"Nobody calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.
+
+"I should not dream of calling him Uncle Peter," said Molly. "Do you
+mean to say that Miss Thoroughbung called him Peter? Where could she
+have got the courage?" To this Joe replied that he believed his aunt had
+courage for anything under the sun. "I don't think that she ought to
+have called him Peter," continued Molly. "Of course after that there
+couldn't be a marriage."
+
+"I don't quite see why not," said Joe. "I call you Molly, and I expect
+you to marry me."
+
+"And I call you Joe, and I expect you to marry me; but we ain't quite
+the same."
+
+"The Squire of Buston," said Joe, "considers himself Squire of Buston. I
+suppose that the old Queen of Heaven didn't call Jupiter Jove till
+they'd been married at any rate some centuries."
+
+"Well done, Joe," said Harry.
+
+"He'll become fellow of a college yet," said Molly.
+
+"If you'll let me alone I will," said Joe. "But only conceive the kind
+of scene there must have been at the house up there when Aunt Matty had
+forced her way in among your uncle's slippers and dressing-gowns. I'd
+have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."
+
+"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter
+which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had
+assured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give
+me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me
+again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns
+spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old
+aunt had remained at Buntingford."
+
+"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston
+when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."
+
+"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly,
+who on the occasion thought it incumbent upon her to take the
+Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.
+
+But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was
+likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For
+his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir
+presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being
+withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to
+all the world,--which was known to all the world before the affair in the
+streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,--that Harry was his uncle's heir. His
+position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a
+man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this
+might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his
+pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by
+his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been
+stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day,
+telling him that he was not to expect any repetition of the payment.
+Under these circumstances, what should he do?
+
+Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the
+check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle
+when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have passed by, offering
+to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was
+not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act
+without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was
+hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle
+with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have
+been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die
+away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon
+the poor man's mind. Such was the state of things upon which Harry
+resolved to wait for a few weeks.
+
+But in the mean time tidings came across from the Hall that Mr. Prosper
+was ill. He had remained in the house for two or three days after Miss
+Thoroughbung's visit. This had given rise to no special remarks, because
+it was well known that Mr. Prosper was a man whose feelings were often
+too many for him. When he was annoyed it would be long before he would
+get the better of the annoyance; and during such periods he would remain
+silent and alone. There could be no question that Miss Thoroughbung had
+annoyed him most excessively. And Matthew had been aware that it would
+be better that he should abstain from all questions. He would take the
+daily newspaper in to his master, and ask for orders as to the daily
+dinner, and that would be all. Mr. Prosper, when in a fairly good humor,
+would see the cook every morning, and would discuss with her the
+propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency
+either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known,
+and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary
+to that which she wanted,--because it was a point of honor with Mr.
+Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply
+said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day
+or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on
+beyond a day or two it was surmised that Mr. Prosper was ill.
+
+At the end of a week he had not been seen outside the house, and then
+alarm began to be felt. The rumor had got abroad that he intended to go
+to Italy, and it was expected that he would start, but no sign came of
+his intended movements; not a word more had been said to Matthew on the
+subject. He had been ordered to admit no visitor into the house at all,
+unless it were some one from the firm of Grey & Barry. From the moment
+in which he had got rid of Miss Thoroughbung he had been subject to some
+dread lest she should return. Or if not she herself, she might, he
+thought, send Soames & Simpson, or some denizen from the brewery. And he
+was conscious that not only all Buston, but all Buntingford was aware of
+what he had attempted to do. Every one whom he chanced to meet would, as
+he thought, be talking of him, and therefore he feared to be seen by the
+eye of man, woman, or child. There was a self-consciousness about him
+which altogether overpowered him. That cook with whom he used to have
+the arguments about the boiled chicken was now an enemy, a domestic
+enemy, because he was sure that she talked about his projected marriage
+in the kitchen. He would not see his coachman or his groom, because some
+tidings would have reached them about that pair of ponies. Consequently
+he shut himself up altogether, and the disease became worse with him
+because of his seclusion.
+
+And now from day to day, or, it may be more properly said, from hour to
+hour, news came across to the rectory of the poor squire's health.
+Matthew, to whom alone was given free intercourse with his master,
+became very gloomy. Mr. Prosper was no doubt gloomy, and the feeling was
+contagious. "I think he's going off his head; that's what I do think,"
+he said, in confidential intercourse with the cook.
+
+That conversation resulted in Matthew's walking across to the rectory,
+and asking advice from the rector; and in the rector paying a visit to
+the Hall. He had again consulted with his wife, and she had recommended
+him to endeavor to see her brother. "Of course, what we hear about his
+anger only comes from Joe, or through the servants. If he is angry, what
+will it matter?"
+
+"Not in the least to me," said the rector; "only I would not willingly
+trouble him."
+
+"I would go," said the rector's wife, "only I know he would require me
+to agree with him about Harry. That, of course, I cannot do."
+
+Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew
+that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper
+were disengaged. But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour,
+came back with merely a note: "I am not very well, and an interview at
+the present moment would only be depressing. But I would be glad to see
+my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think
+it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the
+nearest.--P.P." Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to
+what this note indicated. "She is now the nearest!" He might have so
+written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was
+imminent. Of course she was the nearest. What did the "now" mean? Was it
+not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the
+nearest; but that now he had been repudiated? But it was of course
+resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated
+on the morrow.
+
+"Oh yes; I'm up here; where else should I be,--unless you expected to
+find me in my bed?" It was thus that he answered his sister's first
+inquiry as to his condition.
+
+"In bed? Oh no! Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?"
+
+"Never call me by that name again!" he said, rising up from his chair,
+and standing erect, with one arm stretched out. She called him Peter,
+simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of
+nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother
+and sister. She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic
+humor, as he stood there before her. "Though of course it is madness on
+my part to object to it! My godfather and godmother christened me Peter,
+and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter
+Prosper. But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?"
+
+"She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,--nay, up in this
+very room,--that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels."
+
+"I would not mind what she said. They all know that she is a little
+flighty."
+
+"Nobody told me so. Why couldn't you let me know that she was flighty
+beforehand? I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to
+marry."
+
+"If you will only think of it, Peter--" Here he shuddered visibly. "I
+beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to
+blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Of course it is. I am unreasonable, I know it."
+
+"Let us hope that it is all over now."
+
+"Cart-ropes wouldn't drag me up to the hymeneal altar,--at least not with
+that woman."
+
+"You have sent for me, Peter--I beg pardon. I was so glad when you sent.
+I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed.
+Is there anything that we can do for you?"
+
+"Nothing at all that you can do, I fear."
+
+"Somebody told us that you were thinking of going abroad." Here he shook
+his head. "I think it was Harry." Here he shook his head and frowned.
+"Had you not some idea of going abroad?"
+
+"That is all gone," he said, solemnly.
+
+"It would have enabled you to get over this disappointment without
+feeling it so acutely."
+
+"I do feel it; but not exactly the disappointment. There I think I have
+been saved from a misfortune which would certainly have driven me mad.
+That woman's voice daily in my ear could have had no other effect. I
+have at any rate been saved from that."
+
+"What is it, then, that troubles you?"
+
+"Everybody knows that I intended it. All the country has heard of it.
+But yet was not my purpose a good one? Why should not a gentleman marry
+if he wants to leave his estate to his own son?"
+
+"Of course he must marry before he can do that."
+
+"Where was I to get a young lady--just outside of my own class? There
+was Miss Puffle. I did think of her. But just at the moment she went off
+with young Tazlehurst. That was another misfortune. Why should Miss
+Puffle have descended so low just before I had thought of her? And I
+couldn't marry quite a young girl. How could I expect such a one to live
+here with me at Buston, where it is rather dull? When I looked about
+there was nobody except that horrid Miss Thoroughbung. You just look
+about and tell me if there was any one else. Of course my circle is
+circumscribed. I have been very careful whom I have admitted to my
+intimacy, and the result is that I know almost nobody. I may say that I
+was driven to ask Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"But why marry at all unless you're fond of somebody to be attached to?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Why marry at all? I say. I ask the question knowing very well why you
+intended to do it."
+
+"Then why do you ask?" he said, angrily.
+
+"Because it is so difficult to talk of Harry to you. Of course I cannot
+help feeling that you have injured him."
+
+"It is he that has injured me. It is he that has brought me to this
+condition. Don't you know that you've all been laughing at me down at
+the rectory since this affair of that terrible woman?" While he paused
+for an answer to his question Mrs. Annesley sat silent. "You know it is
+true. He and that man whom Molly means to marry, and the other girls,
+and their father and you, have all been laughing at me."
+
+"I have never laughed."
+
+"But the others?" And again he waited for a reply. But the no reply
+which came did as well as any other answer. There was the fact that he
+had been ridiculed by the very young man whom it was intended that he
+should support by his liberality. It was impossible to tell him that a
+man who had made himself so absurd must expect to be laughed at by his
+juniors. There was running through his mind an idea that very much was
+due to him from Harry; but there was also an idea that something too was
+due from him. There was present, even to him, a noble feeling that he
+should bear all the ignominy with which he was treated, and still be
+generous. But he had sworn to himself, and had sworn to Matthew, that he
+would never forgive his nephew. "Of course you all wish me to be out of
+the way?"
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it is true. How happy you would all be if I were dead, and
+Harry were living here in my place."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes, I do. Of course you would all go into mourning, and there would be
+some grimace of sorrow among you for a few weeks, but the sorrow would
+soon be turned into joy. I shall not last long, and then his time will
+come. There! you may tell him that his allowance shall be continued, in
+spite of all his laughing. It was for that purpose that I sent for you.
+And, now you know it, you can go and leave me." Then Mrs. Annesley did
+go, and rejoiced them all up at the rectory by these latest tidings from
+the Hall. But now the feeling was, how could they show their gratitude
+and kindness to poor Uncle Prosper?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+MR. BARRY AGAIN.
+
+
+"Mr. Barry has given me to understand that he means to come down
+to-morrow." This was said by Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+
+"What does he want to come here for?"
+
+"I suppose you know why he wants to come here?" Then the father was
+silent, and for some time Dolly remained silent also. "He is coming to
+ask you to consent to be his wife."
+
+"Why do you let him come, papa?"
+
+"I cannot hinder him. That, in the first place. And then I don't want to
+prevent his coming."
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+"I do not want to prevent his coming. And I do not wish you now at this
+instant to pledge yourself to anything."
+
+"I cannot but pledge myself."
+
+"You can at any rate remain silent while I speak to you." There was a
+solemnity in his manner which almost awed her, so that she could only
+come nearer to him and sit close to him, holding his hand in hers. "I
+wish you to hear what I have got to say to you, and to make no answer
+till you shall make it to-morrow to him, after having fully considered
+the whole matter. In the first place, he is an honest and good man, and
+certainly will not ill-treat you."
+
+"Is that so much?"
+
+"It is a great deal, as men go. It would be a great deal to me to be
+sure that I had left you in the hands of one who is, of his nature,
+tender and affectionate."
+
+"That is something; but not enough."
+
+"And then he is a careful man, who will certainly screen you from all
+want; and he is prudent, walking about the world with his eyes
+open,--much wider than your father has ever done." Here she only pressed
+his hand. "There is nothing to be said against him, except that
+something which you spotted at once when you said that he was not a
+gentleman. According to your ideas, and to mine, he is not quite a
+gentleman; but we are both fastidious."
+
+"We must pay the penalty of our tastes in that respect."
+
+"You are paying the penalty now by your present doubts. But it is not
+yet too late for you to get the better of it. Though I have acknowledged
+that he is not quite a gentleman, he is by no means the reverse. You are
+quite a lady."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"But you are not particularly good-looking."
+
+"Papa, you are not complimentary."
+
+"My dear, I do not intend to be so. To me your face, such as it is, is
+the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+
+"Oh, papa;--dear papa!" and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed
+him.
+
+"But having lived so long with me you have acquired my habits and
+thoughts, and have learned to disregard utterly your outward
+appearance."
+
+"I would be decent and clean and womanly."
+
+"That is not enough to attract the eyes of men in general. But he has
+seen deeper than most men do."
+
+"Into the value of the business, you mean?" said she.
+
+"No, Dolly; I will not have that! that is ill-natured, and, as I
+believe, altogether untrue. I think of Mr. Barry that he would not marry
+any girl for the sake of the business, unless he loved her."
+
+"That is nonsense, papa. How can Mr. Barry love me? Did he and I ever
+have five minutes of free conversation together?"
+
+"Unless he meant to love, would be nearer the mark; and knew that he
+could do so. You will be quite safe in his hands."
+
+"Safe, papa!"
+
+"So much for yourself; and now I must say a few words as to myself. You
+are not bound to marry him, or any one else, to do me a good turn; but I
+think you are bound to remember what my feelings would be if on my
+death-bed I were leaving you quite alone in the world. As far as money
+is concerned, you would have enough for all your wants; but that is all
+that you would have. You have become so thoroughly my friend, that you
+have hardly another real friend in the world."
+
+"That is my disposition."
+
+"Yes; but I must guard against the ill-effects of that disposition. I
+know that if some man came the way, whom you could in truth love, you
+would make the sweetest wife that ever a man possessed."
+
+"Oh, papa, how you talk! No such man will come the way, and there's an
+end of it."
+
+"Mr. Barry has come the way,--and, as things go, is deserving of your
+regard. My advice to you is to accept him. Now you will have twenty-four
+hours to think of that advice, and to think of your own future
+condition. How will life go with you if you should be left living in
+this house all alone?"
+
+"Why do you speak as though we were to be parted to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow or next day," he said very solemnly. "The day will surely
+come before long. Mr. Barry may not be all that your fancy has
+imagined."
+
+"Decidedly not."
+
+"But he has those good qualities which your reason should appreciate.
+Think it over, my darling. And now we will say nothing more about Mr.
+Barry till he shall have been here and pleaded his own cause."
+
+Then there was not another word said on the subject between them, and on
+the next morning Mr. Grey went away to his chambers as usual.
+
+Though she had strenuously opposed her father through the whole of the
+conversation above given, still, as it had gone on, she had resolved to
+do as he would her; not indeed, that is, to marry this suitor, but to
+turn him over in her mind yet once again, and find out whether it would
+be possible that she should do so. She had dismissed him on that former
+occasion, and had not since given a thought to him, except as to a
+nuisance of which she had so far ridded herself. Now the nuisance had
+come again, and she was to endeavor to ascertain how far she could
+accustom herself to its perpetual presence without incurring perpetual
+misery. But it has to be acknowledged that she did not begin the inquiry
+in a fair frame of mind. She declared to herself that she would think
+about it all the night and all the morning without a prejudice, so that
+she might be able to accept him if she found it possible.
+
+But at the same time there was present to her a high, black stone wall,
+at one side of which stood she herself while Mr. Barry was on the other.
+That there should be any clambering over that wall by either of them she
+felt to be quite impossible, though at the same time she acknowledged
+that a miracle might occur by which the wall would be removed,
+
+So she began her thinking, and used all her father's arguments. Mr.
+Barry was honest and good, and would not ill-treat her. She knew nothing
+about him, but would take all that for granted as though it were
+gospel,--because her father had said so. And then it was to her a fact
+that she was by no means good-looking,--the meaning of which was that no
+other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's
+words,--"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why
+should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the
+world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had
+ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she
+told herself,--as she had told him,--that she had never had five minutes
+free conversation with Mr. Barry in her life. That certainly was no
+reason why free conversation should not be commenced. But then she did
+not believe that free conversation was within the capacity of Mr. Barry.
+It would never come, though she might be married to him for twenty
+years. He too might, perhaps, talk about his business; but there would
+be none of those considerations as to radical good or evil which made
+the nucleus of all such conversations with her father. There would be a
+flatness about it all which would make any such interchange of words
+impossible. It would be as though she had been married to a log of wood,
+or rather a beast of the field, as regarded all sentiment. How much
+money would be coming to him? Now her father had never told her how much
+money was coming to him. There had been no allusion to that branch of
+the subject.
+
+And then there came other thoughts as to that interior life which it
+would be her destiny to lead with Mr. Barry. Then came a black cloud
+upon her face as she sat thinking of it. "Never," at last she said,
+"never, never! He is very foolish not to know that it is impossible."
+The "he" of whom she then spoke was her father, and not Mr. Barry. "If I
+have to be left alone, I shall not be the first. Others have been left
+alone before me. I shall at any rate be left alone." Then the wall
+became higher and more black than ever, and there was no coming of that
+miracle by which it was to be removed. It was clearer to her than ever
+that neither of them could climb it. "And, after all," she said to
+herself, "to know that your husband is not a gentleman! Ought that not
+to be enough? Of course a woman has to pay for her fastidiousness. Like
+other luxuries, it is costly; but then, like other luxuries, it cannot
+be laid aside." So, before that morning was gone, she made up her mind
+steadily that Mr. Barry should never be her lord and master.
+
+How could she best make him understand that it was so, so that she might
+be quickly rid of him? When the first hour of thinking was done after
+breakfast, it was that which filled her mind. She was sure that he would
+not take an answer easily and go. He would have been prepared by her
+father to persevere,--not by his absolute words, but by his mode of
+speaking. Her father would have given him to understand that she was
+still in doubt, and therefore might possibly be talked over. She must
+teach him at once, as well as she could, that such was not her
+character, and that she had come to a resolution which left him no
+chance. And she was guilty of one weakness which was almost unworthy of
+her. When the time came she changed her dress, and put on an old shabby
+frock, in which she was wont to call upon the Carrolls. Her best dresses
+were all kept for her father,--and, perhaps, accounted for that opinion
+that to his eyes her face was the sweetest thing on earth to look upon.
+As she sat there waiting for Mr. Barry, she certainly did look ten years
+older than her age.
+
+In truth both Mr. Grey and Dolly had been somewhat mistaken in their
+reading of Mr. Barry's character. There was more of intellect and merit
+in him than he had obtained credit for from either of them. He did care
+very much for the income of the business, and perhaps his first idea in
+looking for Dolly's hand had been the probability that he would thus
+obtain the whole of that income for himself. But, while wanting money,
+he wanted also some of the good things which ought to accompany it. A
+superior intellect,--an intellect slightly superior to his own, of which
+he did not think meanly, a power of conversation which he might imitate,
+and that fineness of thought which, he flattered himself, he might be
+able to achieve while living with the daughter of a gentleman,--these
+were the treasures which Mr. Barry hoped to gain by his marriage with
+Dorothy Grey. And there had been something in her personal appearance
+which, to his eyes, had not been distasteful. He did not think her face
+the sweetest thing in the world to look at, as her father had done, but
+he saw in it the index of that intellect which he had desired to obtain
+for himself. As for her dress, that, of course, should all be altered.
+He imagined that he could easily become so far master of his wife as to
+make her wear fine clothes without difficulty. But then he did not know
+Dolly Grey.
+
+He had studied deeply his manner of attacking her. He would be very
+humble at first, but after a while his humility should be discontinued,
+whether she accepted or rejected him. He knew well that it did not
+become a husband to be humble; and as regarded a lover, he thought that
+humility was merely the outside gloss of love-making. He had been
+humble enough on the former occasion, and would begin now in the same
+strain. But after a while he would stir himself, and assume the manner
+of a man. "Miss Grey," he said, as soon as they were alone, "you see
+that I have been as good as my word, and have come again." He had
+already observed her old frock and her mode of dressing up her hair, and
+had guessed the truth.
+
+"I knew that you were to come, Mr. Barry."
+
+"Your father has told you so."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he has spoken a good word in my favor?"
+
+"Yes, he has."
+
+"Which I trust will be effective."
+
+"Not at all. He knows that it is the only subject on which I cannot take
+his advice. I would burn my hand off for my father, but I cannot afford
+to give it to any one at his instance. It must be exclusively my
+own,--unless some one should come very different from those who are
+likely to ask for it."
+
+There was something, Mr. Barry thought, of offence in this, but he could
+not altogether throw off his humility as yet. "I quite admit the value
+of the treasure," he said.
+
+"There need not be any nonsense between us, Mr. Barry. It has no special
+value to any one,--except to myself; but to myself I mean to keep it. At
+my father's instance I had thought over the proposition you have made me
+much more seriously than I had thought it possible that I should do."
+
+"That is not flattering," he said.
+
+"There is no need for flattery, either on the one side or on the other.
+You had better take that as established. You have done me the honor of
+wishing, for certain reasons, that I should be your wife."
+
+"The common reason:--that I love you."
+
+"But I am not able to return the feeling, and do not therefore wish that
+you should be my husband. That sounds to be uncivil."
+
+"Rather."
+
+"But I say it in order to make you understand the exact truth. A woman
+cannot love a man because she feels for him even the most profound
+respect. She will often do so when there is neither respect nor esteem.
+My father has so spoken of you to me that I do esteem you; but that has
+no effect in touching my heart, therefore I cannot become your wife."
+
+Now, as Mr. Barry thought, had come the time in which he must assert
+himself. "Miss Grey," he said, "you have probably a long life before
+you."
+
+"Long or short, it can make no difference."
+
+"If I understood you aright, you are one who lives very much to
+yourself."
+
+"To myself and my father."
+
+"He is growing in years."
+
+"So am I, for the matter of that. We are all growing in years."
+
+"Have you looked out for yourself, and thought what manner of home yours
+will be when he shall have been dead and buried?" He paused, but she
+remained silent, and assumed a special cast of countenance, as though
+she might say a word, if he pressed her, which it would be disagreeable
+for him to hear. "When he has gone will you not be very solitary without
+a husband?"
+
+"No doubt I shall."
+
+"Had you not better accept one when one comes your way who is not, as he
+tells you, quite unworthy of you?"
+
+"In spite of such worth solitude would be preferable."
+
+"You certainly have a knack, Miss Grey, of making the most unpalatable
+assertions."
+
+"I will make another more unpalatable. Solitude I could bear,--and
+death,--but not such a marriage. You force me to tell you the whole truth
+because half a truth will not suffice."
+
+"I have endeavored to be at any rate civil to you," he said.
+
+"And I have endeavored to save you what trouble I could by being
+straightforward." Still he paused, sitting in his chair uneasily, but
+looking as though he had no intention of going. "If you will only take
+me at my word and have done with it!" Still he did not move. "I suppose
+there are young ladies who like this kind of thing, but I have become
+old enough to hate it. I have had very little experience of it, but it
+is odious to me. I can conceive nothing more disagreeable than to have
+to sit still and hear a gentleman declare that he wants to make me his
+wife, when I am quite sure that I do not intend to make him my husband."
+
+"Then, Miss Grey," he said, rising from his chair suddenly, "I shall bid
+you adieu."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Barry."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Grey. Farewell!" And so he went.
+
+"Oh, papa, we have had such a scene!" she said, the moment she felt
+herself alone with her father.
+
+"You have not accepted him?"
+
+"Accepted him! Oh dear no! I am sure at this moment he is only thinking
+how he would cut my throat if he could get hold of me."
+
+"You must have offended him then very greatly."
+
+"Oh, mortally! I said everything I possibly could to offend him. But
+then he would have been here still had I not done so. There was no other
+way to get rid of him,--or indeed to make him believe that I was in
+earnest."
+
+"I am sorry that you should have been so ungracious."
+
+"Of course I am ungracious. But how can you stand bandying compliments
+with a man when it is your object to make him know the very truth that
+is in you? It was your fault, papa. You ought to have understood how
+very impossible it is that I should marry Mr. Barry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST PLOT.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough had written the check and sent it to Mr. Grey, he
+did not utter another word on the subject of gambling. "Let us make
+another beginning," he said, as he told his son to make out another
+check for sixty pounds as his first instalment of the allowance.
+
+"I do not like to take it," said the son.
+
+"I don't think you need be scrupulous now with me." That was early in
+the morning, at their first interview, about ten o'clock. Later on in
+the day Mr. Scarborough saw his son again, and on this occasion kept him
+in the room some time. "I don't suppose I shall last much longer now,"
+he said.
+
+"Your voice is as strong as I ever heard it."
+
+"But unfortunately my body does not keep pace with my voice. From what
+Merton says, I don't suppose there is above a month left."
+
+"I don't see why Merton is to know."
+
+"Merton is a good fellow; and if you can do anything for him, do it for
+my sake."
+
+"I will." Then he added, after a pause, "If things go as we expect,
+Augustus can do more for him than I. Why don't you leave him a sum of
+money?"
+
+Then Miss Scarborough came into the room, and hovered about her brother,
+and fed him, and entreated him to be silent; but when she had gone he
+went back to the subject. "I will tell you why, Mountjoy. I have not
+wished to load my will with other considerations,--so that it might be
+seen that solicitude for you has been in my last moments my only
+thought. Of course I have done you a deep injury."
+
+"I think you have."
+
+"And because you tell me so I like you all the better. As for
+Augustus--But I will not burden my spirit now, at the last, with
+uttering curses against my own son."
+
+"He is not worth it."
+
+"No, he is not worth it. What a fool he has been not to have understood
+me better! Now, you are not half as clever a fellow as he is."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"You never read a book, I suppose?"
+
+"I don't pretend to read them, which he does."
+
+"I don't know anything about that;--but he has been utterly unable to
+read me. I have poured out my money with open hands for both of you."
+
+"That is true, sir, certainly, as regards me."
+
+"And have thought nothing of it. Till it was quite hopeless with you I
+went on, and would have gone on. As things were then, I was bound to do
+something to save the property."
+
+"These poor devils have put themselves out of the running now," said
+Mountjoy.
+
+"Yes; Augustus with his suspicions has enabled us to do that. After all,
+he was quite right with his suspicions."
+
+"What do you mean by that, sir?"
+
+"Well, it was natural enough that he should not trust me. I think, too,
+that perhaps he saw a screw loose where old Grey did not; but he was
+such an ass that he could not bring himself to keep on good terms with
+me for the few months that were left. And then he brought that brute
+Jones down here, without saying a word to me as to asking my leave. And
+here he used to remain, hardly ever coming to see me, but waiting for my
+death from day to day. He is a cold-blooded, selfish brute. He certainly
+takes after neither his father nor his mother. But he will find yet,
+perhaps, that I am even with him before all is over."
+
+"I shall try it on with him, sir. I have told you so from the beginning;
+and now if I have this money it will give me the means of doing so. You
+ought to know for what purpose I shall use it."
+
+"That is all settled," said the father. "The document, properly
+completed, has gone back with the clerk. Were I to die this minute you
+would find that everything inside the house is your own,--and everything
+outside except the bare acres. There is a lot of plate with the banker
+which I have not wanted of late years. And there are a lot of trinkets
+too,--things which I used to fancy, though I have not cared so much about
+them lately. And there are a few pictures which are worth money. But the
+books are the most valuable; only you do not care for them."
+
+"I shall not have a house to put them in."
+
+"There is no saying. What an idiot, what a fool, what a blind,
+unthinking ass Augustus has been!"
+
+"Do you regret it, sir,--that he should not have them and the house too?"
+
+"I regret that my son should have been such a fool! I did not expect
+that he should love me. I did not even want him to be kind to me. Had he
+remained away and been silent, that would have been sufficient. But he
+came here to enjoy himself, as he looked about the park which he thought
+to be his own, and insulted me because I would not die at once and leave
+him in possession. And then he was fool enough to make way for you
+again, and did not perceive that by getting rid of your creditors he
+once again put you into a position to be his rival. I don't know whether
+I hate him most for the hardness of his heart, or despise him for the
+slowness of his intellect."
+
+During the time that these words had been spoken Miss Scarborough had
+once or twice come into the room, and besought her brother to take some
+refreshment which she offered him, and then give himself up to rest. But
+he had refused to be guided by her till he had come to a point in the
+conversation at which he had found himself thoroughly exhausted. Now she
+came for the third time, and that period had arrived, so that Mountjoy
+was told to go about his business, and shoot birds or hunt foxes, in
+accordance with his natural proclivities. It was then three o'clock on a
+gloomy December afternoon, and was too late for the shooting of birds;
+and as for the hunting of foxes, the hounds were not in the
+neighborhood. So he resolved to go through the house, and look at all
+those properties which were so soon to become his own. And he at once
+strolled into the library. This was a long, gloomy room, which contained
+perhaps ten thousand volumes, the greater number of which had, in the
+days of Mountjoy's early youth, been brought together by his own father;
+and they had been bound in the bindings of modern times, so that the
+shelves were bright, although the room itself was gloomy. He took out
+book after book, and told himself, with something of sadness in his
+heart, that they were all "caviare" to him. Then he reminded himself
+that he was not yet thirty years of age, and that there was surely time
+enough left for him to make them his companions.
+
+He took one at random, and found it to be a volume of Clarendon's
+"History of the Rebellion." He pitched upon a sentence in which he
+counted that there were sixteen lines, and when he began to read it, it
+became to him utterly confused and unintelligible. So he put it back,
+and went to another portion of the room and took down Wittier's
+"Hallelujah;" and of this he could make neither head nor tail. He was
+informed, by a heading in the book itself, that a piece of poetry was to
+be sung "as the ten commandments." He could not do that, and put the
+book back again, and declared to himself that farther search would be
+useless. He looked round the room and tried to price the books, and told
+himself that three or four days at the club might see an end of it all.
+Then he wandered on into the state drawing-room,--an apartment which he
+had not entered for years,--and found that all the furniture was
+carefully covered. Of what use could it all be to him,--unless that it,
+too, might be sent to the melting-pot and brought into some short-lived
+use at the club?
+
+But as he was about to leave the room he stood for a moment on the rug
+before the fireplace and looked into the huge mirror which stood there.
+If the walls might be his, as well as the garnishing of them, and if
+Florence Mountjoy could come and reign there, then he fancied that they
+all might be put to a better purpose than that of which he had thought.
+In earlier days, two or three years ago, at a time which now seemed to
+him to be very distant, he had regarded Florence as his own, and as such
+had demanded her hand. In the pride of his birth, and position, and
+fashion, he had had no thought of her feelings, and had been imperious.
+He told himself that it had been so with much self-condemnation. At any
+rate, he had learned, during those months of solitary wandering, the
+power of condemning himself. And now he told him that if she would yet
+come he might still learn to sing that song of the old-fashioned poet
+"as to the ten commandments." At any rate, he would endeavor to sing it,
+as she bade him.
+
+He went on through all the bedrooms, remembering, but hardly more than
+remembering, them as he entered them. "Oh, Florence,--my Florence!" he
+said, as he passed on. He had done it all for himself,--brought down
+upon his own head this infinite ruin,--and for what? He had scarcely ever
+won, and Tretton was gone from him forever. But still there might yet be
+a chance if he could abstain from gambling.
+
+And then, when it was dusk within the house, he went out, and passed
+through the stables and roamed about the gardens till the evening had
+altogether set in, and black night had come upon him. Two years ago he
+had known that he was the heir to it all, though even then that habit
+was so strong upon him he had felt that his tenure of it would be but
+slight. But he had then always to tell himself that when his marriage
+had taken place a great change would be effected. His marriage had not
+taken place, and the next fatal year had fallen upon him. As long as the
+inheritance of the estate was certainly his, he could assuredly raise
+money,--at a certain cost. It was well known that the property was rising
+in value, and the money had always been forthcoming,--at a tremendous
+sacrifice. He had excused to himself his recklessness on the ground of
+his delayed marriage, but still always treating her, on the few
+occasions on which they had met, with an imperiousness which had been
+natural to him. Then the final crash had come, and the estate was as
+good as gone. But the crash, which had been in truth final, had come
+afterward, almost as soon as his father had learned what was to be the
+fate of Tretton; and he had found himself to be a bastard with a
+dishonored mother,--just a nobody in the eyes of the world. And he
+learned at the same time that Harry Annesley was the lover whom Florence
+Mountjoy really loved. What had followed has been told already,--perhaps
+too often.
+
+But at this moment, as he stood in the gloom of the night, below the
+porch in the front of the house, swinging his stick at the top of the
+big steps, an acknowledgment of contrition was very heavy upon him.
+
+Though he was prepared to go to law the moment that Augustus put himself
+forward as the eldest son, he did recognize how long-suffering his
+father had been, and how much had been done for him in order, if
+possible, to preserve him. And he knew, whatever might be the result of
+his lawsuit, that his father's only purpose had been to save the
+property for one of them. As it was, legacies which might be valued at
+perhaps thirty thousand pounds would be his. He would expend it all on
+the lawsuit, if he could find lawyers to undertake his suit. His anger,
+too, against his brother was quite as hot as was that of his father.
+When he had been obliterated and obliged to vanish, from the joint
+effects of his violence in the streets and his inability to pay his
+gambling debts at the club, he had, in an evil moment, submitted himself
+to Augustus; and from that hour Augustus had become to him the most
+cruel of tyrants. And this tyranny had come to an end with his absolute
+banishment from his brother's house. Though he had been subdued to
+obedience in the lowest moment of his fall, he was not the man who could
+bear such tyranny well. "I can forgive my father," he said, "but
+Augustus I will never forgive." Then he went into the house, and in a
+short time was sitting at dinner with Merton, the young doctor and
+secretary. Miss Scarborough seldom came to table at that hour, but
+remained in a room up-stairs, close to her brother, so that she might be
+within call should she be wanted. "Upon the whole, Merton," he said,
+"what do you think of my father?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+"Will he live or will he die?"
+
+"He will die, certainly."
+
+"Do not joke with me. But I know you would not joke on such a subject.
+And my question did not merely go to the state of his health. What do
+you think of him as a man generally? Do you call him an honest man?"
+
+"How am I to answer you?"
+
+"Just the truth."
+
+"If you will have an answer, I do not consider him an honest man. All
+this story about your brother is true or is not true. In neither case
+can one look upon him as honest."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"But I think that he has within him a capacity for love, and an
+unselfishness, which almost atones for his dishonesty; and there is
+about him a strange dislike to conventionality and to law which is so
+interesting as to make up the balance. I have always regarded your
+father as a most excellent man, but thoroughly dishonest. He would rob
+any one,--but always to eke out his own gifts to other people. He has,
+therefore, to my eyes been most romantic."
+
+"And as to his health?"
+
+"Ah, as to that I cannot answer so decidedly. He will do nothing because
+I tell him."
+
+"Do you mean that you could prolong his life?"
+
+"Certainly I think that I could. He has exerted himself this morning,
+whereas I have advised him not to exert himself. He could have given
+himself the same counsel, and would certainly live longer by obeying it
+than the reverse. As there is no difficulty in the matter, there need
+be no conceit on my part in saying that so far my advice might be of
+service to him."
+
+"How long will he live?"
+
+"Who can say? Sir William Brodrick, when that fearful operation was
+performed in London, thought that a month would see the end of it. That
+is eight months ago, and he has more vitality now than he had then. For
+myself, I do not think that he can live another month."
+
+Later on in the evening Mountjoy Scarborough began again. "The governor
+thinks that you have behaved uncommonly well to him."
+
+"I am paid for it all."
+
+"But he has not left you anything by his will."
+
+"I have certainly expected nothing, and there could be no reason why he
+should."
+
+"He has entertained an idea of late that he wishes to make what
+reparation may be possible to me; and therefore, as he says, he does not
+choose to burden his will with legacies. There is some provision made
+for my aunt, who, however, has her own fortune. He has told me to look
+after you."
+
+"It will be quite unnecessary," said Mr. Merton.
+
+"If you choose to cut up rough you can do so. I would propose that we
+should fix upon some sum which shall be yours at his death,--just as
+though he had left it to you. Indeed, he shall fix the sum himself."
+
+Merton, of course, said that nothing of the kind would be necessary; but
+with this understanding Mountjoy Scarborough went that night to bed.
+
+Early on the following morning his father again sent for him.
+"Mountjoy," he said, "I have thought much about it, and I have changed
+my mind."
+
+"About your will?"
+
+"No, not about my will at all. That shall remain as it is. I do not
+think I should have strength to make another will, nor do I wish to do
+so."
+
+"You mean about Merton?"
+
+"I don't mean about Merton at all. Give him five hundred pounds, and he
+ought to be satisfied. This is a matter of more importance than Mr.
+Merton--or even than my will."
+
+"What is it?" said Mountjoy, in a tone of much surprise.
+
+"I don't think I can tell you now. But it is right that you should know
+that Merton wrote, by my instructions, to Mr. Grey early this morning,
+and has implored him to come to Tretton once again. There! I cannot say
+more than that now." Then he turned round on his couch, as was his
+custom, and was unassailable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+RUMMELSBURG.
+
+
+Mr. Scarborough again sent for Mr. Grey, but a couple of weeks passed
+before he came. At first he refused to come, saying that he would send
+his clerk down if any work were wanted such as the clerk might do. And
+the clerk did come and was very useful. But Mr. Scarborough persevered,
+using arguments which Mr. Grey found himself unable at last to resist.
+He was dying, and there would soon be an end of it. That was his
+strongest argument. Then it was alleged that a lawyer of experience was
+certainly needed, and that Mr. Scarborough could not very well put his
+affairs into the hands of a stranger. And old friendship was brought up.
+And, then, at last, the squire alleged that there were other secrets to
+be divulged respecting his family, of which Mr. Scarborough thought that
+Mr. Grey would approve. What could be the "other secrets?" But it ended
+in Mr. Grey assenting to go, in opposition to his daughter's advice. "I
+would have nothing more to do with him or his secrets," Dolly had said.
+
+"You do not know him."
+
+"I know as much about him as a woman can know of a man she doesn't
+know,--and all from yourself. You have said over and over again that he
+is a 'rascal!'"
+
+"Not a rascal. I don't think I said he was a rascal."
+
+"I believe you used that very word."
+
+"Then I unsay it. A rascal has something mean about him. Juniper's a
+rascal!"
+
+"He cares nothing for his word."
+
+"Nothing at all,--when the law is concerned."
+
+"And he has defamed his own wife."
+
+"That was done many years ago."
+
+"For a fixed purpose, and not from passion," Dolly continued. "He is a
+thoroughly bad man. You have made his will for him, and now I would
+leave him." After that Mr. Grey declined for a second time to go. But at
+last he was persuaded.
+
+On the evening of his arrival he dined with Mountjoy and Merton, and on
+that occasion Miss Scarborough joined them. Of course there was much
+surmise as to the cause of this farther visit. Merton declared that, as
+he had acted as the sick man's private secretary, he was bound to keep
+his secret as far as he knew it. He only surmised what he believed to be
+the truth, but of that he could say nothing. Miss Scarborough was
+altogether in the dark. She, and she alone, spoke of her brother with
+respect, but in that she knew nothing.
+
+"I cannot tell what it is," said Mountjoy; "but I suspect it to be
+something intended for my benefit and for the utter ruin of Augustus."
+Miss Scarborough had now retired. "If it could be possible, I should
+think that he intended to declare that all he had said before was
+false." To this, however, Mr. Grey would not listen. He was very stout
+in denying the possibility of any reversion of the decision to which
+they had all come. Augustus was, undoubtedly, by law his father's eldest
+son. He had seen with his own eyes copies of the registry of the
+marriage, which Mr. Barry had gone across the Continent to make. And in
+that book his wife had signed her maiden name, according to the custom
+of the country. This had been done in the presence of the clergyman and
+of a gentleman,--a German, then residing on the spot, who had himself
+been examined, and had stated that the wedding, as a wedding, had been
+regular in all respects. He was since dead, but the clergyman who had
+married them was still alive. Within twelve months of that time Mr.
+Scarborough and his bride had arrived in England, and Augustus had been
+born. "Nothing but the most indisputable evidence would have sufficed to
+prove a fact by which you were so cruelly wronged," he said, addressing
+himself to Mountjoy. "And when your father told me that no wrong could
+be done to you, as the property was hopelessly in the hands of the Jews,
+I told him that, for all purposes of the law, the Jews were as dear to
+me as you were. I do say that nothing but the most certain facts would
+have convinced me. Such facts, when made certain, are immovable. If your
+father has any plot for robbing Augustus, he will find me as staunch a
+friend to Augustus as ever I have been to you." When he had so spoken
+they separated for the night, and his words had been so strong that they
+had altogether affected Mountjoy. If such were his father's intentions,
+it must be by some farther plot that he endeavored to carry it out: and
+in his father's plots he would put no trust whatever.
+
+And yet he declared his own purpose as he discussed the matter, late
+into the night, with Merton. "I cannot trust Grey at all, nor my father
+either, because I do not believe, as Grey believes, this story of the
+marriage. My father is so clever, and so resolute in his purpose to set
+aside all control over the property as arranged by law, that to my mind
+it has all been contrived by himself. Either Mr. Barry has been squared,
+or the German parson, or the foreign gentleman, or more probably all of
+them. Mr. Grey himself may have been squared, for all I know, though he
+is the kindest-hearted gentleman I ever came across. Anything shall be
+more probable to me than that I am not my father's eldest son." To all
+this Mr. Merton said very little, though no doubt he had his own ideas.
+
+The next morning the three gentlemen, with Mr. Grey's clerk, sat down to
+breakfast, solemn and silent. The clerk had been especially entreated to
+say nothing of what he had learned, and was therefore not questioned by
+his master. But in truth he had learned but little, having spent his
+time in the sorting and copying of letters which, though they all bore
+upon the subject in hand, told nothing of the real tale. Farther
+surmises were useless now, as at eleven o'clock Mr. Grey and Mr. Merton
+were to go up together to the squire's room. The clerk was to remain
+within call, but there would be no need of Mountjoy. "I suppose I may as
+well go to bed," said he, "or up to London, or anywhere." Mr. Grey very
+sententiously advised him at any rate not to go up to London.
+
+The hour came, and Mr. Grey, with Merton and the clerk, disappeared
+up-stairs. They were summoned by Miss Scarborough, who seemed to feel
+heavily the awful solemnity of the occasion. "I am sure he is going to
+do something very dreadful this time," she whispered to Mr. Grey, who
+seemed himself to be a little awe-struck, and did not answer her.
+
+At two o'clock they all met again at lunch and Mr. Grey was silent, and
+in truth very unhappy. Merton and the clerk were also silent, as was
+Miss Scarborough,--silent as death. She, indeed, knew nothing, but the
+other three knew as much as Mr. Scarborough could or would tell them.
+Mountjoy was there also, and in the middle of the meal broke out
+violently: "Why the mischief don't you tell me what it is that my father
+has said to you?"
+
+"Because I do not believe a word of his story," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Oh, Mr Grey!" ejaculated Miss Scarborough.
+
+"I do not believe a word of his story," repeated Mr. Grey. "Your
+father's intelligence is so high, and his principles so low, that there
+is no scheme which he does not think that he cannot carry out against
+the established laws of his country. His present tale is a made-up
+fable."
+
+"What do you say, Merton?" asked Mountjoy.
+
+"It looks to me to be true," said Merton. "But I am no lawyer."
+
+"Why don't you tell me what it is?" said Mountjoy.
+
+"I cannot tell you," said Grey, "though he commissioned me to do so.
+Greenwood there will tell you." Greenwood was the name of the clerk.
+"But I advise you to take him with you to your own room. And Mr. Merton
+would, I am sure, go with you. As for me, it would be impossible that I
+should do credit in the telling of it to a story of which I do not
+believe a single word."
+
+"Am I not to know?" asked Miss Scarborough, plaintively.
+
+"Your nephew will tell you," said Mr. Grey,--"or Mr. Merton; or Mr.
+Greenwood can do so, if he has permission from Mr. Scarborough. I would
+rather tell no one. It is to me incredible." With that he got up and
+walked away.
+
+"Now then, Merton," said Mountjoy, rising from his chair.
+
+"Upon my word I hardly know what to do," said Merton.
+
+"You must come and tell me this wonderful tale. I suppose that in some
+way it does affect my interests?"
+
+"It affects your interests very much."
+
+"Then I think I may say that I certainly shall believe it. My father at
+present would not wish to do me an injury. It must be told, so come
+along. Mr. Greenwood had better come also." Then he left the room, and
+the two men followed him. They went away to the smoking-room, leaving
+Mr. Grey with Miss Scarborough. "Am I to know nothing about it?" said
+Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Not from me, Miss Scarborough. You can understand, that I cannot tell
+you a story which will require at every word that I should explain my
+thorough disbelief in your brother. I have been very angry with him, and
+he has been more energetic than can have been good for him."
+
+"Ah me! you will have killed him among you!"
+
+"It has been his own doing. You, however, had better go to him. I must
+return to town this evening."
+
+"You will stay for dinner?"
+
+"No. I cannot stay for dinner. I cannot sit down with Mountjoy,--who has
+done nothing in the least wrong,--because I feel myself to be altogether
+opposed to his interests. I would rather be out of the house." So
+saying he did leave the house, and went back to London by train that
+afternoon.
+
+The meeting that morning, which had been very stormy, cannot be given
+word by word. From the moment in which the squire had declared his
+purpose, the lawyer had expressed his disbelief in all that was said to
+him. This Mr. Scarborough had at first taken very kindly; but Mr. Grey
+clung to his purpose with a pertinacity which had at last beaten down
+the squire's good-humor, and had called for the interference of Mr.
+Merton. "How can I be quiet?" the squire had said, "when he tells me
+everything I say is a lie?"
+
+"It is a lie!" said Mr. Grey, who had lost all control of himself.
+
+"You should not say that, Mr. Grey," said Merton.
+
+"He should spare a man on his death-bed, who is endeavoring to do his
+duty by his children," said the man who thus declared himself to be
+dying.
+
+"I will go away," said Mr. Grey, rising. "He has forced me to come here
+against my will, and has known,--must have known,--that I should tell him
+what I thought. Even though a man be dying, a man cannot accept what he
+says on a matter of business such as this unless he believe him. I must
+tell him that I believe him or that I do not. I disbelieve the whole
+story, and will not act upon it as though I believed it." But even after
+this the meeting was continued, Mr. Grey consenting to sit there and to
+hear what was said to the end.
+
+The purport of Mr. Scarborough's story will probably have been
+understood by our readers. It was Mr. Scarborough's present intention to
+make it understood that the scheme intended for the disinheritance of
+Mountjoy had been false from the beginning to the end, and had been
+arranged, not for the injury of Mountjoy, but for the salvation of the
+estate from the hands of the Jews. Mountjoy would have lost nothing, as
+the property would have gone entirely to the Jews had Mr. Scarborough
+then died, and Mountjoy been taken as his legitimate heir. He was not
+anxious, he had declared, to say anything on the present occasion in
+defence of his conduct in that respect. He would soon be gone, and he
+would leave men to judge him who might do so the more honestly when they
+should have found that he had succeeded in paying even the Jews in full
+the moneys which they had actually advanced. But now things were again
+changed, and he was bound to go back to the correct order of things.
+
+"No!" shouted Mr. Grey.
+
+"To the correct order of things," he went on. Mountjoy Scarborough was,
+he declared, undoubtedly legitimate. And then he made Merton and the
+clerk bring forth all the papers, as though he had never brought forth
+any papers to prove the other statement to Mr. Grey. And he did expect
+Mr. Grey to believe them. Mr. Grey simply put them all back,
+metaphorically, with his hand. There had been two marriages, absolutely
+prepared with the intent of enabling him at some future time to upset
+the law altogether, if it should seem good to him to do so.
+
+"And your wife?" shouted Mr. Grey.
+
+"Dear woman! She would have done anything that I told her,--unless I had
+told her to do what was absolutely wrong."
+
+"Not wrong!"
+
+"Well, you know what I mean. She was the purest and best of women." Then
+he went on with his tale. There had been two marriages, and he now
+brought forth all the evidence of the former marriage. It had taken
+place in a remote town, a village in the northern part of Prussia,
+whither she had been taken by her mother to join him. The two ladies had
+both been since long dead. He had been laid up at the little Prussian
+town under the plea of a bad leg. He did not scruple to say now that the
+bad leg had been pretence, and a portion of his scheme. The law, he
+thought, in endeavoring to make arrangements for his property,--the
+property which should have been his own,--had sinned so greatly as to
+drive a wise man to much scheming. He had begun scheming early in the
+business. But for his bad leg the old lady would not have brought her
+daughter to be married at so out-of-the-way a place as Rummelsburg, in
+Pomerania. He had travelled about and found Rummelsburg peculiarly
+fitted for his enterprise. There was a most civil old Lutheran clergyman
+there, to whom he had made himself peculiarly acceptable. He had now
+certified copies of the registry at Rummelsburg, which left no loop-hole
+for doubt. But he had felt that probably no inquiry would have been made
+about what had been done thirty years ago at Rummelsburg, had he himself
+desired to be silent on the subject. "There will be no difficulty," he
+said, "in making the Rummelsburg marriage known to all the world."
+
+"I think there will;--very great difficulty," Mr. Grey had said.
+
+"Not the least. But when I had to be married in the light of day, after
+Mountjoy's birth, at Nice, in Italy, then there was the difficulty. It
+had to be done in the light of day; and that little traveller with his
+nurse were with us. Nice was in Italy then, and some contrivance was, I
+assure you, necessary. But it was done, and I have always had with me
+the double sets of certificates. As things have turned up, I have had to
+keep Mr. Grey altogether in the dark as regards Rummelsburg. It was very
+difficult; but I have succeeded."
+
+That Mr. Grey should have been almost driven to madness by such an
+outrage as this was a matter of course. But he preferred to believe that
+Rummelsburg, and not Nice, was the myth. "How did your wife travel with
+you during the whole of that year?" he had asked.
+
+"As Mrs. Scarborough, no doubt. But we had been very little in society,
+and the world at large seemed willing to believe almost anything of me
+that was wrong. However, there's the Rummelsburg marriage, and if you
+send to Rummelsburg you'll find that it's all right,--a little white
+church up a corner, with a crooked spire. The old clergyman is, no
+doubt, dead, but I should imagine that they would keep their registers."
+Then he explained how he had travelled about the world with the two sets
+of certificates, and had made the second public when his object had been
+to convert Augustus into his eldest son. Many people then had been found
+who had remembered something of the marriage at Nice, and remembered to
+have remembered something at the time of having been in possession of
+some secret as to the lady. But Rummelsburg had been kept quite in the
+dark. Now it was necessary that a strong light should be thrown on the
+absolute legality of the Rummelsburg marriage.
+
+He declared that he had more than once made up his mind to destroy those
+Rummelsburg documents, but had always been deterred by the reflection
+that, when they were once gone, they could not be brought back again. "I
+had always intended," he had said, "to burn the papers the last thing
+before my death. But as I learned Augustus's character, I made quite
+certain by causing them to be sealed up in a parcel addressed to him, so
+that if I had died by accident they might have fallen into proper hands.
+But I see now the wickedness of my project, and, therefore, I give them
+over to Mr. Grey." So saying he tendered the parcel to the attorney.
+
+Mr. Grey, of course, refused to take, or even to touch, the Rummelsburg
+parcel. He then prepared to leave the room, declaring it would be his
+duty to act on the part of Augustus, should Augustus be pleased to
+accept his services. But Mr. Scarborough, almost with tears, implored
+him to change his purpose. "Why should you set two brothers by the
+ears?" At this Mr. Grey only shook his head incredulously. "And why ruin
+the property without an object?"
+
+"The property will come to ruin."
+
+"Not if you will take the matter up in the proper spirit. But if you
+determine to drive one brother to hostility against the other, and
+promote unnecessary litigation, of course the lawyers will get it all."
+Then Mr. Grey left the room, boiling with anger in that he, with his
+legal knowledge and determination to do right, had been so utterly
+thrown aside; while Mr. Scarborough sank exhausted by the effort he had
+gone through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+MR. GREY'S REMORSE.
+
+
+Mr. Grey's feeling, as he returned home, was chiefly one of
+self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story
+which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed,
+at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the
+property should go hither and thither according to his will, without
+reference to the established laws of the land, and had carried, and
+would carry his purpose. His object had been to save his estate from the
+hands of those harpies, the money-lenders; and as far as he was
+concerned he would have saved it.
+
+He had, in fact, forced the money-lenders to lend their money without
+interest and without security, and then to consent to accept their
+principal when it was offered to them. No one could say but that the
+deed when done was a good deed. But this man in doing it had driven his
+coach and horses through all the laws, which were to Mr. Grey as Holy
+Writ; and, in thus driving his coach and horses, he had forced Mr. Grey
+to sit upon the box and hold the reins. Mr. Grey had thought himself to
+be a clever man,--at least a well-instructed man; but Mr. Scarborough had
+turned him round his finger, this way and that way, just as he had
+pleased.
+
+Mr. Grey when, in his rage, he had given the lie to Mr. Scarborough had,
+no doubt, spoken as he had believed at that moment. To him the new
+story must have sounded like a lie, as he had been driven to accept the
+veritable lie as real truth. He had looked into all the circumstances of
+the marriage at Nice, and had accepted it. He had sent his partner over,
+and had picked up many incidental confirmations. That there had been a
+marriage at Nice between Mr. Scarborough and the mother of Augustus was
+certain. He had traced back Mr. Scarborough's movements before the
+marriage, and could not learn where the lady had joined him who
+afterward became his wife; but it had become manifest to him that she
+had travelled with him, bearing his name. But in Vienna Mr. Barry had
+learned that Mr. Scarborough had called the lady by her maiden name. He
+might have learned that he had done so very often at other places; but
+it had all been done in preparation for the plot in hand,--as had scores
+of other little tricks which have not cropped up to the surface in this
+narrative.
+
+Mr. Scarborough's whole life had been passed in arranging tricks for the
+defeat of the law; and it had been his great glory so to arrange them as
+to make it impossible that the law should touch him. Mountjoy had
+declared that he had been defrauded. The creditors swore, with many
+oaths, that they had been horribly cheated by this man. Augustus, no
+doubt, would so swear very loudly. No man could swear more loudly
+than did Mr. Grey as he left the squire's chamber after this last
+revelation. But there was no one who could punish him. The money-lenders
+had no writing under his hand. Had Mountjoy been born without a
+marriage-ceremony it would have been very wicked, but the vengeance of
+the law would not have reached him. If you deceive your attorney with
+false facts he cannot bring you before the magistrates. Augustus had
+been the most injured of all; but a son, though he may bring an action
+against his father for bigamy, cannot summon him before any tribunal
+because he has married his mother twice over. These were Mr.
+Scarborough's death-bed triumphs; but they were very sore upon Mr. Grey.
+
+On his journey back to town, as he turned the facts over more coolly in
+his mind, he began to fear that he saw a glimmer of the truth. Before he
+reached London he almost thought that Mountjoy would be the heir. He had
+not brought a scrap of paper away with him, having absolutely refused to
+touch the documents offered to him. He certainly would not be employed
+again either by Mr. Scarborough or on behalf of his estate or his
+executors. He had threatened that he would take up the cudgels on
+behalf of Augustus, and had felt at the moment that he was bound to do
+so, because, as he had then thought, Augustus had the right cause. But
+as that idea crumbled away from him, Augustus and his affairs became
+more and more distasteful to him. After all, it ought to be wished that
+Mountjoy should become the elder son,--even Mountjoy, the incurable
+gambler. It was terrible to Mr. Grey that the old, fixed arrangement
+should be unfixed, and certainly there was nothing in the character of
+Augustus to reconcile him to such a change.
+
+But he was a very unhappy man when he put himself into a cab to be
+carried down to Fulham. How much better would it have been for him had
+he taken his daughter's advice, and persistently refused to make this
+last journey to Tretton! He would have to acknowledge to his daughter
+that Mr. Scarborough had altogether got the better of him, and his
+unhappiness would consist in the bitterness of that acknowledgment.
+
+But when he reached the Manor House his daughter met him with news of
+her own which for the moment kept his news in abeyance. "Oh, papa," she
+said, "I am so glad you've come!" He had sent her a telegram to say that
+he was coming. "Just when I got your message I was frightened out of my
+life. Who do you think was here with me?"
+
+"How am I to think, my dear?"
+
+"Mr. Juniper."
+
+"Who on earth is Mr. Juniper?" he asked. "Oh, I remember;--Amelia's
+lover."
+
+"Do you mean to say you forgot Mr. Juniper? I never shall forget him.
+What a horrid man he is!"
+
+"I never saw Mr. Juniper in my life. What did he want of you?"
+
+"He says you have ruined him utterly. He came here about two o'clock,
+and found me at work in the garden. He made his way in through the open
+gate, and would not be sent back though one of the girls told him that
+there was nobody at home. He had seen me, and I could not turn him out,
+of course."
+
+"What did he say to you? Was he impudent?"
+
+"He did not insult me, if you mean that; but he was impudent in not
+going away, and I could not get rid of him for an hour. He says that you
+have doubly ruined him."
+
+"As how?"
+
+"You would not let Amelia have the fortune that you promised her; and I
+think his object now was to get the fortune without the girl. And he
+said, also, that he had lent five hundred pounds to your Captain
+Scarborough."
+
+"He is not my Captain Scarborough."
+
+"And that when you were settling the captain's debts his was the only
+one you would not pay in full."
+
+"He is a rogue,--an arrant rogue!"
+
+"But he says that he's got the captain's name to the five hundred
+pounds; and he means to get it some of these days, now that the captain
+and his father are friends again. The long and the short of it is, that
+he wants five hundred pounds by hook or by crook, and that he thinks you
+ought to let him have it."
+
+"He'll get it, or the greater part of it. There's no doubt he'll get it
+if he has got the captain's name. If I remember right, the captain did
+sign a note for him to that amount,--and he'll get the money if he has
+stuck to it."
+
+"Do you mean that Captain Scarborough would pay all his debts?"
+
+"He will have to pay that one, because it was not included in the
+schedule. What do you think has turned up now?"
+
+"Some other scheme?"
+
+"It is all scheming,--base, false scheming,--to have been concerned with
+which will be a disgrace to my name forever!"
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+"Yes; forever! He has told me, now, that Mountjoy is his true,
+legitimate, eldest son. He declares that that story which I have
+believed for the last eight months has been altogether false, and made
+out of his own brain to suit his own purposes. In order to enable him to
+defraud these money-lenders he used a plot which he had concocted long
+since, and boldly declared Augustus to be his heir. He made me believe
+it; and because I believed it, even those greedy, grasping men, who
+would not have given up a tithe of their prey to save the whole family,
+even they believed it too. Now, at the very point of death, he comes
+forward with perfect coolness, and tells me that the whole story was a
+plot made out of his own head."
+
+"Do you believe him now?"
+
+"I became very wroth, and said that it was a lie! I did think that it
+was a lie. I did flatter myself that in a matter concerning my own
+business, and in which I was bound to look after the welfare of others,
+he could not have so deceived me; but I find myself as a child--as a
+baby--in his hands."
+
+"Then you do believe him now?"
+
+"I am afraid so. I will never see him again, if it be possible for me to
+avoid him. He has treated me as no one should have treated his enemy,
+let alone a faithful friend. He must have scoffed and scorned at me
+merely because I had faith in his word. Who could have thought of a man
+laying his plots so deeply,--arranging for twenty years past the frauds
+which he has now executed? For thirty years, or nearly, his mind has
+been busy on these schemes, and on others, no doubt, which he has not
+thought it necessary to execute, and has used me in them simply as a
+machine. It is impossible that I should forgive him."
+
+"And what will be the end of it?" she asked.
+
+"Who can say? But this is clear. He has utterly destroyed my character
+as a lawyer."
+
+"No. Nothing of the kind."
+
+"And it will be well if he have not done so as a man. Do you think that
+when people hear that these changes have been made with my assistance
+they will stop to unravel it all, and to see that I have been only a
+fool and not a knave? Can I explain under what stress of entreaty I went
+down there on this last occasion?"
+
+"Papa, you were quite right to go. He was your old friend, and he was
+dying."
+
+Even for this he was grateful. "Who will judge me as you do,--you who
+persuaded me that I should not have gone? See how the world will use my
+name! He has made me a party to each of his frauds. He disinherited
+Mountjoy, and he forced me to believe the evidence he brought. Then,
+when Mountjoy was nobody, he half paid the creditors by means of my
+assistance."
+
+"They got all they were entitled to get."
+
+"No; till the law had decided against them, they were entitled to their
+bonds. But they, ruffians though they are, had advanced so much hard
+money, and I was anxious that they should get their hard money back
+again. But unless Mountjoy had been illegitimate,--so as to be capable of
+inheriting nothing,--they would have been cheated; and they have been
+cheated. Will it be possible that I should make them or make others
+think that I have had nothing to do with it? And Augustus, who will be
+open-mouthed,--what will he say against me? In every turn and double of
+the man's crafty mind I shall be supposed to have turned and doubled
+with him. I do not mind telling the truth about myself to you."
+
+"I should hope not."
+
+"The light that has guided me through my professional life has been a
+love of the law. As far as my small powers have gone, I have wished to
+preserve it intact. I am sure that the Law and Justice may be made to
+run on all-fours. I have been so proud of my country as to make that the
+rule of my life. The chance has brought me into the position of having
+for a client a man the passion of whose life has been the very reverse.
+Who would not say that for an attorney to have such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough, of Tretton, for his client, was not a feather in his cap?
+But I have found him to be not only fraudulent, but too clever for me.
+In opposition to myself he has carried me into his paths."
+
+"He has never induced you to do anything that was wrong."
+
+"'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it
+is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act
+as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You
+know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of
+whom just the other thing is known; but then they look for work of the
+other kind. I have never put up a shop-board for sharp practice. After
+this the sharpest kind of practice will be all that I shall seem to be
+fit for. It isn't the money. I can retire with enough for your wants and
+for mine. If I could retire amid the good words of men I should be
+happy. But, even if I retire, men will say that I have filled my pockets
+with plunder from Tretton."
+
+"That will never be said."
+
+"Were I to publish an account of the whole affair,--which I am bound in
+honor not to do,--explaining it all from beginning to end, people would
+only say that I was endeavoring to lay the whole weight of the guilt
+upon my confederate who was dead. Why did he pick me out for such
+usage,--me who have been so true to him?"
+
+There was something almost weak, almost feminine in the tone of Mr.
+Grey's complaints. But to Dolly they were neither feminine nor weak. To
+her her father's grief was true and well-founded; but for herself in her
+own heart there was some joy to be drawn from it. How would it have been
+with her if the sharp practice had been his, and the success? What would
+have been her state of mind had she known her father to have conceived
+these base tricks? Or what would have been her condition had her father
+been of such a kind as to have taught her that the doing of such tricks
+should be indifferent to her? To have been high above them all,--for him
+and for her,--was not that everything? And was she not sure that the
+truth would come to light at last? And if not here, would not the truth
+come to light elsewhere where light would be of more avail than here?
+Such was the consolation with which Dolly consoled herself.
+
+On the next two days Mr. Grey went to his chambers and returned, without
+any new word as to Mr. Scarborough and his affairs. One day he did bring
+back some tidings as to Juniper. "Juniper has got into some row about a
+horse," he said, "and is, I fear, in prison. All the same, he'll get his
+five hundred pounds; and if he knew that fact it would help him."
+
+"I can't tell him, papa. I don't know where he lives."
+
+"Perhaps Carroll could do so."
+
+"I never speak to Mr. Carroll. And I would not willingly mention
+Juniper's name to my aunt or to either of the girls. It will be better
+to let Juniper go on in his row."
+
+"With all my heart," said Mr. Grey. And then there was an end of that.
+
+On the next morning, the fourth after his return from Tretton, Mr. Grey
+received a letter from Mountjoy Scarborough. "He was sure," he said,
+"that Mr. Grey would be sorry to hear that his father had been very weak
+since Mr. Grey had gone, and unable even to see him, Mountjoy, for more
+than two or three minutes at a time. He was afraid that all would soon
+be over; but he and everybody around the squire had been surprised to
+find how cheerful and high-spirited he was. It seems," wrote Mountjoy,
+"as though he had nothing to regret, either as regards this world or the
+next. He has no remorse, and certainly no fear. Nothing, I think, could
+make him angry, unless the word repentance were mentioned to him. To me
+and to his sister he is unwontedly affectionate; but Augustus's name has
+not crossed his lips since you left the house." Then he went on to the
+matter as to which his letter had been written. "What am I to do when
+all is over with him? It is natural that I should come to you for
+advice. I will promise nothing about myself, but I trust that I may not
+return to the gambling-table. If I have this property to manage, I may
+be able to remain down here without going up to London. But shall I have
+the property to manage? and what steps am I to take with the view of
+getting it? Of course I shall have to encounter opposition, but I do
+not think that you will be one of those to oppose me. I presume that I
+shall be left here in possession, and that, they say, is nine points of
+the law. In the usual way I ought, I presume, simply to do nothing, but
+merely to take possession. The double story about the two marriages
+ought to count for nothing,--and I should be as though no such plots had
+ever been hatched. But they have been hatched, and other people know of
+them. The creditors, I presume, can do nothing. You have all the bonds
+in your possession. They may curse and swear, but will, I imagine, have
+no power. I doubt whether they have a morsel of ground on which to raise
+a lawsuit; for whether I or Augustus be the eldest son, their claims
+have been satisfied in full. But I presume that Augustus will not sit
+quiet. What ought I to do in regard to him? As matters stand at present
+he will not get a shilling. I fear my father is too ill to make another
+will. But at any rate he will make none in favor of Augustus. Pray tell
+me what I ought to do; and tell me whether you can send any one down to
+assist me when my father shall have gone."
+
+"I will meddle no farther with anything in which the name of Scarborough
+is concerned." Such had been Mr. Grey's first assertion when he received
+Mountjoy's letter. He would write to him and tell him that, after what
+had passed, there could be nothing of business transacted between him
+and his father's estate. Nor was he in the position to give any advice
+on the subjects mooted. He would wash his hands of it altogether. But,
+as he went home, he thought over the matter and told himself that it
+would be impossible for him thus to repudiate the name. He would
+undertake no lawsuit either on behalf of Augustus or of Mountjoy. But he
+must answer Mountjoy's letter, and tender him some advice.
+
+During the long hours of the subsequent night he discussed the whole
+matter with his daughter, and the upshot of his discussion was
+this:--that he would withdraw his name from the business, and leave Mr.
+Barry to manage it. Mr. Barry might then act for either party as he
+pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+SCARBOROUGH'S REVENGE.
+
+
+All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus
+Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first
+perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to
+the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so
+that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him,
+his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now
+intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the
+house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon
+it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
+
+He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence,
+and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and
+therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been
+right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the
+possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible
+impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right
+then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long.
+However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make
+up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would
+have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would
+take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he
+consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
+
+How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were
+probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire
+was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some
+confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The
+tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His
+belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been
+unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief
+as the creditors had taken their money,--less than a third of what would
+have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their
+full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a
+people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation.
+But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own
+father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out
+to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
+
+But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such
+event he would be altogether ruined,--a penniless adventurer with his
+profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got
+together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,--a sprat thrown out to
+catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left
+to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against
+him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected
+that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been
+capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so
+inveterate as his father's for him.
+
+He received news also from Tretton that his father was not now expected
+by any one to live long.
+
+"It may be a week, the doctors say, and it is hardly possible that he
+should remain alive for another month." Such was the news which reached
+him from his own emissary at Tretton. What had he better do in the
+emergency of the moment?
+
+There was only one possibly effective step that he could take. He might,
+of course, remain tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when
+his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and
+demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his
+father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's
+pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own
+pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton
+and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day,
+and at once sent his name up to his father. Miss Scarborough was sitting
+by her brother's bedside, and from time to time was reading to him a few
+words. "Augustus!" he said, as soon as the servant had left the room.
+"What does Augustus want with me? The last time he saw me he bade me die
+out of hand if I wished to retrieve the injury I had done him."
+
+"Do not think of that now, John," his sister said.
+
+"As God is my judge, I will think of it to the last moment. Words such
+as those spoken, by a son to his father, demand a little thought. Were I
+to tell you that I did not think of them, would you not know that I was
+a hypocrite?"
+
+"You need not speak of them, John."
+
+"Not unless he came here to harass my last moments. I strove to do very
+much for him;--you know with what return. Mountjoy has been, at any rate,
+honest and straightforward; and, considering all things, not lacking in
+respect. I shall, at any rate, have some pleasure in letting Augustus
+know the state of my mind."
+
+"What shall I say to him?" his sister asked.
+
+"Tell him that he had better go back to London. I have tried them both,
+as few sons can be tried by their father, and I know them now. Tell him,
+with my compliments, that it will be better for him not to see me. There
+can be nothing pleasant said between us. I have no communication to make
+to him which could in the least interest him."
+
+But before night came the squire had been talked over, and had agreed to
+see his son. "The interview will be easy enough for me," he had said,
+"but I cannot imagine what he will get from me. But let him come as he
+will."
+
+Augustus spent much of the intervening time in discussing the matter
+with his aunt. But not a word on the subject was spoken by him to
+Mountjoy, whom he met at dinner, and with whom he spent the evening in
+company with Mr. Merton. The two hours after dinner were melancholy
+enough. The three adjourned to the smoking-room, and sat there almost
+without conversation. A few words were said about the hunting, but
+Mountjoy had not hunted this winter. There were a few also of greater
+interest about the shooting. The shooting was of course still the
+property of the old man, and in the early months had, without many words
+spoken, become, as it were, an appanage of the condition of life to
+which Augustus aspired; but of late Mountjoy had assumed the command.
+"You found plenty of pheasants here, I suppose," Augustus remarked.
+
+"Well, yes; not too many. I didn't trouble myself much about it. When I
+saw a pheasant I shot it. I've been a little troubled in spirit, you
+know."
+
+"Gambling again, I heard."
+
+"That didn't trouble me much. Merton can tell you that we've had a
+sick-house."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Merton. "It hasn't seemed to be a time in which a
+man would think very much of his pheasants."
+
+"I don't know why," said Augustus, who was determined not to put up with
+the rebuke implied in the doctor's words. After that there was nothing
+more said between them till they all went to their separate apartments.
+"Don't contradict him," his aunt said to him the next morning, "and if
+he reprimands you, acknowledge that you have been wrong."
+
+"That's hard, when I haven't been wrong."
+
+"But so much depends upon it; and he is so stern. Of course, I wish well
+for both of you. There is plenty enough,--plenty; if only you could agree
+together."
+
+"But the injustice of his treatment. Is it true that he now declares
+Mountjoy to be the eldest son?"
+
+"I believe so. I do not know, but I believe it."
+
+"Think of what his conduct has been to me. And then you tell me that I
+am to own that I have been wrong! In what have I been wrong?"
+
+"He is your father, and I suppose you have said hard words to him."
+
+"Did I rebuke him because he had fraudulently kept me for so many years
+in the position of a younger son? Did I not forgive him that iniquity?"
+
+"But he says you are a younger son."
+
+"This last move," he said, with great passion, "has only been made in an
+attempt to punish me, because I would not tell him that I was under a
+world of obligations to him for simply declaring the truth as to my
+birth. We cannot both be his eldest son."
+
+"No, certainly, not both."
+
+"At last he declared that I was his heir. If I did say hard words to
+him, were they not justified?"
+
+"Not to your father," said Miss Scarborough, shaking her head.
+
+"That is your idea? How was I to abstain? Think what had been done to
+me. Through my whole life he had deceived me, and had attempted to rob
+me."
+
+"But he says that he had intended to get the property for you."
+
+"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had
+robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in
+order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish
+behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the
+better of Tretton."
+
+Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and
+his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the
+past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was
+aware that he had behaved,--not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,--but
+most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he
+had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the
+instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have
+pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him
+with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath
+his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded.
+And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He
+had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the
+more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had
+struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which
+he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never
+occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be
+within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power,
+or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After
+what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once
+said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at
+once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as
+coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep
+animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus
+had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and
+was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at
+his power.
+
+But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side,
+and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,--all
+the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the
+world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter
+another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent,
+or should he hold up his head and justify himself?
+
+One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he
+might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at
+any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to
+be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any
+vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been
+pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and
+the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately
+expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his
+father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a
+distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had
+been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be,
+unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's
+room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.
+
+"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and
+putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand,
+but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me
+that you have not been quite so strong of late."
+
+"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with
+affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very
+words which Augustus had spoken.
+
+"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been,
+unfortunately, unpleasant."
+
+"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have
+thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with
+you."
+
+Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his
+father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
+depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
+it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
+the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
+spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
+truer insight to his father's character.
+
+"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
+much."
+
+"Circumstances?"
+
+"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
+
+"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
+
+"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
+feeling, I regret it."
+
+"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
+hypocrisy, at any rate."
+
+"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
+
+"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
+
+"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
+driven to say what I did not feel."
+
+"Certainly not to me."
+
+"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite
+know of what I am accused."
+
+"Of nothing. There is no accusation at all."
+
+"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to
+Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."
+
+"Yes, poor boy!--when I found that you had turned him out."
+
+"I never turned him out,--not till your house was open to receive him."
+
+"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"
+
+"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one
+else to give him a shilling."
+
+"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have
+done him good."
+
+"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He
+was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."
+
+"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place.
+As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the
+sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his
+son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of
+victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You
+wouldn't have them separated, would you?"
+
+"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."
+
+"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr.
+Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere
+with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil. Mountjoy is the
+eldest son, you know."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind."
+
+"Oh dear, no! there is no question at all as to the date of my marriage
+with your mother. We were married in quite a straightforward way at
+Rummelsburg. When I wanted to save the property from those harpies, I
+was surprised to find how easily I managed it. Grey was a little soft
+there: an excellent man, but too credulous for a lawyer."
+
+"I do not believe a word of it."
+
+"You'll find it all go as naturally as possible when I have ceased to
+stay and be troublesome. But one thing I must say in your favor."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I never could have managed it all unless you had consented to that
+payment of the creditors. Indeed, I must say, that was chiefly your own
+doing. When you first suggested it, I saw what a fine thing you were
+contriving for your brother. I should think, after that, of leaving it
+all so that you need not find out the truth when I am dead. I do think
+I had so managed it that you would have had the property. Mountjoy, who
+has some foolish feeling about his mother, and who is obstinate as a
+pig, would have fought it out; but I had so contrived that you would
+have had it. I had sealed up every document referring to the Rummelsburg
+marriage, and had addressed them all to you. I couldn't have made it
+safer, could I?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"You would have been enabled to destroy every scrap of the evidence
+which will be wanted to prove your brother's legitimacy. Had I burned
+the papers I could not have put them more beyond poor Mountjoy's reach.
+Now they are quite safe in Mr. Grey's office; his clerk took them away
+with him. I would not leave them here with Mountjoy because,--well,--you
+might come, and he might be murdered!" Now Mr. Scarborough had had his
+revenge.
+
+"You think you have done your duty," said Augustus.
+
+"I do not care two straws about doing my duty, young man." Here Mr.
+Scarborough raised himself in part, and spoke in that strong voice which
+was supposed to be so deleterious to him. "Or rather, in seeking my
+duty, I look beyond the conventionalities of the world. I think that you
+have behaved damnably, and that I have punished you. Because of
+Mountjoy's weakness, because he had been knocked off his legs, I
+endeavored to put you upon yours. You at once turned upon me, when you
+thought the deed was done, and bade me go--and bury myself. You were a
+little too quick in your desire to become the owner of Tretton Park at
+once. I have stayed long enough to give some farther trouble. You will
+not say, after this, that I am _non compos_, and unable to make a will.
+You will find that, under mine, not one penny-piece, not one scrap of
+property, will become yours. Mountjoy will take care of you, I do not
+doubt. He must hate you, but will recognize you as his brother. I am not
+so soft-hearted and will not recognize you as my son. Now you may go
+away." So saying, he turned himself round to the wall, and refused to be
+induced to utter another word. Augustus began to speak, but when he had
+commenced his second sentence the old man rung his bell. "Mary," said he
+to his sister, "will you have the goodness to get Augustus to go away? I
+am very weak, and if he remains he will be the death of me. He can't get
+anything by killing me at once; it is too late for that."
+
+Then Augustus did leave the room, and before the night came had left
+Tretton also. He presumed there was nothing for him to do there. One
+word he did say to Mountjoy,--"You will understand, Mountjoy, that when
+our father is dead Tretton will not become your property."
+
+"I shall understand nothing of the kind," said Mountjoy "but I suppose
+Mr. Grey will tell me what I am to do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+MR. PROSPER SHOWS HIS GOOD-NATURE.
+
+
+While these things were going on at Tretton, and while Mr. Scarborough
+was making all arrangements for the adequate disposition of his
+property,--in doing which he had happily come to the conclusion that
+there was no necessity for interfering with what the law had
+settled,--Mr. Prosper was lying very ill at Buston, and was endeavoring
+on his sick-bed to reconcile himself to what the entail had done for
+him. There could be no other heir to him but Harry Annesley. As he
+thought of the unmarried ladies of his acquaintance, he found that there
+was no one who would have done for him but Miss Puffle and Matilda
+Thoroughbung. All others were too young or too old, or chiefly
+penniless. Miss Puffle would have been the exact thing--only for that
+intruding farmer's son.
+
+As he lay there alone in his bedroom his mind used to wander a little,
+and he would send for Matthew, his butler, and hold confidential
+discussions with him. "I never did think, sir, that Miss Thoroughbung
+was exactly the lady," said Matthew.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, sir, there is a saying--But you'll excuse me."
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"There is a saying as how 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's
+ear.'"
+
+"I've heard that."
+
+"Just so, sir. Now, Miss Thoroughbung is a very nice lady."
+
+"I don't think she's a nice lady at all."
+
+"But--Of course it's not becoming in me to speak against my betters, and
+as a menial servant I never would."
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung is--"
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Well;--she is a sow's ear. Ain't she, now? The servants here never
+would have looked upon her as a silk purse."
+
+"Wouldn't they?"
+
+"Never! She has a way with her just as though she didn't care for silk
+purses. And it's my mind, sir, that she don't. She wishes, however, to
+be uppermost, and if she had come here she'd have said so."
+
+"That can never be. Thank God, that can never be!"
+
+"Oh, no! Brewers is brewers, and must be. There's Mr. Joe--He's very
+well, no doubt."
+
+"I haven't the pleasure of his acquaintance."
+
+"Him as is to marry Miss Molly. But Miss Molly ain't the head of the
+family; is she, sir?" Here the squire shook his head. "You're the head
+of the family, sir."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And is--I might make so bold as to speak?"
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung would be a little out of place at Buston Hall. Now,
+as to Miss Puffle--"
+
+"Miss Puffle is a lady,--or was."
+
+"No doubt, sir. The Puffles is not quite equal to the Prospers, as I can
+hear. But the Puffles is ladies--and gentlemen. The servants below all
+give it up to them that they're real gentlefolk. But--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She demeaned herself terribly with young Tazlehurst. They all said as
+there were more where that came from."
+
+"What should they mean by that?"
+
+"She'd indulge in low 'abits,--such as never would have been put up with
+at Buston Hall,--a-cursing and a-swearing--"
+
+"Miss Puffle!"
+
+"Not herself,--I don't say that; but it's like enough if you 'ad heard
+all. But them as lets others do it almost does it themselves. And them
+as lets others drink sperrrits o' mornings come nigh to having a dram
+down their own throats."
+
+"Oh laws!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper, thinking of the escape he had had.
+
+"You wouldn't have liked it, sir, if there had been a bottle of gin in
+the bedroom!" Here Mr. Prosper hid his face among the bedclothes. "It
+ain't all that comes silk out of the skein that does to make a purse
+of."
+
+There were difficulties in the pursuit of matrimony of which Mr. Prosper
+had not thought. His imagination at once pictured to himself a bride
+with a bottle of gin under her pillow, and he went on shivering till
+Matthew almost thought that he had been attacked by an ague-fit.
+
+"I shall give it up, at any rate," he said, after a pause.
+
+"Of course you're a young man, sir."
+
+"No, I'm not."
+
+"That is, not exactly young,"
+
+"You're an old fool to tell such lies!"
+
+"Of course I'm an old fool; but I endeavor to be veracious. I never
+didn't take a shilling as were yours, nor a shilling's worth, all the
+years I have known you, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"What has that to do with it? I'm not a young man."
+
+"What am I to say, sir? Shall I say as you are middle-aged?"
+
+"The truth is, Matthew, I'm worn out."
+
+"Then I wouldn't think of taking a wife."
+
+"Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear. I don't think I was
+intended to bear trouble."
+
+"'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,'" said Matthew.
+
+"I suppose so. But one man's luck is harder than another's. They've been
+too many for me, and I feel that I'm sinking under them. It's no good my
+thinking of marrying now."
+
+"That's what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool. Of course
+I am an old fool."
+
+"Do have done with it! Mr. Harry hasn't been exactly what he ought to
+have been to me."
+
+"He's a very comely young gentleman."
+
+"What has comely to do with it?"
+
+"Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet.
+You couldn't expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear
+sermons."
+
+"I don't expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at
+midnight."
+
+"It ain't that, sir."
+
+"I say it is that!"
+
+"Very well, sir. Only we've all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn't
+him as struck the first blow. It was all about a young lady."
+
+"I know what it was about."
+
+"A young lady as is a young lady."--This was felt to the quick by Mr.
+Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred
+Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the
+continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage
+which Harry might make, he passed over the slur upon himself for the
+sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.--"And
+when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he's not going
+to be braggydoshoed out of it."
+
+"Captain Scarborough knew her first."
+
+"First come first served isn't always the way with lovers. Mr. Harry was
+the conquering hero. 'Weni, widi, wici.'"
+
+"Halloo, Matthew!"
+
+"Them's the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he's
+got the better of a young lady's affections; and I dare say they're the
+very words as put the captain into such a towering passion. I can
+understand how it happened, just as if I saw it."
+
+"But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless."
+
+"He'd knocked his _weni, widi, wici_ out of him, I guess! I think, Mr.
+Prosper, you should forgive him." Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but
+had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger.
+But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one
+near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler,
+Matthew. "Suppose you was to send for him, sir."
+
+"He wouldn't come."
+
+"Let him alone for coming! They tell me, sir--"
+
+"Who tells you?"
+
+"Why, sir, the servants now at the rectory. Of course, sir, where two
+families is so near connected, the servants are just as near: it's no
+more than natural. They tell me now that since you were so kind about
+the allowance, their talk of you is all changed." Then the squire's
+anger was heated hot again. Their talk had all been against him till he
+had opened his hand in regard to the allowance. And now when there was
+something again to be got they could be civil. There was none of that
+love of him for himself for which an old man is always hankering,--for
+which the sick man breaks his heart,--but which the old and sick find it
+so difficult to get from the young and healthy. It is in nature that the
+old man should keep the purse in his own pocket, or otherwise he will
+have so little to attract. He is weak, querulous, ugly to look at, apt
+to be greedy, cross, and untidy. Though he himself can love, what is his
+love to any one? Duty demands that one shall smooth his pillow, and some
+one does smooth it,--as a duty. But the old man feels the difference, and
+remembers the time when there was one who was anxious to share it.
+
+Mr. Prosper was not in years an old man, and had not as yet passed that
+time of life at which many a man is regarded by his children as the best
+of their playfellows. But he was weak in body, self-conscious, and
+jealous in spirit. He had the heart to lay out for himself a generous
+line of conduct, but not the purpose to stick to it steadily. His nephew
+had ever been a trouble to him, because he had expected from his nephew
+a kind of worship to which he had felt that he was entitled as the head
+of the family. All good things were to come from him, and therefore good
+things should be given to him. Harry had told himself that his uncle was
+not his father, and that it had not been his fault that he was his
+uncle's heir. He had not asked his uncle for an allowance. He had grown
+up with the feeling that Buston Hall was to be his own, and had not
+regarded his uncle as the donor. His father, with his large family, had
+never exacted much,--had wanted no special attention from him. And if not
+his father, then why his uncle? But his inattention, his absence of
+gratitude for peculiar gifts, had sunk deep into Mr. Prosper's bosom.
+Hence had come Miss Thoroughbung as his last resource, and Miss
+Thoroughbung had--called him Peter. Hence his mind had wandered to Miss
+Puffle, and Miss Puffle had gone off with the farmer's son, and, as he
+was now informed, had taken to drinking gin. Therefore he turned his
+face to the wall and prepared himself to die.
+
+On the next day he sent for Matthew again. Matthew first came to him
+always in the morning, but on that occasion very little conversation
+ever took place. In the middle of the day he had a bowl of soup brought
+to him, and by that time had managed to drag himself out of bed, and to
+clothe himself in his dressing-gown, and to seat himself in his
+arm-chair. Then when the soup had been slowly eaten, he would ring his
+bell, and the conversation would begin. "I have been thinking over what
+I was saying yesterday, Matthew." Matthew simply assented, but he knew
+in his heart that his master had been thinking over what he himself had
+said.
+
+"Is Mr. Harry at the rectory?"
+
+"Oh yes; he's there now. He wouldn't stir from the rectory till he hears
+that you are better."
+
+"Why shouldn't he stir? Does he mean to say that I'm going to die?
+Perhaps I am. I'm very weak, but he doesn't know it."
+
+Matthew felt that he had made a blunder, and that he must get out of it
+as well as he could. "It isn't that he is thinking anything of that, but
+you are confined to your room, sir. Of course he knows that."
+
+"I never told him."
+
+"He's most particular in his inquiries from day to day."
+
+"Does he come here?"
+
+"He don't venture on that, because he knows as how you wouldn't wish
+it."
+
+"Why shouldn't I wish it? It'd be the most natural thing in the world."
+
+"But there has been--a little--I'm quite sure Mr. Harry don't wish to
+intrude. If you'd let me give it to be understood that you'd like him to
+call, he'd be over here in a jiffy." Then, very slowly, Mr. Prosper did
+give it to be understood that he would take it as a compliment if his
+nephew would walk across the park and ask after him. He was most
+particular as to the mode in which this embassy should be conducted.
+Harry was not to be made to think that he was to come rushing into the
+house after his old fashion,--"Halloo, uncle, aren't you well? Hope
+you'll be better when I come back. Have got to be off by the next
+train." Then he used to fly away and not be heard of again for a week.
+And yet the message was to be conveyed with an alluring courtesy that
+might be attractive, and might indicate that no hostility was intended.
+But it was not to be a positive message, but one which would signify
+what might possibly take place. If it should happen that Mr. Harry was
+walking in this direction, it might also happen that his uncle would be
+pleased to see him. There was no better ambassador at hand than Matthew,
+and therefore Matthew was commissioned to arrange matters. "If you can
+get at Mrs. Weeks, and do it through his mother," suggested Mr. Prosper.
+Then Matthew winked and departed on his errand.
+
+In about two hours there was a ring at the back-door, of which Mr.
+Prosper knew well the sound. Miss Thoroughbung had not been there very
+often, but he had learned to distinguish her ring or her servant's. In
+old days, not so very far removed, Harry had never been accustomed to
+ring at all. But yet his uncle knew that it was he, and not the doctor,
+who might probably come,--or Mr. Soames, of whose coming he lived in
+hourly dread. "You can show him up," he said to Matthew, opening the
+door with great exertion, and attempting to speak to the servant down
+the stairs. Harry, at any rate, was shown up, and in two minutes' time
+was standing over his uncle's sick-chair. "I have not been quite well
+just lately," he said, in answer to the inquiries made.
+
+"We are very sorry to hear that, sir."
+
+"I suppose you've heard it before."
+
+"We did hear that you were a little out of sorts."
+
+"Out of sorts! I don't know what you call out of sorts. I have not been
+out of this room for well-nigh a month. My sister came to see me one
+day, and that's the last Christian I've seen."
+
+"My mother would be over daily if she fancied you'd like it."
+
+"She has her own duties, and I don't want to be troublesome."
+
+"The truth is, Uncle Prosper, that we have all felt that we have been in
+your black books; and as we have not thought that we deserved it, there
+has been a little coolness."
+
+"I told your mother that I was willing to forgive you."
+
+"Forgive me what? A fellow does not care to be forgiven when he has done
+nothing. But if you'll only say that by-gones shall be by-gones quite
+past I'll take it so." He could not give up his position as head of the
+family so easily,--an injured head of the family. And yet he was anxious
+that by-gones should be by-gones, if only the young man would not be so
+jaunty, as he stood there by his arm-chair. "Just say the word, and the
+girls shall come up and see you as they used to do." Mr. Prosper thought
+at the moment that one of the girls was going to marry Joe Thoroughbung,
+and that he would not wish to see her. "As for myself, if I've been in
+any way negligent, I can only say that I did not intend it. I do not
+like to say more, because it would seem as though I were asking you for
+money."
+
+"I don't know why you shouldn't ask me."
+
+"A man doesn't like to do that. But I'd tell you of everything if you'd
+only let me."
+
+"What is there to tell?" said Uncle Prosper, knowing well that the
+love-story would be communicated to him.
+
+"I've got myself engaged to marry a young woman."
+
+"A young woman!"
+
+"Yes;--she's a young woman, of course; but she's a young lady as well.
+You know her name: it is Florence Mountjoy."
+
+"That is the young lady that I've heard of. Was there not some other
+gentleman attached to her?"
+
+"There was;--her cousin, Mountjoy Scarborough."
+
+"His father wrote to me."
+
+"His father is the meanest fellow I ever met."
+
+"And he himself came to me,--down here. They were fighting your battle
+for you."
+
+"I'm much obliged to them."
+
+"For even I have interfered with him about the lady."
+
+Then Harry had to repeat his _veni, vidi, vici_ after his own fashion.
+"Of course I interfered with him. How is a fellow to help himself? We
+both of us were spooning on the same girl, and of course she had to
+decide it."
+
+"And she decided for you?"
+
+"I fancy she did. At any rate I decided for her, and I mean to have
+her."
+
+Then Mr. Prosper was, for him, very gracious in his congratulations,
+saying all manner of good things of Miss Mountjoy. "I think you'd like
+her, Uncle Prosper." Mr. Prosper did not doubt but that he would
+"appease the solicitor." He also had heard of Miss Mountjoy, and what he
+had heard had been much to the "young lady's credit." Then he asked a
+few questions as to the time fixed for the marriage. Here Harry was
+obliged to own that there were difficulties. Miss Mountjoy had promised
+not to marry for three years without her mother's consent. "Three
+years!" said Mr. Prosper. "Then I shall be dead and buried." Harry did
+not tell his uncle that in that case the difficulty might probably
+vanish, as the same degree of fate which had robbed him of his poor
+uncle would have made him owner of Buston. In such a case as that Mrs.
+Mountjoy might probably give way.
+
+"But why is the young lady to be kept from marriage for three years?
+Does she wish it?"
+
+Harry said that he did not exactly think that Miss Mountjoy, on her own
+behalf, did wish for so prolonged a separation. "The fact is, sir, that
+Mrs. Mountjoy is not my best friend. This nephew of hers, Mountjoy
+Scarborough, has always been her favorite."
+
+"But he's a man that always loses his money at cards."
+
+"He's to have all Tretton now, it seems."
+
+"And what does the young lady say?"
+
+"All Tretton won't move her. I'm not a bit afraid. I've got her word,
+and that's enough for me. How it is that her mother should think it
+possible;--that's what I do not know."
+
+"The three years are quite fixed?"
+
+"I don't quite say that altogether."
+
+"But a young lady who will be true to you will be true to her mother
+also." Harry shook his head. He was quite willing to guarantee
+Florence's truth as to her promise to him, but he did not think that her
+promise to her mother need be put on the same footing. "I shall be very
+glad if you can arrange it any other way. Three years is a long time."
+
+"Quite absurd, you know," said Harry, with energy.
+
+"What made her fix on three years?"
+
+"I don't know how they did it between them. Mrs. Mountjoy, perhaps,
+thought that it might give time to her nephew. Ten years would be the
+same as far as he is concerned. Florence is a girl who, when she says
+that she loves a man, means it. For you don't suppose I intend to remain
+three years?"
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"One has to wait a little and see." Then there was a long pause, during
+which Harry stood twiddling his fingers. He had nothing farther to
+suggest, but he thought that his uncle might say something. "Shall I
+come again to-morrow, Uncle Prosper?" he said.
+
+"I have got a plan," said Uncle Prosper.
+
+"What is it, uncle?"
+
+"I don't know that it can lead to anything. It's of no use, of course,
+if the young lady will wait the three years."
+
+"I don't think she's at all anxious," said Harry.
+
+"You might marry almost at once."
+
+"That's what I should like."
+
+"And come and live here."
+
+"In this house?"
+
+"Why not? I'm nobody. You'd soon find that I'm nobody."
+
+"That's nonsense, Uncle Prosper. Of course you're everybody in your own
+house."
+
+"You might endure it for six months in the year."
+
+Harry thought of the sermons, but resolved at once to face them boldly.
+"I am only thinking how generous you are."
+
+"It's what I mean. I don't know the young lady, and perhaps she mightn't
+like living with an old gentleman. In regard to the other six months,
+I'll raise the two hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds. If
+she thinks well of it, she should come here first and let me see her.
+She and her mother might both come." Then there was a pause. "I should
+not know how to bear it,--I should not, indeed. But let them both come."
+
+After some farther delay this was at last decided on. Harry went away
+supremely happy and very grateful, and Mr. Prosper was left to meditate
+on the terrible step he had taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S DEATH.
+
+
+It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Barry, when he heard the last story
+from Tretton, began to think that his partner was not so wide-awake as
+he had hitherto always regarded him. As time runs on, such a result
+generally takes place in all close connections between the old and the
+young. Ten years ago Mr. Barry had looked up to Mr. Grey with a trustful
+respect. Words which fell from Mr. Grey were certainly words of truth,
+but they were, in Mr. Barry's then estimation, words of wisdom also.
+Gradually an altered feeling had grown up; and Mr. Barry, though he did
+not doubt the truth, thought less about it. But he did doubt the wisdom
+constantly. The wisdom practised under Mr. Barry's vice-management was
+not quite the same as Mr. Grey's. And Mr. Barry had come to understand
+that though it might be well to tell the truth on occasions, it was
+folly to suppose that any one else would do so. He had always thought
+that Mr. Grey had gone a little too fast in believing Squire
+Scarborough's first story. "But you've been to Nice, yourself, and
+discovered that it is true," Mr. Grey would say. Mr. Barry would shake
+his head, and declare that in having to deal with a man of such varied
+intellect as Mr. Scarborough there was no coming at the bottom of a
+story.
+
+But there had been no question of any alterations in the mode of
+conducting the business of the firm. Mr. Grey had been, of course, the
+partner by whose judgment any question of importance must ultimately be
+decided; and, though Mr. Barry had been sent to Nice, the Scarborough
+property was especially in Mr. Grey's branch. He had been loud in
+declaring the iniquity of his client, but had altogether made up his
+mind that the iniquity had been practised; and all the clerks in the
+office had gone with him, trusting to his great character for sober
+sagacity. And Mr. Grey was not a man who would easily be put out of his
+high position.
+
+The respect generally felt for him was too high; and he carried himself
+before his partner and clerks too powerfully to lose at once his
+prestige. But Mr. Barry, when he heard the new story, looked at his own
+favorite clerk and almost winked an eye; and when he came to discuss the
+matter with Mr. Grey, he declined even to pretend to be led at once by
+Mr. Grey's opinion. "A gentleman who has been so very clever on one
+occasion may be very clever on another." That had been his argument. Mr.
+Grey's reply had simply been to the effect that you cannot twice catch
+an old bird with chaff. Mr. Barry seemed, however, to think, in
+discussing the matter with the favorite clerk, that the older the bird
+became, the more often he could be caught with chaff.
+
+Mr. Grey in these days was very unhappy,--not made so simply by the
+iniquity of his client, but by the insight which he got into his
+partner's aptitude for business. He began to have his doubts about Mr.
+Barry. Mr. Barry was tending toward sharp practice. Mr. Barry was
+beginning to love his clients,--not with a proper attorney's affection,
+as his children, but as sheep to be shorn. With Mr. Grey the bills had
+gone out and had been paid, no doubt, and the money had in some shape
+found its way into Mr. Grey's pockets. But he had never looked at the
+two things together. Mr. Barry seemed to be thinking of the wool as
+every client came or was dismissed. Mr. Grey, as he thought of these
+things, began to fancy that his own style of business was becoming
+antiquated. He had said good words of Mr. Barry to his daughter, but
+just at this period his faith both in himself and in his partner began
+to fail. His partner was becoming too strong for him, and he felt that
+he was failing. Things were changed; and he did not love his business as
+he used to do. He had fancies, and he knew that he had fancies, and that
+fancies were not good for an attorney. When he saw what was in Mr.
+Barry's mind as to this new story from Tretton, he became convinced that
+Dolly was right. Dolly was not fit, he thought, to be Mr. Barry's wife.
+She might have been the wife of such another as himself, had the partner
+been such another. But it was not probable that any partner should have
+been such as he was. "Old times are changed," he said to himself; "old
+manners gone." Then he determined that he would put his house in order,
+and leave the firm. A man cannot leave his work forever without some
+touch of melancholy.
+
+But it was necessary that some one should go to Rummelsburg and find
+what could be learned there. Mr. Grey had sworn that he would have
+nothing to do with the new story, as soon as the new story had been told
+to him; but it soon became apparent to him that he must have to do with
+it. As soon as the breath should be out of the old squire's body, some
+one must take possession of Tretton, and Mountjoy would be left in the
+house. In accordance with Mr. Grey's theory, Augustus would be the
+proper possessor. Augustus, no doubt, would go down and claim the
+ownership, unless the matter could be decided to the satisfaction of
+them both beforehand. Mr. Grey thought that there was little hope of
+such satisfaction; but it would of course be for him or his firm to see
+what could be done. "That I should ever have got such a piece of
+business!" he said to himself. But it was at last settled among them
+that Mr. Barry should go to Rummelsburg. He had made the inquiry at
+Nice, and he would go on with it at Rummelsburg. Mr. Barry started, with
+Mr. Quaverdale, of St. John's, the gentleman whom Harry Annesley had
+consulted as to the practicability of his earning money by writing for
+the Press. Mr. Quaverdale was supposed to be a German scholar, and
+therefore had his expenses paid for him, with some bonus for his time.
+
+A conversation between Mr. Barry and Mr. Quaverdale, which took place on
+their way home, shall be given, as it will best describe the result of
+their inquiry. This inquiry had been conducted by Mr. Barry's
+intelligence, but had owed so much to Mr. Quaverdale's extensive
+knowledge of languages, that the two gentlemen may be said, as they came
+home, to be equally well instructed in the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's
+property.
+
+"He has been too many for the governor," said Barry. Mr. Barry's
+governor was Mr. Grey.
+
+"It seems to me that Scarborough is a gentleman who is apt to be too
+many for most men."
+
+"The sharpest fellow I ever came across, either in the way of a cheat or
+in any other walk of life. If he wanted any one else to have the
+property, he'd come out with something to show that the entail itself
+was all moonshine."
+
+"But when he married again at Nice, he couldn't have quarrelled with his
+eldest son already. The child was not above four or five months old."
+This came from Quaverdale.
+
+"It's my impression," said Barry, "that it was then his intention to
+divide the property, and that this was done as a kind of protest against
+primogeniture. Then he found that that would fail,--that if he came to
+explain the whole matter to his sons, they would not consent to be
+guided by him, and to accept a division. From what I have seen of both
+of them, they are bad to guide after that fashion. Then Mountjoy got
+frightfully into the hands of the money-lenders, and in order to do them
+it became necessary that the whole property should go to Augustus."
+
+"They must look upon him as a nice sort of old man!" said Quaverdale.
+
+"Rather! But they have never got at him to speak a bit of their mind to
+him. And then how clever he was in getting round his own younger son.
+The property got into such a condition that there was money enough to
+pay the Jews the money they had really lent. Augustus, who was never
+quite sure of his father, thought it would be best to disarm them; and
+he consented to pay them, getting back all their bonds. But he was very
+uncivil to the squire,--told him that the sooner he died the better, or
+something of that sort; and then the squire immediately turned round and
+sprung this Rummelsburg marriage upon us, and has left every stick about
+the place to Mountjoy. It must all go to Mountjoy,--every acre, every
+horse, every bed, and every book."
+
+"And these, in twelve months' time, will have been divided among the
+card-players of the metropolis," said Quaverdale.
+
+"We've got nothing to do with that. If ever a man did have a lesson he
+has had it. If he chose to take it, no man would ever have been saved in
+so miraculous a manner. But there can be no doubt that John Scarborough
+and Ada Sneyd were married at Rummelsburg, and that it will be found to
+be impossible to unmarry them."
+
+"Old Mrs. Sneyd, the lady's mother, was then present?" said Quaverdale.
+
+"Not a doubt about it, and that Fritz Deutchmann was present at the
+marriage. I almost think that we ought to have brought him away with us.
+It would have cost a couple of hundred pounds, but the estate can bear
+that. We can have him by sending for him, if we should want it." Then,
+after many more words on the same subject and to the same effect, Mr.
+Barry went on to give his own private opinions: "In fact, the only
+blemish in old Scarborough's plans was this,--that the Rummelsburg
+marriage was sure to come out sooner or later."
+
+"Do you think so? Fritz Deutchmann is the only one of the party alive,
+and it's not probable that he would ever have heard of Tretton."
+
+"These things always do come out. But it does not signify now. And the
+world will know how godless and reprobate old Scarborough has been; but
+that will not interfere with Mountjoy's legitimacy. And the world has
+pretty well understood already that the old man has cared nothing for
+God or man. It was bad enough, according to the other story, that he
+should have kept Augustus so long in the dark, and determined to give it
+all to a bastard by means of a plot and a fraud. The world has got used
+to that. The world will simply be amused by this other turn. And as the
+world generally is not very fond of Augustus Scarborough, and entertains
+a sort of a good-natured pity for Mountjoy, the first marriage will be
+easily accepted."
+
+"There'll be a lawsuit, I suppose?" said Quaverdale.
+
+"I don't see that they'll have a leg to stand on. When the old man dies
+the property will be exactly as it would have been. This latter intended
+fraud in favor of Augustus will be understood as having been old
+Scarborough's farce. The Jews are the party who have really suffered."
+
+"And Augustus?"
+
+"He will have lost nothing to which he was by law entitled. His father
+might of course make what will he pleased. If Augustus was uncivil to
+his father, his father could of course alter his will. The world would
+see all that. But the world will be inclined to say that these poor
+money-lenders have been awfully swindled."
+
+"The world won't pity them."
+
+"I'm not so sure. It's a hard case to get hold of a lot of men and force
+them to lend you a hundred pounds without security and without interest.
+That's what has been done in this case."
+
+"They'll have no means of recovering anything."
+
+"Not a shilling. The wonder is that they should have got three hundred
+thousand pounds. They never would have had it unless the squire had
+wished to pave the way back for Mountjoy. And then he made Augustus do
+it for him! In my mind he has been so clever that he ought to be
+forgiven all his rascality. There has been, too, no punishment for him,
+and no probability of punishment. He has done nothing for which the law
+can touch him. He has proposed to cheat people, but before he would have
+cheated them he might be dead. The money-lenders will have been swindled
+awfully, but they have never had any ground of tangible complaint
+against him. 'Who are you?' he has said. 'I don't know you.' They
+alleged that they had lent their money to his eldest son. 'That's as you
+thought,' he replied. 'I ain't bound to come and tell you all the family
+arrangements about my marriage.' If you look at it all round it was
+uncommonly well done."
+
+When Mr. Barry got back he found that it was generally admitted at the
+Chambers that the business had been well done. Everybody was prepared
+to allow that Mr. Scarborough had not left a screw loose in the
+arrangement,--though he was this moment on his death-bed, and had been
+under surgical tortures and operations, and, in fact, slowly dying,
+during the whole period that he had been thus busy. Every one concerned
+in the matter seemed to admire Mr. Scarborough except Mr. Grey, whose
+anger, either with himself or his client, became the stronger the louder
+grew the admiration of the world.
+
+A couple of barristers very learned in the law were consulted, and they
+gave it as their opinion that from the evidence as shown to them there
+could be no doubt but that Mountjoy was legitimate. There was no reason
+in the least for doubting it, but for that strange episode which had
+occurred when, in order to get the better of the law, Mr. Scarborough
+had declared that at the time of Mountjoy's birth he had not been
+married. They went on to declare that on the squire's death the
+Rummelsburg marriage must of course have been discovered, and had given
+it as their opinion that the squire had never dreamed of doing so great
+an injustice either to his elder or his younger son. He had simply
+desired, as they thought, to cheat the money-lenders, and had cheated
+them beautifully. That Mr. Tyrrwhit should have been so very soft was a
+marvel to them; but it only showed how very foolish a sharp man of the
+world might be when he encountered one sharper.
+
+And Augustus, through an attorney acting on his own behalf, consulted
+two other barristers, whose joint opinion was not forthcoming quite at
+once, but may have to be stated. Augustus was declared by them to have
+received at his father's hands a most irreparable injury to such an
+extent that an action for damages would, in their opinion, lie.
+
+He had, by accepting his father's first story, altered the whole course
+of his life, abandoned his profession, and even paid large sums of money
+out of his own pocket for the maintenance of his elder brother. A jury
+would probably award him some very considerable sum,--if a jury could get
+hold of his father while still living. No doubt the furniture and other
+property would remain, and might be held to be liable for the present
+owner's laches. But these two learned lawyers did not think that an
+action could be taken with any probability of success against the eldest
+son, with reference to his tables and chairs, when the Tretton estates
+should have become his. As these learned lawyers had learned that old
+Mr. Scarborough was at this moment almost _in articulo mortis_, would
+it not be better that Augustus should apply to his elder brother to make
+him such compensation as the peculiarities of the case would demand? But
+as this opinion did not reach Augustus till his father was dead, the
+first alternative proposed was of no use.
+
+"I suppose, sir, we had better communicate with Mr. Scarborough?" Mr.
+Barry said to his partner, on his return.
+
+"Not in my name," Mr. Grey replied. "I've put Mr. Scarborough in such a
+state that he is not allowed to see any business letter. Sir William
+Brodrick is there now." But communications were made both to Mountjoy
+and to Augustus. There was nothing for Mountjoy to do; his case was in
+Mr. Barry's hands; nor could he take any steps till something should be
+done to oust him from Tretton. Augustus, however, immediately went to
+work and employed his counsel, learned in the law.
+
+"You will do something, I suppose, for poor Gus?" the old man said to
+his son one morning. It was the last morning on which he was destined to
+awake in the world, and he had been told by Sir William and by Mr.
+Merton that it would probably be so. But death to him had no terror.
+Life to him, for many weeks past, had been so laden with pain as to make
+him look forward to a release from it with hope. But the business of
+life had pressed so hard upon him as to make him feel that he could not
+tell what had been accomplished.
+
+The adjustment of such a property as Tretton required, he thought, his
+presence, and, till it had been adjusted, he clung to life with a
+pertinacity which had seemed to be oppressive. Now Mountjoy's debts had
+been paid, and Mountjoy could be left a bit happier. Having achieved so
+much, he was delighted to think that he might. But there had come
+latterly a claim upon him equally strong,--that he should wreak his
+vengeance upon Augustus. Had Augustus abused him for keeping him in the
+dark so long, he would have borne it patiently. He had expected as much.
+But his son had ridiculed him, laughed at him, made nothing of him, and
+had at last told him to die out of the way. He would, at any rate, do
+something before he died.
+
+He had had his revenge, very bitter of its kind. Augustus should be made
+to feel that he had not been ridiculous,--not to be laughed at in his
+last days. He had ruined his son, inevitably ruined him, and was about to
+leave him penniless upon the earth. But now in his last moments, in his
+very last, there came upon him some feeling of pity, and in speaking of
+his son he once more called him "Gus."
+
+"I don't know how it will all be, sir; but if the property is to be
+mine--"
+
+"It will be yours; it must be yours."
+
+"Then I will do anything for him that he will accept."
+
+"Do not let him starve, or have to earn his bread."
+
+"Say what you wish, sir, and it shall be done, as far as I can do it."
+
+"Make an offer to him of some income, and settle it on him. Do it at
+once." The old man, as he said this, was thinking probably of the great
+danger that all Tretton might, before long, have been made to vanish.
+"And, Mountjoy--"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"You have gambled surely enough for amusement. With such a property as
+this in your hands gambling becomes very serious."
+
+They were the last words,--the last intelligible words,--which the old man
+spoke. He died with his left hand on his son's neck, and took Merton and
+his sister by his side. It was a death-bed not without its lesson,--not
+without a certain charm in the eyes of some fancied beholder. Those who
+were there seemed to love him well, and should do so.
+
+He had contrived, in spite of his great faults, to create a respect in
+the minds of those around him, which is itself a great element of love.
+But there was something in his manner which told of love for others. He
+was one who could hate to distraction, and on whom no bonds of blood
+would operate to mitigate his hatred. He would persevere to injure with
+a terrible persistency; but yet in every phase of his life he had been
+actuated by love for others. He had never been selfish, thinking always
+of others rather than of himself. Supremely indifferent he had been to
+the opinion of the world around him, but he had never run counter to his
+own conscience. For the conventionalities of the law he entertained a
+supreme contempt, but he did wish so to arrange matters with which he
+was himself concerned as to do what justice demanded. Whether he
+succeeded in the last year of his life the reader may judge. But
+certainly the three persons who were assembled around his death-bed did
+respect him, and had been made to love him by what he had done.
+
+Merton wrote the next morning to his friend Henry Annesley respecting
+the scene. "The poor old boy has gone at last, and, in spite of all his
+faults, I feel as though I had lost an old friend. To me he has been
+most kind, and did I not know of all his sins I should say that he had
+been always loyal and always charitable. Mr. Grey condemns him, and all
+the world must condemn him. One cannot make an apology for him without
+being ready to throw all truth and all morality to the dogs. But if you
+can imagine for yourself a state of things in which neither truth nor
+morality shall be thought essential, then old Mr. Scarborough would be
+your hero. He was the bravest man I ever knew. He was ready to look all
+opposition in the face, and prepared to bear it down. And whatever he
+did, he did with the view of accomplishing what he thought to be right
+for other people. Between him and his God I cannot judge, but he
+believed in an Almighty One, and certainly went forth to meet him
+without a fear in his heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+JOE THOROUGHBUNG'S WEDDING.
+
+
+While some men die others are marrying. While the funeral dirge was
+pealing sadly at Tretton, the joyful marriage-bells were ringing both at
+Buntingford and Buston. Joe Thoroughbung, dressed all in his best, was
+about to carry off Molly Annesley to Rome previous to settling down to a
+comfortable life of hunting and brewing in his native town. Miss
+Thoroughbung sent her compliments to Mrs. Annesley. Would her brother be
+there? She thought it probable that Mr. Prosper would not be glad to see
+her. She longed to substitute "Peter" for Mr. Prosper, but abstained. In
+such case she would deny herself the pleasure of "seeing Joe turned
+off." Then there was an embassy sent to the Hall. The two younger girls
+went with the object of inviting Uncle Prosper, but with a desire at
+their hearts that Uncle Prosper might not come. "I presume the family at
+Buntingford will be represented?" Uncle Prosper had asked. "Somebody
+will come, I suppose," said Fanny. Then Uncle Prosper had sent down a
+pretty jewelled ring, and said that he would remain in his room. His
+health hardly permitted of his being present with advantage. So it was
+decided that Miss Thoroughbung should come, and every one felt that she
+would be the howling spirit,--if not at the ceremony, at the banquet
+which would be given afterward.
+
+Miss Thoroughbung was not the only obstacle, had the whole been known.
+Young Soames, the son of the attorney with whom Mr. Prosper had found it
+so evil a thing to have to deal, was to act as Joe's best man. Mr.
+Prosper learned this, probably, from Matthew, but he never spoke of it
+to the family.
+
+It was a sad disgrace in his eyes that any Soames should have been so
+far mixed up with the Prosper blood. Young Algy Soames was in himself a
+very nice sort of young fellow, who liked a day's hunting when he could
+be spared out of his father's office, and whose worst fault was that he
+wore loud cravats. But he was an abomination to Mr. Prosper, who had
+never seen him. As it was, he carried himself very mildly on this
+occasion.
+
+"It's a pity we're not to have two marriages at the same time," said Mr.
+Crabtree, a clerical wag from the next parish. "Don't you think so, Mrs.
+Annesley?" Mrs. Annesley was standing close by, as was also Miss
+Thoroughbung, but she made no answer to the appeal. People who
+understood anything knew that Mrs. Annesley would not be gratified by
+such an allusion. But Mr. Crabtree was a man who understood nothing.
+
+"The old birds never pair so readily as the young ones," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"Old! Who talks of being old?" said Mr. Crabtree. "My friend Prosper is
+quite a boy. There's a good time coming, and I hope you'll give way yet,
+Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+Then they were all marshalled on their way to church. It is quite out of
+my power to describe the bride's dress, or that of the bride's maids.
+They were the bride's sisters and two of Joe's sisters. An attempt had
+been made to induce Florence Mountjoy to come down, but it had been
+unsuccessful. Things had gone so far now at Cheltenham that Mrs.
+Mountjoy had been driven to acknowledge that if Florence held to her
+project for three years she should be allowed to marry Harry Annesley.
+But she had accompanied this permission by many absurd restrictions.
+Florence was not to see him, at any rate, during the first year; but she
+was to see Mountjoy Scarborough if he came to Cheltenham. Florence
+declared this to be impossible; but, as the Buston marriage took place
+just at this moment, she could not have her way in everything. Joe drove
+up to the church with Algy Soames, it not having been thought discreet
+that he should enter the parsonage on that morning, though he had been
+there nearly every day through the winter. "I declare, here he is!"
+said Miss Thoroughbung, very loudly. "I never thought he'd have the
+courage at the last moment."
+
+"I wonder how a certain gentleman would have felt when it came to his
+last moment," said Mr. Crabtree.
+
+Mrs. Annesley took to weeping bitterly, which seemed to be unnecessary,
+as she had done nothing but congratulate herself since the match had
+first been made, and had rejoiced greatly that one of her numerous brood
+should have "put into such a haven of rest."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Annesley," said Mrs. Crabtree, consoling her in that she
+would not be far removed from her child, "you can almost see the brewery
+chimneys from the church tower." Those who knew the two ladies well were
+aware that there was some little slur intended by the allusion to
+brewery chimneys. Mrs. Crabtree's girl had married the third son of Sir
+Reginald Rattlepate. The Rattlepates were not rich, and the third son
+was not inclined to earn his bread.
+
+"Thank God, yes!" said Mrs. Annesley, through her tears. "Whenever I
+shall see them I shall know that there's an income coming out with the
+smoke."
+
+The boys were home from school for the occasion. "Molly, there's Joe
+coming after you," said the elder.
+
+"If he gives you a kiss now you needn't pretend to mind," said the
+other.
+
+"My darling, my own one, that so soon will be my own no longer!" said
+the father, as he made his way into the vestry to put on his surplice.
+
+"Dear papa!" It was the only word the bride said as she walked in at the
+church-door, and prepared to make her way up the nave at the head of her
+little bevy. They were all very bright, as they stood there before the
+altar, but the brightest spot among them was Algy Soames's blue necktie.
+Joe for the moment was much depressed, and thought nothing of the last
+run in which he had distinguished himself; but nevertheless he held up
+his head well as a man and a brewer.
+
+"Dont'ee take on so," Miss Thoroughbung said to Mrs. Annesley at the
+last moment. "He'll give her plenty to eat and to drink, and will never
+do her a morsel of harm." Joe overheard this, and wished that his aunt
+was back in her bed at Marmaduke Lodge.
+
+Then the marriage was over, and they all trooped into the vestry to sign
+the book. "You can't get out of that now," said Mrs. Crabtree to Joe.
+
+"I don't want to. I have got the fairest girl in these parts for my
+wife, and, as I believe, the best young woman." This he said with a
+spirit for which Mrs. Crabtree had not given him credit, and Algy Soames
+heard him and admired his friend beneath his blue necktie. And one of
+the girls heard it, and cried tears of joy as she told her sister
+afterward in the bedroom. "Oh, what a darling he is!" Molly had said,
+amid her own sobbing. Joe stood an inch higher among them all because of
+that word.
+
+Then came the breakfast,--that dullest, saddest hour of all. To feed
+heavily about twelve in the morning is always a nuisance,--a nuisance so
+abominable that it should be avoided under any other circumstances than
+a wedding in your own family. But that wedding-breakfast, when it does
+come, is the worst of all feeding. The smart dresses and bare shoulders
+seen there by daylight, the handing people in and out among the seats,
+the very nature of the food, made up of chicken and sweets and flummery,
+the profusion of champagne, not sometimes of the very best on such an
+occasion; and then the speeches! They fall generally to the lot of some
+middle-aged gentlemen, who seem always to have been selected for their
+incapacity. But there is a worse trouble yet remaining--in the unnatural
+repletion which the sight even of so much food produces, and the fact
+that your dinner for that day is destroyed utterly and forever.
+
+Mr. Crabtree and the two fathers made the speeches, over and beyond that
+which was made by Joe himself. Joe's father was not eloquent. He brewed,
+no doubt, good beer, without a taste in it beyond malt and hops;--no man
+in the county brewed better beer; but he couldn't make a speech. He got
+up, dressed in a big white waistcoat, and a face as red as his son's
+hunting-coat, and said that he hoped his boy would make a good husband.
+All he could say was, that being a lover had not helped to make him a
+good brewer. Perhaps when Molly Annesley was brought nearer to
+Buntingford, Joe mightn't spend so much of his time in going to and fro.
+Perhaps Mr. Joe might not demand so much of her attention. This was the
+great point he made, and it was received well by all but the bride, who
+whispered to Joe that if he thought that he was to be among the brewing
+tubs from morning till night he'd find he was mistaken. Mr. Annesley
+threw a word or two of feeling into his speech, as is usual with the
+father of the young lady, but nobody seemed to care much for that. Mr.
+Crabtree was facetious with the ordinary wedding jests,--as might have
+been expected, seeing that he had been present at every wedding in the
+county for the last twenty years. The elderly ladies laughed
+good-humoredly, and Mrs. Crabtree was heard to say that the whole
+affair would have been very tame but that Mr. Crabtree had "carried it
+all off." But, in truth, when Joe got up the fun of the day had
+commenced, for Miss Thoroughbung, though she kept her chair, was able to
+utter as many words as her nephew: "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to
+you for what you've all been saying."
+
+"So you ought, sir, for you have heard more good of yourself than you'll
+ever hear again."
+
+"Then I'm the more obliged to you. What my people have said about my
+being so long upon the road--"
+
+"That's only just what you have told them at the brewery. Nobody knows
+where you have been."
+
+"Molly can tell you all about that."
+
+"I can't tell them anything," Molly said in a whisper.
+
+"But it comes only once in a man's lifetime," continued Joe; "and I dare
+say, if we knew all about the governor when he was of my age, which I
+don't remember, he was as spooney as any one."
+
+"I only saw him once for six months before he was married," said Mrs.
+Thoroughbung in a funereal voice.
+
+"He's made up for it since," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I'm sure I'm very proud to have got such a young lady to have come and
+joined her lot with mine," continued Joe; "and nobody can think more
+about his wife's family than I do."
+
+"And all Buston," said the aunt.
+
+"Yes, and all Buston."
+
+"I'm sure we're all sorry that the bride's uncle, from Buston Hall, has
+not been able to come here to-day. You ought to say that, Joe."
+
+"Yes, I do say it. I'm very sorry that Mr. Prosper isn't able to be
+here."
+
+"Perhaps Miss Thoroughbung can tell us something about him?" said Mr.
+Crabtree.
+
+"Me! I know nothing special. When I saw him last he was in good health.
+I did nothing to him to make him keep his bed. Mrs. Crabtree seems to
+think that I have got your uncle in my keeping. Molly, I beg to say that
+I'm not responsible."
+
+It must be allowed that amid such free conversation it was difficult for
+Joe to shine as an orator. But as he had no such ambition, perhaps the
+interruptions only served him. But Miss Thoroughbung's witticism did
+throw a certain damp over the wedding-breakfast. It was perhaps to have
+been expected that the lady should take her revenge for the injury done
+to her. It was the only revenge that she did take. She had been
+ill-used, she thought, and yet she had not put Mr. Prosper to a shilling
+of expense. And there was present to her a feeling that the uncle had at
+the last moment been debarred from complying with her small requests in
+favor of Miss Tickle and the ponies on behalf of the young man who was
+now sitting opposite to her, and that the good things coming from Buston
+Hall were to be made to flow in the way of the Annesleys generally
+rather than in her way. She did not regret them very much, and it was
+not in her nature to be bitter; but still all those little touches about
+Mr. Prosper were pleasant to her, and were, of course, unpleasant to the
+Annesleys. Then, it will be said, she should not have come to partake of
+a breakfast in Mr. Annesley's dining-room. That is a matter of taste,
+and perhaps Miss Thoroughbung's taste was not altogether refined.
+
+Joe's speech came to an end, and with it his aunt's remarks. But as she
+left the room she said a few words to Mr. Annesley. "Don't suppose that
+I am angry,--not in the least; certainly not with you or Harry. I'd do
+him a good turn to-morrow if I could; and so, for the matter of that, I
+would to his uncle. But you can't expect but what a woman should have
+her feelings and express them." Mr. Annesley, on the other hand, thought
+it strange that a woman in such a position should express her feelings.
+
+Then at last came the departure. Molly was taken up into her mother's
+room and cried over for the last time. "I know that I'm an old fool!"
+
+"Oh, mamma! now, dearest mamma!"
+
+"A good husband is the greatest blessing that God can send a girl, and I
+do think that he is good and sterling."
+
+"He is, mamma,--he is. I know he is."
+
+"And when that woman talks about brewery chimneys, I know what a comfort
+it is that there should be chimneys, and that they should be near.
+Brewery chimneys are better than a do-nothing scamp that can't earn a
+meal for himself or his children. And when I see Joe with his pink coat
+on going to the meet, I thank God that my Molly has got a lad that can
+work hard, and ride his own horses, and go out hunting with the best of
+them."
+
+"Oh, mamma, I do like to see him then. He is handsome."
+
+"I would not have anything altered. But--but--Oh, my child, you are
+going away!"
+
+"As Mrs. Crabtree says, I sha'n't be far."
+
+"No, no! But you won't be all mine. The time will come when you'll
+think of your girls in the same way. You haven't done a thing that I
+haven't seen and known and pondered over; you haven't worn a skirt but
+what it has been dear to me; you haven't uttered a prayer but what I
+have heard it as it went up to God's throne. I hope he says his
+prayers."
+
+"I'm sure he does," said Molly, with confidence more or less well
+founded.
+
+"Now go, and leave me here. I'm such an old stupid that I can't help
+crying; and if that woman was to say anything more to me about the
+chimneys I should give her a bit of my mind."
+
+Then Molly went down with her travelling-hat on, looking twice prettier
+than she had done during the whole of the morning ceremonies. It is, I
+suppose, on the bridegroom's behalf that the bride is put forth in all
+her best looks just as she is about to become, for the first time,
+exclusively his own. Molly, on the present occasion, was very pretty,
+and Joe was very proud. It was not the least of his pride that he,
+feeling himself to be not quite as yet removed from the "Bung" to the
+"Thorough," had married into a family by which his ascent might be
+matured.
+
+And then, as they went, came the normal shower of rice, to be picked up
+in the course of the next hour by the vicarage fowls, and not by the
+London beggars, and the air was darkened by a storm of old shoes. In
+London, white satin slippers are the fashion. But Buston and Buntingford
+combined could not afford enough of such missiles; and from the hands of
+the boys black shoes, and boots too, were thrown freely. "There go my
+best pair," said one of the boys, as the chariot was driven off, "and I
+don't mean to let them lie there." Then the boots were recovered and
+taken up to the bedroom.
+
+Now that Molly was gone, Harry's affairs became paramount at Buston.
+After all, Harry was of superior importance to Molly, though those
+chimneys at Buntingford could probably give a better income than the
+acres belonging to the park. But Harry was to be the future Prosper of
+the county; to assume at some future time the family name; and there was
+undoubtedly present to them all at the parsonage a feeling that Harry
+Annesley Prosper would loom in future years a bigger squire than the
+parish had ever known before. He had got a fellowship, which no Prosper
+had ever done; and he had the look and tone of a man who had lived in
+London, which had never belonged to the Prospers generally. And he was
+to bring a wife, with a good fortune, and one of whom a reputation for
+many charms had preceded her. And Harry, having been somewhat under a
+cloud for the last six months, was now emerging from it brighter than
+ever. Even Uncle Prosper could not do without him. That terrible Miss
+Thoroughbung had thrown a gloom over Buston Hall which could only be
+removed, as the squire himself had felt, by the coming of the natural
+heir. Harry was indispensable, and was no longer felt by any one to be a
+burden.
+
+It was now the end of March. Old Mr. Scarborough was dead and buried,
+and Mountjoy was living at Tretton. Nothing had been heard of his coming
+up to London. No rushing to the card-tables had been announced. That
+there were to be some terrible internecine law contests between him and
+Augustus had been declared in many circles, but of this nothing was
+known at the Buston Rectory. Harry had been one day at Cheltenham, and
+had been allowed to spend the best part of an hour with his sweetheart;
+but this permission had been given on the understanding that he was not
+to come again, and now for a month he had abstained. Then had come his
+uncle's offer, that generous offer under which Harry was to bring his
+wife to Buston Hall, and live there during half the year, and to receive
+an increased allowance for his maintenance during the other half. As he
+thought of his ways and means he fancied that they would be almost rich.
+She would have four hundred a year, and he as much; and an established
+home would be provided for them. Of all these good things he had written
+to Florence, but had not yet seen her since the offer had been made. Her
+answer had not been as propitious as it might be, and it was absolutely
+necessary that he should go down to Cheltenham and settle things.
+
+The three years had in his imagination been easily reduced to one, which
+was still, as he thought, an impossible time for waiting. By degrees it
+came down to six months in his imagination, and now to three, resulting
+in an idea that they might be easily married early in June, so as to
+have the whole of the summer before them for their wedding-tour.
+"Mother," he said, "I shall be off to-morrow."
+
+"To Cheltenham?"
+
+"Yes, to Cheltenham. What is the good of waiting. I think a girl may be
+too obedient to her mother."
+
+"It is a fine feeling, which you will be glad to remember that she
+possessed."
+
+"Supposing that you had declared that Molly shouldn't have married Joe
+Thoroughbung?"
+
+"Molly has got a father," said Mrs. Annesley.
+
+"Suppose she had none?"
+
+"I cannot suppose anything so horrible."
+
+"As if you and he had joined together to forbid Molly."
+
+"But we didn't."
+
+"I think a girl may carry it too far," said Harry. "Mrs. Mountjoy has
+committed herself to Mountjoy Scarborough, and will not go back from her
+word. He has again come back to the fore, and out of a ruined man has
+appeared as the rich proprietor of the town of Tretton. Of course the
+mother hangs on to him still."
+
+"You don't think Florence will change?"
+
+"Not in the least. I'm not a bit afraid of Mountjoy Scarborough and all
+his property; but I can see that she may be subjected to much annoyance
+from which I ought to extricate her."
+
+"What can you do, Harry?"
+
+"Go and tell her so. Make her understand that she should put herself
+into my hands at once, and that I could protect her."
+
+"Take her away from her mother by force?" said Mrs. Annesley, with
+horror.
+
+"If she were once married her mother would think no more about it. I
+don't believe that Mrs. Mountjoy has any special dislike to me. She
+thinks of her own nephew, and as long as Florence is Florence Mountjoy
+there will be for her the chance. I know that he has no chance; and I
+don't think that I ought to leave her there to be bullied for some
+endless period of time. Think of three years,--of dooming a girl to live
+three years without ever seeing her lover! There is an absurdity about
+it which is revolting. I shall go down to-morrow and see if I cannot put
+a stop to it." To this the mother could make no objection, though she
+could express no approval of a project under which Florence was to be
+made to marry without her mother's consent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH IS BURIED.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough died, and when he had been buried, his son Mountjoy
+was left alone at Tretton, living in a very desolate manner. Till the
+day of the funeral, Merton, the doctor, had remained with him and his
+aunt, Miss Scarborough; but when the old squire had been laid in his
+grave they both departed. Miss Scarborough was afraid of her nephew, and
+could not look forward to living comfortably at the big house; and Dr.
+Merton had the general work of his life to call him away. "You might as
+well stay for another week," Mountjoy had said to him. But Merton had
+felt that he could not remain at Tretton without some especial duty, and
+he too went his way.
+
+The funeral had been very strange. Augustus had refused to come and
+stand at his father's grave. "Considering all things, I had rather
+decline," he had written to Mountjoy. Other guests--none were invited,
+except the tenants. They came in a body, for the squire had been noted
+among them as a liberal landlord.
+
+But a crowd of tenants does not in any way make up that look of family
+sorrow which is expected at the funeral of such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough. Mountjoy was there, and stood through the ceremony
+speechless, and almost sullen. He went down to the church behind the
+body with Merton, and then walked away from the ground without having
+uttered a syllable. But during the ceremony he had seen that which
+caused him to be sullen. Mr. Samuel Hart had been there, and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. And there was a man whom he called to his mind as connected
+with the names of Evans & Crooke, and Mr. Spicer, and Mr. Richard
+Juniper. He knew them all as they stood there round the grave, not in
+decorous funeral array, but as strangers who had strayed into the
+cemetery. He could not but feel, as he looked at them and they at him,
+that they had come to look after their interest,--their heavy interest on
+the money which had been fraudulently repaid to them. He knew that they
+had parted with their bonds. But he knew also that almost all that was
+now his would have been theirs, had they not been cheated into believing
+that he, Mountjoy Scarborough, was not, and never would be, Scarborough
+of Tretton Park. They said nothing as they stood there, and did not in
+any way interrupt the ceremony; but they looked at Mountjoy as they
+were standing, and their looks disconcerted him terribly.
+
+He had declared that he would walk back to the house which was not above
+two miles distant from the graveyard, and therefore, when the funeral
+was over, there was no carriage to take him. But he knew that the men
+would dog his steps as he walked. He had only just got within the
+precincts of the park when he saw them all. But Mr. Tyrrwhit was by
+himself, and came up to him. "What are you going to do, Captain
+Scarborough," he said, "as to our claims?"
+
+"You have no claims of which I am aware," he said roughly.
+
+"Oh yes, Captain Scarborough; we have claims, certainly. You've come up
+to the front lately with a deal of luck; I don't begrudge it, for one;
+but I have claims,--I and those other gentlemen; we have claims. You'll
+have to admit that."
+
+"Send in the documents. Mr. Barry is acting as my lawyer; he is Mr.
+Grey's partner, and is now taking the leading share in the business."
+
+"I know Mr. Barry well; a very sharp gentleman is Mr. Barry."
+
+"I cannot enter into conversation with yourself at such a time as this."
+
+"We are sorry to trouble you; but then our interests are so pressing.
+What do you mean to do, Captain Scarborough? That's the question."
+
+"Yes; with the estate," said Mr. Samuel Hart, coming up and joining
+them. Of the lot of men, Mr. Samuel Hart was the most distasteful to
+Mountjoy. He had last seen his Jew persecutor at Monte Carlo, and had
+then, as he thought, been grossly insulted by him. "What are you hafter,
+captain?" To this Mountjoy made no answer, but Hart, walking a step or
+two in advance, turned upon his heels and looked at the park around him.
+"Tidy sort of place, ain't it, Tyrrwhit, for a gentleman to hang his 'at
+up, when we were told he was a bastard, not worth a shilling?"
+
+"I have nothing to do with all that," said Mountjoy; "you and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit held my acceptances for certain sums of money. They have, I
+believe, been paid in full."
+
+"No, they ain't; they ain't been paid in full at all; you knows they
+ain't." As he said this, Mr. Hart walked on in front, and stood in the
+pathway, facing Mountjoy. "How can you 'ave the cheek to say we've been
+paid in full? You know it ain't true."
+
+"Evans & Crooke haven't been paid, so far," said a voice from behind.
+
+"More ain't Spicer," said another voice.
+
+"Captain Scarborough, I haven't been paid in full," said Mr. Juniper,
+advancing to the front. "You don't mean to tell me that my five hundred
+pounds have been paid in full? You've ruined me, Captain Scarborough. I
+was to have been married to a young lady with a large fortune,--your Mr.
+Grey's niece,--and it has been broken off altogether because of your bad
+treatment. Do you mean to assert that I have been paid in full?"
+
+"If you have got any document, take it to Mr. Barry."
+
+"No, I won't; I won't take it to any lawyer. I'll take it right in
+before the Court, and expose you. My name is Juniper, and I've never
+parted with a morsel of paper that has your name to it."
+
+"Then, no doubt, you'll get your money," said the captain.
+
+"I thought, gentlemen, you were to allow me to be the spokesman on this
+occasion," said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "We certainly cannot do any good if we
+attack the captain all at once. Now, Captain Scarborough, we don't want
+to be uncivil."
+
+"Uncivil be blowed!" said Mr. Hart; "I want to get my money, and mean to
+'ave it. I agreed as you was to speak, Mr. Tyrrwhit; but I means to be
+spoken up for; and if no one else can do it, I can do it myself. Is we
+to have any settlement made to us, or is we to go to law?"
+
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy, walking on very
+rapidly. He thought that when he reached the house he might be able to
+enter in and leave them out, and he thought also that if he kept them on
+the trot he would thus prevent them from attacking him with many words.
+Evans & Crooke were already lagging behind, and Mr. Spicer was giving
+signs of being hard pressed. Even Hart, who was younger than the others,
+was fat and short, and already showed that he would have to halt if he
+made many speeches.
+
+"Barry be d----d!" exclaimed Hart.
+
+"You see how it is, Captain Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit; "Your father,
+as has just been laid to rest in hopes of a a happy resurrection, was a
+very peculiar gentleman."
+
+"The most hinfernal swindler I ever 'eard tell of!" said Hart.
+
+"I don't wish to say a word disrespectful," continued Tyrrwhit, "but he
+had his own notions. He said as you was illegitimate,--didn't he, now?"
+
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy.
+
+"And he said that Mr. Augustus was to have it all; and he proved his
+words,--didn't he, now? And then he made out that, if so, our deeds
+weren't worth the paper they were written on. Isn't it all true what I'm
+saying? And then when we'd taken what small sums of money he chose to
+offer us, just to save ourselves from ruin, then he comes up and says
+you are the heir, as legitimate as anybody else, and are to have all the
+property. And he proves that too! What are we to think about it?"
+
+There was nothing left for Mountjoy Scarborough but to make the pace as
+good as possible. Mr. Hart tried once and again to stop their progress
+by standing in the captain's path, but could only do this sufficiently
+at each stoppage to enable him to express his horror with various
+interjections. "Oh laws! that such a liar as 'e should ever be buried!"
+
+"You can't do anything by being disrespectful, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"What--is it--he means--to do?" ejaculated Spicer.
+
+"Mr. Spicer," said Mountjoy, "I mean to leave it all in the hands of Mr.
+Barry; and, if you will believe me, no good can be done by any of you by
+hunting me across the park."
+
+"Hare you a bastard, or haren't you?" ejaculated Hart.
+
+"No, Mr. Hart, I am not."
+
+"Then pay us what you h'owes us. You h'ain't h'agoing to say as you don't
+h'owe us?"
+
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit," said the captain, "it is of no use my answering Mr.
+Hart, because he is angry."
+
+"H'angry! By George, I h'am angry! I'd like to pull that h'old sinner's
+bones h'out of the ground!"
+
+"But to you I can say that Mr. Barry will be better able to tell you
+than I am what can be done by me to defend my property."
+
+"Captain Scarborough," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, mildly, "we had your name, you
+know. We did have your name."
+
+"And my father bought the bonds back."
+
+"Oh laws! And he calls himself a shentleman!"
+
+"I have nothing farther to say to you now, gentlemen, and can only refer
+you to Mr. Barry." The path on which they were walking had then brought
+them to the corner of a garden wall, through which a door opened into
+the garden. Luckily, at the moment, it occurred to Mountjoy that there
+was a bolt on the other side of the gate, and he entered it quickly and
+bolted the door. Mr. Tyrrwhit was left on the other side, and was joined
+by his companions as quickly as their failing breath enabled them to do
+so. "'Ere's a go!" said Mr. Hart, striking the door violently with the
+handle of his stick.
+
+"He had nothing for it but to leave us when we attacked him altogether,"
+said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "If you had left it to me he would have told us what
+he intended to do. You, Mr. Hart, had not so much cause to be angry, as
+you had received a considerable sum for interest." Then Mr. Hart turned
+upon Mr. Tyrrwhit, and abused him all the way back to their inn. But it
+was pleasant to see how these commercial gentlemen, all engaged in the
+natural course of trade, expressed their violent indignation, not so
+much as to their personal losses, but at the commercial dishonesty
+generally of which the Scarboroughs, father and son, had been and were
+about to be guilty.
+
+Mountjoy, when he reached the house of which he was now the only
+occupant besides the servants, stood for an hour in the dining-room with
+his back toward the fire, thinking of his position. He had many things
+of which to think. In the first place, there were these pseudo-creditors
+who had just attacked him in his own park with much acrimony. He
+endeavored to comfort himself by telling himself that they were
+certainly pseudo-creditors, to whom he did not in fact owe a penny. Mr.
+Barry could deal with them.
+
+But then his conscience reminded him that they had, in truth, been
+cheated,--cheated by his father for his benefit. For every pound which
+they had received they would have claimed three or four. They would no
+doubt have cheated him. But how was he now to measure the extent of his
+father's fraud against that of his creditors? And though it would have
+been right in him to resist the villany of these Jews, he felt that it
+was not fit that he should escape from their fangs altogether by his
+father's deceit. He had not become so dead to honor but that _noblesse
+oblige_ did still live within his bosom. And yet there was nothing that
+he could do to absolve his bosom. The income of the estate was nearly
+clear, the money brought in by the late sales having all but sufficed to
+give these gentlemen that which his father had chosen to pay them. But
+was he sure of that income? He had just now asserted boldly that he was
+the legitimate heir to the property; but did he know that he was so?
+Could he believe his father? Had not Mr. Grey asserted that he would not
+accept this later evidence? Was he not sure that Augustus intended to
+proceed against him? and was he not aware that nothing could be called
+his own till that lawsuit should have been decided? If that should be
+given against him, then these harpies would have been treated only too
+well; then there would be no question, at any rate by him, as to what
+_noblesse oblige_ might require of him. He could take no immediate step
+in regard to them, and therefore, for the moment, drove that trouble
+from his mind.
+
+But what should he do with himself as to his future life? To be
+persecuted and abused by these wretched men, as had this morning been
+his fate, would be intolerable. Could he shut himself up from Mr. Samuel
+Hart and still live in England? And then could he face the clubs,--if the
+clubs would be kind enough to re-elect him? And then there came a dark
+frown across his brow, as he bethought himself that even at this moment
+his heart was longing to be once more among the cards. Could he not
+escape to Monaco, and there be happy among the gambling-tables? Mr. Hart
+would surely not follow him there, and he would be free from the
+surveillance of that double blackguard, his brother's servant and his
+father's spy.
+
+But, after all, as he declared to himself, did it not altogether turn on
+the final answer which he might get from Florence Mountjoy? Could
+Florence be brought to accede to his wishes, he thought that he might
+still live happily, respectably, and in such a manner that his name
+might go down to posterity not altogether blasted. If Florence would
+consent to live at Tretton, then could he remain there. He thought it
+over as he stood there with his back to the fire, and he told himself
+that with Florence the first year would be possible, and that after the
+first year the struggle would cease to be a struggle. He knew himself,
+he declared, and he made all manner of excuses for his former vicious
+life, basing them all on the hardness of her treatment of him. He did
+not know himself, and such assurances were vain. But buoyed up by such
+assurances, he resolved that his future fate must be in her hands, and
+that her word alone should suffice either to destroy him or to save him.
+
+Thinking thus of his future life, he resolved that he would go at once
+to Cheltenham, and throw himself, and what of Tretton belonged to him,
+at the girl's feet. Nor could he endure himself to rest another night at
+Tretton till he had done so. He started at once, and got late to
+Gloucester, where he slept, and on the next morning at eleven o'clock
+was at Cheltenham, out on his way to Montpellier Terrace. He at once
+asked for Florence, but circumstances so arranged themselves that he
+first found himself closeted with her mother. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+delighted, and yet shocked, to see him. "My poor brother!" she said;
+"and he was buried only yesterday!" Such explanation as Mountjoy could
+give was given. He soon made the whole tenor of his thoughts
+intelligible to her. "Yes; Tretton was his,--at least he supposed so. As
+to his future life he could say nothing. It must depend on Florence. He
+thought that if she would promise to become at once his wife, there
+would be no more gambling. He had felt it to be incumbent on him to come
+and tell her so."
+
+Mrs. Mountjoy, frightened by the thorough blackness of his apparel and
+by the sternness of his manner, had not a word to say to him in
+opposition. "Be gentle with her," she said, as she led the way to the
+room in which Florence was found. "Your cousin has come to see you," she
+said; "has come immediately after the funeral. I hope you will be
+gracious to him." Then she closed the door, and the two were alone
+together.
+
+"Florence!" he said.
+
+"Mountjoy! We hardly expected you here so soon."
+
+"Where the heart strays the body is apt to follow. I could speak to no
+one, I could do nothing, I could hope and pray for nothing till I had
+seen you."
+
+"You cannot depend on me like that," she answered.
+
+"I do depend on you most entirely. No human being can depend more
+thoroughly on another. It is not my fortune that I have come to offer
+you, or simply my love, but in very truth my soul."
+
+"Mountjoy, that is wicked!"
+
+"Then wicked let it be. It is true. Tretton, by singular circumstances,
+is all my own, free of debt. At any rate, I and others believe it to be
+so."
+
+"Tretton being all your own can make no difference."
+
+"I told you that I had not come to offer you my fortune." And he almost
+scowled at her as he spoke. "You know what my career has hitherto been,
+though you do not perhaps know what has driven me to it. Shall I go
+back, and live after the same fashion, and let Tretton go to the dogs?
+It will be so unless you take me and Tretton into your hands."
+
+"It cannot be."
+
+"Oh, Florence! think of it before you pronounce my doom."
+
+"It cannot be. I love you well as my cousin, and for your sake I love
+Tretton also. I would suffer much to save you, if any suffering on my
+part would be of avail. But it cannot be in that fashion." Then he
+scowled again at her. "Mountjoy, you frighten me by your hard looks;--but
+though you were to kill me you cannot change me. I am the promised wife
+of Harry Annesley; and for his honor I must bid you plead this cause no
+more." Then, just at this moment there was a ring at the bell and a
+knock at the door, each of them somewhat impetuous, and Florence
+Mountjoy, jumping up with a start, knew that Harry Annesley was there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS ACCEPTED.
+
+
+She knew that Harry Annesley was at the door. He had written to say that
+he must come again, though he had fixed no day for his coming. She had
+been delighted to think that he should come, though she had after her
+fashion, scolded him for the promised visit. But, though his comings had
+not been frequent, she recognized already the sounds of his advent. When
+a girl really loves her lover, the very atmosphere tells of his
+whereabouts. She was expecting him with almost breathless expectation
+when her cousin Mountjoy was brought to her; and so was her mother, who
+had been told that Harry Annesley had business on which he intended to
+call. But now the two foes must meet in her presence. That was the idea
+which first came upon her. She was sure that Harry would behave well.
+Why should not a favored lover on such occasions always behave well? But
+how would Mountjoy conduct himself when brought face to face with his
+rival? As Florence thought of it, she remembered that when last they met
+the quarrel between them had been outrageous. And Mountjoy had been the
+sinner, while Harry had been made to bear the punishment of the sin.
+
+Harry, when he was told that Miss Mountjoy was at home, had at once
+walked in and opened for himself the door of the front room downstairs.
+There he found Florence and Mountjoy Scarborough. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+still up-stairs in her bedroom, and was palpitating with fear as she
+thought of the anger of the two combative lovers. To her belief, Harry
+was, of the two, the most like to a roaring lion, because she had heard
+of him that he had roared so dreadfully on that former occasion. But she
+did not instantly go down, detained in her bedroom by the eagerness of
+her fear, and by the necessity of resolving how she would behave when
+she got there.
+
+Harry, when he entered, stood a moment at the door, and then, hurrying
+across the room, offered Scarborough his hand. "I have been so sorry,"
+he said, "to hear of your loss; but your father's health was such that
+you could not have expected that his life should be prolonged." Mountjoy
+muttered something, but his mutterings, as Florence had observed, were
+made in courtesy. And the two men had taken each other by the hand;
+after that they could hardly fly at each other's throats in her
+presence. Then Harry crossed to Florence and took her hand. "I never get
+a line from you," he said, laughing, "but what you scold me. I think I
+escape better when I am present; so here I am."
+
+"You always make wicked propositions, and of course I scold you. A girl
+has to go on scolding till she's married, and then it's her turn to get
+it."
+
+"No wonder, then, that you talk of three years so glibly. I want to be
+able to scold you."
+
+All this was going on in Mountjoy's presence, while he stood by, silent,
+black, and scowling. His position was very difficult,--that of hearing
+the billing and cooing of these lovers. But theirs also was not too
+easy, which made the billing and cooing necessary in his presence. Each
+had to seem to be natural, but the billing and cooing were in truth
+affected. Had he not been there, would they not have been in each
+other's arms? and would not she have made him the proudest man in
+England by a loving kiss? "I was asking Miss Mountjoy, when you came in,
+to be my wife." This Scarborough said with a loud voice, looking Harry
+full in the face.
+
+"It cannot be," said Florence; "I told you that, for his honor,"--and she
+laid her hand on Harry's arm,--"I could listen to no such request."
+
+"The request has to be made again," he said.
+
+"It will be made in vain," said Harry.
+
+"So, no doubt, you think," said Captain Scarborough.
+
+"You can ask herself," said Harry.
+
+"Of course it will be made in vain," said Florence. "Does he think that
+a girl, in such a matter as that of loving a man, can be turned here and
+there at a moment's notice,--that she can say yes and no alternately to
+two men? It is impossible. Harry Annesley has chosen me, and I am
+infinitely happy in his choice." Here Harry made an attempt to get his
+arm round her waist, in which, however, she prevented him, seeing the
+angry passion rising in her cousin's eyes. "He is to be my husband, I
+hope. I have told him that I love him, and I tell you so also. He has my
+promise, and I cannot take it back without perjury to him, and ruin,
+absolute ruin, to myself. All my happiness in this world depends on him.
+He is to me my own one absolute master, to whom I have given myself
+altogether, as far as this world goes. Even were he to reject me I could
+not give myself to another."
+
+"My Florence! my darling!" Harry exclaimed.
+
+"After having told you so much, can you ask your cousin to be untrue to
+her word and to her heart, and to become your wife when her heart is
+utterly within his keeping? Mountjoy, it is impossible."
+
+"What of me, then?" he said.
+
+"Rouse yourself and love some other girl and marry her, and so do well
+with yourself and with your property."
+
+"You talk of your heart," he said, "and you bid me use my own after such
+fashion as that!"
+
+"A man's heart can be changed, but not a woman's. His love is but one
+thing among many."
+
+"It is the one thing," said Harry. Then the door opened, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy entered the room.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" she said, "you, both of you, here together?"
+
+"Yes: we are both here together," said Harry.
+
+There was an unfortunate smile on his face as he said so, which made
+Mountjoy Scarborough very angry. The two men were both handsome, two as
+handsome men as you shall see on a summer's day. Mountjoy was
+dark-visaged, with coal-black whiskers and mustaches, with sparkling,
+angry eyes, and every feature of his face well cut and finely formed;
+but there was absent from him all look of contentment or satisfaction.
+Harry was light-haired, with long, silken beard, and bright eyes; but
+there was usually present to his face a look of infinite joy, which was
+comfortable to all beholders. If not strong, as was the other man's, it
+was happy and eloquent of good temper. But in one thing they were
+alike:--neither of them counted aught on his good looks. Mountjoy had
+attempted to domineer by his bad temper, and had failed; but Harry,
+without any attempt at domineering, always doubting of himself till he
+had been assured of success by her lips, had succeeded. Now he was very
+proud of his success; but he was proud of her, and not of himself.
+
+"You come in here and boast of what you have done in my presence," said
+Mountjoy Scarborough.
+
+"How can I not seem to boast when she tells me that she loves me?" said
+Harry.
+
+"For God's sake, do not quarrel here!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"They shall not quarrel at all," said Florence, "There is no cause for
+quarrelling. When a girl has given herself away there should be an end
+of it. No man who knows that she has done so should speak to her again
+in the way of love. I will leave you now; but, Harry, you must come
+again, in order that I may tell you that you must not have it all your
+own way, just as you please, sir." Then she gave him her hand, and
+passing on at once to Mountjoy, tendered her hand to him also. "You are
+my cousin, and the head now of my mother's family. I would fain know
+that you would say a kind word to me, and bid me 'God speed.'"
+
+He looked at her, but did not take her hand. "I cannot do it," he said.
+"I cannot bid you 'God speed.' You have ruined me, trampled upon me,
+destroyed me. I am not angry with him," and he pointed across the room
+to Harry Annesley; "nor with you; but only with myself." Then, without
+speaking a word to his aunt, he marched out of the room and left the
+house, closing the front-door after him with a loud noise, which
+testified to his anger.
+
+"He has gone!" said Mrs. Mountjoy, with a tone of deep tragedy.
+
+"It is better so," said Florence.
+
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," said Harry. "There
+is something about Mountjoy Scarborough that, after all, I like. I do
+not love Augustus, but, with certain faults, Mountjoy is a good fellow."
+
+"He is the head of our family," said Mrs. Mountjoy, "and is the owner of
+Tretton."
+
+"That is nothing to do with it," said Florence.
+
+"It has much to do with it," said her mother, "though you would never
+listen to me. I had set my heart upon it, but you have determined to
+thwart me. And yet there was a time when you preferred him to every one
+else."
+
+"Never!" said Florence, with energy.
+
+"Yes, you did,--before Mr. Annesley here came in the way."
+
+"It was before I came, at any rate," said Harry.
+
+"I was young, and I did not wish to be disobedient. But I never loved
+him, and I never told him so. Now it is out of the question."
+
+"He will never come back again," said Mrs. Mountjoy, mournfully.
+
+"I should be very glad to see him back when I and Florence are man and
+wife. I don't care how soon we should see him."
+
+"No; he will never come back," said Florence,--"not as he came to-day.
+That trouble is at last over, mamma."
+
+"And my trouble is going to begin."
+
+"Why should there be any trouble? Harry will not give you trouble;--will
+you, Harry?"
+
+"Never, I trust," said Harry.
+
+"He cannot understand," said Mrs. Mountjoy; "he knows nothing of the
+desire and ambition of my life. I had promised him my child, and my word
+to him is now broken."
+
+"He will have known, mamma, that you could not promise for me. Now go,
+Harry, because we are flurried. May I not ask him to come here to-night
+and to drink tea with us?" This she said, addressing her mother in a
+tone of sweetest entreaty. To this Mrs. Mountjoy unwillingly yielded,
+and then Harry also took his departure.
+
+Florence was aware that she had gained much by the interview of the
+morning. Even to her it began to appear unnecessary that she should keep
+Harry waiting three years. She had spoken of postponing the time of her
+servitude and of preserving for herself the masterdom of her own
+condition. But in that respect the truth of her own desires was well
+understood by them all. She was anxious enough to submit to her new
+master, and she felt that the time was coming. Her mother had yielded so
+much, and Mountjoy had yielded. Harry was saying to himself at this very
+moment that Mountjoy had thrown up the sponge. She, too, was declaring
+the same thing for her own comfort in less sporting phraseology, and,
+what was much more to her, her mother had nearly thrown up the sponge
+also. In the worse days of her troubles any suitor had made himself
+welcome to her mother who would rescue her child from the fangs of that
+roaring lion, Harry Annesley. Mr. Anderson had been received with open
+arms, and even M. Grascour. Mrs. Mountjoy had then got it into her head
+that of all lions which were about in those days Harry roared the
+loudest. His sins in regard to leaving poor Mountjoy speechless and
+motionless on the pavement had filled her with horror. But Florence now
+felt that all that had come to an end. Not only had Mountjoy gone away,
+but no mention would probably be ever again made of Anderson or
+Grascour. When Florence was preparing herself for tea that evening she
+sang a little song to herself as to the coming of the conquering hero.
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," she said,
+repeating to herself her lover's words.
+
+"You can't expect me to be very bright," her mother said to her before
+Harry came.
+
+There was a sign of yielding in this also; but Florence in her happiness
+did not wish to make her mother miserable, "Why not be bright, mamma?
+Don't you know that Harry is good?"
+
+"No. How am I to know anything about him? He may be utterly penniless."
+
+"But his uncle has offered to let us live in the house and to give us an
+income. Mr. Prosper has abandoned all idea of getting married."
+
+"He can be married any day. And why do you want to live in another man's
+house when you may live in your own? Tretton is ready for you,--the
+finest mansion in the whole county." Here Mrs. Mountjoy exaggerated a
+little, but some exaggeration may be allowed to a lady in her
+circumstances.
+
+"Mamma, you know that I cannot live at Tretton."
+
+"It is the house in which I was born."
+
+"How can that signify? When such things happen they are used as
+additional grounds for satisfaction. But I cannot marry your nephew
+because you were born in a certain house. And all that is over now: you
+know that Mountjoy will not come back again."
+
+"He would," exclaimed the mother, as though with new hopes.
+
+"Oh, mamma! how can you talk like that? I mean to marry Harry
+Annesley;--you know that I do. Why not make your own girl happy by
+accepting him?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy left the room and went to her own
+chamber and cried there, not bitterly, I think, but copiously. Her girl
+would be the wife of the squire of Buston, who, after all, was not a bad
+sort of fellow. At any rate he would not gamble. There had always been
+that terrible drawback. And he was a fellow of his college, in which she
+would look for, and probably would find, some compensation as to
+Tretton. When, therefore, she came down to tea, she was able to receive
+Harry not with joy but at least without rebuke.
+
+Conversation was at first somewhat flat between the two. If the old
+lady could have been induced to remain up-stairs, Harry felt that the
+evening would have been much more satisfactory. But, as it was, he found
+himself enabled to make some progress. He at once began to address
+Florence as his undoubted future spouse, very slyly using words adapted
+for that purpose: and she, without any outburst of her intention,--as she
+had made when discussing the matter with her cousin,--answered him in the
+same spirit, and by degrees came so to talk as though the matter were
+entirely settled. And then, at last, that future day was absolutely
+brought on the tapis as though now to be named.
+
+"Three years!" ejaculated Mrs. Mountjoy, as though not even yet
+surrendering her last hope.
+
+Florence, from the nature of the circumstances, received this in
+silence. Had it been ten years she might have expostulated. But a young
+lady's bashfulness was bound to appear satisfied with an assurance of
+marriage within three years. But it was otherwise with Harry. "Good God,
+Mrs. Mountjoy, we shall all be dead!" he cried out.
+
+Mrs. Mountjoy showed by her countenance that she was extremely shocked.
+"Oh, Harry!" said Florence, "none of us, I hope, will be dead in three
+years."
+
+"I shall be a great deal too old to be married if I am left alive. Three
+months, you mean. It will be just the proper time of year, which does go
+for something. And three months is always supposed to be long enough to
+allow a girl to get her new frocks."
+
+"You know nothing about it, Harry," said Florence. And so the matter was
+discussed--in such a manner that when Harry took his departure that
+evening he was half inclined to sing a song of himself about the
+conquering hero. "Dear mamma!" said Florence, kissing her mother with
+all the warm, clinging affection of former years. It was very
+pleasant,--but still Mrs. Mountjoy went to her room with a sad heart.
+
+When there she sat for a while over the fire, and then drew out her
+desk. She had been beaten,--absolutely beaten,--and it was necessary that
+she should own so much in writing to one person. So she wrote her
+letter, which was as follows:
+
+"Dear Mountjoy,--After all it cannot be as I would have had it. As they
+say, 'Man proposes, but God disposes.' I would have given her to you
+now, and would even yet have trusted that you would have treated her
+well, had it not been that Mr. Annesley has gained such a hold upon her
+affections. She is wilful, as you are, and I cannot bend her. It has
+been the longing of my heart that you two should live together at
+Tretton. But such longings are, I think, wicked, and are seldom
+realized.
+
+"I write now just this one line to tell you that it is all settled. I
+have not been strong enough to prevent such settling. He talks of three
+months! But what does it matter? Three months or three years will be the
+same to you, and nearly the same to me.
+
+"Your affectionate aunt,
+
+"SARAH MOUNTJOY.
+
+"P.S.--May I as your loving aunt add one word of passionate entreaty?
+All Tretton is yours now, and the honor of Tretton is within your
+keeping. Do not go back to those wretched tables!"
+
+Mountjoy Scarborough when he received this letter cannot be said to have
+been made unhappy by it, because he had already known all his
+unhappiness. But he turned it in his mind as though to think what would
+now be the best course of life open to him. And he did think that he had
+better go back to those tables against which his aunt had warned him,
+and there remain till he had made the acres of Tretton utterly
+disappear. There was nothing for him which seemed to be better. And here
+at home in England even that would at present be impossible to him. He
+could not enter the clubs, and elsewhere Samuel Hart would be ever at
+his heels. And there was his brother with his lawsuit, though on that
+matter a compromise had already been offered to him. Augustus had
+proposed to him by his lawyer to share Tretton. He would never share
+Tretton. His brother should have an income secured to him, but he would
+keep Tretton in his own hands,--as long as the gambling-tables would
+allow him.
+
+He was, in truth, a wretched man, as on that night he did make up his
+mind, and ringing his bell called his servant out of his bed to bid him
+prepare everything for a sudden start. He would leave Tretton on the
+following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad.
+"He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the
+gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the
+valet who declared his master's intentions.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder, Mr. Stokes," said the valet. "I'm told it's a
+beauteous country and I should like to see a little of that sort of
+life myself." Alas, alas! Within a week from that time Captain
+Scarborough might have been seen seated in the Monte Carlo room, without
+any friendly Samuel Hart to stand over him and guard him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+THE LAST OF MR. GREY.
+
+
+"I have put in my last appearance at the old chamber in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields," said Mr. Grey, on arriving home one day early in June.
+
+"Papa, you don't mean it!" said Dolly.
+
+"I do. Why not one day as well as another? I have made up my mind that
+it is to be so. I have been thinking of it for the last six weeks. It is
+done now."
+
+"But you have not told me."
+
+"Well, yes; I have told you all that was necessary. It has come now a
+little sudden, that is all."
+
+"You will never go back again?"
+
+"Well, I may look in. Mr. Barry will be lord and master."
+
+"At any rate he won't be my lord and master!" said Dolly, showing by the
+tone of her voice that the matter had been again discussed by them since
+the last conversation which was recorded, and had been settled to her
+father's satisfaction.
+
+"No;--you at least will be left to me. But the fact is, I cannot have any
+farther dealings with the affairs of Mr. Scarborough. The old man who is
+dead was too many for me. Though I call him old, he was ever so much
+younger than I am. Barry says he was the best lawyer he ever knew. As
+things go now a man has to be accounted a fool if he attempts to run
+straight. Barry does not tell me that I have been a fool, but he clearly
+thinks so."
+
+"Do you care what Mr. Barry thinks or says?"
+
+"Yes, I do,--in regard to the professional position which I hold. He is
+confident that Mountjoy Scarborough is his father's eldest legitimate
+son, and he believes that the old squire simply was anxious to supersede
+him to get some cheap arrangement made as to his debts."
+
+"I supposed that was the case before."
+
+"But what am I to think of such a man? Mr. Barry speaks of him almost
+with affection. How am I to get on with such a man as Mr. Barry?"
+
+"He himself is honest."
+
+"Well;--yes, I believe so. But he does not hate the absolute utter
+roguery of our own client. And that is not quite all. When the story of
+the Rummelsburg marriage was told I did not believe one word of it, and
+I said so most strongly. I did not at first believe the story that there
+had been no such marriage, and I swore to Mr. Scarborough that I would
+protect Mountjoy and Mountjoy's creditors against any such scheme as
+that which was intended. Then I was convinced. All the details of the
+Nice marriage were laid before me. It was manifest that the lady had
+submitted to be married in a public manner and with all regular forms,
+while she had a baby, as it were, in her arms. And I got all the dates.
+Taking that marriage for granted, Mountjoy was clearly illegitimate, and
+I was driven so to confess. Then I took up arms on behalf of Augustus.
+Augustus was a thoroughly bad fellow,--a bully and a tyrant; but he was
+the eldest son. Then came the question of paying the debts. I thought
+it a very good thing that the debts should be payed in the proposed
+fashion. The men were all to get the money they had actually lent, and
+no better arrangement seemed to be probable. I helped in that, feeling
+that it was all right. But it was a swindle that I was made to assist
+in. Of course it was a swindle, if the Rummelsburg marriage be true, and
+all these creditors think that I have been a party to it. Then I swore
+that I wouldn't believe the Rummelsburg marriage. But Barry and the rest
+of them only shake their heads and laugh, and I am told that Mr.
+Scarborough was the best lawyer among us!"
+
+"What does it matter? How can that hurt you?" asked Dolly.
+
+"It does hurt me;--that is the truth. I have been at my business long
+enough. Another system has grown up which does not suit me. I feel that
+they all can put their fingers in my eyes. It may be that I am a fool,
+and that my idea of honesty is a mistake."
+
+"No!" shouted Dolly.
+
+"I heard of a rich American the other day who had been poor, and was
+asked how he had suddenly become so well off. 'I found a partner,' said
+the American, 'and we went into business together. He had the capital
+and I had the experience. We just made a change. He has the experience
+now and I have the capital.' When I knew that story I went to strip his
+coat off the wretch's back; but Mr. Barry would give him a fine fur
+cloak as a mark of respect. When I find that clever rascals are
+respectable, I think it is time that I should give up work altogether."
+
+Thus it was that Mr. Grey left the house of Grey & Barry, driven to
+premature retirement by the vices, or rather frauds, of old Mr.
+Scarborough. When Augustus went to work, which he did immediately on his
+father's death, to wrest the property from the hands of his brother,--or
+what part of the property might be possible,--Mr. Grey absolutely
+declined to have anything to do with the case. Mr. Barry explained how
+impossible it was that the house, even for its own sake, should
+absolutely secede from all consideration of the question. Mountjoy had
+been left in possession, and, according to all the evidence now before
+them, was the true owner. Of course he would want a lawyer, and, as Mr.
+Barry said, would be very well able to pay for what he wanted. It was
+necessary that the firm should protect themselves against the
+vindictiveness of Mr. Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart. Should the firm fail to
+do so, it would leave itself open to all manner of evil calumnies. The
+firm had been so long employed on behalf of the Scarboroughs that now,
+when the old squire was dead, it could not afford to relinquish the
+business till this final great question had been settled. It was
+necessary, as Mr. Barry said, that they should see it out, Mr. Barry
+taking a much more leading part in these discussions than had been his
+wont. Consequently Mr. Grey had told him that he might do it himself,
+and Mr. Barry had been quite contented. Mr. Barry, in talking the matter
+over with one of the clerks, whom he afterward took into partnership,
+expressed his opinion that "poor old Grey was altogether off the hooks."
+"Old Grey" had always been Mr. Grey when spoken of by Mr. Barry till
+that day, and the clerk remarking this, left Mr. Grey's bell unanswered
+for three or four minutes. Mr. Grey, though he was quite willing to
+shelf himself, understood it all, and knocked them about in the chambers
+that afternoon with unwonted severity. He said nothing about it when he
+came home that evening: but the next day was the last on which he took
+his accustomed chair.
+
+"What will you do with yourself, papa?" Dolly said to him the next
+morning.
+
+"Do with myself?"
+
+"What employment will you take in hand? One has to think of that, and to
+live accordingly. If you would like to turn farmer, we must live in the
+country."
+
+"Certainly I shall not do that. I need not absolutely throw away what
+money I have saved."
+
+"Or if you were fond of shooting or hunting?"
+
+"You know very well I never shot a bird, and hardly ever crossed a horse
+in my life."
+
+"But you are fond of gardening."
+
+"Haven't I got garden enough here?"
+
+"Quite enough, if you think so; but will there be occupation sufficient
+in that to find you employment for all your life?"
+
+"I shall read."
+
+"It seems to me," she said, "that reading becomes wearisome as an only
+pursuit, unless you've made yourself accustomed to it."
+
+"Sha'n't I have as much employment as you?"
+
+"A woman is so different! Darning will get through an unlimited number
+of hours. A new set of underclothing will occupy me for a fortnight.
+Turning the big girl's dresses over there into frocks for the little
+girls is sufficient to keep my mind in employment for a month. Then I
+have the maid-servants to look after, and to guard against their lovers.
+I have the dinners to provide, and to see that the cook does not give
+the fragments to the policeman. I have been brought up to do these
+things, and habit has made them usual occupations to me. I never envied
+you when you had to encounter all Mr. Scarborough's vagaries; but I knew
+that they sufficed to give you something to do."
+
+"They have sufficed," said he, "to leave me without anything that I can
+do."
+
+"You must not allow yourself to be so left. You must find out some
+employment." Then they sat silent for a time, while Mr. Grey occupied
+himself with some of the numerous papers which it would be necessary
+that he should hand over to Mr. Barry. "And now," said Dolly, "Mr.
+Carroll will have gone out, and I will go over to the Terrace. I have to
+see them every day, and Mr. Carroll has the decency to take himself off
+to some billiard-table so as to make room for me."
+
+"What are they doing about that man?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"About the lover? Mr. Juniper has, I fancy, made himself extremely
+disagreeable, not satisfying himself with abusing you and me, but poor
+aunt as well, and all the girls. He has, I fancy, got some money of his
+own."
+
+"He has had money paid to him by Captain Scarborough; but that I should
+fancy would rather make him in a good humor than the reverse."
+
+"He is only in a good humor, I take it, when he has something to get.
+However, I must be off now, or the legitimate period of Uncle Carroll's
+absence will be over."
+
+Mr. Grey, when he was left alone, at once gave up the manipulation of
+his papers, and, throwing himself back into his chair, began to think of
+that future life of which he had talked so easily to his daughter. What
+should he do with himself? He believed that he could manage with his
+books for two hours a day; but even of that he was not sure. He much
+doubted whether for many years past the time devoted to reading in his
+own house had amounted to one hour a day. He thought that he could
+employ himself in the garden for two hours; but that would fail him when
+there should be hail, or fierce sunshine, or frost, or snow, or rain.
+Eating and drinking would be much to him; but he could not but look
+forward to self-reproach if eating and drinking were to be the joy of
+his life. Then he thought of Dolly's life,--how much purer and better and
+nobler it had been than his own. She talked in a slighting, careless
+tone of her usual day's work, but how much of her time had been occupied
+in doing the tasks of others? He knew well that she disliked the
+Carrolls. She would speak of her own dislike of them as of her great
+sin, of which it was necessary that she should repent in sackcloth and
+ashes.
+
+But yet how she worked for the family! turning old dresses into new
+frocks, as though the girls who had worn them, and the children who were
+to wear them, had been to her her dearest friends. Every day she went
+across to the house intent upon doing good offices; and this was the
+repentance in sackcloth and ashes which she exacted from herself. Could
+not he do as she did? He could not darn Minnie's and Brenda's stockings,
+but he might do something to make those children more worthy of their
+cousin's care. He could not associate with his brother-in-law, because
+he was sure that Mr. Carroll would not endure his society; but he might
+labor to do something for the reform even of this abominable man. Before
+Dolly had come back to him he had resolved that he could only redeem his
+life from the stagnation with which it was threatened by working for
+others, now that the work of his own life had come to a close. "Well,
+Dolly," he said, as soon as she had entered the room, "have you heard
+any thing more about Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"Have you been here ever since, papa?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; I used to sit at chambers for six or seven hours at a
+stretch, almost without getting out of my chair."
+
+"And are you still employed about those awful papers?"
+
+"I have not looked at them since you left the room."
+
+"Then you must have been asleep."
+
+"No, indeed; I have not been asleep. You left me too much to think of to
+enable me to sleep. What am I to do with myself besides eating and
+drinking, so that I shall not sleep always on this side of the grave?"
+
+"There are twenty things, papa,--thirty, fifty, for a man so minded as
+you are." This she said trying to comfort him.
+
+"I must endeavor to find one or two of the fifty." Then he went back to
+his papers, and really worked hard on that day.
+
+On the following morning, early, he went across to Bolsover Terrace, to
+begin his task of reproving the Carroll family, without saying a word to
+Dolly indicative of his purpose.
+
+He found that the task would be difficult, and as he went he considered
+within his mind how best it might be accomplished. He had put a
+prayer-book in his pocket, without giving it much thought; but before he
+knocked at the door he had assured himself that the prayer-book would
+not be of avail. He would not know how to begin to use it, and felt that
+it would be ridiculed. He must leave that to Dolly or to the clergyman.
+He could talk to the girls; but they would not care about the affairs of
+the firm; and, in truth, he did not know what they would care about.
+With Dolly he could hold sweet converse as long as she would remain with
+him. But he had been present at the bringing up of Dolly, and did think
+that gifts had been given to Dolly which had not fallen to the lot of
+the Carroll girls. "They all want to be married," he said to himself,
+"and that at any rate is a legitimate desire."
+
+With this he knocked at the door, and when it was opened by Sophia, he
+found an old gentleman with black cotton gloves and a doubtful white
+cravat just preparing for his departure. There was Amelia, then giving
+him his hat, and looking as pure and proper as though she had never been
+winked at by Prince Chitakov. Then the mother came through from the
+parlor into the passage. "Oh, John! how very kind of you to come. Mr.
+Matterson, pray let me introduce you to my brother, Mr. Grey. John, this
+is the Rev. Mr. Matterson, a clergyman who is a very intimate friend of
+Amelia."
+
+"Me, ma! Why me in particular?"
+
+"Well, my dear, because it is so. I suppose it is so because Mr.
+Matterson likes you the best."
+
+"Laws, ma; what nonsense!" Mr. Matterson appeared to be a very shy
+gentleman, and only anxious to escape from the hall-door. But Mr. Grey
+remembered that in former days, before the coming of Mr. Juniper upon
+the scene, he had heard of a clerical admirer. He had been told that the
+gentleman's name was Matterson, that he was not very young nor very
+rich, that he had five or six children, and that he could afford to
+marry if the wife could bring with her about one hundred pounds a year.
+He had not then thought much of Mr. Matterson, and no direct appeal had
+been made to him. After that Mr. Juniper had come forward, and then Mr.
+Juniper had been altogether abolished. But it occurred to Mr. Grey that
+Mr. Matterson was at any rate better than Mr. Juniper; that he was by
+profession a gentleman, and that there might be a beginning of those
+good deeds by which he was anxious to make the evening of his days
+bearable to himself.
+
+"I am delighted to make Mr. Matterson's acquaintance," he said, as that
+old gentleman scrambled out of the door.
+
+Then his sister took him by the arm and led him at once into the parlor.
+"You might as well come and hear what I have to say, Amelia." So the
+daughter followed them in. "He is the most praiseworthy gentleman you
+ever knew, John," began Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"A clergyman, I think?"
+
+"Oh yes; he is in orders,--in priest's orders," said Mrs. Carroll,
+meaning to make the most of Mr. Matterson. "He has a church over at
+Putney."
+
+"I am glad of that," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Yes, indeed; though it isn't very good, because it's only a curate's
+one hundred and fifty pounds. Yes; he does have one hundred and fifty
+pounds, and something out of the surplice fees."
+
+"Another one hundred pounds I believe it is," said Amelia.
+
+"Not quite so much as that, my dear, but it is something."
+
+"He is a widower with children, I believe?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"There are children--five of them; the prettiest little dears one ever
+saw. The eldest is just about thirteen." This was a fib, because Mrs.
+Carroll knew that the eldest boy was sixteen; but what did it signify?
+"Amelia is so warmly attached to them."
+
+"It is a settled thing, then?"
+
+"We hope so. It cannot be said to be quite settled, because there are
+always money difficulties. Poor Mr. Matterson must have some increase to
+his income before he can afford it."
+
+"Ah, yes!"
+
+"You did say something, uncle, about five hundred pounds," said Amelia.
+
+"Four hundred and fifty, my dear," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Oh, I had forgotten. I did say that I hoped there would be five
+hundred."
+
+"There shall be five hundred," said Mr. Grey, remembering that now had
+come the time for doing to one of the Carroll family the good things of
+which he had thought to himself. "As Mr. Matterson is a clergyman of
+whom I have heard nothing but good, it shall be five hundred." He had in
+truth heard nothing either good or bad respecting Mr. Matterson.
+
+Then he asked Amelia to take a walk with him as he went home, reflecting
+that now had come the time in which a little wholesome conversation
+might have its effect. And an idea entered his head that in his old age
+an acquaintance with a neighboring clergyman might be salutary to
+himself. So Amelia got her bonnet and walked home with him.
+
+"Is he an eloquent preacher, my dear?" But Amelia had never heard him
+preach. "I suppose there will be plenty for you to do in your new home."
+
+"I don't mean to be put upon, if you mean that, uncle."
+
+"But five children!"
+
+"There is a servant who looks after them. Of course I shall have to see
+to Mr. Matterson's own things, but I have told him I cannot slave for
+them all. The three eldest have to be sent somewhere; that has been
+agreed upon. He has got an unmarried sister who can quite afford to do
+as much as that." Then she explained her reasons for the marriage. "Papa
+is getting quite unbearable, and Sophy spoils him in everything."
+
+Poor Mr. Grey, when his niece turned and went back home, thought that,
+as far as the girl was concerned, or her future household, there would
+be very little room for employment for him. Mr. Matterson wanted an
+upper servant who instead of demanding wages, would bring a little money
+with her, and he could not but feel that the poor clergyman would find
+that he had taken into his house a bad and expensive upper servant.
+
+"Never mind, papa," said Dolly, "we will go on and persevere, and if we
+intend to do good, good will come of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+THE LAST OF AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+When old Mr. Scarborough was dead, and had been for a while buried,
+Augustus made his application in form to Messrs. Grey & Barry. He made
+it through his own attorney, and had now received Mr. Barry's answer
+through the same attorney. The nature of the application had been in
+this wise: that Mr. Augustus Scarborough had been put in to the position
+of the eldest son; that he did not himself in the least doubt that such
+was his true position; that close inquiry had been made at the time, and
+that the lawyers, including Mr. Grey and Mr. Barry had assented to the
+statements as then made by old Mr. Scarborough; that he himself had then
+gone to work to pay his brother's debts, for the honor of the family,
+and had paid them partly out of his own immediate pocket, and partly out
+of the estate, which was the same as his own property; that during his
+brother's "abeyance" he had assisted in his maintenance, and, on his
+brother's return, had taken him to his own home; that then his father
+had died, and that this incredible new story had been told. Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough was in no way desirous of animadverting on his father's
+memory, but was forced to repeat his belief that he was his father's
+eldest son, and was, in fact, at that moment the legitimate owner of
+Tretton, in accordance with the existing contract. He did not wish to
+dispute his father's will, though his father's mental and bodily
+condition at the time of the making of the will might, perhaps, enable
+him to do so with success. The will might be allowed to pass valid, but
+the rights of primogeniture must be held sacred.
+
+Nevertheless, having his mother's memory in great honor, he felt himself
+ill inclined to drag the family history before the public. For his
+mother's sake he was open to a compromise. He would advise that the
+whole property,--that which would pass under the entail, and that which
+was intended to be left by will,--should be valued, and that the total
+should then be divided between them. If his brother chose to take the
+family mansion, it should be so. Augustus Scarborough had no desire to
+set himself over his brother. But if this offer were not accepted, he
+must at once go to law, and prove that their Nice marriage had been, in
+fact, the one marriage by which his father and mother had been joined
+together. There was another proviso added to this offer: as the
+valuation and division of the property must take time, an income at the
+rate of two hundred pounds a month should be allowed to Augustus till
+such time as it should be completed. Such was the offer which Augustus
+had authorized his attorney to make.
+
+There was some delay in getting Mountjoy to consent to a reply. Before
+the offer had reached Mr. Barry he was already at Monte Carlo, with that
+ready money his father had left behind him. At every venture that he
+made,--at least at every loss which he incurred,--he told himself that it
+was altogether the doings of Florence Mountjoy. But he returned to
+England, and consented to a reply. He was the eldest son, and meant to
+support that position, both on his mother's behalf and on his own. As to
+his father's will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother
+would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man's bodily sufferings
+were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had
+never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by
+his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred.
+As to what his brother had done for himself, it was hardly worth his
+while to answer such an allegation. His memory carried him but little
+farther back than the day on which his brother turned him out of his
+rooms.
+
+There were, however, many reasons,--and this was put in at the suggestion
+of Mr. Barry,--why he would not wish that his brother should be left
+penniless. If his brother would be willing to withdraw altogether from
+any lawsuit, and would lend his co-operation to a speedy arrangement of
+the family matters, a thousand a year,--or twenty-five thousand
+pounds,--should be made over to him as a younger brother's portion. To
+this offer it would be necessary that a speedy reply should be given,
+and, under such circumstances, no temporary income need be supplied.
+
+It was early in June when Augustus was sitting in his luxurious lodgings
+in Victoria Street, contemplating this reply. His own lawyer had advised
+him to accept the offer, but he had declared to himself a dozen times
+since his father's death that, in this matter of the property, he would
+"either make a spoon or spoil a horn." And the lawyer was no friend of
+his own,--was not a man who knew nothing of the facts of the case beyond
+what were told him, and nothing of the working of his client's mind.
+Augustus had looked to him only for the law in the matter, and the
+lawyer had declared the law to be against his client. "All that your
+father said about the Nice marriage will go for nothing. It will be
+shown that he had an object."
+
+"But there certainly was such a marriage."
+
+"No doubt there was some ceremony--performed with an object. A second
+marriage cannot invalidate the first, though it may itself be altogether
+invalidated. The Rummelsburg marriage is, and will be, an established
+fact, and of the Rummelsburg marriage your brother was no doubt the
+issue. Accept the offer of an income. Of course we can come to terms as
+to the amount; and from your brother's character it is probable enough
+that he may increase it." Such had been his lawyer's advice, and
+Augustus was sitting there in his lodging thinking of it.
+
+He was not a happy man as he sat there. In the first place he owed
+a little money, and the debt had come upon him chiefly from his lavish
+expenditure in maintaining Mountjoy and Mountjoy's servant upon their
+travels. At that time he had thought that by lavish expenditure he might
+make Tretton certainly his own. He had not known his brother's
+character, and had thought that by such means he could keep him down,
+with his head well under water. His brother might drink,--take to
+drinking regularly at Monte Carlo or some other place,--and might so die.
+Or he would surely gamble himself into farther and utter ruin. At any
+rate he would be well out of the way, and Augustus in his pride had been
+glad to feel that he had his brother well under his thumb. Then the debt
+had been paid with the object of saving the estate from litigation on
+the part of the creditors. That had been his one great mistake. And he
+had not known his father, or his father's guile, or his father's
+strength. Why had not his father died at once?--as all the world had
+assured him would be the case. Looking back he could remember that the
+idea of paying the creditors had at first come from his father, simply
+as a vague idea! Oh, what a crafty rascal his father had been! And then
+he had allowed himself, in his pride, to insult his father, and had
+spoken of his father's coming death as a thing that was desirable! From
+that moment his father had plotted his ruin. He could see it all now.
+
+He was still minded to make the spoon; but he found that he should spoil
+the horn. Had there been any one to assist him he would still have
+persevered. He thought that he could have persevered with a lawyer who
+would really have taken up his case with interest. If Mountjoy could be
+made to drink--so as to die! He was still next in the entail; and he was
+his brother's heir should his brother die without a will. But so he
+would be if he took the twenty-five thousand pounds. But to accept so
+poor a modicum would go frightfully against the grain with him. He
+seemed to think that by taking the allowance he would bring back his
+brother to all the long-lived decencies of life. He would have to
+surrender altogether that feeling of conscious superiority which had
+been so much to him. "D----n the fellow!" he exclaimed to himself. "I
+should not wonder if he were in that fellow's pay." The first "fellow"
+here was the lawyer, and the second was his brother.
+
+When he had sat there alone for half an hour he could not make up his
+mind. When all his debts were paid he would not have much above
+twenty-five thousand pounds. His father had absolutely extracted five
+thousand pounds from him toward paying his brother's debts! The money
+had been wanted immediately. Together with the sum coming from the new
+purchasers, father and son must each subscribe five thousand pounds to
+pay those Jews. So it had been represented to him, and he had borrowed
+the money to carry out his object. Had ever any one been so swindled, so
+cruelly treated! This might probably be explained, and the five thousand
+pounds might be added to the twenty-five thousand pounds. But the
+explanation would be necessary, and all his pride would rebel against
+it. On that night when by chance he had come across his brother,
+bleeding and still half drunk, as he was about to enter his lodging, how
+completely under his thumb he had been! And now he was offering him of
+his bounty this wretched pittance! Then with half-muttered curses he
+execrated the names of his father, his brother, of Grey, and of Barry,
+and of his own lawyer.
+
+At that moment the door was opened and his bosom friend, Septimus Jones,
+entered the room. At any rate this friend was the nearest he had to his
+bosom. He was a man without friends in the true sense. There was no one
+who knew the innermost wishes of his heart, the secret desires of his
+soul. There are thus so many who can divulge to none those secret
+wishes! And how can such a one have a friend who can advise him as to
+what he shall do? Scarcely can the honest man have such a friend,
+because it is so difficult for him to find a man who will believe in
+him. Augustus had no desire for such a friend, but he did desire some
+one who would do his bidding as though he were such a friend. He wanted
+a friend who would listen to his words, and act as though they were the
+truth. Mr. Septimus Jones was the man he had chosen, but he did not in
+the least believe in Mr. Septimus Jones himself. "What does that man
+say?" asked Septimus Jones. The man was the lawyer of whom Augustus was
+now thinking, at this very moment, all manner of evil.
+
+"D----n him!" said Augustus.
+
+"With all my heart. But what does he say? As you are to pay him for what
+he says, it is worth while listening to it."
+
+There was a tone in the voice of Septimus Jones which declared at once
+some diminution of his usual respect. So it sounded, at least, to
+Augustus. He was no longer the assured heir of Tretton, and in this way
+he was to be told of the failure of his golden hopes. It would be odd,
+he thought, if he could not still hold his dominion over Septimus Jones.
+"I am not at all sure that I shall listen to him or to you either."
+
+"As for that, you can do as you like."
+
+"Of course I can do as I like." Then he remembered that he must still
+use the man as a messenger, if in no other capacity. "Of course he wants
+to compromise it. A lawyer always proposes a compromise. He cannot be
+beat that way, and it is safe for him."
+
+"You had agreed to that."
+
+"But what are the terms to be?--that is the question. I made my
+offer:--half and half. Nothing fairer can be imagined,--unless, indeed, I
+choose to stand out for the whole property."
+
+"But what does your brother say?"
+
+He could not use his friend even as a messenger without telling him
+something of the truth. "When I think of it, of this injustice, I can
+hardly hold myself. He proposes to give me twenty-five thousand pounds."
+
+"Twenty-five thousand pounds!--for everything?"
+
+"Everything; yes. What the devil do you suppose I mean? Now just listen
+to me." Then he told his tale as he thought that it ought to be told. He
+recapitulated all the money he had spent on his brother's behalf, and
+all that he chose to say that he had spent. He painted in glowing colors
+the position in which he would have been put by the Nice marriage. He
+was both angry and pathetic about the creditors. And he tore his hair
+almost with vexation at the treatment to which he was subjected.
+
+"I think I'd take the twenty-five thousand pounds," said Jones.
+
+"Never! I'd rather starve first!"
+
+"That's about what you'll have to do if all that you tell me is true."
+There was again that tone of disappearing subjection. "I'll be shot if I
+wouldn't take the money." Then there was a pause. "Couldn't you do that
+and go to law with him afterward? That was what your father would have
+done." Yes; but Augustus had to acknowledge that he was not as clever as
+his father.
+
+At last he gave Jones a commission. Jones was to see his brother and to
+explain to him that, before any question could be raised as to the
+amount to be paid under the compromise, a sum of ten thousand pounds
+must be handed to Augustus to reimburse him for money out of pocket.
+Then Jones was to say, as out of his own head, that he thought that
+Augustus might probably accept fifty thousand pounds in lieu of
+twenty-five thousand pounds. That would still leave the bulk of the
+property to Mountjoy, although Mountjoy must be aware of the great
+difficulties which would be thrown in his way by his father's conduct.
+But Jones had to come back the next day with an intimation that Mountjoy
+had again gone abroad, leaving full authority with Mr. Barry.
+
+Jones was sent to Mr. Barry, but without effect. Mr. Barry would discuss
+the matter with the lawyer, or, if Augustus was so pleased, with
+himself; but he was sure that no good would be done by any conversation
+with Mr. Jones. A month went on--two months went by--and nothing came of
+it. "It is no use your coming here, Mr. Scarborough," at last Mr. Barry
+said to him with but scant courtesy. "We are perfectly sure of our
+ground. There is not a penny due you;--not a penny. If you will sign
+certain documents, which I would advise you to do in the presence of
+your own lawyer, there will be twenty-five thousand pounds for you. You
+must excuse me if I say that I cannot see you again on the
+subject,--unless you accept your brother's liberality."
+
+At this time, Augustus was very short of money and, as is always the
+case, those to whom he owed aught became pressing as his readiness to
+pay them gradually receded. But to be so spoken to by a lawyer,--he,
+Scarborough of Tretton, as he had all but been,--to be so addressed by a
+man whom he had regarded as old Grey's clerk, was bitter indeed. He had
+been so exalted by that Nice marriage, had been so lifted high in the
+world, that he was now absolutely prostrate. He quarrelled with his
+lawyer, and he quarrelled also with Septimus Jones. There was no one
+with whom he could discuss the matter, or rather no one who would
+discuss it with him on his terms. So at last he accepted the money, and
+went daily into the City in order that he might turn it into more. What
+became of him in the City it is hardly the province of this chronicle to
+tell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+THE LAST OF FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+Now at last in this chapter has to be told the fate of Florence
+Mountjoy, as far as it can be told in these pages. It was, at any rate,
+her peculiarity to attach to herself, by bonds which could not easily be
+severed, those who had once thought that they might be able to win her
+love. An attempt has been made to show how firm and determined were the
+affections of Harry Annesley, and how absolutely he trusted in her word
+when once it had been given to him. He had seemed to think that when she
+had even nodded to him, in answer to his assertion that he desired her
+to be his wife, all his trouble as regarded her heart had been off his
+mind.
+
+There might be infinite trouble as to time,--as to ten years, three
+years, or even one year; trouble in inducing her to promise that she
+would become his wife in opposition to her mother; but he had felt sure
+that she never would be the wife of any one else. How he had at last
+succeeded in mitigating the opposition of her mother, so as to make the
+three years, or even the one year, appear to himself an altogether
+impossible delay, the reader knows. How he at last contrived to have his
+own way altogether, so that, as Florence told him, she was merely a ball
+in his hand, the reader will have to know very shortly. But not a shade
+of doubt had ever clouded Harry's mind as to his eventual success since
+she had nodded to him at Mrs. Armitage's ball. Though this girl's love
+had been so grand a thing to have achieved, he was quite sure from that
+moment that it would be his forever.
+
+With Mountjoy Scarborough there had never come such a moment, and never
+could; yet he had been very confident, so that he had lived on the
+assurance that such a moment would come. And the self-deportment natural
+to her had been such that he had shown his assurance. He never would
+have succeeded; but he should not the less love her sincerely. And when
+the time came for him to think what he should do with himself, those few
+days after his father's death, he turned to her as his one prospect of
+salvation. If his cousin Florence would be good to him all might yet be
+well. He had come by that time to lose his assurance. He had recognized
+Harry Annesley as his enemy, as has been told often enough in these
+pages. Harry was to him a hateful stumbling-block. And he had not been
+quite as sure of her fidelity to another as Harry had been sure of it to
+himself. Tretton might prevail. Trettons do so often prevail. And the
+girl's mother was all on his side. So he had gone to Cheltenham, true as
+the needle to the pole, to try his luck yet once again. He had gone to
+Cheltenham, and there he found Harry Annesley. All hopes for him were
+then over and he started at once for Monaco; or, as he himself told
+himself, for the devil.
+
+Among the lovers of Florence some memory may attach itself to poor Hugh
+Anderson. He too had been absolutely true to Florence. From the hour in
+which he had first conceived the idea that she would make him happy as
+his wife, it had gone on growing upon him with all the weight of love,
+He did not quite understand why he should have loved her so dearly, but
+thus it was. Such a Mrs. Hugh Anderson, with a pair of horses on the
+boulevards, was to his imagination the most lovely sight which could be
+painted. Then Florence took the mode of disabusing him which has been
+told, and Hugh Anderson gave the required promise. Alas, in what an
+unfortunate moment had he done so! Such was his own thought. For though
+he was sure of his own attachment to her, he could not mount high enough
+to be as sure of her to somebody else. It was a "sort of thing a man
+oughtn't to have been asked to promise," he said to the third secretary.
+And having so determined, he made up his mind to follow her to England
+and to try his fortune once again.
+
+Florence had just wished Harry good-bye for the day, or rather for the
+week. She cared for nothing now in the way of protestations of
+affection. "Come Harry--there now--don't be so unreasonable. Am not I
+just as impatient as you are? This day fortnight you will be back, and
+then--"
+
+"Then there will be some peace, won't there? But mind you write every
+day." And so Harry was whisked away, as triumphant a man as ever left
+Cheltenham by the London train. On the following morning Hugh Anderson
+reached Cheltenham and appeared in Montpellier Place.
+
+"My daughter is at home, certainly," said Mrs. Mountjoy. There was
+something in the tone which made the young man at once assure himself
+that he had better go back to Brussels. He had even been a favorite with
+Mrs. Mountjoy. In his days of love-making poor Mountjoy had been absent,
+declared no longer to have a chance of Tretton, and Harry had been--the
+very evil one himself. Mrs. Mountjoy had been assured by the Brussels
+Mountjoy that, with the view of getting well rid of the evil one, she
+had better take poor Anderson to her bosom. She had opened her bosom
+accordingly, but with very poor results. And now he had come to look
+after what result there might be. Mrs. Mountjoy felt that he had better
+go back to Brussels.
+
+"Could I not see her?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Well, yes; you could see her."
+
+"Mrs. Mountjoy, I'll tell you everything, just as though you were my own
+mother. I have loved your daughter;--oh, I don't know how it is! If she'd
+be my wife for two years, I don't think I'd mind dying afterward."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+
+"I wouldn't. I never heard of a case where a girl had got such a hold of
+a man as she has of me."
+
+"You don't mean to say that she has behaved badly?"
+
+"Oh no! She couldn't behave badly;--it isn't in her. But she can bowl a
+fellow over in the most--well, most desperate manner. As for me, I'm not
+worth my salt since I first saw her. When I go to ride with the governor
+I haven't a word to say to him," But this ended in Mrs. Mountjoy going
+and promising that she would send Florence down in her place. She knew
+that it would be in vain; but to a young man who had behaved so well as
+Mr. Anderson so much could not be refused. "Here I am again," he said,
+very much like Punch in the pantomime.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! how do you do?"
+
+A lover who is anxious to prevail with a lady should always hold up his
+head. Where is the writer of novels, or of human nature, who does not
+know as much as that? And yet the man who is in love, truly in love,
+never does hold up his head very high. It is the man who is not in love
+who does so. Nevertheless it does sometimes happen that the true lover
+obtains his reward. In this case it was not observed to be so. But now
+Mr. Anderson was sure of his fate, so that there was no encouragement to
+him to make any attempt at holding up his head. "I have come once more
+to see you," he said.
+
+"I am sure it gives mamma so much pleasure."
+
+"Mrs. Mountjoy is very kind. But it hasn't been for her. The truth is, I
+couldn't settle down in this world without having another interview."
+
+"What am I to say, Mr. Anderson?"
+
+"I'll just tell you how it all is. You know what my prospects are." She
+did not quite remember, but she bowed to him. "You must know, because I
+told you. There is nothing I kept concealed." Again she bowed. "There
+can be no possible family reason for my going to Kamtchatka."
+
+"Kamtchatka!"
+
+"Yes, indeed;--the F.O." (The F.O. always meant the Foreign Office.) "The
+F.O. wants a young man on whom it can thoroughly depend to go to
+Kamtchatka. The allowances are handsome enough, but the allowances are
+nothing to me."
+
+"Why should you go?"
+
+"It is for you to decide. Yes, you can detain me. If I go to that bleak
+and barren desert, it will merely be to court exile from that quarter of
+the globe in which you and I would have to live together and not
+separate. That I cannot stand. In Kamtchatka--Well, there is no knowing
+what may happen to me then."
+
+"But I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Annesley."
+
+"You told me something of that before."
+
+"But it's all fixed. Mamma will tell you. It's to be this day fortnight.
+If you'd only stay and come as one of my friends."
+
+Surely such a proposition as this is the unkindest that any young lady
+can make; but we believe that it is made not unfrequently. In the
+present case it received no reply.
+
+Mr. Anderson took up his hat and rushed to the door. Then he returned
+for a moment. "God bless you, Miss Mountjoy!" he said. "In spite of the
+cruelty of that suggestion, I must bid God bless you." And then he was
+gone. About a week afterward M. Grascour appeared upon the scene with
+precisely the same intention. He, too, retained in his memory a most
+vivid recollection of the young lady and her charms. He had heard that
+Captain Scarborough had inherited Tretton, and had been informed that it
+was not probable that Miss Florence Mountjoy would marry her cousin. He
+was somewhat confused in his ideas, and thought, that were he now to
+re-appear on the scene there might still be a chance for him. There was
+no lover more unlike Mr. Anderson than M. Grascour. Not even for
+Florence Mountjoy, not even to own her, would he go to Kamtchatka; and
+were he not to see her he would simply go back to Brussels. And yet he
+loved her as well as he knew how to love any one, and, would she have
+become his wife, would have treated her admirably. He had looked at it
+all round, and could see no reason why he should not marry her. Like a
+persevering man, he persevered; but as he did so, no glimmering of an
+idea of Kamtchatka disturbed him.
+
+But from this farther trouble Mrs. Mountjoy was able to save her
+daughter. M. Grascour made his way into Mrs. Mountjoy's presence, and
+there declared his purpose. He had been sent over on some question
+connected with the literature of commerce, and had ventured to take the
+opportunity of coming down to Cheltenham. He hoped that the truth of his
+affection would be evinced by the journey. Mrs. Mountjoy had observed,
+while he was making his little speech, how extremely well brushed was
+his hat. She had observed, also, that poor Mr. Anderson's hat was in
+such a condition as almost to make her try to smooth it down for him.
+"If you make objection to my hat, you should brush it yourself," she had
+heard Harry say to Florence, and Florence had taken the hat, and had
+brushed it with fond, lingering touches.
+
+"M. Grascour, I can assure you that she is really engaged," Mrs.
+Mountjoy had said. M. Grascour bowed and sighed. "She is to be married
+this day week."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"To Mr. Harry Annesley."
+
+"Oh-h-h! I remember the gentleman's name. I had thought--"
+
+"Well, yes; there were objections, but they have luckily disappeared."
+Though Mrs. Mountjoy was only as yet happy in a melancholy manner,
+rejoicing with but bated joy at her girl's joys, she was too loyal to
+say a word now against Harry Annesley.
+
+"I should not have troubled you, but--"
+
+"I am sure of that, M. Grascour; and we are both of us grateful to you
+for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you
+are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the
+thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to
+be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new
+pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief
+merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in
+looking at them than she would have had in listening to the
+congratulations of M. Grascour.
+
+"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than
+Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry
+all the good men."
+
+There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's
+marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at
+Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's
+maid, were to go down to assist upon the occasion. His father was to
+marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of
+seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride
+three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at
+Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since
+the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for
+Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those
+of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own
+courtship the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a
+work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good
+her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise
+his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing
+had passed by him.
+
+But it had passed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch
+of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had
+heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as
+hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which
+troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the
+drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to
+sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last
+made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood
+how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said,
+with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told
+her that, on farther considerations, he had determined to add in the
+dressing-room.
+
+The whole parish felt the effect. It was not so much that the parish was
+struck by the expenditure proposed,--because the squire was known to be a
+man who had not for years spent all his income,--but that he had given
+way so far on behalf of a nephew whom he had lately been so anxious to
+disinherit. Rumor had already reached Buntingford of what the squire had
+intended to do on the receipt of his own wife,--rumors which had of
+course since faded away into nothing. It had been positively notified to
+Buntingford that there should be really a new carpet and new curtains in
+the drawing-room. Miss Thoroughbung had been known to have declared at
+the brewery that the whole thing should be done before she had been
+there twelve months.
+
+"He shall go the whole hog," she had said. And there had been a little
+bet about it between her and her brother, who entertained an idea that
+Mr. Prosper was an obstinate man. And Joe had brought tidings of the bet
+to the parsonage, so that there had been much commotion on the subject.
+When the best room had been included, and then the dressing-room, even
+Matthew had been alarmed. "It'll come to as much as five hundred
+pounds!" he had whispered to Mrs. Annesley. Matthew seemed to think that
+it was quite time that there should be somebody to control his master.
+"Why, ma'am, it's only the other day, because I can remember it myself,
+when that loo-table came into the house new!" Matthew had been in the
+place over twenty years. When Mrs. Annesley reminded him that fashions
+were changed, and that other kinds of table were required, he only shook
+his head.
+
+But there was a question more vital than that of expense. How was the
+new furniture to be chosen? The first idea was that Florence should be
+invited to spend a week at her future home, and go up and down to London
+with either Mrs. Annesley or her brother, and select the furniture
+herself. But there were reasons against this. Mr. Prosper would like to
+surprise her by the munificence of what he did. And the suggestion of
+one day was sure to wane before the stronger lights of the next. Mr.
+Prosper, though he intended to be munificent, was still a little afraid
+that it should be thrown away as a thing of course, or that it should
+appear to have been Harry's work. That would be manifestly unjust. "I
+think I had better do it myself," he said to his sister.
+
+"Perhaps I could help you, Peter." He shuddered; but it was at the
+memory of the sound of the word "Peter," as it had been blurted out for
+his express annoyance by Miss Thoroughbung. "I wouldn't mind going up to
+London with you." He shook his head, demanding still more time for
+deliberation. Were he to accept his sister's offer he would be bound by
+his acceptance. "It's the last drawing-room carpet I shall ever buy," he
+said to himself, with true melancholy, as he walked back home across the
+park.
+
+Then there had been the other grand question of the journey, or not,
+down to Cheltenham. In a good-natured way Harry had told him that the
+wedding would be no wedding without his presence. That had moved him
+considerably. It was very desirable that the wedding should be more than
+a merely legal wedding. The world ought to be made aware that the heir
+to Buston had been married in the presence of the Squire of Buston. But
+the journey was a tremendous difficulty. If he could have gone from
+Buston direct to Cheltenham it would have been comparatively easy. But
+he must pass through London, and to do this must travel the whole way
+between the Northern and Western railway-stations. And the trains would
+not fit. He studied his Bradshaw for an entire morning and found that
+they would not fit. "Where am I to spend the hour and a quarter?" he
+asked his sister, mournfully. "And there would be four journeys, going
+and coming,--four separate journeys!" And these would be irrespective of
+numerous carriages and cabs. It was absolutely impossible that he should
+be present in the flesh on that happy day at Cheltenham. He was left at
+home for three months,--July, August, and September,--in which to buy the
+furniture; which, however, was at last procured by Mr. Annesley.
+
+The marriage, as far as the wedding was concerned, was not nearly as
+good fun as that of Joe and Molly. There was no Mr. Crabtree there, and
+no Miss Thoroughbung. And Mrs. Mountjoy, though she meant to do it all
+as well as it could be done, was still joyous only with bated joy. Some
+tinge of melancholy still clung to her. She had for so many years
+thought of her nephew as the husband destined for her girl, that she
+could not be as yet demonstrative in her appreciation of Harry Annesley.
+"I have no doubt we shall come to be true friends, Mr. Annesley," she
+had said to him.
+
+"Don't call me Mr. Annesley."
+
+"No, I won't, when you come back again and I am used to you. But at
+present there--there is a something--"
+
+"A regret, perhaps?"
+
+"Well, not quite a regret. I am an old-fashioned person, and I can't
+change my manners all at once. You know what it was that I used to
+hope."
+
+"Oh yes. But Florence was very stupid, and would have a different
+opinion."
+
+"Of course I am happy now. Her happiness is all the world to me. And
+things have undergone a change."
+
+"That's true. Mr. Prosper has made over the marrying business to me, and
+I mean to go through it like a man. Only you must call me Harry." This
+she promised to do, and did, in the seclusion of her room, give him a
+kiss. But still her joy was not loud, and the hilarity of her guests was
+moderated. Mr. Annesley did his best, and the bridesmaids' dresses
+were pretty,--which is all that is required of a bride's maid. Then at
+last the father's carriage came, and they were carried away to
+Gloucester, where they were committed to the untender, commonplace, but
+much more comfortable mercies of the railway-carriage. There we will
+part with them, and encounter them again but for a few moments as, after
+a long day's ramble, they made their way back to a solitary but
+comfortable hotel among the Bernese Alps. Florence was on a pony, which
+Harry had insisted on hiring for her, though Florence had declared
+herself able to walk the whole way. It had been very hot, and she was
+probably glad of the pony. They both had alpenstocks in their hands, and
+on the pommel of her saddle hung the light jacket with which he had
+started, and which had not been so light but that he had been glad to
+ease himself of the weight. The guide was lagging behind, and they two
+were close together. "Well, old girl!" he said, "and now what do you
+think of it all?"
+
+"I'm not so very much older than I was when you took me, pet."
+
+"Oh, yes, you are. Half of your life has gone; you have settled down
+into the cares and duties of married life, none of which had been so
+much as thought of when I took you."
+
+"Not thought of! They have been on my mind ever since that night at Mrs.
+Armitage's."
+
+"Only in a romantic and therefore untrue sort of manner. Since that time
+you have always thought of me with a white choker and dress-boots."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself; I never looked at your boots."
+
+"You knew that they were the boots and the clothes of a man making love,
+didn't you? I don't care personally very much about my own boots: I
+never shall care about another pair; but I should care about them.
+Anything that might give me the slightest assistance."
+
+"Nothing was wanted; it had all been done, Harry."
+
+"My pet! But still a pair of high-lows heavy with nails would not have
+been efficacious then. I should think I love him, you might have said to
+yourself, but he is such an awkward fellow."
+
+"It had gone much beyond that at Mrs. Armitage's."
+
+"But now you have to take my high-lows as part of your duty."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"When a man loves a woman he falls in love with everything belonging to
+her. You don't wear high-lows. Everything you possess as specially your
+own has to administer to my sense of love and beauty."
+
+"I wish--I wish it might be so."
+
+"There is no danger about that at all. But I have to come before you on
+an occasion such as this as a kind of navvy,--and you must accept me."
+She glanced around furtively to see whether their guide was looking, but
+the guide had gone back out of sight. For, sitting on her pony, she had
+her arm around his neck and kissed him. "And then there is ever so much
+more," he continued. "I don't think I snore?"
+
+"Indeed, no! There isn't a sound comes from you. I sometimes look to see
+if I think you are alive."
+
+"But if I do, you'll have to put up with it. That would be one of your
+duties as a wife. You never could have thought of that when I had those
+dress-boots on."
+
+"Of course I didn't. How can you talk such rubbish?"
+
+"I don't know whether it is rubbish. Those are the kind of things that
+must fall upon a woman so heavily. Suppose I were to beat you?"
+
+"Beat me!"
+
+"Yes;--hit you over the head with this stick!"
+
+"I am sure you would not do that."
+
+"So am I. But suppose I were to? Your mother must be told of my leaving
+that poor man bloody and speechless. What if I were to carry out my
+usual habits as then shown? Take care, my darling, or that brute'll
+throw you!" This he said as the pony stumbled over a stone.
+
+"Almost as unlikely as you are. One has to risk dangers in the world,
+but one makes the risk as little as possible. I know they won't give me
+a pony that will tumble down; and I know that I've told you to look to
+see that they don't. You chose the pony, but I had to choose you. I
+don't know very much about ponies, but I do know something about a
+lover, and I know that I have got one that will suit me."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY***
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>
+
+Title: Mr. Scarborough's Family
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2004  [eBook #12234]
+Most recently updated: November 30, 2011
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY***
+</pre><br>
+<br>
+<center><h3>E-text prepared by Steven desJardins, Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.,<br>
+            and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders</h3></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="full" size="5" noshade>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h1>MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY</h1>
+
+<h2>BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE </h2>
+<h3>1883</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br>
+<center>
+<table>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PART I</td>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<tr><td align="right">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>       <td><a href="#CH1" >Mr. Scarborough</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH2" >Florence Mountjoy</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH3" >Harry Annesley</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH4" >Captain Scarborough's Disappearance</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>       <td><a href="#CH5" >Augustus Scarborough</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH6" >Harry Annesley Tells His Secret</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH7" >Harry Annesley Goes to Tretton</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH8" >Harry Annesley Takes a Walk</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH9" >Augustus Has His Own Doubts</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>       <td><a href="#CH10">Sir Magnus Mountjoy</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH11">Monte Carlo</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH12">Harry Annesley's Success</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH13">Mrs. Mountjoy's Anger</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH14">They Arrive in Brussels</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH15">Mr. Anderson's Love</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH16">Mr. and Miss Grey</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH17">Mr. Grey Dines at Home</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH18">The Carroll Family</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH19">Mr. Grey Goes to Tretton</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH20">Mr. Grey's Opinion of the Scarborough Family</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH21">Mr. Scarborough's Thoughts of Himself</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH22">Harry Annesley is Summoned Home</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH23">The Rumors as to Mr. Prosper</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH24">Harry Annesley's Misery</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH25">Harry and His Uncle</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH26">Marmaduke Lodge</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH27">The Proposal</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#CH28">Mr. Harkaway</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH29">Riding Home</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH30">Persecution</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH31">Florence's Request</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH32">Mr. Anderson is Ill</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PART II</td>
+<tr><td align="right">&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#CH33">Mr. Barry</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH34">Mr. Juniper</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH35">Mr. Barry and Mr. Juniper</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH36">Gurney &amp; Malcomson's</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#CH37">Victoria Street</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td> <td><a href="#CH38">The Scarborough Correspondence</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH39">How the Letters Were Received</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XL.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH40">Visitors at Tretton</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH41">Mountjoy Scarborough Goes to Buston</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH42">Captain Vignolles Entertains His Friends</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH43">Mr. Prosper is Visited by His Lawyers</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH44">Mr. Prosper's Troubles</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH45">A Determined Young Lady</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH46">M. Grascour</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH47">Florence Bids Farewell to Her Lovers</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>  <td><a href="#CH48">Mr. Prosper Changes His Mind</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">XLIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH49">Captain Vignolles Gets His Money</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">L.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>       <td><a href="#CH50">The Last of Miss Thoroughbung</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH51">Mr. Prosper is Taken Ill</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH52">Mr. Barry Again</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH53">The Beginning of the Last Plot</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH54">Rummelsburg</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH55">Mr. Grey's Remorse</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LVI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH56">Scarborough's Revenge</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LVII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH57">Mr. Prosper Shows His Good Nature</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LVIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH58">Mr. Scarborough's Death</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LIX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH59">Joe Thoroughbung's Wedding</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>      <td><a href="#CH60">Mr. Scarborough is Buried</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LXI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>     <td><a href="#CH61">Harry Annesley is Accepted</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LXII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH62">The Last of Mr. Grey</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>   <td><a href="#CH63">The Last of Augustus Scarborough</a></td>
+<tr><td align="right">LXIV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>    <td><a href="#CH64">The Last of Florence Mountjoy</a></td>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+</center>
+
+
+<a name="RULE4_1"><!-- RULE4 1 --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="PART1"><!-- PART1 --></a>
+<h2>
+	PART I.
+</h2>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH1"><!-- CH1 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER I.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. SCARBOROUGH.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back
+more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain
+with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which
+led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say
+that these first four chapters of the book&mdash;though they may be thought
+to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents
+for their interest in a tale&mdash;are in this way only preliminary.
+</p>
+<p>
+The world has not yet forgotten the intensity of the feeling which
+existed when old Mr. Scarborough declared that his well-known eldest son
+was not legitimate. Mr. Scarborough himself had not been well known in
+early life. He had been the only son of a squire in Staffordshire over
+whose grounds a town had been built and pottery-works established. In
+this way a property which had not originally been extensive had been
+greatly increased in value, and Mr. Scarborough, when he came into
+possession, had found himself to be a rich man. He had then gone abroad,
+and had there married an English lady. After the lapse of some years he
+had returned to Tretton Park, as his place was named, and there had lost
+his wife. He had come back with two sons, Mountjoy and Augustus, and
+there, at Tretton, he had lived, spending, however, a considerable
+portion of each year in chambers in the Albany. He was a man who,
+through many years, had had his own circle of friends, but, as I have
+said before, he was not much known in the world. He was luxurious and
+self-indulgent, and altogether indifferent to the opinion of those
+around him. But he was affectionate to his children, and anxious above
+all things for their welfare, or rather happiness. Some marvellous
+stories were told as to his income, which arose chiefly from the
+Tretton delf-works and from the town of Tretton, which had been built
+chiefly on his very park, in consequence of the nature of the clay and
+the quality of the water. As a fact, the original four thousand a year,
+to which his father had been born, had grown to twenty thousand by
+nature of the operations which had taken place. But the whole of this,
+whether four thousand or twenty thousand, was strictly entailed, and Mr.
+Scarborough had been very anxious, since his second son was born, to
+create for him also something which might amount to opulence. But they
+who knew him best knew that of all things he hated most the entail.
+</p>
+<p>
+The boys were both educated at Eton, and the elder went into the Guards,
+having been allowed an intermediate year in order to learn languages on
+the Continent. He had then become a cornet in the Coldstreams, and had,
+from that time, lived a life of reckless expenditure. His brother
+Augustus had in the mean time gone to Cambridge and become a barrister.
+He had been called but two years when the story was made known of his
+father's singular assertion. As from that time it became unnecessary for
+him to practise his profession, no more was heard of him as a lawyer. But
+they who had known the young man in the chambers of that great luminary,
+Mr. Rugby, declared that a very eminent advocate was now spoiled by a
+freak of fortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of his brother Mountjoy,&mdash;or Captain Scarborough, as he came to be known
+at an early period of his life,&mdash;the stories which were told in the world
+at large were much too remarkable to be altogether true. But it was only
+too true that he lived as though the wealth at his command were without
+limit. For some few years his father bore with him patiently, doubling
+his allowance, and paying his bills for him again and again. He made up
+his mind,&mdash;with many regrets,&mdash;that enough had been done for his younger
+son, who would surely by his intellect be able to do much for himself.
+But then it became necessary to encroach on the funds already put by,
+and at last there came the final blow, when he discovered that Captain
+Scarborough had raised large sums on post-obits from the Jews. The Jews
+simply requested the father to pay the money or some portion of it,
+which if at once paid would satisfy them, explaining to him that
+otherwise the whole property would at his death fall into their hands.
+It need not here be explained how, through one sad year, these
+negotiations were prolonged; but at last there came a time in which Mr.
+Scarborough, sitting in his chambers in the Albany, boldly declared his
+purpose. He sent for his own lawyer, Mr. Grey, and greatly astonished
+that gentleman by declaring to him that Captain Scarborough was
+illegitimate.
+</p>
+<p>
+At first Mr. Grey refused altogether to believe the assertion made to
+him. He had been very conversant with the affairs of the family, and had
+even dealt with marriage settlements on behalf of the lady in question.
+He knew Mr. Scarborough well,&mdash;or rather had not known him, but had heard
+much of him,&mdash;and therefore suspected him. Mr. Grey was a thoroughly
+respectable man, and Mr. Scarborough, though upright and honorable in
+many dealings, had not been thoroughly respectable. He had lived with
+his wife off and on, as people say. Though he had saved much of his
+money for the purpose above described, he had also spent much of it in a
+manner which did not approve itself to Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey had thoroughly
+disliked the eldest son, and had, in fact, been afraid of him. The
+captain, in the few interviews that had been necessary between them, had
+attempted to domineer over the lawyer, till there had at last sprung up
+a quarrel, in which, to tell the truth, the father took the part of the
+son. Mr. Grey had for a while been so offended as to find it necessary
+to desire Mr. Scarborough to employ another lawyer. He had not, however,
+done so, and the breach had never become absolute. In these
+circumstances Mr. Scarborough had sent for Mr. Grey to come to him at
+the Albany, and had there, from his bed, declared that his eldest son
+was illegitimate. Mr. Grey had at first refused to accept the assertion
+as being worth anything, and had by no means confined himself to polite
+language in expressing his belief. "I would much rather have nothing to
+do with it," he had said when Mr. Scarborough insisted on the truth of
+his statement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the evidence is all here," said Mr. Scarborough, laying his hand on
+a small bundle of papers. "The difficulty would have been, and the
+danger, in causing Mountjoy to have been accepted in his brother's
+place. There can be no doubt that I was not married till after Mountjoy
+was born."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey's curiosity was roused, and he began to ask questions. Why, in
+the first place, had Mr. Scarborough behaved so dishonestly? Why had he
+originally not married his wife? And then, why had he married her? If,
+as he said, the proofs were so easy, how had he dared to act so directly
+in opposition to the laws of his country? Why, indeed, had he been
+through the whole of his life so bad a man,&mdash;so bad to the woman who had
+borne his name, so bad to the son whom he called illegitimate, and so
+bad also to the other son whom he now intended to restore to his
+position, solely with the view of defrauding the captain's creditors?
+</p>
+<p>
+In answer to this Mr. Scarborough, though he was suffering much at the
+time,&mdash;so much as to be considered near to his death,&mdash;had replied with
+the most perfect good-humor.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had done very well, he thought, by his wife, whom he had married
+after she had consented to live with him on other terms. He had done
+very well by his elder son, for whom he had intended the entire
+property. He had done well by his second son, for whom he had saved his
+money. It was now his first duty to save the property. He regarded
+himself as being altogether unselfish and virtuous from his point of
+view.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Mr. Grey had spoken about the laws of his country he had simply
+smiled, though he was expecting a grievous operation on the following
+day. As for marriage, he had no great respect for it, except as a mode
+of enabling men and women to live together comfortably. As for the
+"outraged laws of his country," of which Mr. Grey spoke much, he did not
+care a straw for such outrages&mdash;nor, indeed, for the expressed opinion
+of mankind as to his conduct. He was very soon about to leave the world,
+and meant to do the best he could for his son Augustus. The other son
+was past all hope. He was hardly angry with his eldest son, who had
+undoubtedly given him cause for just anger. His apparent motives in
+telling the truth about him at last were rather those of defrauding the
+Jews, who had expressed themselves to him with brutal audacity, than
+that of punishing the one son or doing justice to the other; but even of
+them he spoke with a cynical good-humor, triumphing in his idea of
+thoroughly getting the better of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am consoled, Mr. Grey," he said, "when I think how probably it might
+all have been discovered after my death. I should have destroyed all
+these," and he laid his hands upon the papers, "but still there might
+have been discovery."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey could not but think that during the last twenty-four years,&mdash;the
+period which had elapsed since the birth of the younger son,&mdash;no idea of
+such a truth had occurred to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+He did at last consent to take the papers in his hands, and to read them
+through with care. He took them away with that promise, and with an
+assurance that he would bring them back on the day but one
+following&mdash;should Mr. Scarborough then be alive.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough, who seemed at that moment to have much life in him,
+insisted on this proviso:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"The surgeon is to be here to-morrow, you know, and his coming may mean
+a great deal. You will have the papers, which are quite clear, and will
+know what to do. I shall see Mountjoy myself this evening. I suppose he
+will have the grace to come, as he does not know what he is coming for."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the father smiled again, and the lawyer went.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough, though he was very strong of heart, did have some
+misgivings as the time came at which he was to see his son. The
+communication which he had to make was certainly one of vital
+importance. His son had some time since instigated him to come to terms
+with the "family creditors," as the captain boldly called them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Seeing that I never owed a shilling in my life, or my father before me,
+it is odd that I should have family creditors," the father had answered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The property has, then, at any rate," the son had said, with a scowl.
+</p>
+<p>
+But that was now twelve months since, before mankind and the Jews among
+them had heard of Mr. Scarborough's illness. Now, there could be no
+question of dealing on favorable terms with these gentlemen. Mr.
+Scarborough was, therefore, aware that the evil thing which he was about
+to say to his son would have lost its extreme bitterness. It did not
+occur to him that, in making such a revelation as to his son's mother he
+would inflict any great grief on his son's heart. To be illegitimate
+would be, he thought, nothing unless illegitimacy carried with it loss
+of property. He hardly gave weight enough to the feeling that the eldest
+son was the eldest son, and too little to the triumph which was present
+to his own mind in saving the property for one of the family. Augustus
+was but the captain's brother, but he was the old squire's son. The two
+brothers had hitherto lived together on fairly good terms, for the
+younger had been able to lend money to the elder, and the elder had
+found his brother neither severe or exacting. How it might be between
+them when their relations with each other should be altogether changed,
+Mr. Scarborough did not trouble himself to inquire. The captain by his
+own reckless folly had lost his money, had lost all that fortune would
+have given him as his father's eldest son. After having done so, what
+could it matter to him whether he were legitimate or illegitimate? His
+brother, as possessor of Tretton Park, would be able to do much more
+for him than could be expected from a professional man working for his
+bread.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough had looked at the matter all round for the space of two
+years, and during the latter year had slowly resolved on his line of
+action. He had had no scruple in passing off his eldest-born as
+legitimate, and now would have none in declaring the truth to the world.
+What scruple need he have, seeing that he was so soon about to leave the
+world?
+</p>
+<p>
+As to what took place at that interview between the father and the son
+very much was said among the clubs, and in societies to which Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough was well known; but very little of absolute truth
+was ever revealed. It was known that Captain Scarborough left the room
+under the combined authority of apothecaries and servants, and that the
+old man had fainted from the effects of the interview. He had
+undoubtedly told the son of the simple facts as he had declared them to
+Mr. Grey, but had thought it to be unnecessary to confirm his statement
+by any proof. Indeed, the proofs, such as they were,&mdash;the written
+testimony, that is,&mdash;were at that moment in the hands of Mr. Grey, and to
+Mr. Grey the father had at last referred the son. But the son had
+absolutely refused to believe for a moment in the story, and had
+declared that his father and Mr. Grey had conspired together to rob him
+of his inheritance and good name. The interview was at last over, and
+Mr. Scarborough, at one moment fainting, and in the next suffering the
+extremest agony, was left alone with his thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Captain Scarborough, when he left his father's rooms, and found himself
+going out from the Albany into Piccadilly, was an infuriated but at the
+same time a most wretched man. He did believe that a conspiracy had been
+hatched, and he was resolved to do his best to defeat it, let the effect
+be what it might on the property; but yet there was a strong feeling in
+his breast that the fraud would be successful. No man could possibly be
+environed by worse circumstances as to his own condition. He owed he
+knew not what amount of money to several creditors; but then he owed,
+which troubled him more, gambling debts, which he could only pay by his
+brother's assistance. And now, as he thought of it, he felt convinced
+that his brother must be joined with his father and the lawyer in this
+conspiracy. He felt, also, that he could meet neither Mr. Grey nor his
+brother without personally attacking them. All the world might perish,
+but he, with his last breath, would declare himself to be Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough, of Tretton Park; and though he knew at the moment
+that he must perish,&mdash;as regarded social life among his comrades,&mdash;unless
+he could raise five hundred pounds from his brother, yet he felt that,
+were he to meet his brother, he could not but fly at his throat and
+accuse him of the basest villany.
+</p>
+<p>
+At that moment, at the corner of Bond Street, he did meet his brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is this?" said he, fiercely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is what?" said Augustus, without any fierceness. "What is up now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have just come from my father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how is the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk.
+I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come
+to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as a cucumber."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something in this which at once shook, though it did not
+remove, the captain's belief, and he said something as to the property.
+Then there came questions and answers, in which the captain did not
+reveal the story which had been told to him, but the barrister did
+assert that he had as yet heard nothing as to anything of importance. As
+to Tretton, the captain believed his brother's manner rather than his
+words. In fact, the barrister had heard nothing as yet of what was to be
+done on his behalf.
+</p>
+<p>
+The interview ended in the two men going and dining at a club, where the
+captain told the whole story of his father's imagined iniquity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus received the tale almost in silence. In reply to his brother's
+authoritative, domineering speeches he said nothing. To him it was all
+new, but to him, also, it seemed certainly to be untrue. He did not at
+all bring himself to believe that Mr. Grey was in the conspiracy, but he
+had no scruple of paternal regard to make him feel that this father
+would not concoct such a scheme simply because he was his father. It
+would be a saving of the spoil from the Amalekites, and of this idea he
+did give a hardly-expressed hint to his brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By George," said the captain, "nothing of the kind shall be done with
+my consent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, no," the barrister had answered, "I suppose that neither your
+consent nor mine is to be asked; and it seems as though it were a farce
+ordered to be played over the poor governor's grave. He has prepared a
+romance, as to the truth or falsehood of which neither you nor I can
+possibly be called as witnesses."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was clear to the captain that his brother had thought that the plot
+had been prepared by their father in anticipation of his own death.
+Nevertheless, by the younger brother's assistance, the much-needed sum
+of money was found for the supply of the elder's immediate wants.
+</p>
+<p>
+The next day was the day of terror, and nothing more was heard, either
+then or for the following week, of the old gentleman's scheme. In two
+days it was understood that his death might be hourly expected, but on
+the third it was thought that he might "pull through," as his younger
+son filially expressed himself. He was constantly with his father, but
+not a word passed his lips as to the property. The elder son kept
+himself gloomily apart, and indeed, during a part of the next week was
+out of London. Augustus Scarborough did call on Mr. Grey, but only
+learned from him that it was, at any rate, true that the story had been
+told by his father. Mr. Grey refused to make any farther communication,
+simply saying that he would as yet express no opinion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For myself," said Augustus, as he left the attorney's chambers, "I can
+only profess myself so much astonished as to have no opinion. I suppose
+I must simply wait and see what Fortune intends to do with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+At the end of a fortnight Mr. Scarborough had so far recovered his
+strength as to be able to be moved down to Tretton, and thither he went.
+It was not many days after that "the world" was first informed that
+Captain Scarborough was not his father's heir. "The world" received the
+information with a great deal of expressed surprise and inward
+satisfaction,&mdash;satisfaction that the money-lenders should be done out of
+their money; that a professed gambler like Captain Scarborough should
+suddenly become an illegitimate nobody; and, more interesting still,
+that a very wealthy and well-conditioned, if not actually respectable,
+squire should have proved himself to be a most brazen-faced rascal. All
+of these were matters which gave extreme delight to the world at large.
+At first there came little paragraphs without any name, and then, some
+hours afterward, the names became known to the quidnuncs, and in a short
+space of time were in possession of the very gentry who found themselves
+defrauded in this singular manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not necessary here that I should recapitulate all the
+circumstances of the original fraud, for a gross fraud had been
+perpetrated. After the perpetration of that fraud papers had been
+prepared by Mr. Scarborough himself with a great deal of ingenuity, and
+the matter had been so arranged that,&mdash;but for his own
+declaration,&mdash;his
+eldest son would undoubtedly have inherited the property. Now there was
+no measure to the clamor and the uproar raised by the money-lenders. Mr.
+Grey's outer office was besieged, but his clerk simply stated that the
+facts would be proved on Mr. Scarborough's death as clearly as it might
+be possible to prove them. The curses uttered against the old squire
+were bitter and deep, but during this time he was still supposed to be
+lying at death's door, and did not, in truth, himself expect to live
+many days. The creditors, of course, believed that the story was a
+fiction. None of them were enabled to see Captain Scarborough, who,
+after a short period, disappeared altogether from the scene. But they
+were, one and all, convinced that the matter had been arranged between
+him and his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was one from whom better things were expected than to advance
+money on post-obits to a gambler at a rate by which he was to be repaid
+one hundred pounds for every forty pounds, on the death of a gentleman
+who was then supposed to be dying. For it was proved afterward that this
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had made most minute inquiries among the old squire's
+servants as to the state of their master's health. He had supplied forty
+thousand pounds, for which he was to receive one hundred thousand pounds
+when the squire died, alleging that he should have difficulty in
+recovering the money. But he had collected the sum so advanced on better
+terms among his friends, and had become conspicuously odious in the
+matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+In about a month's time it was generally believed that Mr. Scarborough
+had so managed matters that his scheme would be successful. A struggle
+was made to bring the matter at once into the law courts, but the
+attempt for the moment failed. It was said that the squire down at
+Tretton was too ill, but that proceedings would be taken as soon as he
+was able to bear them. Rumors were afloat that he would be taken into
+custody, and it was even asserted that two policemen were in the house
+at Tretton. But it was soon known that no policemen were there, and that
+the squire was free to go whither he would, or rather whither he could.
+In fact, though the will to punish him, and even to arrest him, was
+there, no one had the power to do him an injury.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was then declared that he had in no sense broken the law,&mdash;that no
+evil act of his could be proved,&mdash;that though he had wished his eldest
+son to inherit the property wrongfully, he had only wished it; and that
+he had now simply put his wishes into unison with the law, and had
+undone the evil which he had hitherto only contemplated. Indeed, the
+world at large rather sympathized with the squire when Mr. Tyrrwhit's
+dealings became known, for it was supposed by many that Mr. Tyrrwhit was
+to have become the sole owner of Tretton.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the creditors were still loud, and still envenomed. They and their
+emissaries hung about Tretton and demanded to know where was the
+captain. Of the captain's whereabouts his father knew nothing, not even
+whether he was still alive; for the captain had actually disappeared
+from the world, and his creditors could obtain no tidings respecting
+him. At this period, and for long afterward, they imagined that he and
+his father were in league together, and were determined to try at law
+the question as to the legitimacy of his birth as soon as the old squire
+should be dead. But the old squire did not die. Though his life was
+supposed to be most precarious he still continued to live, and became
+even stronger. But he remained shut up at Tretton, and utterly refused
+to see any emissary of any creditor. To give Mr. Tyrrwhit his due, it
+must be acknowledged that he personally sent no emissaries, having
+contented himself with putting the business into the hands of a very
+sharp attorney. But there were emissaries from others, who after a while
+were excluded altogether from the park.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here Mr. Scarborough continued to live, coming out on to the lawn in his
+easy-chair, and there smoking his cigar and reading his French novel
+through the hot July days. To tell the truth, he cared very little for
+the emissaries, excepting so far as they had been allowed to interfere
+with his own personal comfort. In these days he had down with him two or
+three friends from London, who were good enough to make up for him a
+whist-table in the country; but he found the chief interest in his life
+in the occasional visits of his younger son.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I look upon Mountjoy as utterly gone," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he has utterly gone," his other son replied.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As to that I care nothing. I do not believe that a man can be murdered
+without leaving a trace of his murder. A man cannot even throw himself
+overboard without being missed. I know nothing of his
+whereabouts,&mdash;nothing at all. But I must say that his absence is a relief
+to me. The only comfort left to me in this world is in your presence,
+and in those material good things which I am still able to enjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+This assertion as to his ignorance about his eldest son the squire
+repeated again and again to his chosen heir, feeling it was only
+probable that Augustus might participate in the belief which he knew to
+be only too common. There was, no doubt, an idea prevalent that the
+squire and the captain were in league together to cheat the creditors,
+and that the squire, who in these days received much undeserved credit
+for Machiavellian astuteness, knew more than any one else respecting his
+eldest son's affairs. But, in truth, he at first knew nothing, and in
+making these assurances to his younger son was altogether wasting his
+breath, for his younger son knew everything.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH2"><!-- CH2 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER II.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough had a niece, one Florence Mountjoy, to whom it had been
+intended that Captain Scarborough should be married. There had been no
+considerations of money when the intention had been first formed, for
+the lady was possessed of no more than ten thousand pounds, which would
+have been as nothing to the prospects of the captain when the idea was
+first entertained. But Mr. Scarborough was fond of people who belonged
+to him. In this way he had been much attached to his late
+brother-in-law, General Mountjoy, and had perceived that his niece was
+beautiful and graceful, and was in every way desirable, as one who might
+be made in part thus to belong to himself. Florence herself, when the
+idea of the marriage was first suggested to her by her mother, was only
+eighteen, and received it with awe rather than with pleasure or
+abhorrence. To her her cousin Mountjoy had always been a most
+magnificent personage. He was only seven years her senior, but he had
+early in life assumed the manners, as he had also done the vices, of
+mature age, and loomed large in the girl's eyes as a man of undoubted
+wealth and fashion. At that period, three years antecedent to his
+father's declaration, he had no doubt been much in debt, but his debts
+had not been generally known, and his father had still thought that a
+marriage with his cousin might serve to settle him&mdash;to use the phrase
+which was common with himself. From that day to this the courtship had
+gone on, and the squire had taught himself to believe that the two
+cousins were all but engaged to each other. He had so considered it, at
+any rate, for two years, till during the last final year he had resolved
+to throw the captain overboard. And even during this year there had been
+periods of hope, for he had not finally made up his mind till but a
+short time before he had put it in practice. No doubt he was fond of his
+niece in accordance with his own capability for fondness. He would
+caress her and stroke her hair, and took delight in having her near to
+him. And of true love for such a girl his heart was quite capable. He
+was a good-natured, fearless, but not a selfish man, to whom the fate in
+life of this poor girl was a matter of real concern.
+</p>
+<p>
+And his eldest son, who was by no means good-natured, had something of
+the same nature. He did love truly,&mdash;after his own fashion of loving. He
+would have married his cousin at any moment, with or without her ten
+thousand pounds,&mdash;for of all human beings he was the most reckless. And
+yet in his breast was present a feeling of honor of which his father
+knew nothing. When it was explained to him that his mother's fair name
+was to be aspersed,&mdash;a mother whom he could but faintly remember,&mdash;the
+threat did bring with it its own peculiar agony. But of this the squire
+neither felt or knew anything. The lady had long been dead, and could be
+none the better or the worse for aught that could be said of her. To the
+captain it was not so, and it was preferable to him to believe his
+father to be dishonest than his mother. He, at any rate, was in truth in
+love with his cousin Florence, and when the story was told to him one of
+its first effects was the bearing which it would have upon her mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been said that within two or three days after the communication
+he had left London. He had done so in order that he might at once go
+down to Cheltenham and see his cousin. There Miss Mountjoy lived, with
+her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+The time had been when Florence Mountjoy had been proud of her cousin,
+and, to tell the truth of her feelings, though she had never loved him,
+she had almost done so. Rumors had made their way through even to her
+condition of life, and she in her innocence had gradually been taught to
+believe that Captain Scarborough was not a man whom she could be safe in
+loving. And there had, perhaps, come another as to whom her feelings
+were different. She had, no doubt, at first thought that she would be
+willing to become her cousin's wife, but she had never said as much
+herself. And now both her heart and mind were set against him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Captain Scarborough, as he went down to Cheltenham, turned the matter
+over in his mind, thinking within himself how best he might carry out
+his project. His intention was to obtain from his cousin an assurance of
+her love, and a promise that it should not be shaken by any stories
+which his father might tell respecting him. For this purpose he he must
+make known to her the story his father had told him, and his own
+absolute disbelief in it. Much else must be confided to her. He must
+acknowledge in part his own debts, and must explain that his father had
+taken this course in order to defraud the creditors. All this would be
+very difficult; but he must trust in her innocence and generosity. He
+thought that the condition of his affairs might be so represented that
+the story should tend rather to win her heart toward him than to turn it
+away. Her mother had hitherto always been in his favor, and he had, in
+fact, been received almost as an Apollo in the house at Cheltenham.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Florence," he said, "I must see you alone for a few minutes. I know
+that your mother will trust you with me." This was spoken immediately on
+his arrival, and Mrs. Mountjoy at once left the room. She had been
+taught to believe that it was her daughter's duty to marry her cousin;
+and though she knew that the captain had done much to embarrass the
+property, she thought that this would be the surest way to settle him.
+The heir of Tretton Park was, in her estimation, so great a man that
+very much was to be endured at his hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+The meeting between the two cousins was very long, and when Mrs.
+Mountjoy at last returned unannounced to the room she found her daughter
+in tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Florence, what is the matter?" asked her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+The poor girl said nothing, but still continued to weep, while the
+captain stood by looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, Mountjoy?" said Mrs. Mountjoy, turning to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have told Florence some of my troubles," said he, "and they seemed to
+have changed her mind toward me."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something in this which was detestable to Florence,&mdash;an
+unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of
+love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess. She knew
+that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to
+be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend. He had blurted
+it all out roughly,&mdash;the story as told by his father of his mother's
+dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened
+loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,&mdash;and added his
+conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a
+thorough rascal. The full story of his debts he kept back, not with any
+predetermined falseness, but because it is so difficult for a man to own
+that he has absolutely ruined himself by his own folly. It was not
+wonderful that the girl should not have understood such a story as had
+then been told her. Why was he defending his mother? Why was he accusing
+his father? The accusations against her uncle, whom she did know, were
+more fearful to her than these mysterious charges against her aunt, whom
+she did not know, from which her son defended her. But then he had
+spoken passionately of his own love, and she had understood that. He had
+besought her to confess that she loved him, and then she had at once
+become stubborn. There was something in the word "confess" which grated
+against her feelings. It seemed to imply a conviction on his part that
+she did love him. She had never told him so, and was now sure that it
+was not so. When he had pressed her she could only weep. But in her
+weeping she never for a moment yielded. She never uttered a single word
+on which he could be enabled to build a hope. Then he had become blacker
+and still blacker, fiercer and still fiercer, more and more earnest in
+his purpose, till at last he asked her whom it was that she loved&mdash;as
+she could not love him. He knew well whom it was that he
+suspected;&mdash;and she
+knew also. But he had no right to demand any statement from her on that
+head. She did not think that the man loved her; nor did she know what to
+say or to think of her own feelings. Were he, the other man, to come to
+her, she would only bid him go away; but why she should so bid him she
+had hardly known. But now this dark frowning captain, with his big
+mustache and his military look, and his general aspect of invincible
+power, threatened the other man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He came to Tretton as my friend," he said, "and by Heaven if he stands
+in my way, if he dare to cross between you and me, he shall answer it
+with his life!"
+</p>
+<p>
+The name had not been mentioned; but this had been very terrible to
+Florence, and she could only weep.
+</p>
+<p>
+He went away, refusing to stay to dinner, but said that on the following
+afternoon he would again return. In the street of the town he met one of
+his creditors, who had discovered his journey to Cheltenham, and had
+followed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Captain Mountjoy, what is all dis that they are talking about in
+London?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What are they talking about?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"De inheritance!" said the man, who was a veritable Jew, looking up
+anxiously in his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+The man had his acceptance for a very large sum of money, with an
+assurance that it should be paid on his father's death, for which he had
+given him about two thousand pounds in cash.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must ask my father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But is it true?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must ask my father. Upon my word, I can tell you nothing else. He
+has concocted a tale of which I for one do not believe a word. I never
+heard of the story till he condescended to tell it me the other day.
+Whether it be true or whether it be false, you and I, Mr. Hart, are in
+the same boat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you have had de money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you have got the bill. You can't do anything by coming after me. My
+father seems to have contrived a very clever plan by which he can rob
+you; but he will rob me at the same time. You may believe me or not as
+you please; but that you will find to be the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Hart left him, but certainly did not believe a word the captain
+had said to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+To her mother Florence would only disclose her persistent intention of
+not marrying her cousin. Mrs. Mountjoy, over whose spirit the glamour of
+the captain's prestige was still potent, said much in his favor.
+Everybody had always intended the marriage, and it would be the setting
+right of everything. The captain, no doubt, owed a large sum of money,
+but that would be paid by Florence's fortune. So little did the poor
+lady know of the captain's condition. When she had been told that there
+had been a great quarrel between the captain and his father, she
+declared that the marriage would set that all right.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, mamma, Captain Scarborough is not to have the property at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy, believing thoroughly in entails, had declared that
+all Heaven could not prevent it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But that makes no difference," said the daughter; "if I&mdash;I&mdash;I loved him
+I would marry him so much the more, if he had nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy declared that she could not understand it at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next day Captain Scarborough came, according to his promise, but
+nothing that he could say would induce Florence to come into his
+presence. Her mother declared that she was so ill that it would be
+wicked to disturb her.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH3"><!-- CH3 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER III.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Together with Augustus Scarborough at Cambridge had been one Harry
+Annesley, and he it was to whom the captain in his wrath had sworn to
+put an end if he should come between him and his love. Harry Annesley
+had been introduced to the captain by his brother, and an intimacy had
+grown up between them. He had brought him to Tretton Park when Florence
+was there, and Harry had since made his own way to Cheltenham, and had
+endeavored to plead his own cause after his own fashion. This he had
+done after the good old English plan, which is said to be somewhat
+loutish, but is not without its efficacy. He had looked at her, and
+danced with her, and done the best with his gloves and his cravat, and
+had let her see by twenty unmistakable signs that in order to be
+perfectly happy he must be near her. Her gloves, and her flowers, and
+her other little properties were sweeter to him than any scents, and
+were more valuable in his eyes than precious stones. But he had never as
+yet actually asked her to love him. But she was so quick a linguist that
+she had understood down to the last letter what all these tokens had
+meant. Her cousin, Captain Scarborough, was to her magnificent,
+powerful, but terrible withal. She had asked herself a thousand times
+whether it would be possible for her to love him and to become his wife.
+She had never quite given even to herself an answer to this question
+till she had suddenly found herself enabled to do so by his
+over-confidence in asking her to confess that she loved him. She had
+never acknowledged anything, even to herself, as to Harry Annesley. She
+had never told herself that it would be possible that he should ask her
+any such question. She had a wild, dreamy, fearful feeling that,
+although it would be possible to her to refuse her cousin, it would be
+impossible that she should marry any other while he should still be
+desirous of making her his wife. And now Captain Scarborough had
+threatened Harry Annesley, not indeed by name, but still clearly
+enough. Any dream of her own in that direction must be a vain dream.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Harry Annesley is going to be what is generally called the hero of
+this story, it is necessary that something should be said of the
+particulars of his life and existence up to this period. There will be
+found to be nothing very heroic about him. He is a young man with more
+than a fair allowance of a young man's folly;&mdash;it may also be said of a
+young man's weakness. But I myself am inclined to think that there was
+but little of a young man's selfishness, with nothing of falseness or
+dishonesty; and I am therefore tempted to tell his story.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was the son of a clergyman, and the eldest of a large family of
+children. But as he was the acknowledged heir to his mother's brother,
+who was the squire of the parish of which his father was rector, it was
+not thought necessary that he should follow any profession. This uncle
+was the Squire of Buston, and was, after all, not a rich man himself.
+His whole property did not exceed two thousand a year, an income which
+fifty years since was supposed to be sufficient for the moderate wants
+of a moderate country gentleman; but though Buston be not very far
+removed from the centre of everything, being in Hertfordshire and not
+more than forty miles from London, Mr. Prosper lived so retired a life,
+and was so far removed from the ways of men, that he apparently did not
+know but that his heir was as completely entitled to lead an idle life
+as though he were the son of a duke or a brewer. It must not, however,
+be imagined that Mr. Prosper was especially attached to his nephew. When
+the boy left the Charter-house, where his uncle had paid his
+school-bills, he was sent to Cambridge, with an allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds a year, and that allowance was still continued to him,
+with an assurance that under no circumstances could it ever be
+increased. At college he had been successful, and left Cambridge with a
+college fellowship. He therefore left it with one hundred and
+seventy-five pounds added to his income, and was considered by all those
+at Buston Rectory to be a rich young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Harry did not find that his combined income amounted to riches amid
+a world of idleness. At Buston he was constantly told by his uncle of
+the necessity of economy. Indeed, Mr. Prosper, who was a sickly little
+man about fifty years of age, always spoke of himself as though he
+intended to live for another half-century. He rarely walked across the
+park to the rectory, and once a week, on Sundays, entertained the
+rectory family. A sad occasion it generally was to the elder of the
+rectory children, who were thus doomed to abandon the loud pleasantries
+of their own home for the sober Sunday solemnities of the Hall. It was
+not that the Squire of Buston was peculiarly a religious man, or that
+the rector was the reverse: but the parson was joyous, whereas the other
+was solemn. The squire,&mdash;who never went to church, because he was
+supposed to be ill,&mdash;made up for the deficiency by his devotional
+tendencies when
+the children were at the Hall. He read through a sermon after dinner,
+unintelligibly and even inaudibly. At this his brother-in-law, who had
+an evening service in his own church, of course never was present; but
+Mrs. Annesley and the girls were there, and the younger children. But
+Harry Annesley had absolutely declined; and his uncle having found out
+that he never attended the church service, although he always left the
+Hall with his father, made this a ground for a quarrel. It at last came
+to pass that Mr. Prosper, who was jealous and irritable, would hardly
+speak to his nephew; but the two hundred and fifty pounds went on, with
+many bickerings on the subject between the parson and the squire. Once,
+when the squire spoke of discontinuing it, Harry's father reminded him
+that the young man had been brought up in absolute idleness, in
+conformity with his uncle's desire. This the squire denied in strong
+language; but Harry had not hitherto run loudly in debt, nor kicked over
+the traces very outrageously; and as he absolutely must be the heir, the
+allowance was permitted to go on.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was one lady who conceived all manner of bad things as to Harry
+Annesley, because, as she alleged, of the want of a profession and of
+any fixed income. Mrs. Mountjoy, Florence's mother, was this lady.
+Florence herself had read every word in Harry's language, not knowing,
+indeed, that she had read anything, but still never having missed a
+single letter. Mrs. Mountjoy also had read a good deal, though not all,
+and dreaded the appearance of Harry as a declared lover. In her eyes
+Captain Scarborough was a very handsome, very powerful, and very grand
+personage; but she feared that Florence was being induced to refuse her
+allegiance to this sovereign by the interference of her other very
+indifferent suitor. What would be Buston and two thousand a year, as
+compared with all the glories and limitless income of the great Tretton
+property? Captain Scarborough, with his mustaches and magnificence, was
+just the man who would be sure to become a peer. She had always heard
+the income fixed at thirty thousand a year. What would a few debts
+signify to thirty thousand a year? Such had been her thoughts up to the
+period of Captain Scarborough's late visit, when he had come to
+Cheltenham, and had renewed his demand for Florence's hand somewhat
+roughly. He had spoken ambiguous words, dreadful words, declaring that
+an internecine quarrel had taken place between him and his father; but
+these words, though they had been very dreadful, had been altogether
+misunderstood by Mrs. Mountjoy. The property she knew to be entailed,
+and she knew that when a property was entailed the present owner of it
+had nothing to do with its future disposition. Captain Scarborough, at
+any rate, was anxious for the marriage, and Mrs. Mountjoy was inclined
+to accept him, encumbered as he now was with his father's wrath, in
+preference to poor Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+In June Harry came up to London, and there learned at his club the
+singular story in regard to old Mr. Scarborough and his son. Mr.
+Scarborough had declared his son illegitimate, and all the world knew
+now that he was utterly penniless and hopelessly in debt. That he had
+been greatly embarrassed Harry had known for many months, and added to
+that was now the fact, very generally believed, that he was not and
+never had been the heir to Tretton Park. All that still increasing
+property about Tretton, on which so many hopes had been founded, would
+belong to his brother. Harry, as he heard the tale, immediately
+connected it with Florence. He had, of course, known the captain was a
+suitor to the girl's hand, and there had been a time when he thought
+that his own hopes were consequently vain. Gradually the conviction
+dawned upon him that Florence did not love the grand warrior, that she
+was afraid of him rather and awe-struck. It would be terrible now were
+she brought to marry him by this feeling of awe. Then he learned that
+the warrior had gone down to Cheltenham, and in the restlessness of his
+spirit he pursued him. When he reached Cheltenham the warrior had
+already gone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The property is certainly entailed," said Mrs. Mountjoy. He had called
+at once at the house and saw the mother, but Florence was discreetly
+sent away to her own room when the dangerous young man was admitted.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not Mr. Scarborough's eldest son at all," said Harry; "that is,
+in the eye of the law." Then he had to undertake that task, very
+difficult for a young man, of explaining to her all the circumstances of
+the case.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was something in them so dreadful to the lady's imagination
+that he failed for a long time to make her comprehend it. "Do you mean
+to say that Mr. Scarborough was not married to his own wife?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that he knew it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt he knew it. He confesses as much himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What a very wicked man he must be!" said Mrs. Mountjoy. Harry could
+only shrug his shoulder. "And he meant to rob Augustus all through?"
+Harry again shrugged his shoulder. "Is it not much more probable that if
+he could be so very wicked he would be willing to deny his eldest son in
+order to save paying the debts?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry could only declare that the facts were as he told them, or at
+least that all London believed them to be so, that at any rate Captain
+Mountjoy had gambled so recklessly as to put himself for ever and ever
+out of reach of a shilling of the property, and that it was clearly the
+duty of Mrs. Mountjoy, as Florence's mother, not to accept him as a
+suitor.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was only by slow degrees that the conversation had arrived at this
+pass. Harry had never as yet declared his own love either to the mother
+or daughter, and now appeared simply as a narrator of this terrible
+story. But at this point it did appear to him that he must introduce
+himself in another guise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The fact is, Mrs. Mountjoy," he said, starting to his feet, "that I am
+in love with your daughter myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And therefore you have come here to vilify Captain Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have come," said he, "at any rate to tell the truth. If it be as I
+say, you cannot think it right that he should marry your daughter. I say
+nothing of myself, but that, at any rate, cannot be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is no business of yours, Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Except that I would fain think that her business should be mine."
+</p>
+<p>
+But he could not prevail with Mrs. Mountjoy either on this day or the
+next to allow him to see Florence, and at last was obliged to leave
+Cheltenham without having done so.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH4"><!-- CH4 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER IV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+CAPTAIN SCARBOROUGH'S DISAPPEARANCE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+A few days after the visits to Cheltenham, described in the last
+chapters, Harry Annesley, coming down a passage by the side of the
+Junior United Service Club into Charles Street, suddenly met Captain
+Scarborough at two o'clock in the morning. Where Harry had been at that
+hour need not now be explained, but it may be presumed that he had not
+been drinking tea with any of his female relatives.
+</p>
+<p>
+Captain Scarborough had just come out of some neighboring club, where he
+had certainly been playing, and where, to all appearances, he had been
+drinking also. That there should have been no policemen in the street
+was not remarkable, but there was no one else there present to give any
+account of what took place during the five minutes in which the two men
+remained together. Harry, who was at the moment surprised by the
+encounter, would have passed the captain by without notice, had he been
+allowed to do so; but this the captain perceived, and stopped him
+suddenly, taking him roughly by the collar of his coat. This Harry
+naturally resented, and before a word of intelligible explanation had
+been given the two young men had quarrelled.
+</p>
+<p>
+Captain Scarborough had received a long letter from Mrs. Mountjoy,
+praying for explanation of circumstances which could not be explained,
+and stating over and over again that all her information had come from
+Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+The captain now called him an interfering, meddlesome idiot, and shook
+him violently while holding him in his grasp. This was a usage which
+Harry was not the man to endure, and there soon arose a scuffle, in
+which blows had passed between them. The captain stuck to his prey,
+shaking him again and again in his drunken wrath, till Harry, roused to
+a passion almost equal to that of his opponent, flung him at last
+against the corner of the club railings, and there left his foe
+sprawling upon the ground, having struck his head violently against the
+ground as he fell. Harry passed on to his own bed, indifferent, as it
+was afterwards said, to the fate of his antagonist. All this occupied
+probably five minutes in the doing, but was seen by no human eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the occurrence of that night was subsequently made the ground for
+heavy accusation against Harry Annesley, it has been told here with
+sufficient minuteness to show what might be said in justification or in
+condemnation of his conduct,&mdash;to show what might be said if the truth
+were spoken. For, indeed, in the discussions which arose on the subject,
+much was said which was not true. When he had retired from the scuffle
+on that night, Harry had certainly not dreamed that any serious damage
+had been done to the man who had certainly been altogether to blame in
+his provocation of the quarrel. Had he kept his temper and feelings
+completely under control, and knocked down Captain Scarborough only in
+self-defence; had he not allowed himself to be roused to wrath by
+treatment which could not but give rise to wrath in a young man's bosom,
+no doubt, when his foe lay at his feet, he would have stooped to pick
+him up, and have tended his wounds. But such was not Harry's
+character,&mdash;nor that of any of the young men with whom I have been
+acquainted. Such, however, was the conduct apparently expected from him
+by many, when the circumstances of those five minutes were brought to
+the light. But, on the other hand, had passion not completely got the
+better of him, had he not at the moment considered the attack made upon
+him to amount to misconduct so gross as to supersede all necessity for
+gentle usage on his own part, he would hardly have left the man to live
+or die as chance would have it. Boiling with passion, he went his way,
+and did leave the man on the pavement, not caring much, or rather, not
+thinking much, whether his victim might live or die.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next day Harry Annesley left London and went down to Buston,
+having heard no word farther about the captain. He did not start till
+late in the afternoon, and during the day took some trouble to make
+himself conspicuous about the town; but he heard nothing of Captain
+Scarborough. Twice he walked along Charles Street, and looked at the
+spot on which he had stood on the night before in what might have been
+deadly conflict. Then he told himself that he had not been in the least
+wounded, that the ferocious maddened man had attempted to do no more
+than shake him, that his coat had suffered and not himself, and that in
+return he had certainly struck the captain with all his violence. There
+were probably some regrets, but he said not a word on the subject to any
+one, and so he left London.
+</p>
+<p>
+For three or four days nothing was heard of the captain, nor was
+anything said about him. He had lodgings in town, at which he was no
+doubt missed, but he also had quarters at the barracks, at which he did
+not often sleep, but to which it was thought possible on the next
+morning that he might have betaken himself. Before the evening of that
+day had come he had no doubt been missed, but in the world at large no
+special mention was made of his absence for some time. Then, among the
+haunts which he was known to frequent, questions began to be asked as to
+his whereabouts, and to be answered by doubtful assertions that nothing
+had been seen or heard of him for the last sixty or seventy hours.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be remembered that at this time Captain Scarborough was still
+the subject of universal remark, because of the story told as to his
+birth. His father had declared him to be illegitimate, and had thereby
+robbed all his creditors. Captain Scarborough was a man quite remarkable
+enough to insure universal attention for such a tale as this; but now,
+added to his illegitimacy was his disappearance. There was at first no
+idea that he had been murdered. It became quickly known to all the world
+that he had, on the night in question, lost a large sum of money at a
+whist-club which he frequented, and, in accordance with the custom of
+the club, had not paid the money on the spot.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fatal Monday had come round, and the money undoubtedly was not paid.
+Then he was declared a defaulter, and in due process of time his name
+was struck off the club books, with some serious increase of the
+ignominy hitherto sustained.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the last fortnight or more Captain Scarborough's name had been
+subjected to many remarks and to much disgrace. But this non-payment of
+the money lost at whist was considered to be the turning-point. A man
+might be declared illegitimate, and might in consequence of that or any
+other circumstance defraud all his creditors. A man might conspire with
+his father with the object of doing this fraudulently, as Captain
+Scarborough was no doubt thought to have done by most of his
+acquaintances. All this he might do and not become so degraded but that
+his friends would talk to him and play cards with him. But to have sat
+down to a whist-table and not be able to pay the stakes was held to be
+so foul a disgrace that men did not wonder that he should have
+disappeared.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such was the cause alleged for the captain's disappearance among his
+intimate friends; but by degrees more than his intimate friends came to
+talk of it. In a short time his name was in all the newspapers, and
+there was not a constable in London whose mind was not greatly exercised
+on the matter. All Scotland Yard and the police-officers were busy. Mr.
+Grey, in Lincoln's Inn, was much troubled on the matter. By degrees
+facts had made themselves clear to his mind, and he had become aware
+that the captain had been born before his client's marriage. He was
+ineffably shocked at the old squire's villany in the matter, but
+declared to all to whom he spoke openly on the subject that he did not
+see how the sinner could be punished. He never thought that the father
+and son were in a conspiracy together. Nor had he believed that they had
+arranged the young man's disappearance in order the more thoroughly to
+defraud the creditors. They could not, at any rate, harm a man of whose
+whereabouts they were unaware and who, for all they knew, might be dead.
+But the reader is already aware that this surmise on the part of Mr.
+Grey was unfounded.
+</p>
+<p>
+The captain had been absent for three weeks when Augustus Scarborough
+went down for a second time to Tretton Park, in order to discuss the
+matter with his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus had, with much equanimity and a steady, fixed purpose, settled
+himself down to the position as elder son. He pretended no anger to his
+father for the injury intended, and was only anxious that his own rights
+should be confirmed. In this he found that no great difficulty stood in
+his way. The creditors would contest his rights when his father should
+die; but for such contest he would be prepared. He had no doubt as to
+his own position, but thought that it would be safer,&mdash;and that it
+would also probably be cheaper,&mdash;to purchase the acquiescence
+of all claimants
+than to encounter the expense of a prolonged trial, to which there might
+be more than one appeal, and of which the end after all would be
+doubtful.
+</p>
+<p>
+No very great sum of money would probably be required. No very great sum
+would, at any rate, be offered. But such an arrangement would certainly
+be easier if his brother were not present to be confronted with the men
+whom he had duped.
+</p>
+<p>
+The squire was still ill down at Tretton, but not so ill but that he had
+his wits about him in all their clearness. Some said that he was not ill
+at all, but that in the present state of affairs the retirement suited
+him. But the nature of the operation which he had undergone was known to
+many who would not have him harassed in his present condition. In truth,
+he had only to refuse admission to all visitors and to take care that
+his commands were carried out in order to avoid disagreeable intrusions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean to say that a man can do such a thing as this and that no
+one can touch him for it?" This was an exclamation made by Mr. Tyrrwhit
+to his lawyer, in a tone of aggrieved disgust.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He hasn't done anything," said the lawyer. "He only thought of doing
+something, and has since repented. You cannot arrest a man because he
+had contemplated the picking of your pocket, especially when he has
+shown that he is resolved not to pick it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As far as I can learn, nothing has been heard about him as yet," said
+the son to the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Those limbs weren't his that were picked out of the Thames near
+Blackfriars Bridge?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"They belonged to a poor cripple who was murdered two months since."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that body that was found down among the Yorkshire Hills?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was a peddler. There is nothing to induce a belief that Mountjoy has
+killed himself or been killed. In the former case his dead body would be
+found or his live body would be missing. For the second there is no
+imaginable cause for suspicion."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then where the devil is he?" said the anxious father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, that's the difficulty. But I can imagine no position in which a man
+might be more tempted to hide himself. He is disgraced on every side,
+and could hardly show his face in London after the money he has lost.
+You would not have paid his gambling debts?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not," said the father. "There must be an end to all things."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor could I. Within the last month past he has drawn from me every
+shilling that I have had at my immediate command."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why did you give 'em to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It would be difficult to explain all the reasons. He was then my elder
+brother, and it suited me to have him somewhat under my hand. At any
+rate I did do so, and am unable for the present to do more. Looking
+round about, I do not see where it was possible for him to raise a
+sovereign as soon as it was once known that he was nobody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What will become of him?" said the father. "I don't like the idea of
+his being starved. He can't live without something to live upon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the son. "For lambs such
+as he there always seems to be pasture provided of one sort or another."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would not like to have to trust to such pastures," said the
+father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor should I like to be hanged; but I should have to be hanged if I had
+committed murder. Think of the chances which he has had, and the way in
+which he has misused them. Although illegitimate, he was to have had the
+whole property,&mdash;of which not a shilling belongs to him; and he has not
+lost it because it was not his own, but has simply gambled it away among
+the Jews. What can happen to a man in such a condition better than to
+turn up as a hunter among the Rocky Mountains or as a gold-digger in
+Australia? In this last adventure he seems to have plunged horribly, and
+to have lost over three thousand pounds. You wouldn't have paid that for
+him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not again;&mdash;certainly not again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then what could he do better than disappear? I suppose I shall have to
+make him an allowance some of these days, and if he can live and keep
+himself dark I will do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was in this a tacit allusion to his father's speedy death which
+was grim enough; but the father passed it by without any expression of
+displeasure. He certainly owed much to his younger son, and was willing
+to pay it by quiescence. Let them both forbear. Such was the language
+which he held to himself in thinking of his younger son. Augustus was
+certainly behaving well to him. Not a word of rebuke had passed his lips
+as to the infamous attempt at spoliation which had been made. The old
+squire felt grateful for his younger son's conduct, but yet in his heart
+of hearts he preferred the elder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has denuded me of every penny," said Augustus, "and I must ask you
+to refund me something of what has gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has kept me very bare. A man with so great a propensity for getting
+rid of money I think no father ever before had to endure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have had the last of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know that. If I live, and he lets me know his whereabouts, I
+cannot leave him penniless. I do feel that a great injustice has been
+done him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't exactly see it," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you're too hard-hearted to put yourself in another man's place.
+He was my eldest son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He thought that he was."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And should have remained so had there been a hope for him," said the
+squire, roused to temporary anger. Augustus only shrugged his
+shoulders. "But there is no good talking about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not the least in the world. Mr. Grey, I suppose, knows the truth at
+last. I shall have to get three or four thousand pounds from you, or I
+too must resort to the Jews. I shall do it, at any rate, under better
+circumstances than my brother."
+</p>
+<p>
+Some arrangement was at last made which was satisfactory to the son, and
+which we must presume that the father found to be endurable. Then the
+son took his leave, and went back to London, with the understood
+intention of pushing the inquiries as to his brother's existence and
+whereabouts.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sudden and complete disappearance of Captain Scarborough struck Mrs.
+Mountjoy with the deepest awe. It was not at first borne in upon her to
+believe that Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, an officer in the
+Coldstreams, and the acknowledged heir to the Tretton property, had
+vanished away as a stray street-sweeper might do, or some milliner's
+lowest work-woman. But at last there were advertisements in all the
+newspapers and placards on all the walls, and Mrs. Mountjoy did
+understand that the captain was gone. She could as yet hardly believe
+that he was no longer heir to Tretton: and in such short discussions
+with Florence as were necessary on the subject she preferred to express
+no opinion whatever as to his conduct. But she would by no means give
+way when urged to acknowledge that no marriage between Florence and the
+captain was any longer to be regarded as possible. While the captain was
+away the matter should be left as if in abeyance; but this by no means
+suited the young lady's views. Mrs. Mountjoy was not a reticent woman,
+and had no doubt been too free in whispering among her friends something
+of her daughter's position. This Florence had resented; but it had still
+been done, and in Cheltenham generally she was regarded as an engaged
+young lady. It had been in vain that she had denied that it was so. Her
+mother's word on such a subject was supposed to be more credible that
+her own; and now this man with whom she was believed to be so closely
+connected had disappeared from the world among the most disreputable
+circumstances. But when she explained the difficulty to her mother her
+mother bade her hold her tongue for the present, and seemed to hold out
+a hope that the captain might at last be restored to his old position.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let them restore him ever so much, he would never be anything to me,
+mamma." Then Mrs. Mountjoy would only shake her head and purse her lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the evening of the day after the fracas in the street Harry Annesley
+went down to Buston, and there remained for the next two or three days,
+holding his tongue absolutely as to the adventure of that night. There
+was no one at Buston to whom he would probably have made known the
+circumstances. But there was clinging to it a certain flavor of
+disreputable conduct on his own part which sealed his lips altogether.
+The louder and more frequent the tidings which reached his ears as to
+the captain's departure, the more strongly did he feel that duty
+required him to tell what he knew upon the matter. Many thoughts and
+many fears encompassed him. At first was the idea that he had killed the
+man by the violence of his blow, or that his death had been caused by
+the fall. Then it occurred to him that it was impossible that
+Scarborough should have been killed and that no account should be given
+as to the finding of the body. At last he persuaded himself that he
+could not have killed the man, but he was assured at the same time that
+the disappearance must in some sort have been occasioned by what then
+took place. And it could not but be that the captain, if alive, should
+be aware of the nature of the struggle which had taken place. He heard,
+chiefly from the newspapers, the full record of the captain's
+illegitimacy; he heard of his condition with the creditors; he heard of
+those gambling debts which were left unpaid at the club. He saw it also
+stated&mdash;and repeated&mdash; that these were the grounds for the man's
+disappearance. It was quite credible that the man should disappear, or
+endeavor to disappear, under such a cloud of difficulties. It did not
+require that he and his violence should be adduced as an extra cause.
+Indeed, had the man been minded to vanish before the encounter, he might
+in all human probability have been deterred by the circumstances of the
+quarrel. It gave no extra reason for his disappearance, and could in no
+wise be counted with it were he to tell the whole story, in Scotland
+Yard. He had been grossly misused on the occasion, and had escaped from
+such misusage by the only means in his power. But still he felt that,
+had he told the story, people far and wide would have connected his name
+with the man's absence, and, worse again, that Florence's name would
+have become entangled with it also. For the first day or two he had from
+hour to hour abstained from telling all that he knew, and then when the
+day or two were passed, and when a week had run by,&mdash;when a fortnight had
+been allowed to go,&mdash;it was impossible for him not to hold his tongue.
+</p>
+<p>
+He became nervous, unhappy, and irritated down at Buston, with his
+father and mother and sister's, but more especially with his uncle.
+Previous to this his uncle for a couple of months had declined to see
+him; now he was sent for to the Hall and interrogated daily on this
+special subject. Mr. Prosper was aware that his nephew had been intimate
+with Augustus Scarborough, and that he might, therefore, be presumed to
+know much about the family. Mr. Prosper took the keenest interest in the
+illegitimacy and the impecuniosity and final disappearance of the
+captain, and no doubt did, in his cross-examinations, discover the fact
+that Harry was unwilling to answer his questions. He found out for the
+first time that Harry was acquainted with the captain, and also
+contrived to extract from him the name of Miss Mountjoy. But he could
+learn nothing else, beyond Harry's absolute unwillingness to talk upon
+the subject, which was in itself much. It must be understood that Harry
+was not specially reverential in these communications. Indeed, he gave
+his uncle to understand that he regarded his questions as impertinent,
+and at last declared his intention of not coming to the Hall any more
+for the present. Then Mr. Prosper whispered to his sister that he was
+quite sure that Harry Annesley knew more than he choose to say as to
+Captain Scarborough's whereabouts.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Peter," said Mrs. Annesley, "I really think that you are doing
+poor Harry an injustice."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Annesley was always on her guard to maintain something like an
+affectionate intercourse between her own family and the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Anne, you do not see into a millstone as far as I do. You never
+did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, Peter, you really shouldn't say such things of Harry. When all the
+police-officers themselves are looking about to catch up anything in
+their way, they would catch him up at a moment's notice if they heard
+that a magistrate of the county had expressed such an opinion."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't he tell me?" said Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's nothing to tell."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, that's your opinion&mdash;because you can't see into a millstone. I tell
+you that Harry knows more about this Captain Scarborough than any one
+else. They were very intimate together."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry only just knew him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you'll see. I tell you that Harry's name will become mixed up
+with Captain Scarborough's, and I hope that it will be in no
+discreditable manner. I hope so, that's all." Harry in the mean time
+had returned to London, in order to escape his uncle, and to be on the
+spot to learn anything that might come in his way as to the now
+acknowledged mystery respecting the captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such was the state of things at the commencement of the period to which
+my story refers.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH5"><!-- CH5 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER V.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Harry Annesley, when he found himself in London, could not for a moment
+shake off that feeling of nervous anxiety as to the fate of Mountjoy
+Scarborough which had seized hold of him. In every newspaper which he
+took in his hand he looked first for the paragraph respecting the fate
+of the missing man, which the paper was sure to contain in one of its
+columns. It was his habit during these few days to breakfast at a club,
+and he could not abstain from speaking to his neighbors about the
+wonderful Scarborough incident. Every man was at this time willing to
+speak on the subject, and Harry's interest might not have seemed to be
+peculiar; but it became known that he had been acquainted with the
+missing man, and Harry in conversation said much more than it would have
+been prudent for him to do on the understanding that he wished to remain
+unconnected with the story. Men asked him questions as though he were
+likely to know; and he would answer them, asserting that he knew
+nothing, but still leaving an impression behind that he did know more
+than he chose to avow. Many inquiries were made daily at this time in
+Scotland Yard as to the captain. These, no doubt, chiefly came from the
+creditors and their allies. But Harry Annesley became known among those
+who asked for information as Henry Annesley, Esq., late of St. John's
+College, Cambridge; and even the police were taught to think that there
+was something noticeable in the interest which he displayed.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the fourth day after his arrival in London, just at that time of the
+year when everybody was supposed to be leaving town, and when faded
+members of Parliament, who allowed themselves to be retained for the
+purpose of final divisions, were cursing their fate amid the heats of
+August, Harry accepted an invitation to dine with Augustus Scarborough
+at his chambers in the Temple. He understood when he accepted the
+invitation that no one else was to be there, and must have been aware
+that it was the intention of the heir of Tretton to talk to him
+respecting his brother. He had not seen Scarborough since he had been up
+in town, and had not been desirous of seeing him; but when the
+invitation came he had told himself that it would be better that he
+should accept it, and that he would allow his host to say what he
+pleased to say on the subject, he himself remaining reticent. But poor
+Harry little knew the difficulty of reticency when the heart is full. He
+had intended to be very reticent when he came up to London, and had, in
+fact, done nothing but talk about the missing man, as to whom he had
+declared that he would altogether hold his tongue.
+</p>
+<p>
+The reader must here be pleased to remember that Augustus Scarborough
+was perfectly well aware of what had befallen his brother, and must,
+therefore, have known among other things of the quarrel which had taken
+place in the streets. He knew, therefore, that Harry was concealing his
+knowledge, and could make a fair guess at the state of the poor fellow's
+mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will guess," he had said to himself, "that he did not leave him for
+dead on the ground, or the body would be there to tell the tale. But he
+must be ashamed of the part which he took in the street-fight, and be
+anxious to conceal it. No doubt Mountjoy was the first offender, but
+something had occurred which Annesley is unwilling should make its way
+either to his uncle's ears, or to his father's, or to mine, or to the
+squire's,&mdash;or to those of Florence."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was thus that Augustus Scarborough reasoned with himself when he
+asked Harry Annesley to dine with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not supposed by any of his friends that Augustus Scarborough
+would continue to live in the moderate chambers which he now occupied in
+the Temple; but he had as yet made no sign of a desire to leave them.
+They were up two pair of stairs, and were not great in size; but they
+were comfortable enough, and even luxurious, as a bachelor's abode.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've asked you to come alone," said Augustus, "because there is such a
+crowd of things to be talked of about poor Mountjoy which are not
+exactly fitted for the common ear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed," said Harry, who did not, however, quite understand why it
+would be necessary that the heir should discuss with him the affairs of
+his unfortunate brother. There had, no doubt, been a certain degree of
+intimacy between them, but nothing which made it essential that the
+captain's difficulties should be exposed to him. The matter which
+touched him most closely was the love which both the men had borne to
+Florence Mountjoy; but Harry did not expect that any allusion to
+Florence would be made on the present occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you ever hear of such a devil of a mess?" said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, indeed. It is not only that he has disappeared&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is as nothing when compared with all the other incidents of this
+romantic tale. Indeed, it is the only natural thing in it. Given all the
+other circumstances, I should have foretold his disappearance as a thing
+certain to occur. Why shouldn't such a man disappear, if he can?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But how has he done it?" replied Harry. "Where has he gone to? At this
+moment where is he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, if you will answer all those questions, and give your information
+in Scotland Yard, the creditors, no doubt, will make up a handsome purse
+for you. Not that they will ever get a shilling from him, though he were
+to be seen walking down St. James's Street to-morrow. But they are a
+sanguine gentry, these holders of bills, and I really believe that if
+they could see him they would embrace him with the warmest affection. In
+the mean time let us have some dinner, and we will talk about poor
+Mountjoy when we have got rid of young Pitcher. Young Pitcher is my
+laundress's son to the use of whose services I have been promoted since
+I have been known to be the heir of Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then they sat down and dined, and Augustus Scarborough made himself
+agreeable. The small dinner was excellent of its kind, and the wine was
+all that it ought to be. During dinner not a word was said as to
+Mountjoy, nor as to the affairs of the estate. Augustus, who was old for
+his age, and had already practised himself much in London life, knew
+well how to make himself agreeable. There was plenty to be said while
+young Pitcher was passing in and out of the room, so that there appeared
+no awkward vacancies of silence while one course succeeded the other.
+The weather was very hot, the grouse were very tempting, everybody was
+very dull, and members of Parliament more stupid than anybody else; but
+a good time was coming. Would Harry come down to Tretton and see the old
+governor? There was not much to offer him in the way of recreation, but
+when September came the partridges would abound. Harry gave a
+half-promise that he would go to Tretton for a week, and Augustus
+Scarborough expressed himself as much gratified. Harry at the moment
+thought of no reason why he should not go to Tretton, and thus
+committed himself to the promise; but he afterward felt that Tretton was
+of all places the last which he ought just at present to visit.
+</p>
+<p>
+At last Pitcher and the cheese were gone, and young Scarborough produced
+his cigars. "I want to smoke directly I've done eating," he said.
+"Drinking goes with smoking as well as it does with eating, so there
+need be no stop for that. Now, tell me, Annesley, what is it that you
+think about Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+There was an abruptness in the question which for the moment struck
+Harry dumb. How was he to say what he thought about Mountjoy
+Scarborough, even though he should have no feeling to prevent him from
+expressing the truth? He knew, or thought that he knew, Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be a thorough blackguard; one whom no sense of honesty
+kept from spending money, and who was now a party to robbing his
+creditors without the slightest compunction,&mdash;for it was in Harry's mind
+that Mountjoy and his father were in league together to save the
+property by rescuing it from the hands of the Jews. He would have
+thought the same as to the old squire,&mdash;only that the old squire had not
+interfered with him in reference to Florence Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then there was present to his mind the brutal attack which had been
+made on himself in the street. According to his views Mountjoy
+Scarborough was certainly a blackguard; but he did not feel inclined
+quite to say so to the brother, nor was he perfectly certain as to his
+host's honesty. It might be that the three Scarboroughs were all in a
+league together; and if so, he had done very wrong, as he then
+remembered, to say that he would go down to Tretton. When, therefore, he
+was asked the question he could only hold his tongue.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose you have some scruple in speaking because he's my brother?
+You may drop that altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that his career has been what the novel-reader would call
+romantic; but what I, who am not one of them, should describe as
+unfortunate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; taking it altogether it has been unfortunate. I am not a
+soft-hearted fellow, but I am driven to pity him. The worst of it is
+that, had not my father been induced at last to tell the truth, from
+most dishonest causes, he would not have been a bit better off than he
+is. I doubt whether he could have raised another couple of thousand on
+the day when he went. If he had done so then, and again more and more,
+to any amount you choose to think of, it would have been the same with
+him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"His lust for gambling was a bottomless quicksand, which no possible
+amount of winning could ever have satiated. Let him enter his club with
+five thousand pounds at his banker's and no misfortune could touch him.
+He being such as he is,&mdash;or, alas! for aught we know, such as he was,&mdash;the
+escape which the property has had cannot but be regarded as very
+fortunate. I don't care to talk much of myself in particular, though no
+wrong can have been done to a man more infinite than that which my
+father contrived for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot understand your father," said Harry. In truth, there was
+something in Scarborough's manner in speaking of his father which almost
+produced belief in Harry's mind. He began to doubt whether Augustus was
+in the conspiracy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I should say not. It is hard to understand that an English
+gentleman should have the courage to conceive such a plot, and the wit
+to carry it out. If Mountjoy had run only decently straight, or not more
+than indecently crooked, I should have been a younger brother,
+practising law in the Temple to the end of my days. The story of Esau
+and of Jacob is as nothing to it. But that is not the most remarkable
+circumstance. My father, for purposes of his own, which includes the
+absolute throwing over of Mountjoy's creditors, changes his plan, and is
+pleased to restore to me that of which he had resolved to rob me. What
+father would dare to look in the face of the son whom he had thus
+resolved to defraud? My father tells me the story with a gentle chuckle,
+showing almost as much indifference to Mountjoy's ruin as to my
+recovered prosperity. He has not a blush when he reveals it all. He has
+not a word to say, or, as far as I can see, a thought as to the world's
+opinion. No doubt he is supposed to be dying. I do presume that three or
+four months will see the end of him. In the mean time he takes it all as
+quietly as though he had simply lent a five-pound note to Mountjoy out
+of my pocket."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You, at any rate, will get your property?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes; and that, no doubt, is his argument when he sees me. He is
+delighted to have me down at Tretton, and, to tell the truth, I do not
+feel the slightest animosity toward him. But as I look at him I think
+him to be the most remarkable old gentleman that the world has ever
+produced. He is quite unconscious that I have any ground of complaint
+against him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has probably thought that the circumstances of your brother's birth
+should not militate against his prospects."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the law, my dear fellow," said Scarborough, getting up from his
+chair and standing with his cigar between his finger and thumb,&mdash;"the law
+thinks otherwise. The making of all right and wrong in this world
+depends on the law. The half-crown in my pocket is merely mine because
+of the law. He did choose to marry my mother before I was born, but did
+not choose to go through that ceremony before my brother's time. That
+may be a trifle to you, or to my moral feeling may be a trifle; but
+because of that trifle all Tretton will be my property, and his attempt
+to rob me of it was just the same as though he should break into a bank
+and steal what he found there. He knows that just as well as I do, but
+to suit his own purposes he did it."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something in the way in which the young man spoke both of his
+father and mother which made Harry's flesh creep. He could not but think
+of his own father and his own mother, and his feelings in regard to
+them. But here this man was talking of the misdoings of the one parent
+and the other with the most perfect <i>sang-froid.</i> "Of course I
+understand all that," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a manner of doing evil so easy and indifferent as absolutely
+to quell the general feeling respecting it. A man shall tell you that he
+has committed a murder in a tone so careless as to make you feel that a
+murder is nothing. I don't suppose my father can be punished for his
+attempt to rob me of twenty thousand a year, and therefore he talks to
+me about it as though it were a good joke. Not only that, but he expects
+me to receive it in the same way. Upon the whole, he prevails. I find
+myself not in the least angry with him, and rather obliged to him than
+otherwise for allowing me to be his eldest son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What must Mountjoy's feelings be!" said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Exactly; what must be Mountjoy's feelings! There is no need to consider
+my father's, but poor Mountjoy's! I don't suppose that he can be dead."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"While a man is alive he can carry himself off, but when a fellow is
+dead it requires at least one or probably two to carry him. Men do not
+wish to undertake such a work secretly unless they've been concerned in
+the murder; and then there will have been a noise which must have been
+heard, or blood which must have been seen, and the body will at last be
+forthcoming, or some sign of its destruction. I do not think he be
+dead."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should hope not," said Harry, rather tamely, and feeling that he was
+guilty of a falsehood by the manner in which he expressed his hope.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When was it you saw him last?" Scarborough asked the question with an
+abruptness which was predetermined, but which did not quite take Harry
+aback.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About three months since&mdash;in London," said Harry, going back in his
+memory to the last meeting, which had occurred before the squire had
+declared his purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah;&mdash;you haven't seen him, then, since he knew that he was nobody?" This
+he asked in an indifferent tone, being anxious not to discover his
+purpose, but in doing so he gave Harry great credit for his readiness of
+mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have not seen him since he heard the news which must have astonished
+him more than any one else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wonder," said Augustus, "how Florence Mountjoy has borne it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Neither have I seen her. I have been at Cheltenham, but was not allowed
+to see her." This he said with an assertion to himself that though he
+had lied as to one particular he would not lie as to any other.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose she must have been much cut up by it all. I have half a mind
+to declare to myself that she shall still have an opportunity of
+becoming the mistress of Tretton. She was always afraid of Mountjoy, but
+I do not know that she ever loved him. She had become so used to the
+idea of marrying him that she would have given herself up in mere
+obedience. I too think that she might do as a wife, and I shall
+certainly make a better husband than Mountjoy would have done."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Mountjoy will certainly do as a wife for any one who may be lucky
+enough to get her," said Harry, with a certain tone of magnificence
+which at the moment he felt to be overstrained and ridiculous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; one has got to get her, as you call it, of course. You mean to
+say that you are supposed to be in the running. That is your own
+lookout. I can only allege, on my own behalf, that it has always been
+considered to be an old family arrangement that Florence Mountjoy shall
+marry the heir to Tretton Park. I am in that position now, and I only
+throw it out as a hint that I may feel disposed to follow out the family
+arrangement. Of course if other things come in the way there will be an
+end of it. Come in." This last invitation was given in consequence of a
+knock at the door. The door was opened, and there entered a policeman in
+plain clothes named Prodgers, who seemed from his manner to be well
+acquainted with Augustus Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+The police for some time past had been very busy on the track of
+Mountjoy Scarborough, but had not hitherto succeeded in obtaining any
+information. Such activity as had been displayed cannot be procured
+without expense, and it had been understood in this case that old Mr.
+Scarborough had refused to furnish the means. Something he had supplied
+at first, but had latterly declined even to subscribe to a fund. He was
+not at all desirous, he said, that his son should be brought back to the
+world, particularly as he had made it evident by his disappearance that
+he was anxious to keep out of the way. "Why should I pay the fellows?
+It's no business of mine," he had said to his son. And from that moment
+he had declined to do more than make up the first subscription which had
+been suggested to him. But the police had been kept very busy, and it
+was known that the funds had been supplied chiefly by Mr. Tyrrwhit. He
+was a resolute and persistent man, and was determined to "run down"
+Mountjoy Scarborough, as he called it, if money would enable him to do
+so. It was he who had appealed to the squire for assistance in this
+object, and to him the squire had expressed his opinion that, as his son
+did not seem anxious to be brought back, he should not interfere in the
+matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Prodgers, what news have you to-day?" asked Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a man a-wandering about down in Skye, just here and there,
+with nothing in particular to say for himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What sort of a looking fellow is he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, he's light, and don't come up to the captain's marks; but there's
+no knowing what disguises a fellow will put on. I don't think he's got
+the captain's legs, and a man can't change his legs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Scarborough would not remain loitering about in Skye where he
+would be known by half the autumn tourists who saw him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just what I was saying to Wilkinson," said Prodgers. "Wilkinson
+seems to think that a man may be anybody as long as nobody knows who he
+is. 'That ain't the captain,' said I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm afraid he's got out of England," said the captain's brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no place where he can be run down like New York, or Paris, or
+Melbourne, and it's them they mostly go to. We've wired 'em all three,
+and a dozen other ports of the kind. We catches 'em mostly if they go
+abroad; but when they remains at home they're uncommon troublesome.
+There was a man wandering about in County Donegal. We call Ireland at
+home, because we've so much to do with their police since the Land
+League came up; but this chap was only an artist who couldn't pay his
+bill. What do you think about it, Mr. Annesley?" said the policeman,
+turning short round upon Harry, and addressing him a question. Why
+should the policeman even have known his name?
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who? I? I don't think about it at all. I have no means of thinking
+about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you have been so busy down there at the Yard, I thought that,
+as you was asking so many questions, you was, perhaps, interested in the
+matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My friend Mr. Annesley," said Augustus, "was acquainted with Captain
+Scarborough, as he is with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It did seem as though he was more than usually interested, all the
+same," said the policeman.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am more than usually interested," replied Harry; "but I do not know
+that I am going to give you my reason. As to his present existence I
+know absolutely nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say not. If you'd any information as was reliable I dare say as
+it would be forthcoming. Well, Mr. Scarborough, you may be sure of this:
+if we can get upon his trail we'll do so, and I think we shall. There
+isn't a port that hasn't been watched from two days after his
+disappearance, and there isn't a port as won't be watched as soon as any
+English steamer touches 'em. We've got our eyes out, and we means to use
+'em. Good-night, Mr. Scarborough; good-night, Mr. Annesley," and he
+bobbed his head to our friend Harry. "You say as there is a reason as is
+unknown. Perhaps it won't be unknown always. Good-night, gentlemen."
+Then Constable Prodgers left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry had been disconcerted by the policeman's remarks, and showed that
+it was so as soon as he was alone with Augustus Scarborough. "I'm afraid
+you think the man intended to be impertinent," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt he did, but such men are allowed to be impertinent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He sees an enemy, of course, in every one who pretends to know more
+than he knows himself,&mdash;or, indeed, in every one who does not. You said
+something about having a reason of your own, and he at once connected
+you with Mountjoy's disappearance. Such creatures are necessary, but
+from the little I've seen of them I do not think that they make the best
+companions in the world. I shall leave Mr. Prodgers to carry on his
+business to the man who employs him,&mdash;namely, Mr. Tyrrwhit,&mdash;and I advise
+you to do the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+Soon after that Harry Annesley took his leave, but he could not divest
+himself of an opinion that both the policeman and his host had thought
+that he had some knowledge respecting the missing man. Augustus
+Scarborough had said no word to that effect, but there had been a
+something in his manner which had excited suspicion in Harry's mind. And
+then Augustus had declared his purpose of offering his hand and fortune
+to Florence Mountjoy. He to be suitor to Florence,&mdash;he, so soon after
+Mountjoy had been banished from the scene! And why should he have been
+told of it?&mdash;he, of whose love for the girl he could not but think that
+Augustus Scarborough had been aware. Then, much perturbed in his mind,
+he resolved, as he returned to his lodgings, that he would go down to
+Cheltenham on the following day.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH6"><!-- CH6 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER VI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY TELLS HIS SECRET.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Harry hurried down to Cheltenham, hardly knowing what he was going to do
+or say when he got there. He went to the hotel and dined alone. "What's
+all this that's up about Captain Mountjoy?" said a stranger, coming and
+whispering to him at his table.
+</p>
+<p>
+The inquirer was almost a stranger, but Harry did know his name. It was
+Mr. Baskerville, the hunting man. Mr. Baskerville was not rich, and not
+especially popular, and had no special amusement but that of riding two
+nags in the winter along the roads of Cheltenham in the direction which
+the hounds took. It was still summer, and the nags, who had been made to
+do their work in London, were picking up a little strength in idleness,
+or, as Mr. Baskerville called it, getting into condition. In the mean
+time Mr. Baskerville amused himself as well as he could by lying in bed
+and playing lawn-tennis. He sometimes dined at the hotel, in order that
+the club might think that he was entertained at friends' houses; but the
+two places were nearly the same to him, as he could achieve a dinner and
+half a pint of wine for five or six shillings at each of them. A more
+empty existence, or, one would be inclined to say, less pleasurable, no
+one could pass; but he had always a decent coat on his back and a smile
+on his face, and five shillings in his pocket with which to pay for his
+dinner. His asking what was up about Scarborough showed, at any rate,
+that he was very backward in the world's news.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe he has vanished," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, of course he's vanished. Everybody knows that&mdash;he vanished ever
+so long ago; but where is he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you can tell them in Scotland Yard they will be obliged to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose it is true the police are after him? Dear me! Forty thousand
+a year! This is a very queer story about the property, isn't it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know the story exactly, and therefore can hardly say whether it
+is queer or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But about the younger son? People say that the father has contrived
+that the younger son shall have the money. What I hear is that the whole
+property is to be divided, and that the captain is to have half, on
+conditions that he keeps out of the way. But I am sure that you know
+more about it. You used to be intimate with both the brothers. I have
+seen you down here with the captain. Where is he?" And again he
+whispered into Harry's ear. But he could not have selected any subject
+more distasteful, and, therefore, Harry repulsed Mr. Baskerville not in
+the most courteous manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hang it! what airs that fellow gives himself," he said to another
+friend of the same kidney. "That's young Annesley, the son of a
+twopenny-halfpenny parson down in Hertfordshire. The kind of ways
+these fellows put on now are unbearable. He hasn't got a horse to ride
+on, but to hear him talk you'd think he was mounted three days a week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's heir to old Prosper, of Buston Hall."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How's that? But is he? I never heard that before. What's Buston Hall
+worth?" Then Mr. Baskerville made up his mind to be doubly civil to
+Harry Annesley the next time he saw him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry had to consider on that night in what manner he would endeavor to
+see Florence Mountjoy on the next day. He was thoroughly discontented
+with himself as he walked about the streets of Cheltenham. He had now
+not only allowed the disappearance of Scarborough to pass by without
+stating when and where, and how he had last seen him, but had directly
+lied on the subject. He had told the man's brother that he had not seen
+him for some weeks previous, whereas to have concealed his knowledge on
+such a subject was in itself held to be abominable. He was ashamed of
+himself, and the more so because there was no one to whom he could talk
+openly on the matter. And it seemed to him as though all whom he met
+questioned him as to the man's disappearance, as if they suspected him.
+What was the man to him, or the man's guilt, or his father, that he
+should be made miserable? The man's attack upon him had been ferocious
+in its nature,&mdash;so brutal that when he had escaped from Mountjoy
+Scarborough's clutches there was nothing for him but to leave him lying
+in the street where, in his drunkenness, he had fallen. And now, in
+consequence of this, misery had fallen upon himself. Even this
+empty-headed fellow Baskerville, a man the poverty of whose character
+Harry perfectly understood, had questioned him about Mountjoy
+Scarborough. It could not, he thought, be possible that Baskerville
+could have had any reasons for suspicion, and yet the very sound of the
+inquiry stuck in his ears.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next morning, at eleven o'clock, he knocked at Mrs. Mountjoy's
+house in Mountpellier Place and asked for the elder lady. Mrs. Mountjoy
+was out, and Harry at once inquired for Florence. The servant at first
+seemed to hesitate, but at last showed Harry into the dining-room. There
+he waited five minutes, which seemed to him to be half an hour, and then
+Florence came to him. "Your mother is not at home," he said, putting out
+his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Mr. Annesley, but I think she will be back soon. Will you wait for
+her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know whether I am not glad that she should be out. Florence, I
+have something that I must tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Something that you must tell me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He had called her Florence once before, on a happy afternoon which he
+well remembered, but he was not thinking of that now. Her name, which
+was always in his mind, had come to him naturally, as though he had no
+time to pick and choose about names in the importance of the
+communication which he had to make. "Yes. I don't believe that you were
+ever really engaged to your cousin Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I never was," she answered, briskly. Harry Annesley was certainly a
+handsome man, but no young man living ever thought less of his own
+beauty. He had fair, wavy hair, which he was always submitting to some
+barber, very much to the unexpressed disgust of poor Florence; because
+to her eyes the longer the hair grew the more beautiful was the wearer
+of it. His forehead, and eyes, and nose were all perfect in their form&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<font size="-1">
+  "Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;<br>
+  &nbsp;An eye like Mars, to threaten and command."<br>
+</font>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+There was a peculiar brightness in his eye, which would have seemed to
+denote something absolutely great in his character had it not been for
+the wavering indecision of his mouth. There was as it were a vacillation
+in his lips which took away from the manliness of his physiognomy.
+Florence, who regarded his face as almost divine, was yet conscious of
+some weakness about his mouth which she did not know how to interpret.
+But yet, without knowing why it was so, she was accustomed to expect
+from him doubtful words, half expressed words, which would not declare
+to her his perfected thoughts&mdash;as she would have them declared. He was
+six feet high, but neither broad nor narrow, nor fat nor thin, but a
+very Apollo in Florence's eye. To the elders who knew him the
+quintessence of his beauty lay in the fact that he was altogether
+unconscious of it. He was a man who counted nothing on his personal
+appearance for the performance of those deeds which he was most anxious
+to achieve. The one achievement now essentially necessary to his
+happiness was the possession of Florence Mountjoy; but it certainly
+never occurred to him that he was more likely to obtain this because he
+was six feet high, or because his hair waved becomingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have supposed so," he said, in answer to her last assertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You ought to have known it for certain. I mean to say that, had I ever
+been engaged to my cousin, I should have been miserable at such a moment
+as this. I never should have given him up because of the gross injustice
+done to him about the property. But his disappearance in this dreadful
+way would, I think, have killed me. As it is, I can think of nothing
+else, because he is my cousin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is very dreadful," said Harry. "Have you any idea what can have
+happened to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. Have you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"None at all, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was the last person who saw him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You saw him last!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"At least, I know no one who saw him after me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you told them?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have told no one but you. I have come down here to Cheltenham on
+purpose to tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why me?" she said, as though struck with fear at such an assertion on
+his part.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must tell some one, and I have not known whom else to tell. His
+father appears not at all anxious about him. His brother I do not
+altogether trust. Were I to go to these men, who are only looking after
+their money, I should be communicating with his enemies. Your mother
+already regards me as his enemy. If I told the police I should simply be
+brought into a court of justice, where I should be compelled to mention
+your name."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why mine?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must begin the story from the beginning. One night I was coming home
+in London very late, about two o'clock, when whom should I meet in the
+street suddenly but Mountjoy Scarborough. It came out afterward that he
+had then been gambling; but when he encountered me he was intoxicated.
+He took me suddenly by the collar and shook me violently, and did his
+best to maltreat me. What words were spoken I cannot remember; but his
+conduct to me was as that of a savage beast. I struggled with him in the
+street as a man would struggle who is attacked by a wild dog. I think
+that he did not explain the cause of his hatred, though, of course, my
+memory as to what took place at that moment is disturbed and imperfect;
+but I did know in my heart why it was that he had quarrelled with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why was it?" Florence asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he thought that I had ventured to love you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, no!" shrieked Florence; "he could not have thought that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He did think so, and he was right enough. If I have never said so
+before, I am bound at any rate to say it now." He paused for a moment,
+but she made him no answer. "In the struggle between us he fell on the
+pavement against a rail;&mdash;and then I left him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has never been heard of since. On the following day, in the
+afternoon, I left London for Buston; but nothing had been then heard of
+his disappearance. I neither knew of it nor suspected it. The question
+is, when others were searching for him, was I bound to go to the police
+and declare what I had suffered from him that night? Why should I
+connect his going with the outrage which I had suffered?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why not tell it all?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should have been asked why he had quarrelled with me. Ought I to have
+said that I did not know? Ought I to have pretended that there was no
+cause? I did know, and there was a cause. It was because he thought that
+I might prevail with you, now that he was a beggar, disowned by his own
+father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would never have given him up for that," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But do you not see that your name would have been brought in,&mdash;that I
+should have had to speak of you as though I thought it possible that you
+loved me?" Then he paused, and Florence sat silent. But another thought
+struck him now. It occurred to him that under the plea put forward he
+would appear to seek shelter from his silence as to her name. He was
+aware how anxious he was on his own behalf not to mention the occurrence
+in the street, and it seemed that he was attempting to escape under the
+pretence of a fear that her name would be dragged in. "But independently
+of that I do not see why I should be subjected to the annoyance of
+letting it be known that I was thus attacked in the streets. And the
+time has now gone by. It did not occur to me when first he was missed
+that the matter would have been of such importance. Now it is too late."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose that you ought to have told his father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that I ought to have done so. But at any rate I have come to
+explain it all to you. It was necessary that I should tell some one.
+There seems to be no reason to suspect that the man has been killed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I hope not; I hope not that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has been spirited away&mdash;out of the way of his creditors. For myself
+I think that it has all been done with his father's connivance. Whether
+his brother be in the secret or not I cannot tell, but I suspect he is.
+There seems to be no doubt that Captain Scarborough himself has run so
+overhead into debt as to make the payment of his creditors impossible by
+anything short of the immediate surrender of the whole property. Some
+month or two since they all thought that the squire was dying, and that
+there would be nothing to do but to sell the property which would then
+be Mountjoy's, and pay themselves. Against this the dying man has
+rebelled, and has come, as it were, out of the grave to disinherit the
+son who has already contrived to disinherit himself. It is all an
+effort to save Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it is dishonest," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt about it. Looking at it any way it is dishonest, Either the
+inheritance must belong to Mountjoy still, or it could not have been his
+when he was allowed to borrow money upon it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot understand it. I thought it was entailed upon him. Of course
+it is nothing to me. It never could have been anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But now the creditors declare that they have been cheated, and assert
+that Mountjoy is being kept out of the way to aid old Mr. Scarborough in
+the fraud. I cannot but say that I think it is so. But why he should
+have attacked me just at the moment of his going, or why, rather, he
+should have gone immediately after he had attacked me, I cannot say. I
+have no concern whatever with him or his money, though I hope&mdash;I hope
+that I may always have much with you. Oh, Florence, you surely have
+known what has been within my heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+To this appeal she made no response, but sat awhile considering what she
+would say respecting Mountjoy Scarborough and his affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Am I to keep all this a secret?" she asked him at last.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You shall consider that for yourself. I have not exacted from you any
+silence on the matter. You may tell whom you please, and I shall not
+consider that I have any ground of complaint against you. Of course for
+my own sake I do not wish it to be told. A great injury was done me, and
+I do not desire to be dragged into this, which would be another injury.
+I suspect that Augustus Scarborough knows more than he pretends, and I
+do not wish to be brought into the mess by his cunning. Whether you will
+tell your mother you must judge yourself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall tell nobody unless you bid me." At that moment the door of the
+room was opened, and Mrs. Mountjoy entered, with a frown upon her brow.
+She had not yet given up all hope that Mountjoy might return, and that
+the affairs of Tretton might be made to straighten themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, Mr. Annesley is here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I perceive, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have come to your daughter to tell her how dearly I love her," said
+Harry, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Annesley, you should have come to me before speaking to my
+daughter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I shouldn't have seen her at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You should have left that as it might be. It is not at all a proper
+thing that a young gentleman should come and address a young lady in
+this way behind her only parent's back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I asked for you, and I did not know that you would not be at home."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You should have gone away at once&mdash;at once. You know how terribly the
+family is cut up by this great misfortune to our cousin Mountjoy.
+Mountjoy Scarborough has been long engaged to Florence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, mamma; no, never."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, Mr. Annesley knows all about it. And that knowledge ought
+to have kept him away at the present moment. I must beg him to leave us
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry took his hat and departed; but he had great consolation in
+feeling that Florence had not repudiated his love, which she certainly
+would have done had she not loved him in return. She had spoken no word
+of absolute encouragement, but there had much more of encouragement than
+of repudiation in her manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH7"><!-- CH7 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER VII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY GOES TO TRETTON.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Harry had promised to go down to Tretton, and when the time came
+Augustus Scarborough did not allow him to escape from the visit. He
+explained to him that in his father's state of health there would be no
+company to entertain him; that there was only a maiden sister of his
+father's staying in the house, and that he intended to take down into
+the country with him one Septimus Jones, who occupied chambers on the
+same floor with him in London, and whom Annesley knew to be young
+Scarborough's most intimate friend. "There will be a little shooting,"
+he said, "and I have bought two or three horses, which you and Jones can
+ride. Cannock Chase is one of the prettiest parts of England, and as you
+care for scenery you can get some amusement out of that. You'll see my
+father, and hear, no doubt, what he has got to say for himself. He is
+not in the least reticent in speaking of my brother's affairs." There
+was a good deal in this which was not agreeable. Miss Scarborough was
+sister to Mrs. Mountjoy as well as to the squire, and had been one of
+the family party most anxious to assure the marriage of Florence and the
+captain. The late General Mountjoy had been supposed to be a great man
+in his way, but had died before Tretton had become as valuable as it was
+now. Hence the eldest son had been christened with his name, and much of
+the Mountjoy prestige still clung to the family. But Harry did not care
+much about the family except so far as Florence was concerned. And then
+he had not been on peculiarly friendly terms with Septimus Jones, who
+had always been submissive to Augustus; and, now that Augustus was a
+rich man and could afford to buy horses, was likely to be more
+submissive than ever.
+</p>
+<p>
+He went down to Tretton alone early in September, and when he reached
+the house he found that the two young men were out shooting. He asked
+for his own room, but was instead immediately taken to the old squire,
+whom he found lying on a couch in a small dressing-room, while his
+sister, who had been reading to him, was by his side. After the usual
+greetings Harry made some awkward apology as to his intrusion at the
+sick man's bedside. "Why, I ordered them to bring you in here," said the
+squire; "you can't very well call that intrusion. I have no idea of
+being shut up from the world before they nail me down in my coffin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will be a long time first, we all hope," said his sister.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother! you hope it, but I don't know that any one else does;&mdash;I don't
+for one. And if I did, what's the good of hoping? I have a couple of
+diseases, either of which is enough to kill a horse." Then he mentioned
+his special maladies in a manner which made Harry shrink. "What are they
+talking about in London just at present?" he asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just the old set of subjects," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose they have got tired of me and my iniquities?" Harry could
+only smile and shake his head. "There has been such a complication of
+romances that one expects the story to run a little more than the
+ordinary nine days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Men still do talk about Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what are they saying? Augustus declares that you are especially
+interested on the subject."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know why I should be," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor I either. When a fellow becomes no longer of any service to either
+man, woman, or beast, I do not know why any should take an interest in
+him. I suppose you didn't lend him money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was not likely to do that, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I cannot conceive how it can interest you whether he be in London
+or Kamtchatka. It does not interest me the least in the world. Were he
+to turn up here it would be a trouble; and yet they expect me to
+subscribe largely to a fund for finding him. What good could he do me if
+he were found?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, John, he is your son," said Miss Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And would be just as good a son as Augustus, only that he has turned
+out uncommonly badly. I have not the slightest feeling in the world as
+to his birth, and so I think I showed pretty plainly. But nothing could
+stop him in his course, and therefore I told the truth, that's all." In
+answer to this, Harry found it quite impossible to say a word, but got
+away to his bedroom and dressed for dinner as quickly as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+While he was still thus employed Augustus came into the room still
+dressed in his shooting-clothes. "So you've seen my father," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I saw him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what did he say to you about Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Little or nothing that signifies. He seems to think it unreasonable
+that he should be asked to pay for finding him, seeing that the
+creditors expect to get the advantage of his presence when found."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is about right there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; but still he is his father. It may be that it would be expected
+that he should interest himself in finding him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word I don't agree with you. If a thousand a year could be paid
+to keep Mountjoy out of the way I think it would be well expended."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you were acting with the police."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, the police! What do the police know about it? Of course I talk it
+all over with them. They have not the smallest idea where the man is,
+and do not know how to go to work to discover him. I don't say that my
+father is judicious in his brazen-faced opposition to all inquiry. He
+should pretend to be a little anxious&mdash;as I do. Not that there would be
+any use now in pretending to keep up appearances. He has declared
+himself utterly indifferent to the law, and has defied the world. Never
+mind, old fellow, we shall eat the more dinner, only I must go and
+prepare myself for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+At dinner Harry found only Septimus Jones, Augustus Scarborough, and his
+aunt. Miss Scarborough said a good deal about her brother, and declared
+him to be much better. "Of course you know, Augustus, that Sir William
+Brodrick was down here for two days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only fancy," replied he, "what one has to pay for two days of Sir
+William Brodrick in the country!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can it matter?" said the generous spinster.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It matters exactly so many hundred pounds; but no one will begrudge it
+if he does so many hundred pounds' worth of good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will show, at any rate, that we have had the best advice," said the
+lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it will show;&mdash;that is exactly what people care about. What did Sir
+William say?" Then during the first half of dinner a prolonged reference
+was made to Mr. Scarborough's maladies, and to Sir William's opinion
+concerning them. Sir William had declared that Mr. Scarborough's
+constitution was the most wonderful thing that he had ever met in his
+experience. In spite of the fact that Mr. Scarborough's body was one
+mass of cuts and bruises and faulty places, and that nothing would keep
+him going except the wearing of machinery which he was unwilling to
+wear, yet the facilities for much personal enjoyment were left to him,
+and Sir William declared that, if he would only do exactly as he were
+told, he might live for the next five years. "But everybody knows that
+he won't do anything that he is told," said Augustus, in a tone of voice
+which by no means expressed extreme sorrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+From his father he led the conversation to the partridges, and declared
+his conviction that, with a little trouble and some expense, a very good
+head of game might be got up at Tretton. "I suppose it wouldn't cost
+much?" said Jones, who beyond ten shillings to a game-keeper never paid
+sixpence for whatever shooting came in his way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what you call much," said Augustus, "but I think it may be
+done for three or four hundred a year. I should like to calculate how
+many thousand partridges at that rate Sir William has taken back in his
+pocket."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does it matter?" asked Miss Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only as a speculation. Of course my father, while he lives, is
+justified in giving his whole income to doctors if he likes it; but one
+gets into a manner of speaking about him as though he had done a good
+deal with his money in which he was not justified."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't talk in that way, Augustus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear aunt, I am not at all inclined to be more open-mouthed than he
+is. Only reflect what it was that he was disposed to do with me, and
+the good-humor with which I have borne it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I should hold my tongue about it," said Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I think that in my place you would do no such thing. To your nature
+it would be almost impossible to hold your tongue. Your sense of justice
+would be so affronted that you would feel yourself compelled to discuss
+the injury done to you with all your intimate friends. But with your
+father your quarrel would be eternal. I made nothing of it, and, indeed,
+if he pertinaciously held his tongue on the subject, so should I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But because he talks," said Harry, "why should you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should he not?" said Septimus Jones. "Upon my word I don't see the
+justice of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not speaking of justice, but of feeling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word I wish you would hold your tongues about it; at any rate
+till my back is turned," said the old lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Augustus finished the conversation. "I am determined to treat it
+all as though it were a joke, and, as a joke, one to be spoken of
+lightly. It was a strong measure, certainly, this attempt to rob me of
+twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year. But it was done in favor of my
+brother, and therefore let it pass. I am at a loss to conceive what my
+father has done with his money. He hasn't given Mountjoy, at any rate,
+more than a half of his income for the last five or six years, and his
+own personal expenses are very small. Yet he tells me that he has the
+greatest difficulty in raising a thousand pounds, and positively refuses
+in his present difficulties to add above five hundred a year to my
+former allowance. No father who had thoroughly done his duty by his son,
+could speak in a more fixed and austere manner. And yet he knows that
+every shilling will be mine as soon as he goes." The servant who was
+waiting upon them had been in and out of the room while this was said,
+and must have heard much of it. But to that Augustus seemed to be quite
+indifferent. And, indeed, the whole family story was known to every
+servant in the house. It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have
+servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before
+all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but
+this household was unlike all others in that respect. There was not a
+housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how
+terrible a reprobate their master had been.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will see your father before you go to bed?" Miss Scarborough said
+to her nephew as she left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He does wish it, most anxiously."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe that to be your imagination. At any rate, I will come&mdash;say in
+an hour's time. He would be just as pleased to see Harry Annesley, for
+the matter of that, or Mr. Grey, or the inspector of police. Any one
+whom he could shock, or pretend to shock, by the peculiarity of his
+opinions, would do as well." By that time, however, Miss Scarborough had
+left the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the three men sat and talked, and discussed the affairs of the
+family generally. New leases had just been granted for adding
+manufactories to the town of Tretton: and as far as outward marks of
+prosperity went all was prosperous. "I expect to have a water-mill on
+the lawn before long," said Augustus. "These mechanics have it all their
+own way. If they were to come and tell me that they intended to put up a
+wind-mill in my bedroom to-morrow morning, I could only take off my hat
+to them. When a man offers you five per cent. where you've only had
+four, he is instantly your lord and master. It doesn't signify how
+vulgar he is, or how insolent, or how exacting. Associations of the
+tenderest kind must all give way to trade. But the shooting which lies
+to the north and west of us is, I think, safe for the present. I suppose
+I must go and see what my father wants, or I shall be held to have
+neglected my duty to my affectionate parent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Capital fellow, Augustus Scarborough," said Jones, as soon as their
+host had left them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was at Cambridge with him, and he was popular there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll be more popular now that he's the heir to Tretton. I don't know
+any fellow that I can get along better with than Scarborough. I think
+you were a little hard upon him about his father, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In his position he ought to hold his tongue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's the strangest thing that has turned up in the whole course of my
+experience. You see, if he didn't talk about it people wouldn't quite
+understand what it was that his father has done. It's only matter of
+report now, and the creditors, no doubt, do believe that when old
+Scarborough goes off the hooks they will be able to walk in and take
+possession. He has got to make the world think that he is the heir, and
+that will go a long way. You may be sure he doesn't talk as he does
+without having a reason for it. He's the last man I know to do anything
+without a reason."
+</p>
+<p>
+The evening dragged along very slowly while Jones continued to tell all
+that he knew of his friend's character. But Augustus Scarborough did not
+return, and soon after ten o'clock, when Harry Annesley could smoke no
+more cigars, and declared that he had no wish to begin upon
+brandy-and-water after his wine, he went to his bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH8"><!-- CH8 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER VIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY TAKES A WALK.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"There was the devil to pay with my father last night after I went to
+him," said Scarborough to Harry next morning. "He now and then suffers
+agonies of pain, and it is the most difficult thing in the world to get
+him right again. But anything equal to his courage I never before met."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How is he this morning?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very weak and unable to exert himself. But I cannot say that he is
+otherwise much the worse. You won't see him this morning; but to-morrow
+you will, or next day. Don't you be shy about going to him when he sends
+for you. He likes to show the world that he can bear his sufferings with
+a light heart, and is ready to die to-morrow without a pang or a regret.
+Who was the fellow who sent for a fellow to let him see how a Christian
+could die? I can fancy my father doing the same thing, only there would
+be nothing about Christianity in the message. He would bid you come and
+see a pagan depart in peace, and would be very unhappy if he thought
+that your dinner would be disturbed by the ceremony. Now come down to
+breakfast, and then we'll go out shooting."
+</p>
+<p>
+For three days Harry remained at Tretton, and ate and drank, and shot
+and rode, always in young Scarborough's company. During this time he did
+not see the old squire, and understood from Miss Scarborough's absence
+that he was still suffering from his late attack. The visit was to be
+prolonged for one other day, and he was told that on that day the squire
+would send for him. "I'm sick of these eternal partridges," said
+Augustus. "No man should ever shoot partridges two days running. Jones
+can go out by himself. He won't have to tip the game-keeper any more for
+an additional day, and so it will be all gain to him. You'll see my
+father in the afternoon after lunch, and we will go and take a walk
+now."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry started for his walk, and his companion immediately began again
+about the property. "I'm beginning to think," said he, "that it's nearly
+all up with the governor. These attacks come upon him worse and worse,
+and always leave him absolutely prostrate. Then he will do nothing to
+prevent them. To assure himself a week of life, he will not endure an
+hour of discomfort. It is plucky, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is in all respects as brave a man as I have known."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He sets God and man at absolute defiance, and always does it with the
+most profound courtesy. If he goes to the infernal regions he will
+insist upon being the last of the company to enter the door. And he will
+be prepared with something good-humored to say as soon as he has been
+ushered in. He was very much troubled about you yesterday."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What has he to say of me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing in the least uncivil; but he has an idea in his head which
+nothing on earth will put out of it, and in which, but for your own
+word, I should be inclined to agree." Harry, when this was said, stood
+still on the mountain-side, and looked full into his companion's face.
+He felt at the moment that the idea had some reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough and his disappearance. They were together on the heathy,
+unenclosed ground of Cannock Chase, and had already walked some ten or
+twelve miles. "He thinks you know where Mountjoy is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should I know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or at any rate that you have seen him since any of us. He professes not
+to care a straw for Mountjoy or his whereabouts, and declares himself
+under obligation to those who have contrived his departure.
+Nevertheless, he is curious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What have I to do with Mountjoy Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just the question. What have you to do with him? He suggests
+that there have been words between you as to Florence, which has caused
+Mountjoy to vanish. I don't profess to explain anything beyond
+that,&mdash;nor, indeed, do I profess to agree with my father. But the odd
+thing is that Prodgers, the policeman, has the same thing running in his
+head."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I have shown some anxiety about your brother in Scotland Yard."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt; Prodgers says that you've shown more anxiety than was to be
+expected from a mere acquaintance. I quite acknowledge that Prodgers is
+as thick-headed an idiot as you shall catch on a summer's day; but
+that's his opinion. For myself, I know your word too well to doubt it."
+Harry walked on in silence, thinking, or trying to think, what, on the
+spur of the moment, he had better do. He was minded to speak out the
+whole truth, and declare to himself that it was nothing to him what
+Augustus Scarborough might say or think. And there was present to him a
+feeling that his companion was dealing unfairly with him, and was
+endeavoring in some way to trap him and lead him into a difficulty. But
+he had made up his mind, as it were, not to know anything of Mountjoy
+Scarborough, and to let those five minutes in the street be as though
+they had never been. He had been brutally attacked, and had thought it
+best to say nothing on the subject. He would not allow his secret, such
+as it was, to be wormed out of him. Scarborough was endeavoring to
+extort from him that which he had resolved to conceal; and he determined
+at last that he would not become a puppet in his hands. "I don't see why
+you should care a straw about it," said Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor do I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate you repeat your denial. It will be well that I should let
+my father know that he is mistaken, and also that ass Prodgers. Of
+course, with my father it is sheer curiosity. Indeed, if he thought that
+you were keeping Mountjoy under lock and key, he would only admire your
+dexterity in so preserving him. Any bold line of action that was
+contrary to the law recommends itself to his approbation. But Prodgers
+has a lurking idea that he should like to arrest you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Simply because he thinks you know something that he doesn't know. As
+he's a detective, that, in his mind, is quite enough for arresting any
+man. I may as well give him my assurance, then, that he is mistaken."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should your assurance go for more than mine? Give him nothing of
+the kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I may give him, at any rate, my assurance that I believe your word."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you do believe it, you can do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you repeat your assertion that you saw nothing of Mountjoy just
+before his disappearance?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is an amount of cross-questioning which I do not take in good
+part, and to which I will not submit." Here Scarborough affected to
+laugh loudly. "I know nothing of your brother, and care almost as
+little. He has professed to admire a young lady to whom I am not
+indifferent, and has, I believe, expressed a wish to make her his wife.
+He is also her cousin, and the lady in question has, no doubt, been much
+interested about him. It is natural that she should be so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Quite natural&mdash;seeing that she has been engaged to him for twelve
+months."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of that I know nothing. But my interest about your brother has been
+because of her. You can explain all this about your brother if you
+please, or can let it alone. But for myself, I decline to answer any
+more questions. If Prodgers thinks that he can arrest me, let him come
+and try."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The idea of your flying into a passion because I have endeavored to
+explain it all to you! At any rate I have your absolute denial, and that
+will enable me to deal both with my father and Prodgers." To this Harry
+made no answer, and the two young men walked back to Tretton together
+without many more words between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Harry had been in the house about half an hour, and had already
+eaten his lunch, somewhat sulkily, a message came to him from Miss
+Scarborough requiring his presence. He went to her, and was told by her
+that Mr. Scarborough would now see him. He was aware that Mr.
+Scarborough never saw Septimus Jones, and that there was something
+peculiar in the sending of this message to him. Why should the man who
+was supposed to have but a few weeks to live be so anxious to see one
+who was comparatively a stranger to him? "I am so glad you have come in
+before dinner, Mr. Annesley, because my brother is so anxious to see
+you, and I am afraid you'll go too early in the morning." Then he
+followed her, and again found Mr. Scarborough on a couch in the same
+room to which he had been first introduced.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've had a sharp bout of it since I saw you before," said the sick man.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So we heard, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no saying how many or rather how few bouts of this kind it
+will take to polish me off. But I think I am entitled to some little
+respite now. The apothecary from Tretton was here this morning, and I
+believe has done me just as much good as Sir William Brodrick. His
+charge will be ten shillings, while Sir William demanded three hundred
+pounds. But it would be mean to go out with no one but the Tretton
+apothecary to look after one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose Sir William's knowledge has been of some service."
+</p>
+<p>
+"His dexterity with his knife has been of more. So you and Augustus have
+been quarrelling about Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not that I know of."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says so; and I believe his word on such a subject sooner than yours.
+You are likely to quarrel without knowing it, and he is not. He thinks
+that you know what has become of Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does he? Why should he think so, when I told him that I know nothing? I
+tell you that I know absolutely nothing. I am ignorant whether he is
+dead or alive."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not dead," said the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose not; but I know nothing about him. Why your second son&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean my eldest according to law,&mdash;or rather my only son!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why Augustus Scarborough," continued Harry Annesley, "should take upon
+himself to suspect that I know aught of his brother I cannot say. He has
+some cock-and-bull story about a policeman whom he professes to believe
+to be ignorant of his own business. This policeman, he says, is anxious
+to arrest me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To make you give evidence before a magistrate," said his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He did not dare to tell me that he suspected me himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There;&mdash;I knew you had quarrelled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I deny it altogether. I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough.
+He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I
+should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton,
+so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in
+future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough; but to you I give my
+positive assurance, which I do not doubt you will believe, that I know
+nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he
+spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his
+mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that
+kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I
+have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his
+appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's
+confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how
+successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do
+justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly
+successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a
+little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of
+his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I
+determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of
+my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not
+prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I
+am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my
+death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar?
+Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in
+doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have
+spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have
+gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of
+the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."
+</p>
+<p>
+What was Harry Annesley to say in answer to such an address as this?
+There was the man, stretched on his bed before him, haggard, unshaved,
+pale, and grizzly, with a fire in his eyes, but weakness in his
+voice,&mdash;bold, defiant, self-satisfied, and yet not selfish. He had lived
+through his life with the one strong resolution of setting the law at
+defiance in reference to the distribution of his property; but chiefly
+because he had thought the law to be unjust. Then, when the accident of
+his eldest son's extravagance had fallen upon him, he had endeavored to
+save his second son, and had thought, without the slightest remorse, of
+the loss which was to fall on the creditors. He had done all this in
+such a manner that, as far as Harry knew, the law could not touch him,
+though all the world was aware of his iniquity. And now he lay boasting
+of what he had done. It was necessary that Harry should say something as
+he rose from his seat, and he lamely expressed a wish that Mr.
+Scarborough might quickly recover. "No, my dear fellow," said the
+squire; "men do not recover when they are brought to such straits as I
+am in. Nor do I wish it. Were I to live, Augustus would feel the second
+injustice to be quite intolerable. His mind is lost in amazement at what
+I had contemplated. And he feels that the matter can only be set right
+between him and fortune by my dying at once. If he were to understand
+that I were to live ten years longer, I think that he would either
+commit a murder or lose his senses."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there is enough for both of you," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no such word in the language as enough. An estate can have but
+one owner, and Augustus is anxious to be owner here. I do not blame him
+in the least. Why should he desire to spare a father's rights when that
+father showed himself so willing to sacrifice his? Good-bye, Annesley; I
+am sorry you are going, for I like to have some honest fellow to talk
+to. You are not to suppose that because I have done this thing I am
+indifferent to what men shall say of me. I wish them to think me good,
+though I have chosen to run counter to the prejudices of the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry escaped from the room, and spent the remaining evening with
+Augustus Scarborough and Septimus Jones. The conversation was devoted
+chiefly to the partridges and horses; and was carried on by Septimus
+with severity toward Harry, and by Scarborough with an extreme civility
+which was the more galling of the two.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH9"><!-- CH9 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER IX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+AUGUSTUS HAS HIS OWN DOUBTS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"That's an impertinent young puppy," said Septimus Jones as soon as the
+fly which was to carry Harry Annesley to the station had left the
+hall-door on the following morning. It may be presumed that Mr. Jones
+would not thus have expressed himself unless his friend Augustus
+Scarborough had dropped certain words in conversation in regard to Harry
+to the same effect. And it may be presumed also that Augustus would not
+have dropped such words without a purpose of letting his friend know
+that Harry was to be abused. Augustus Scarborough had made up his mind,
+looking at the matter all round, that more was to be got by abusing
+Harry than by praising him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The young man has a good opinion of himself certainly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He thinks himself to be a deal better than anybody else," continued
+Jones, "whereas I for one don't see it. And he has a way with him of
+pretending to be quite equal to his companions, let them be who they
+may, which to me is odious. He was down upon you and down upon your
+father. Of course your father has made a most fraudulent attempt; but
+what the devil is it to him?" The other young man made no answer, but
+only smiled. The opinion expressed by Mr. Jones as to Harry Annesley had
+only been a reflex of that felt by Augustus Scarborough. But the reflex,
+as is always the case when the looking-glass is true, was correct.
+</p>
+<p>
+Scarborough had known Harry Annesley for a long time, as time is counted
+in early youth, and had by degrees learned to hate him thoroughly. He
+was a little the elder, and had at first thought to domineer over his
+friend. But the friend had resisted, and had struggled manfully to
+achieve what he considered an equality in friendship. "Now, Scarborough,
+you may as well take it once for all that I am not going to be talked
+down. If you want to talk a fellow down you can go to Walker, Brown, or
+Green. Then when you are tired of the occupation you can come back to
+me." It was thus that Annesley had been wont to address his friend. But
+his friend had been anxious to talk down this special young man for
+special purposes, and had been conscious of some weakness in the other's
+character which he thought entitled him to do so. But the weakness was
+not of that nature, and he had failed. Then had come the rivalry between
+Mountjoy and Harry, which had seemed to Augustus to be the extreme of
+impudence. From of old he had been taught to regard his brother Mountjoy
+as the first of young men&mdash;among commoners; the first in prospects and
+the first in rank; and to him Florence Mountjoy had been allotted as a
+bride. How he had himself learned first to envy and then to covet this
+allotted bride need not here be told. But by degrees it had come to pass
+that Augustus had determined that his spendthrift brother should fall
+under his own power, and that the bride should be the reward. How it was
+that two brothers, so different in character, and yet so alike in their
+selfishness, should have come to love the same girl with a true
+intensity of purpose, and that Harry Annesley, whose character was
+essentially different, and who was in no degree selfish, should have
+loved her also, must be left to explain itself as the girl's character
+shall be developed. But Florence Mountjoy had now for many months been
+the cause of bitter dislike against poor Harry in the mind of Augustus
+Scarborough. He understood much more clearly than his brother had done
+who it was that the girl really preferred. He was ever conscious, too,
+of his own superiority,&mdash;falsely conscious,&mdash;and did feel that if Harry's
+character were really known, no girl would in truth prefer him. He
+could not quite see Harry with Florence's eyes nor could he see himself
+with any other eyes but his own.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then had come the meeting between Mountjoy and Harry Annesley in the
+street, of which he had only such garbled account as Mountjoy himself
+had given him within half an hour afterward. From that story, told in
+the words of a drunken man,&mdash;a man drunk, and bruised, and bloody, who
+clearly did not understand in one minute the words spoken in the
+last,&mdash;Augustus did learn that there had been some great row between his
+brother and Harry Annesley. Then Mountjoy had disappeared,&mdash;had
+disappeared, as the reader will have understood, with his brother's
+co-operation,&mdash;and Harry had not come forward, when inquiries were made,
+to declare what he knew of the occurrences of that night. Augustus had
+narrowly watched his conduct, in order at first that he might learn in
+what condition his brother had been left in the street, but afterward
+with the purpose of ascertaining why it was that Harry had been so
+reticent. Then he had allured Harry on to a direct lie, and soon
+perceived that he could afterward use the secret for his own purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think we shall have to see what that young man's about, you know," he
+said afterward to Septimus Jones.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, yes, certainly," said Septimus. But Septimus did not quite
+understand why it was that they should have to see what the young man
+was about.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Between you and me, I think he means to interfere with me, and I do not
+mean to stand his interference."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He must go back to Buston, among the Bustonians, or he and I will have
+a stand-up fight of it. I rather like a stand-up fight."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so. When a fellow's so bumptious as that he ought to be licked."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has lied about Mountjoy," said Augustus. Then Jones waited to be
+told how it was that Harry had lied. He was aware that there was some
+secret unknown to him, and was anxious to be informed. Was Harry aware
+of Mountjoy's hiding-place, and if so, how had he learned it? Why was it
+that Harry should be acquainted with that which was dark to all the
+world besides? Jones was of opinion that the squire knew all about it,
+and thought it not improbable that the squire and Augustus had the
+secret in their joint keeping. But if so, how should Harry Annesley know
+anything about it? "He has lied like the very devil," continued
+Augustus, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Has he, now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I don't mean to spare him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think not." Then there was a pause, at the end of which Jones
+found himself driven to ask a question: "How has he lied?" Augustus
+smiled and shook his head, from which the other man gathered that he was
+not now to be told the nature of the lie in question. "A fellow that
+lies like that," said Jones, "is not to be endured."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not mean to endure him. You have heard of a young lady named Miss
+Mountjoy, a cousin of ours?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy?" suggested Jones.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy. That, of course, is over. Mountjoy has
+brought himself to such a pass that he is not entitled to have a Miss
+Mountjoy any longer. It seems the proper thing that she shall pass, with
+the rest of the family property, to the true heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You marry her!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"We need not talk about that just at present. I don't know that I've
+made up my mind. At any rate, I do not intend that Harry Annesley shall
+have her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's a pestilential cur, that has got himself introduced into the
+family, and the sooner we get quit of him the better. I should think the
+young lady would hardly fancy him when she knows that he has lied like
+the very devil, with the object of getting her former lover out of the
+way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By Jove, no, I should think not!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And when the world comes to understand that Harry Annesley, in the
+midst of all these inquiries, knows all about poor Mountjoy,&mdash;was the
+last to see him in London,&mdash;and has never come forward to say a word
+about him, then I think the world will be a little hard upon the
+immaculate Harry Annesley. His own uncle has quarrelled with him
+already."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What uncle?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The gentleman down in Hertfordshire, on the strength of whose acres
+Master Harry is flaunting it about in idleness. I have my eyes open and
+can see as well as another. When Harry lectures me about my father and
+my father about me, one would suppose that there's not a hole in his own
+coat. I think he'll find that the garment is not altogether
+water-tight." Then Augustus, finding that he had told as much as was
+needful to Septimus Jones, left his friend and went about his own family
+business.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next morning Septimus Jones took his departure, and on the day
+following Augustus followed him. "So you're off?" his father said to
+him when he came to make his adieux.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I suppose so. A man has got so many things to look after
+which he can't attend to down here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what they are, but you understand it all. I'm not going to
+ask you to stay. Does it ever occur to you that you may never see me
+again?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What a question!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's one that requires an answer, at any rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It does occur to me; but not at all as probable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not probable?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because there's a telegraph wire from Tretton to London; and because
+the journey down here is very short. It also occurs to me to think so
+from what has been said by Sir William Brodrick. Of course any man may
+die suddenly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Especially when the surgeons have been at him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have your sister with you, sir, and she will be of more comfort to
+you than I can be. Your condition is in some respects an advantage to
+you. These creditors of Mountjoy can't force their way in upon you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are wrong there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They have not done so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor should they, though I were as strong as you. What are Mountjoy's
+creditors to me? They have not a scrap of my handwriting in their
+possession. There is not one who can say that he has even a verbal
+promise from me. They never came to me when they wanted to lend him
+money at fifty per cent. Did they ever hear me say that he was my heir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not one has ever heard it. It was not to them I lied, but to you and to
+Grey. D&#8211;&#8211;&#8211;&#8211; the creditors! What do I care for
+them, though they be all ruined?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you talk to me about the creditors? You, at any rate, know the
+truth." Then Augustus quitted the room, leaving his father in a passion.
+But, as a fact, he was by no means assured as to the truth. He supposed
+that he was the heir; but might it not be possible that his father had
+contrived all this so as to save the property from Mountjoy and that
+greedy pack of money-lenders? Grey must surely know the truth. But why
+should not Grey be deceived on the second event as well as the first.
+There was no limit, Augustus sometimes thought, to his father's
+cleverness. This idea had occurred to him within the last week, and his
+mind was tormented with reflecting what might yet be his condition. But
+of one thing he was sure, that his father and Mountjoy were not in
+league together. Mountjoy at any rate believed himself to have been
+disinherited. Mountjoy conceived that his only chance of obtaining money
+arose from his brother. The circumstances of Mountjoy's absence were, at
+any rate, unknown to his father.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH10"><!-- CH10 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER X.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+SIR MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It was the peculiarity of Florence Mountjoy that she did not expect
+other people to be as good as herself. It was not that she erected for
+herself a high standard and had then told herself that she had no right
+to demand from others one so exalted. She had erected nothing. Nor did
+she know that she attempted to live by grand rules. She had no idea that
+she was better than anybody else; but it came to her naturally as the
+result of what had gone before, to be unselfish, generous, trusting, and
+pure. These may be regarded as feminine virtues, and may be said to be
+sometimes tarnished, by faults which are equally feminine. Unselfishness
+may become want of character; generosity essentially unjust; confidence
+may be weak, and purity insipid. Here it was that the strength of
+Florence Mountjoy asserted itself. She knew well what was due to
+herself, though she would not claim it. She could trust to another, but
+in silence be quite sure of herself. Though pure herself, she was rarely
+shocked by the ways of others. And she was as true as a man pretends to
+be.
+</p>
+<p>
+In figure, form, and face she never demanded immediate homage by the
+sudden flash of her beauty. But when her spell had once fallen on a
+man's spirit it was not often that he could escape from it quickly. When
+she spoke a peculiar melody struck the hearer's ears. Her voice was soft
+and low and sweet, and full at all times of harmonious words; but when
+she laughed it was like soft winds playing among countless silver bells.
+There was something in her touch which to men was almost divine. Of this
+she was all unconscious, but was as chary with her fingers as though it
+seemed that she could ill spare her divinity.
+</p>
+<p>
+In height she was a little above the common, but it was by the grace of
+her movements that the world was compelled to observe her figure. There
+are women whose grace is so remarkable as to demand the attention of
+all. But then it is known of them, and momentarily seen, that their
+grace is peculiar. They have studied their graces, and the result is
+there only too evident. But Florence seemed to have studied nothing. The
+beholder felt that she must have been as graceful when playing with her
+doll in the nursery. And it was the same with her beauty. There was no
+peculiarity of chiselled features. Had you taken her face and measured
+it by certain rules, you would have found that her mouth was too large
+and her nose irregular. Of her teeth she showed but little, and in her
+complexion there was none of that pellucid clearness in which men
+ordinarily delight. But her eyes were more than ordinarily bright, and
+when she laughed there seemed to stream from them some heavenly delight.
+When she did laugh it was as though some spring had been opened from
+which ran for the time a stream of sweetest intimacy. For the time you
+would then fancy that you had been let into the inner life of this girl,
+and would be proud of yourself that so much should have been granted
+you. You would feel that there was something also in yourself in that
+this should have been permitted. Her hair and eyebrows were dark brown,
+of the hue most common to men and women, and had in them nothing that
+was peculiar; but her hair was soft and smooth and ever well dressed,
+and never redolent of peculiar odors. It was simply Florence Mountjoy's
+hair, and that made it perfect in the eyes of her male friends
+generally.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She's not such a wonderful beauty, after all," once said of her a
+gentleman to whom it may be presumed that she had not taken the trouble
+to be peculiarly attractive. "No," said another,&mdash;"no. But, by George! I
+shouldn't like to have the altering of her." It was thus that men
+generally felt in regard to Florence Mountjoy. When they came to reckon
+her up they did not see how any change was to be made for the better.
+</p>
+<p>
+To Florence, as to most other girls, the question of her future life had
+been a great trouble. Whom should she marry? and whom should she decline
+to marry? To a girl, when it is proposed to her suddenly to change
+everything in life, to go altogether away and place herself under the
+custody of a new master, to find for herself a new home, new pursuits,
+new aspirations, and a strange companion, the change must be so
+complete as almost to frighten her by its awfulness. And yet it has to
+be always thought of, and generally done.
+</p>
+<p>
+But this change had been presented to Florence in a manner more than
+ordinarily burdensome. Early in life, when naturally she would not have
+begun to think seriously of marriage, she had been told rather than
+asked to give herself to her cousin Mountjoy. She was too firm of
+character to accede at once&mdash;to deliver herself over body and soul to
+the tender mercies of one, in truth, unknown. But she had been unable to
+interpose any reason that was valid, and had contented herself by
+demanding time. Since that there had been moments in which she had
+almost yielded. Mountjoy Scarborough had been so represented to her that
+she had considered it to be almost a duty to yield. More than once the
+word had been all but spoken; but the word had never been spoken. She
+had been subjected to what might be called cruel pressure. In season and
+out of season her mother had represented as a duty this marriage with
+her cousin. Why should she not marry her cousin? It must be understood
+that these questions had been asked before any of the terrible facts of
+Captain Scarborough's life had been made known to her. Because, it may
+be said, she did not love him. But in these days she had loved no man,
+and was inclined to think so little of herself as to make her want of
+love no necessary bar to the accomplishment of the wish of others. By
+degrees she was spoken of among their acquaintance as the promised bride
+of Mountjoy Scarborough, and though she ever denied the imputation,
+there came over her girl's heart a feeling,&mdash;very sad and very solemn,
+but still all but accepted,&mdash;that so it must be. Then Harry Annesley had
+crossed her path, and the question had been at last nearly answered, and
+the doubts nearly decided. She did not quite know at first that she
+loved Harry Annesley, but was almost sure that it was impossible for her
+to become the wife of Mountjoy Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there came nearly twelve months of most painful uncertainty in her
+life. It is very hard for a young girl to have to be firm with her
+mother in declining a proposed marriage, when all circumstances of the
+connection are recommended to her as being peculiarly alluring. And
+there was nothing in the personal manners of her cousin which seemed to
+justify her in declaring her abhorrence. He was a dark, handsome,
+military-looking man, whose chief sin it was in the eyes of his cousin
+that he seemed to demand from her affection, worship, and obedience. She
+did not analyse his character, but she felt it. And when it came to
+pass that tidings of his debts at last reached her, she felt that she
+was glad of an excuse, though she knew that the excuse would not have
+prevailed with her had she liked him. Then came his debts, and with the
+knowledge of them a keener perception of his imperiousness. She could
+consent to become the wife of the man who had squandered his property
+and wasted his estate; but not of one who before his marriage demanded
+of her that submission which, as she thought, should be given by her
+freely after her marriage. Harry Annesley glided into her heart after a
+manner very different from this. She knew that he adored her, but yet he
+did not hasten to tell her so. She knew that she loved him, but she
+doubted whether a time would ever come in which she could confess it. It
+was not till he had come to acknowledge the trouble to which Mountjoy
+had subjected him that he had ever ventured to speak plainly of his own
+passion, and even then he had not asked for a reply. She was still free,
+as she thought of all this, but she did at last tell herself that, let
+her mother say what she would, she certainly never would stand at the
+altar with her cousin Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even now, when the captain had been declared not to be his father's
+heir, and when all the world knew that he had disappeared from the face
+of the earth, Mrs. Mountjoy did not altogether give him up. She partly
+disbelieved her brother, and partly thought that circumstances could not
+be so bad as they were described.
+</p>
+<p>
+To her feminine mind,&mdash;to her, living, not in the world of London, but in
+the very moderate fashion of Cheltenham,&mdash;it seemed to be impossible that
+an entail should be thus blighted in the bud. Why was an entail called
+an entail unless it were ineradicable,&mdash;a decision of fate rather than of
+man and of law? And to her eyes Mountjoy Scarborough was so commanding
+that all things must at last be compelled to go as he would have them.
+And, to tell the truth, there had lately come to Mrs. Mountjoy a word of
+comfort, which might be necessary if the world should be absolutely
+upset in accordance with the wicked skill of her brother, which even in
+that case might make crooked things smooth. Augustus, whom she had
+regarded always as quite a Mountjoy, because of his talent, and
+appearance, and habit of command, had whispered to her a word. Why
+should not Florence be transferred with the remainder of the property?
+There was something to Mrs. Mountjoy's feelings base in the idea at the
+first blush of it. She did not like to be untrue to her gallant nephew.
+But as she came to turn it in her mind there were certain circumstances
+which recommended the change to her&mdash;should the change be necessary.
+Florence certainly had expressed an unintelligible objection to the
+elder brother. Why should the younger not be more successful? Mrs.
+Mountjoy's heart had begun to droop within her as she had thought that
+her girl would prove deaf to the voice of the charmer. Another charmer
+had come, most objectionable in her sight, but to him no word of
+absolute encouragement had, as she thought, been yet spoken. Augustus
+had already obtained for himself among his friends the character of an
+eloquent young lawyer. Let him come and try his eloquence on his
+cousin,&mdash;only let it first be ascertained, as an assured fact, and beyond
+the possibility of all retrogression, that the squire's villainy was
+certain.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think, my love," she said to her daughter one day, "that, under the
+immediate circumstances of the family, we should retire for a while into
+private life." This occurred on the very day on which Septimus Jones had
+been vaguely informed of the iniquitous falsehood of Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good gracious, mamma, is not our life always private?" She had
+understood it all,&mdash;that the private life was intended altogether to
+exclude Harry, but was to be made open to the manoeuvres of her cousin,
+such as they might be.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the sense in which I mean. Your poor uncle is dying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We hear that Sir William says he is better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fear, nevertheless, that he is dying,&mdash;though it may, perhaps, take a
+long time. And then poor Mountjoy has disappeared. I think that we
+should see no one till the mystery about Mountjoy has been cleared up.
+And then the story is so very discreditable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not see that that is an affair of ours," said Florence, who had no
+desire to be shut up just at the present moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We cannot help ourselves. This making his eldest son out to be&mdash;oh,
+something so very different&mdash;is too horrible to be thought of. I am told
+that nobody knows the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We at any rate are not implicated in that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we are. He at any rate is my brother, and Mountjoy is my nephew,&mdash;or
+at any rate was. Poor Augustus is thrown into terrible difficulties."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am told that he is greatly pleased at finding that Tretton is to
+belong to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who tells you that? You have no right to believe anything about such
+near relatives from any one. Whoever told you so has been very wicked."
+Mrs. Mountjoy no doubt thought that this wicked communication had been
+made by Harry Annesley. "Augustus has always proved himself to be
+affectionate and respectful to his elder brother, that is, to his
+brother who is&mdash;is older than himself," added Mrs. Mountjoy, feeling
+that there was a difficulty in expressing herself as to the presumed
+condition of the two Scarboroughs, "Of course he would rather be owner
+of Tretton than let any one else have it, if you mean that. The honor of
+the family is very much to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know that the family can have any honor left," said Florence,
+severely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear, you have no right to say that. The Scarboroughs have always
+held their heads very high in Staffordshire, and more so of late than
+ever. I don't mean quite of late, but since Tretton became of so much
+importance. Now, I'll tell you what I think we had better do. We'll go
+and spend six weeks with your uncle at Brussels. He has always been
+pressing us to come."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, he does not want us."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How can you say that? How do you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure Sir Magnus will not care for our coming now. Besides, how
+could that be retiring into private life? Sir Magnus, as ambassador, has
+his house always full of company."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is
+not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative,&mdash;our
+nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation,
+of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But
+Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind.
+Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand
+that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be
+received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their
+joint wardrobe.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the
+last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been
+minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man
+hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very
+extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive
+governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus
+had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would
+have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that
+such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his
+well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been
+well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the
+blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus
+had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as
+her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject
+was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady
+Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they
+were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there
+as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than
+at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw
+no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be
+expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of
+course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English
+world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but
+there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who
+thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously
+resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady
+Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and
+wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to
+be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her
+carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon
+the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in
+life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in
+truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things
+done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did
+not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He
+could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his
+wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based
+on a different footing.
+</p>
+<p>
+He knew well that as a rule it was not fitting that he should ask a
+married man without his wife; but there are occasions on which an excuse
+can be given, and upon the whole the men liked it. He was a stout, tall,
+portly old gentleman, sixty years of age, but looking somewhat older,
+whom it was a difficulty to place on horseback, but who, when there,
+looked remarkably well. He rarely rose to a trot during his two hours of
+exercise, which to the two attach&eacute;'s who were told off for the duty of
+accompanying him was the hardest part of their allotted work. But other
+gentlemen would lay themselves out to meet Sir Magnus and to ride with
+him, and in this way he achieved that character for popularity which had
+been a better aid to him in life than all the diplomatic skill which he
+possessed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you think?" said he, walking off with Mrs. Mountjoy's letter
+into his wife's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think anything, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never do." Lady Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting,
+looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are
+proposing to come here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good gracious! At once?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, at once. Of course, I've asked them over and over again, and
+something was said about this autumn, when we had come back from
+Pimperingen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why did you not tell me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother! I did tell you. This kind of thing always turns up at last.
+She's a very good kind of a woman, and the daughter is all that she
+ought to be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course she'll be flirting with Anderson." Anderson was one of the
+two mounted attach&eacute;s.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anderson will know how to look after himself," said Sir Magnus. "At any
+rate they must come. They have never troubled us before, and we ought to
+put up with them once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, my dear, what is all this about her brother?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She won't bring her brother with her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How can you be sure of that?" said the anxious lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is dying, and can't be moved."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But that son of his&mdash;Mountjoy. It's altogether a most distressing
+story. He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared,
+and the papers for an entire month were full of him. What would you do
+if he were to turn up here? The girl was engaged to him, you know, and
+has only thrown him off since his own father declared that he was not
+legitimate. There never was such a mess about anything since London
+first began."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Sir Magnus declared that, let Mountjoy Scarborough and his father
+have misbehaved as they might, Mr. Scarborough's sister must be received
+at Brussels. There was a little family difficulty. Sir Magnus had
+borrowed three thousand pounds from the general which had been settled
+on the general's widow, and the interest was not always paid with
+extreme punctuality. To give Mrs. Mountjoy her due, it must be said that
+this had not entered into her consideration when she had written to her
+brother-in-law; but it was a burden to Sir Magnus, and had always
+tended to produce from him a reiteration of those invitations, which
+Mrs. Mountjoy had taken as an expression of brotherly love. Her own
+income was always sufficient for her wants, and the hundred and fifty
+pounds coming from Sir Magnus had not troubled her much. "Well, my dear,
+if it must be it must;&mdash;only what I'm to do with her I do not know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Take her about in the carriage," said Sir Magnus, who was beginning to
+be a little angry with this interference.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the daughter? Daughters are twice more troublesome than their
+mothers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pass her over to Miss Abbott. And for goodness' sake don't make so much
+trouble about things which need not be troublesome." Then Sir Magnus
+left his wife to ring for her chambermaid and go on with her painting,
+while he himself undertook the unwonted task of writing an affectionate
+letter to his sister-in-law. It should be here explained that Sir Magnus
+had no children of his own, and that Miss Abbott was the lady who was
+bound to smile and say pretty things on all occasions to Lady Mountjoy
+for the moderate remuneration of two hundred a year and her maintenance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The letter which Sir Magnus wrote was as follows:
+</p>
+<br>
+<blockquote>
+  <i>
+  MY DEAR SARAH,&mdash;Lady Mountjoy bids me say that we shall
+  be delighted to receive you and my niece at the British
+  Ministry on the 1st of October, and hope that you will
+  stay with us till the end of the month.&mdash;Believe me, most
+  affectionately yours,<br>
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+  MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.<br>
+  </i>
+</blockquote>
+<br>
+<p>
+"I have a most kind letter from Sir Magnus," said Mrs. Mountjoy to her
+daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does he say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That he will be delighted to receive us on the 1st of October. I did
+say that we should be ready to start in about a week's time, because I
+know that he gets home from his autumn holiday by the middle of
+September. But I have no doubt he has his house full till the time he
+has named."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you know her, mamma?" asked Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did see her once; but I cannot say that I know her. She used to be a
+very handsome woman, and looks to be quite good-natured; but Sir Magnus
+has always lived abroad, and except when he came home about your poor
+father's death I have seen very little of him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never saw him but that once," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+And so it was settled that she and her mother were to spend a month at
+Brussels.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH11"><!-- CH11 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MONTE CARLO.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Toward the end of September, while the weather was so hot as to keep
+away from the south of France all but very determined travellers, an
+English gentleman, not very beautiful in his outward appearance, was
+sauntering about the great hall of the gambling-house at Monte Carlo, in
+the kingdom or principality of Monaco, the only gambling-house now left
+in Europe in which idle men of a speculative nature may yet solace their
+hours with some excitement. Nor is the amusement denied to idle ladies,
+as might be seen by two or three highly-dressed <i>habitu&eacute;es</i> who at this
+moment were depositing their shawls and parasols with the porters. The
+clock was on the stroke of eleven, when the gambling-room would be open,
+and the amusement was too rich in its nature to allow of the loss of
+even a few minutes. But this gentleman was not an <i>habitu&eacute;</i>, nor was he
+known even by name to any of the small crowd that was then assembled.
+But it was known to many of them that he had had a great "turn of luck"
+on the preceding day, and had walked off from the "rouge-et-noir" table
+with four or five hundred pounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+The weather was still so hot that but few Englishmen were there, and the
+play had not as yet begun to run high. There were only two or three,&mdash;men
+who cannot keep their hands from ruin when ruin is open to them. To them
+heat and cold, the dog-star or twenty degrees below zero, make no
+difference while the croupier is there, with his rouleaux before him,
+capable of turning up the card. They know that the chance is against
+them,&mdash;one in twenty, let us say,&mdash;and that in the long-run one in twenty
+is as good as two to one to effect their ruin. For a day they may stand
+against one in twenty, as this man had done. For two or three days, for
+a week, they may possibly do so; but they know that the doom must come
+at last,&mdash;as it does come invariably,&mdash;and they go on. But our friend, the
+Englishman who had won the money, was not such a one as these, at any
+rate in regard to Monaco. Yesterday had been his first appearance, and
+he had broken ground there with great success. He was an ill-looking
+person, poorly clad,&mdash;what, in common parlance, we should call seedy. He
+had not a scrap of beard on his face, and though swarthy and dark as to
+his countenance, was light as to his hair, which hung in quantities down
+his back. He was dressed from head to foot in a suit of cross-barred,
+light-colored tweed, of which he wore the coat buttoned tight over his
+chest, as though to hide some deficiency of linen.
+</p>
+<p>
+The gentleman was altogether a disreputable-looking personage, and they
+who had seen him win his money,&mdash;Frenchmen and Italians for the most
+part,&mdash;had declared among themselves that his luck had been most
+miraculous. It was observed that he had a companion with him, who stuck
+close to his elbow, and it was asserted that this companion continually
+urged him to leave the room. But as long as the croupier remained at the
+table he remained, and continued to play through the day with almost
+invariable luck. It was surmised among the gamblers there that he had
+not entered the room with above twenty or thirty pieces in his pocket,
+and that he had taken away with him, when the place was closed, six
+hundred napoleons. "Look there; he has come again to give it all back to
+Madame Blanc, with interest," said a Frenchman to an Italian.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; and he will end by blowing his brains out within a week. He is
+just the man to do it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"These Englishmen always rush at their fate like mad bulls," said the
+Frenchman. "They get less distraction for their money than any one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Che va piano va sano," said the Italian, jingling the four napoleons in
+his pocket, which had been six on yesterday morning. Then they sauntered
+up to the Englishman, and both of them touched their hats to him. The
+Englishman just acknowledged the compliment, and walked off with his
+companion, who was still whispering something into his ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a gendarme who is with him, I think," said the Frenchman, "only
+the man does not walk erect."
+</p>
+<p>
+Who does not know the outside hall of the magnificent gambling-house at
+Monte Carlo, with all the golden splendor of its music-room within? Who
+does not know the lofty roof and lounging seats, with its luxuries of
+liveried servants, its wealth of newspapers, and every appanage of
+costly comfort which can be added to it? And its music within,&mdash;who does
+not know that there are to be heard sounds in a greater perfection of
+orchestral melody than are to be procured by money and trouble combined
+in the great capitals of Europe? Think of the trouble endured by those
+unhappy fathers of families who indulge their wives and daughters at the
+Philharmonic and St. James's Hall! Think of the horrors of our theatres,
+with their hot gas, and narrow passages, and difficulties of entrance,
+and almost impossibility of escape! And for all this money has to be
+paid,&mdash;high prices,&mdash;and the day has to be fixed long beforehand, so that
+the tickets may be secured, and the daily feast,&mdash;papa's too often
+solitary enjoyment,&mdash;has to be turned into a painful early fast. And when
+at last the thing has been done, and the torment endured, the sounds
+heard have not always been good of their kind, for the money has not
+sufficed to purchase the aid of a crowd of the best musicians. But at
+Monte Carlo you walk in with your wife in her morning costume, and
+seating yourself luxuriously in one of those soft stalls which are there
+prepared for you, you give yourself up with perfect ease to absolute
+enjoyment. For two hours the concert lasts, and all around is perfection
+and gilding. There is nothing to annoy the most fastidious taste. You
+have not heated yourself with fighting your way up crowded stairs; no
+box-keeper has asked you for a shilling. No link-boy has dunned you
+because he stood useless for a moment at the door of your carriage. No
+panic has seized you, and still oppresses you, because of the narrow
+dimensions in which you have to seat yourself for the next three hours.
+There are no twenty minutes during which you are doomed to sit in
+miserable expectation. Exactly at the hour named the music begins, and
+for two hours it is your own fault if you be not happy. A
+railway-carriage has brought you to steps leading up to the garden in
+which these princely halls are built, and when the music is over will
+again take you home. Nothing can be more perfect than the concert-room
+at Monte Carlo, and nothing more charming; and for all this there is
+nothing whatever to pay.
+</p>
+<p>
+But by whom;&mdash;out of whose pocket are all these good things provided?
+They tell you at Monte Carlo that from time to time are to be seen men
+walking off in the dark of the night or the gloom of the evening, or,
+for the matter of that, in the broad light of day, if the stern
+necessity of the hour require it, with a burden among them, to be
+deposited where it may not be seen or heard of any more. They are
+carrying away "all that mortal remains" of one of the gentlemen who have
+paid for your musical entertainment. He has given his all for the
+purpose, and has then&mdash;blown his brains out. It is one of the
+disagreeable incidents to which the otherwise extremely pleasant
+money-making operations of the establishment are liable. Such accidents
+will happen. A gambling-house, the keeper of which is able to maintain
+the royal expense of the neighboring court out of his winnings and also
+to keep open for those who are not ashamed to accept it,&mdash;gratis, all
+for love,&mdash;a concert-room brilliant with gold, filled with the best
+performers whom the world can furnish, and comfortable beyond all
+opera-houses known to men must be liable to a few such misfortunes. Who
+is not ashamed to accept, I have said, having lately been there and
+thoroughly enjoyed myself? But I did not put myself in the way of having
+to cut my throat, on which account I felt, as I came out, that I had
+been somewhat shabby. I was ashamed in that I had not put a few
+napoleons down on the table. Conscience had prevented me, and a wish to
+keep my money. But should not conscience have kept me away from all that
+happiness for which I had not paid? I had not thought of it before I
+went to Monte Carlo, but I am inclined now to advise others to stay
+away, or else to put down half a napoleon, at any rate, as the price of
+a ticket. The place is not overcrowded, because the conscience of many
+is keener than was mine.
+</p>
+<p>
+We ought to be grateful to the august sovereign of Monaco in that he
+enabled an enterprising individual to keep open for us in so brilliant a
+fashion the last public gambling-house in Europe. The principality is
+but large enough to contain the court of the sovereign which is held in
+the little town of Monaco, and the establishment of the last of
+legitimate gamblers which is maintained at Monte Carlo. If the report of
+the world does not malign the prince, he lives, as does the gambler, out
+of the spoil taken from the gamblers. He is to be seen in his royal
+carriage going forth with his royal consort,&mdash;and very royal he looks!
+His little teacup of a kingdom,&mdash;or rather a roll of French bread, for it
+is crusty and picturesque,&mdash;is now surrounded by France. There is Nice
+away to the west, and Mentone to the east, and the whole kingdom lies
+within the compass of a walk. Mentone, in France, at any rate, is within
+five miles of the monarch's residence. How happy it is that there should
+be so blessed a spot left in tranquillity on the earth's surface!
+</p>
+<p>
+But on the present occasion Monte Carlo was not in all its grandeur,
+because of the heat of the weather. Another month, and English lords,
+and English members of Parliament, and English barristers would be
+there,&mdash;all men, for instance, who could afford to be indifferent as to
+their character for a month,&mdash;and the place would be quite alive with
+music, cards, and dice. At present men of business only flocked to its
+halls, eagerly intent on making money, though, alas! almost all doomed
+to lose it. But our one friend with the long light locks was impatient
+for the fray. The gambling-room had now been opened, and the servants
+of the table, less impatient than he, were slowly arranging their money
+and their cards. Our friend had taken his seat, and was already
+resolving, with his eyes fixed on the table, where he would make his
+first plunge. In his right hand was a bag of gold, and under his left
+hand were hidden the twelve napoleons with which he intended to
+commence. On yesterday he had gone through his day's work by twelve,
+though on one or two occasions he had plunged deeply. It had seemed to
+this man as though a new heaven had been opened to him, as of late he
+had seen little of luck in this world. The surmises made as to the low
+state of his funds when he entered the room had been partly true; but
+time had been when he was able to gamble in a more costly fashion even
+than here, and to play among those who had taken his winnings and
+losings simply as a matter of course.
+</p>
+<p>
+And now the game had begun, and the twelve napoleons were duly
+deposited. Again he won his stake, an omen for the day, and was
+exultant. A second twelve and a third were put down, and on each
+occasion he won. In the silly imagination of his heart he declared to
+himself that the calculation of all chances was as nothing against his
+run of luck. Here was the spot on which it was destined that he should
+redeem all the injury which fortune had done him. And in truth this man
+had been misused by fortune. His companion whispered in his ear, but he
+heard not a word of it. He increased the twelve to fifteen, and again
+won. As he looked round there was a halo of triumph which seemed to
+illuminate his face. He had chained Chance to his chariot-wheel and
+would persevere now that the good time had come. What did he care for
+the creature at his elbow? He thought of all the good things which money
+could again purchase for him as he carefully fingered the gold for the
+next stake. He had been rich, though he was now poor; though how could a
+man be accounted poor who had an endless sum of six hundred napoleons in
+his pocket, a sum which was, in truth, endless, while it could be so
+rapidly recruited in this fashion? The next stake he also won, but as he
+raked all the pieces which the croupier pushed toward him his mind had
+become intent on another sphere and on other persons. Let him win what
+he might, his old haunts were now closed against him. What good would
+money do him, living such a life as he must now be compelled to pass? As
+he thought of this the five-and-twenty napoleons on the table were taken
+away from him almost without consciousness on his part.
+</p>
+<p>
+At that moment there came a voice in his ear,&mdash;not the voice of his
+attending friend, but one of which he accurately knew the lisping,
+fiendish sound: "Ah, Captain Scarborough, I thought it vas posshible you
+might be here. Dis ish a very nice place." Our friend looked round and
+glared at the man, and felt that it was impossible that this occupation
+should be continued under his eyes. "Yesh; it was likely. How do you
+like Monte Carlo? You have plenty of money&mdash;plenty!" The man was small,
+and oily, and black-haired, and beaky-nosed, with a perpetual smile on
+his face, unless when on special occasions he would be moved to the
+expression of deep anger. Of the modern Hebrews a most complete Hebrew;
+but a man of purpose, who never did things by halves, who could count
+upon good courage within, and who never allowed himself to be foiled by
+misadventure. He was one who, beginning with nothing, was determined to
+die a rich man, and was likely to achieve his purpose. Now there was no
+gleam of anger on his face, but a look of invincible good-humor, which
+was not, however, quite good-humor, when you came to examine it closely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, that is you, is it, Mr. Hart?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yesh; it is me. I have followed you. Oh, I have had quite a pleasant
+tour following you. But ven I got my noshe once on to the schent then I
+was sure it was Monte Carlo. And it ish Monte Carlo; eh, Captain
+Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; of course it is Monte Carlo. That is to say, Monte Carlo is the
+place where we are now. I don't know what you mean by running on in that
+way." Then he drew back from the table, Mr. Hart following close behind
+him, and his attendant at a farther distance behind him. As he went he
+remembered that he had slightly increased the six hundred napoleons of
+yesterday, and that the money was still in his own possession. Not all
+the Jews in London could touch the money while he kept it in his pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who ish dat man there?" asked Mr. Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can that be to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He seems to follow you pretty close."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not so close as you do, by George; and perhaps he has something to get
+by it, which you haven't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come, come, come! If he have more to get than I he mush be pretty deep.
+There is Mishter Tyrrwhit. No one have more to get than I, only Mishter
+Tyrrwhit. Vy, Captain Scarborough, the little game you wash playing
+there, which wash a very pretty little game, is as nothing to my game
+wish you. When you see the money down, on the table there, it seems to
+be mush because the gold glitters, but it is as noting to my little
+game, where the gold does not glitter, because it is pen and ink. A pen
+and ink soon writes ten thousand pounds. But you think mush of it when
+you win two hundred pounds at roulette."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think nothing of it," said our friend Captain Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And it goes into your pocket to give champagne to the ladies, instead
+of paying your debts to the poor fellows who have supplied you for so
+long with all de money."
+</p>
+<p>
+All this occurred in the gambling-house at a distance from the table,
+but within hearing of that attendant who still followed the player.
+These moments were moments of misery to the captain in spite of the
+bank-notes for six hundred napoleons which were still in his breast
+coat-pocket. And they were not made lighter by the fact that all the
+words spoken by the Jew were overheard by the man who was supposed to be
+there in the capacity of his servant. But the man, as it seemed, had a
+mission to fulfil, and was the captain's master as well as servant. "Mr.
+Hart," said Captain Scarborough, repressing the loudness of his words as
+far as his rage would admit him, but still speaking so as to attract the
+attention of some of those round him, "I do not know what good you
+propose to yourself by following me in this manner. You have my bonds,
+which are not even payable till my father's death."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, there you are very much mistaken."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And are then only payable out of the property to which I believed
+myself to be heir when the money was borrowed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are still de heir&mdash;de heir to Tretton. There is not a shadow of a
+doubt as to that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope when the time comes," said the captain, "you'll be able to prove
+your words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course we shall prove dem. Why not? Your father and your brother are
+very clever shentlemen, I think, but they will not be more clever than
+Mishter Samuel Hart. Mr. Tyrrwhit also is a clever man. Perhaps he
+understands your father's way of doing business. Perhaps it is all right
+with Mr. Tyrrwhit. It shall be all right with me too;&mdash;I swear it. When
+will you come back to London, Captain Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there came an angry dispute in the gambling-room, during which Mr.
+Hart by no means strove to repress his voice. Captain Scarborough
+asserted his rights as a free agent, declaring himself capable, as far
+as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference
+to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part
+would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money&mdash;my money, which you
+must pay this minute, if I please to demand it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You did not lend me five-and-twenty thousand pounds without security."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is forty-five&mdash;now, at this moment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Take it, get it; go and put it in your pocket. You have a lot of
+writings; turn then into cash at once. Take them to any other Jew in
+London and sell them. See if you can get your five-and-twenty thousand
+pounds for them,&mdash;or twenty-five thousand shillings. You certainly
+cannot get five-and-twenty pence for them here, though you had all the
+police of this royal kingdom to support you. My father says that the
+bonds I gave you are not worth the paper on which they were written. If
+you are cheated, so have I been. If he has robbed you, so has he me. But
+I have not robbed you, and you can do nothing to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I vill stick to you like beesvax," said Mr. Hart, while the look of
+good-humor left his countenance for a moment. "Like beesvax! You shall
+not escape me again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will have to follow me to Constantinople, then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I vill follow you to the devil."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are likely to go before me there. But for the present I am off to
+Constantinople, from whence I intend to make an extended tour to Mount
+Caucasus, and then into Thibet. I shall be very glad of your company,
+but cannot offer to pay the bill. When you and your companions have
+settled yourselves comfortably at Tretton, I shall be happy to come and
+see you there. You will have to settle the matter first with my younger
+brother, if I may make bold to call that well-born gentleman my brother
+at all. I wish you a good-morning, Mr. Hart." Upon that he walked out
+into the hall, and thence down the steps into the garden in front of the
+establishment, his own attendant following him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Hart also followed him, but did not immediately seek to renew the
+conversation. If he meant to show any sign of keeping his threat and of
+sticking to the captain like beeswax, he must show his purpose at once.
+The captain for a time walked round the little enclosure in earnest
+conversation with the attendant, and Mr. Hart stood on the steps
+watching them. Play was over, at any rate for that day, as far as the
+captain was concerned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Captain Scarborough, don't you think you've been very rash?" said
+the attendant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I've got six hundred and fifty napoleons in my pocket, instead
+of waiting to get them in driblets from my brother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if he knew that you had come here he would withdraw them
+altogether. Of course, he will know now. That man will be sure to tell
+him. He will let all London know. Of course, it would be so when you
+came to a place of such common resort as Monte Carlo."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Common resort! Do you believe he came here as to a place of common
+resort? Do you think that he had not tracked me out, and would not have
+done so, whether I had gone to Melbourne, or New York, or St.
+Petersburg? But the wonder is that he should spend his money in such a
+vain pursuit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, captain, you do not know what is vain and what is not. It is your
+brother's pleasure that you should be kept in the dark for a time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hang my brother's pleasure! Why am I to follow my brother's pleasure?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he will allow you an income. He will keep a coat on your back
+and a hat on your head, and supply meat and wine for your needs." Here
+Captain Scarborough jingled the loose napoleons in his trousers pocket.
+"Oh, yes, that is all very well but it will not last forever. Indeed, it
+will not last for a week unless you leave Monte Carlo."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall leave it this afternoon by the train for Genoa."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And where shall you go then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You heard me suggest to Mr. Hart to the devil,&mdash;or else Constantinople,
+and after that to Thibet. I suppose I shall still enjoy the pleasure of
+your company?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Augustus wishes that I should remain with you, and, as you yourself
+say, perhaps it will be best."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH12"><!-- CH12 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S SUCCESS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Harry Annesley, a day or two after he had left Tretton, went down to
+Cheltenham; for he had received an invitation to a dance there, and with
+the invitation an intimation that Florence Mountjoy was to be at the
+dance. If I were to declare that the dance had been given and Florence
+asked to it merely as an act of friendship to Harry, it would perhaps be
+thought that modern friendship is seldom carried to so great a length.
+But it was undoubtedly the fact that Mrs. Armitage, who gave the dance,
+was a great friend and admirer of Harry's, and that Mr. Armitage was an
+especial chum. Let not, however, any reader suppose that Florence was in
+the secret. Mrs. Armitage had thought it best to keep her in the dark as
+to the person asked to meet her. "As to my going to Montpelier Place,"
+Harry had once said to Mrs. Armitage, "I might as well knock at a
+prison-door." Mrs. Mountjoy lived in Montpelier Place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think we could perhaps manage that for you," Mrs. Armitage had
+replied, and she had managed it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is she coming?" Harry said to Mrs. Armitage, in an anxious whisper, as
+he entered the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She has been here this half-hour,&mdash;if you had taken the trouble to leave
+your cigars and come and meet her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She has not gone?" said Harry, almost awe-struck at the idea.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; she is sitting like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, in
+the room inside. She has got horrible news to tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, heavens! What news?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose she will tell you, though she has not been communicative to
+me in regard to your royal highness. The news is simply that her mother
+is going to take her to Brussels, and that she is to live for a while
+amid the ambassadorial splendors with Sir Magnus and his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+By retiring from the world Mrs. Mountjoy had not intended to include
+such slight social relaxations as Mrs. Armitage's party, for Harry on
+turning round encountered her talking to another Cheltenham lady. He
+greeted her with his pleasantest smile, to which Mrs. Mountjoy did not
+respond quite so sweetly. She had ever greatly feared Harry Annesley,
+and had to-day heard a story very much, as she thought, to his
+discredit. "Is your daughter here?" asked Harry, with well-trained
+hypocrisy. Mrs. Mountjoy could not but acknowledge that Florence was in
+the room, and then Harry passed on in pursuit of his quarry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Annesley, when did you come to Cheltenham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As soon as I heard that Mrs. Armitage was going to have a party I began
+to think of coming immediately." Then an idea for the first time shot
+through Florence's mind&mdash;that her friend Mrs. Armitage was a woman
+devoted to intrigue. "What dance have you disengaged? I have something
+that I must tell you to-night. You don't mean to say that you will not
+give me one dance?" This was merely a lover's anxious doubt on his
+part, because Florence had not at once replied to him. "I am told that
+you are going away to Brussels."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma is going on a visit to her brother-in-law."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you with her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I shall go with mamma." All this had been said apart, while a
+fair-haired, lackadaisical young gentleman was standing twiddling his
+thumbs waiting to dance with Florence. At last the little book from her
+waist was brought forth, and Harry's name was duly inscribed. The next
+dance was a quadrille, and he saw that the space after that was also
+vacant; so he boldly wrote down his name for both. I almost think that
+Florence must have suspected that Harry Annesley was to be there that
+night, or why should the two places have been kept vacant? "And now what
+is this," he began, "about your going to Brussels?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma's brother is minister there, and we are just going on a visit."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why now? I am sure there is some especial cause." Florence would
+not say that there was no especial cause, so she could only repeat her
+assertion that they certainly were going to Brussels. She herself was
+well aware that she was to be taken out of Harry's way, and that
+something was expected to occur during this short month of her absence
+which might be detrimental to him,&mdash;and to her also. But this she could
+not tell, nor did she like to say that the plea given by her mother was
+the general state of the Scarborough affairs. She did not wish to
+declare to this lover that that other lover was as nothing to her. "And
+how long are you to be away?" asked Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We shall be a month with Sir Magnus; but mamma is talking of going on
+afterward to the Italian lakes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good heavens! you will not be back, I suppose, till ever so much after
+Christmas?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot tell. Nothing as yet has been settled. I do not know that I
+ought to tell you anything about it." Harry at this moment looked up,
+and caught the eye of Mrs. Mountjoy, as she was standing in the door-way
+opposite. Mrs. Mountjoy certainly looked as though no special
+communication as to Florence's future movements ought to be made to
+Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then, however, it came to his turn to dance, and he had a moment allowed
+to him to collect his thoughts. By nothing that he could do or say could
+he prevent her going, and he could only use the present moment to the
+best purpose in his power. He bethought himself then that he had never
+received from her a word of encouragement, and that such word, if ever
+to be spoken, should be forthcoming that night. What might not happen to
+a girl who was passing the balmy Christmas months amid the sweet shadows
+of an Italian lake? Harry's ideas of an Italian lake were, in truth, at
+present somewhat vague. But future months were, to his thinking,
+interminable; the present moment only was his own. The dance was now
+finished. "Come and take a walk," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I will go to mamma." Florence had seen her mother's eye fixed
+upon her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, come, that won't do at all," said Harry, who had already got her
+hand within his arm. "A fellow is always entitled to five minutes, and
+then I am down for the next waltz."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I am, and you can't get out of it now. Oh, Florence, will you
+answer me a question,&mdash;one question? I asked it you before, and you did
+not vouchsafe me any answer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You asked me no question," said Florence, who remembered to the last
+syllable every word that had been said to her on that occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I not? I am sure you knew what it was that I intended to ask."
+Florence could not but think that this was quite another thing. "Oh,
+Florence, can you love me?" Had she given her ears for it she could not
+have told him the truth then, on the spur of the moment. Her mother's
+eye was, she knew, watching her through the door-way all the way across
+from the other room. And yet, had her mother asked her, she would have
+answered boldly that she did love Harry Annesley, and intended to love
+him for ever and ever with all her heart. And she would have gone
+farther if cross-questioned, and have declared that she regarded him
+already as her lord and master. But now she had not a word to say to
+him. All she knew was that he had now pledged himself to her, and that
+she intended to keep him to his pledge. "May I not have one word," he
+said,&mdash;"one word?"
+</p>
+<p>
+What could he want with a word more? thought Florence. Her silence now
+was as good as any speech. But as he did want more she would, after her
+own way, reply to him. So there came upon his arm the slightest possible
+sense of pressure from those sweet fingers, and Harry Annesley was on a
+sudden carried up among azure-tinted clouds into the farthest heaven of
+happiness. After a moment he stood still, and passed his fingers through
+his hair and waved his head as a god might do it. She had now made to
+him a solemn promise than which no words could be more binding. "Oh,
+Florence," he exclaimed, "I must have you alone with me for one moment."
+For what could he want her alone for any moment? thought Florence. There
+was her mother still looking at them; but for her Harry did not now care
+one straw. Nor did he hate those bright Italian lakes with nearly so
+strong a feeling of abhorrence. "Florence, you are now all my own."
+There came another slightest pressure, slight, but so eloquent from
+those fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hate dancing. How is a fellow to dance now? I shall run against
+everybody. I can see no one. I should be sure to make a fool of myself.
+No, I don't want to dance even with you. No, certainly not!&mdash;let you
+dance with somebody else, and you engaged to me! Well, if I must, of
+course I must. I declare, Florence, you have not spoken a single word to
+me, though there is so much that you must have to say. What have you got
+to say? What a question to ask! You must tell me. Oh, you know what you
+have got to tell me! The sound of it will be the sweetest music that a
+man can possibly hear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You knew it all, Harry," she whispered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I want to hear it. Oh, Florence, Florence, I do not think you can
+understand how completely I am beyond myself with joy. I cannot dance
+again, and will not. Oh, my wife, my wife!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hush!" said Florence, afraid that the very walls might hear the sound
+of Harry's words.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does it signify though all the world knew it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That I should have been so fortunate! That is what I cannot understand.
+Poor Mountjoy! I do feel for him. That he should have had the start of
+me so long, and have done nothing!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing," whispered Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I have done everything. I am so proud of myself that I think I must
+look almost like a hero."
+</p>
+<p>
+They had now got to the extremity of the room near an open window, and
+Florence found that she was able to say one word. "You are my hero." The
+sound of this nearly drove him mad with joy. He forgot all his troubles.
+Prodgers, the policeman, Augustus Scarborough, and that fellow whom he
+hated so much, Septimus Jones;&mdash;what were they all to him now? He had set
+his mind upon one thing of value, and he had got it. Florence had
+promised to be his, and he was sure that she would never break her word
+to him. But he felt that for the full enjoyment of his triumph he must
+be alone somewhere with Florence for five minutes. He had not actually
+explained to himself why, but he knew that he wished to be alone with
+her. At present there was no prospect of any such five minutes, but he
+must say something in preparation for some future five minutes at a time
+to come. Perhaps it might be to-morrow, though he did not at present see
+how that might be possible, for Mrs. Mountjoy, he knew, would shut her
+door against him. And Mrs. Mountjoy was already prowling round the room
+after her daughter. Harry saw her as he got Florence to an opposite
+door, and there for the moment escaped with her. "And now," he said,
+"how am I to manage to see you before you go to Brussels?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know that you can see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that you are to be shut up, and that I am not to be allowed
+to approach you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do mean it. Mamma is, of course, attached to her nephew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What, after all that has passed?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not? Is he to blame for what his father has done?" Harry felt that
+he could not press the case against Captain Scarborough without some
+want of generosity. And though he had told Florence once about that
+dreadful midnight meeting, he could say nothing farther on that subject.
+"Of course mamma thinks that I am foolish."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why?" he asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because she doesn't see with my eyes, Harry. We need not say anything
+more about it at present. It is so; and therefore I am to go to
+Brussels. You have made this opportunity for yourself before I start.
+Perhaps I have been foolish to be taken off my guard."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't say that, Florence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall think so, unless you can be discreet. Harry, you will have to
+wait. You will remember that we must wait; but I shall not change."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor I,&mdash;nor I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think not, because I trust you. Here is mamma, and now I must leave
+you. But I shall tell mamma everything before I go to bed." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy came up and took Florence away, with a few words of most
+disdainful greeting to Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Florence was gone Harry felt that as the sun and the moon and the
+stars had all set, and as absolute darkness reigned through the rooms,
+he might as well escape into the street, where there was no one but the
+police to watch him, as he threw his hat up into the air in his
+exultation. But before he did so he had to pass by Mrs. Armitage and
+thank her for all her kindness; for he was aware how much she had done
+for him in his present circumstances. "Oh, Mrs. Armitage, I am so
+obliged to you! no fellow was ever so obliged to a friend before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How has it gone off? For Mrs. Mountjoy has taken Florence home."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, she has taken her away. But she hasn't shut the stable-door
+till the steed has been stolen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, the steed has been stolen?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I think so; I do think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that poor man who has disappeared is nowhere."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Men who disappear never are anywhere. But I do flatter myself that if
+he had held his ground and kept his property the result would have been
+the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't suppose, Mrs. Armitage, that I am taking any pride to myself. Why
+on earth Florence should have taken a fancy to such a fellow as I am I
+cannot imagine."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no; not in the least."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's all very well for you to laugh, Mrs. Armitage, but as I have
+thought of it all I have sometimes been in despair."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But now you are not in despair."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, indeed; just now I am triumphant. I have thought so often that I
+was a fool to love her, because everything was so much against me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have wondered that you continued. It always seemed to me that there
+wasn't a ghost of a chance for you. Mr. Armitage bade me give it all up,
+because he was sure you would never do any good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care how much you laugh at me, Mrs. Armitage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let those laugh who win." Then he rushed out into the Paragon, and
+absolutely did throw his hat up in the air in his triumph.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH13"><!-- CH13 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MRS. MOUNTJOY'S ANGER.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Florence, as she went home in the fly with her mother after the party at
+which Harry had spoken to her so openly, did not find the little journey
+very happy. Mrs. Mountjoy was a woman endowed with a strong power of
+wishing rather than of willing, of desiring rather than of contriving;
+but she was one who could make herself very unpleasant when she was
+thwarted. Her daughter was now at last fully determined that if she ever
+married anybody, that person should be Harry Annesley. Having once
+pressed his arm in token of assent, she had as it were given herself
+away to him, so that no reasoning, no expostulations could, she thought,
+change her purpose; and she had much more power of bringing about her
+purposed design than had her mother. But her mother could be obstinate
+and self-willed, and would for the time make herself disagreeable.
+Florence had assured her lover that everything should be told her mother
+that night before she went to bed. But Mrs. Mountjoy did not wait to be
+simply told. No sooner were they seated in the fly together than she
+began to make her inquiries. "What has that man been saying to you?" she
+demanded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence was at once offended by hearing her lover so spoken of, and
+could not simply tell the story of Harry's successful courtship, as she
+had intended. "Mamma," she said "why do you speak of him like that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he is a scamp."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, he is no scamp. It is very unkind of you to speak in such terms of
+one whom you know is very dear to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know it. He ought not to be dear to you at all. You have been
+for years intended for another purpose." This was intolerable to
+Florence,&mdash;this idea that she should have been considered as capable of
+being intended for the purposes of other people! And a resolution at
+once was formed in her mind that she would let her mother know that such
+intentions were futile. But for the moment she sat silent. A journey
+home at twelve o'clock at night in a fly was not the time for the
+expression of her resolution. "I say he is a scamp," said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+"During all these inquiries that have been made after your cousin he has
+known all about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has not known all about it," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You contradict me in a very impertinent manner, and cannot be
+acquainted with the circumstances. The last person who saw your cousin
+in London was Mr. Henry Annesley, and yet he has not said a word about
+it, while search was being made on all sides. And he saw him under
+circumstances most suspicious in their nature; so suspicious as to have
+made the police arrest him if they were aware of them. He had at that
+moment grossly insulted Captain Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, mamma; no, it was not so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you know? how can you tell?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do know; and I can tell. The ill-usage had come from the other side."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you, too, have known the secret, and have said nothing about it?
+You, too, have been aware of the violence which took place at that
+midnight meeting? You have been aware of what befell your cousin, the
+man to whom you were all but engaged. And you have held your tongue at
+the instigation, no doubt, of Mr. Henry Annesley. Oh, Florence, you also
+will find yourself in the hands of the policeman!" At this moment the
+fly drew up at the door of the house in Montpelier Place, and the two
+ladies had to get out and walk up the steps into the hall, where they
+were congratulated on their early return from the party by the
+lady's-maid.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, I will go to bed," said Florence, as soon as she reached her
+mother's room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think you had better, my dear, though Heaven knows what disturbances
+there may be during the night." By this Mrs. Mountjoy had intended to
+imply that Prodgers, the policeman, might probably lose not a moment
+more before he would at once proceed to arrest Miss Mountjoy for the
+steps she had taken in regard to the disappearance of Captain
+Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+She had heard from Harry Annesley the fact that he had been brutally
+attacked by the captain in the middle of the night in the streets of
+London; and for this, in accordance with her mother's theory, she was to
+be dragged out of bed by a constable, and that, probably, before the
+next morning should have come. There was something in this so ludicrous
+as regarded the truth of the story, and yet so cruel as coming from her
+mother, that Florence hardly knew whether to cry or laugh as she laid
+her head upon the pillow.
+</p>
+<p>
+But in the morning, as she was thinking that the facts of her own
+position had still to be explained to her mother,&mdash; that it would be
+necessary that she should declare her purpose and the impossibility of
+change, now that she had once pledged herself to her lover,&mdash;Mrs.
+Mountjoy came into the room, and stood at her bedside, with that
+appearance of ghostly displeasure which always belongs to an angry old
+lady in a night-cap.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, mamma?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Florence, there must be an understanding between us."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope so. I thought there always had been. I am sure, mamma, you have
+known that I have never liked Captain Scarborough so as to become his
+wife, and I think you have known that I have liked Harry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Likings are all fiddlesticks!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, mamma; or, if you object to the word, I will say love. You have
+known that I have not loved my cousin, and that I have loved this other
+man. That is not nonsense; that at any rate is a stern reality, if there
+be anything real in the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stern! you may well call it stern."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean unbending, strong, not to be overcome by outside circumstances.
+If Mr. Annesley had not spoken to me as he did last night,&mdash;could never
+have so spoken to me,&mdash;I should have been a miserable girl, but my love
+for him would have been just as stern. I should have remained and
+thought of it, and have been unhappy through my whole life. But he has
+spoken, and I am exultant. That is what I mean by stern. All that is
+most important, at any rate to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am here now to tell you that it is impossible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, mamma. Then things must go on, and we must bide our time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is proper that I should tell you that he has disgraced himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never! I will not admit it. You do not know the circumstances,"
+exclaimed Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is most impertinent in you to pretend that you know them better than
+I do," said her mother, indignantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The story was told to me by himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; and therefore told untruly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I grieve that you should think so of him, mamma; but I cannot help it.
+Where you have got your information I cannot tell. But that mine has
+been accurately told to me I feel certain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, my duty is to look after you and to keep you from harm. I
+can only do my duty to the best of my ability. Mr. Annesley is, to my
+thinking, a most objectionable young man, and he will, I believe, be in
+the hands of the police before long. Evidence will have to be given, in
+which your name will, unfortunately, be mentioned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why my name?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is not probable that he will keep it a secret, when
+cross-questioned, as to his having divulged the story to some one. He
+will declare that he has told it to you. When that time shall come it
+will be well that we should be out of the country. I propose to start
+from here on this day week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncle Magnus will not be able to have us then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We must loiter away our time on the road. I look upon it as quite
+imperative that we shall both be out of England within eight days' time
+of this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But where will you go?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind. I do not know that I have as yet quite made up my mind. But
+you may understand that we shall start from Cheltenham this day week.
+Baker will go with us, and I shall leave the other two servants in
+charge of the house. I cannot tell you anything farther as yet,&mdash;except
+that I will never consent to your marriage with Mr. Henry Annesley. You
+had better know that for certain, and then there will be less cause for
+unhappiness between us." So saying, the angry ghost with the night-cap
+on stalked out of the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It need hardly be explained that Mrs. Mountjoy's information respecting
+the scene in London had come to her from Augustus Scarborough. When he
+told her that Annesley had been the last in London to see his brother
+Mountjoy, and had described the nature of the scene that had occurred
+between them, he had no doubt forgotten that he himself had subsequently
+seen his brother. In the story, as he had told it, there was no need to
+mention himself,&mdash;no necessity for such a character in making up the
+tragedy of that night. No doubt, according to his idea, the two had been
+alone together. Harry had struck the blow by which his brother had been
+injured, and had then left him in the street. Mountjoy had subsequently
+disappeared, and Harry had told to no one that such an encounter had
+taken place. This had been the meaning of Augustus Scarborough when he
+informed his aunt that Harry had been the last who had seen Mountjoy
+before his disappearance. To Mrs. Mountjoy the fact had been most
+injurious to Harry's character. Harry had wilfully kept the secret while
+all the world was at work looking for Mountjoy Scarborough; and, as far
+as Mrs. Mountjoy could understand, it might well be that Harry had
+struck the fatal blow that had sent her nephew to his long account. All
+the impossibilities in the case had not dawned upon her. It had not
+occurred to her that Mountjoy could not have been killed and his body
+made away with without some great effort, in the performance of which
+the "scamp" would hardly have risked his life or his character. But the
+scamp was certainly a scamp, even though he might not be a murderer, or
+he would have revealed the secret. In fact, Mrs. Mountjoy believed in
+the matter exactly what Augustus had intended, and, so believing, had
+resolved that her daughter should suffer any purgatory rather than
+become Harry's wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+But her daughter made her resolutions exactly in the contrary direction.
+She in truth did know what had been done on that night, while her mother
+was in ignorance. The extent of her mother's ignorance she understood,
+but she did not at all know where her mother had got her information.
+She felt that Harry's secret was in hands other than he had intended,
+and that some one must have spoken of the scene. It occurred to Florence
+at the moment that this must have come from Mountjoy himself, whom she
+believed,&mdash;and rightly believed,&mdash;to have been the only second person
+present on the occasion. And if he had told it to any one, then must
+that "any one" know where and how he had disappeared. And the
+information must have been given to her mother solely with the view of
+damaging Harry's character, and of preventing Harry's marriage.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thinking of all this, Florence felt that a premeditated and foul
+attempt,&mdash;for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be
+very foul,&mdash;was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was
+brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the
+truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It
+should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once,
+and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An
+attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made
+it had not known her character. She was sure of herself now, within her
+own bosom, that she was bound in a peculiar way to be more than
+ordinarily true to Harry Annesley. In such an emergency she ought to do
+for Harry Annesley more than a girl in common circumstances would be
+justified in doing for her lover. Harry was maligned, ill-used, and
+slandered. Her mother had been induced to call him a scamp, and to give
+as her reason for doing so an account of a transaction which was
+altogether false, though she no doubt had believed it to be true.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she thought of all this she resolved that it was her duty to write to
+her lover, and tell him the story as she had heard it. It might be most
+necessary that he should know the truth. She would write her letter and
+post it,&mdash;so that it should be altogether beyond her mother's
+control,&mdash;and then would tell her mother that she had written it. She at
+first thought that she would keep a copy of the letter and show it to
+her mother. But when it was written,&mdash;those first words intended for a
+lover's eyes which had ever been produced by her pen,&mdash;she found that she
+could not subject those very words to her mother's hard judgment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her letter was as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAR HARRY,&mdash;You will be much surprised at receiving a letter from me
+so soon after our meeting last night. But I warn you that you must not
+take it amiss. I should not write now were it not that I think it may be
+for your interest that I should do so. I do not write to say a word
+about my love, of which I think you may be assured without any letter. I
+told mamma last night what had occurred between us, and she of course
+was very angry. You will understand that, knowing how anxious she has
+been on behalf of my cousin Mountjoy. She has always taken his part, and
+I think it does mamma great honor not to throw him over now that he is
+in trouble. I should never have thrown him over in his trouble, had I
+ever cared for him in that way. I tell you that fairly, Master Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But mamma, in speaking against you, which she was bound to do in
+supporting poor Mountjoy, declared that you were the last person who had
+seen my cousin before his disappearance, and she knew that there had
+been some violent struggle between you. Indeed, she knew all the truth
+as to that night, except that the attack had been made by Mountjoy on
+you. She turned the story all round, declaring that you had attacked
+him,&mdash;which, as you perceive, gives a totally different appearance to the
+whole matter. Somebody has told her,&mdash;though who it may have been I
+cannot guess,&mdash;but somebody has been endeavoring to do you all the
+mischief he can in the matter, and has made mamma think evil of you. She
+says that after attacking him, and brutally ill-using him, you had left
+him in the street, and had subsequently denied all knowledge of having
+seen him. You will perceive that somebody has been at work inventing a
+story to do you a mischief, and I think it right that I should tell you.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you must never believe that I shall believe anything to your
+discredit. It would be to my discredit now. I know that you are good,
+and true, and noble, and that you would not do anything so foul as this.
+It is because I know this that I have loved you, and shall always love
+you. Let mamma and others say what they will, you are now to me all the
+world. Oh, Harry, Harry, when I think of it, how serious it seems to me,
+and yet how joyful! I exult in you, and will do so, let them say what
+they may against you. You will be sure of that always. Will you not be
+sure of it?
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you must not write a line in answer, not even to give me your
+assurance. That must come when we shall meet at length,&mdash;say after a
+dozen years or so. I shall tell mamma of this letter, which
+circumstances seem to demand, and shall assure her that you will write
+no answer to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Harry, you will understand all that I might say of my feelings in
+regard to you.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your own, FLORENCE."
+</p>
+<p>
+This letter, when she had written it and copied it fair and posted the
+copy in the pillar-box close by, she found that she could not in any way
+show absolutely to her mother. In spite of all her efforts it had become
+a love-letter. And what genuine love-letter can a girl show even to her
+mother? But she at once told her of what she had done. "Mamma, I have
+written a letter to Harry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, mamma; I have thought it right to tell him what you had heard
+about that night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you have done this without my permission,&mdash;without even telling me
+what you were going to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I had asked you, you would have told me not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I should have told you not. Good gracious! has it come to
+this, that you correspond with a young gentleman without my leave, and
+when you know that I would not have given it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, in this instance it was necessary."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who was to judge of that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If he is to be my husband&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he is not to be your husband. You are never to speak to him again.
+You shall never be allowed to meet him; you shall be taken abroad, and
+there you shall remain, and he shall hear nothing about you. If he
+attempts to correspond with you&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you know?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have told him not to write."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Told him, indeed! Much he will mind such telling! I shall give your
+Uncle Magnus a full account of it all and ask for his advice. He is a
+man in a high position, and perhaps you may think fit to obey him,
+although you utterly refuse to be guided in any way by your mother."
+Then the conversation for the moment came to an end. But Florence, as
+she left her mother, assured herself that she could not promise any
+close obedience in any such matters to Sir Magnus.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH14"><!-- CH14 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THEY ARRIVE IN BRUSSELS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+For some weeks after the party at Mrs. Armitage's house, and the
+subsequent explanations with her mother, Florence was made to suffer
+many things. First came the one week before they started, which was
+perhaps the worst of all. This was specially embittered by the fact that
+Mrs. Mountjoy absolutely refused to divulge her plans as they were made.
+There was still a fortnight before she could be received at Brussels,
+and as to that fortnight she would tell nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her knowledge of human nature probably went so far as to teach her that
+she could thus most torment her daughter. It was not that she wished to
+torment her in a revengeful spirit. She was quite sure within her own
+bosom that she did all in love. She was devoted to her daughter. But she
+was thwarted; and therefore told herself that she could best farther the
+girl's interests by tormenting her. It was not meditated revenge, but
+that revenge which springs up without any meditation, and is often
+therefore the most bitter. "I must bring her nose to the grindstone,"
+was the manner in which she would have probably expressed her thoughts
+to herself. Consequently Florence's nose was brought to the grindstone,
+and the operation made her miserable. She would not, however, complain
+when she had discovered what her mother was doing. She asked such
+questions as appeared to be natural, and put up with replies which
+purposely withheld all information. "Mamma, have you not settled on what
+day we shall start?" "No, my dear." "Mamma, where are we going?" "I
+cannot tell you as yet; I am by no means sure myself." "I shall be glad
+to know, mamma, what I am to pack up for use on the journey." "Just the
+same as you would do on any journey." Then Florence held her tongue, and
+consoled herself with thinking of Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+At last the day came, and she knew that she was to be taken to Boulogne.
+Before this time she had received one letter from Harry, full of love,
+full of thanks,&mdash;just what a lover's letter ought to have been;&mdash;but yet
+she was disturbed by it. It had been delivered to herself in the usual
+way, and she might have concealed the receipt of it from her mother,
+because the servants in the house were all on her side. But this would
+not be in accordance with the conduct which she had arranged for
+herself, and she told her mother. "It is just an acknowledgment of mine
+to him. It was to have been expected, but I regret it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not ask to see it," said Mrs. Mountjoy, angrily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could not show it you, mamma, though I think it right to tell you of
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not ask to see it, I tell you. I never wish to hear his name again
+from your tongue. But I knew how it would be;&mdash;of course. I cannot allow
+this kind of thing to go on. It must be prevented."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will not go on, mamma."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it has gone on. You tell me that he has already written. Do you
+think it proper that you should correspond with a young man of whom I do
+not approve?" Florence endeavored to reflect whether she did think it
+proper or not. She thought it quite proper that she should love Harry
+Annesley with all her heart, but was not quite sure as to the
+correspondence. "At any rate, you must understand," continued Mrs.
+Mountjoy, "that I will not permit it. All letters, while we are abroad,
+must be brought to me; and if any come from him they shall be sent back
+to him. I do not wish to open his letters, but you cannot be allowed to
+receive them. When we are at Brussels I shall consult your uncle upon
+the subject. I am very sorry, Florence, that there should be this cause
+of quarrel between us; but it is your doing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, why should you be so hard?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am hard, because I will not allow you to accept a young man who has,
+I believe, behaved very badly, and who has got nothing of his own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is his uncle's heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We know what that may come to. Mountjoy was his father's heir; and
+nothing could be entailed more strictly than Tretton. We know what
+entails have come to there. Mr. Prosper will find some way of escaping
+from it. Entails go for nothing now; and I hear that he thinks so badly
+of his nephew that he has already quarrelled with him. And he is quite a
+young man himself. I cannot think how you can be so foolish,&mdash;you, who
+declared that you are throwing your cousin over because he is no longer
+to have all his father's property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, that is not true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never allowed it to be said in my name that I was engaged to my
+cousin Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, I will never allow it to be said in my name that with my
+consent you are engaged to Mr. Henry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+Six or seven days after this they were settled together most
+uncomfortably in a hotel at Boulogne. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there
+because there was no other retreat to which she could take her daughter,
+and because she had resolved to remove her from beyond the sphere of
+Harry Annesley's presence. She had at first thought of Ostend; but it
+had seemed to her that Ostend was within the kingdom reigned over by Sir
+Magnus and that there would be some impropriety in removing from thence
+to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning. It was as though you
+were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were
+entertained at the mansion. Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial
+gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her
+being at Boulogne. And for company's sake, in the hope of maintaining
+some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also. "Mamma, he has
+not written again," said Florence, coming up one day from the stand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose that you are impatient."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should there be a quarrel between us? I am not impatient. If you
+would only believe me, it would be so much more happy for both of us.
+You always used to believe me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was before you knew Mr. Harry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something in this very aggravating,&mdash;something specially
+intended to excite angry feelings. But Florence determined to forbear.
+"I think you may believe me, mamma. I am your own daughter, and I shall
+not deceive you. I do consider myself engaged to Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need not tell me that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But while I am living with you I will promise not to receive letters
+from him without your leave. If one should come I will bring it to you,
+unopened, so that you may deal with it as though it had been delivered
+to yourself. I care nothing about my uncle as to this affair. What he
+may say cannot affect me, but what you say does affect me very much. I
+will promise neither to write nor to hear from Mr. Annesley for three
+months. Will not that satisfy you?" Mrs. Mountjoy would not say that it
+did satisfy her; but she somewhat mitigated her treatment of her
+daughter till they arrived together at Sir Magnus's mansion.
+</p>
+<p>
+They were shown through the great hall by three lackeys into an inner
+vestibule, where they encountered the great man himself. He was just
+then preparing to be put on to his horse, and Lady Mountjoy had already
+gone forth in her carriage for her daily airing, with the object, in
+truth, of avoiding the new-comers. "My dear Sarah," said Sir Magnus, "I
+hope I have the pleasure of seeing you and my niece very well. Let me
+see, your name is&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My name is Florence," said the young lady so interrogated.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah yes; to be sure. I shall forget my own name soon. If any one was to
+call me Magnus without the 'Sir,' I shouldn't know whom they meant."
+Then he looked his niece in the face, and it occurred to him that
+Anderson might not improbably desire to flirt with her. Anderson was the
+riding attach&eacute;, who always accompanied him on horseback, and of whom
+Lady Mountjoy had predicted that he would be sure to flirt with the
+minister's niece. At that moment Anderson himself came in, and some
+ceremony of introduction took place. Anderson was a fair-haired,
+good-looking young man, with that thorough look of self-satisfaction and
+conceit which attach&eacute;s are much more wont to exhibit than to deserve.
+For the work of an attach&eacute; at Brussels is not of a nature to bring forth
+the highest order of intellect; but the occupations are of a nature to
+make a young man feel that he is not like other young men.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am so sorry that Lady Mountjoy has just gone out. She did not expect
+you till the later train. You have been staying at Boulogne. What on
+earth made you stay at Boulogne?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bathing," said Mrs. Mountjoy, in a low voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, yes; I suppose so. Why did you not come to Ostend? There is better
+bathing there, and I could have done something for you. What! The horses
+ready, are they? I must go out and show myself, or otherwise they'll all
+think that I am dead. If I were absent from the boulevard at this time
+of day I should be put into the newspapers. Where is Mrs. Richards?"
+Then the two guests, with their own special Baker, were made over to the
+ministerial house-keeper, and Sir Magnus went forth upon his ride.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She's a pretty girl, that niece of mine," said Sir Magnus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncommonly pretty," said the attach&eacute;.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I believe she is engaged to some one. I quite forget who; but I
+know there is some aspirant. Therefore you had better keep your toe in
+your pump, young man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that I shall keep my toe in my pump because there is
+another aspirant," said Anderson. "You rather whet my ardor, sir, to new
+exploits. In such circumstances one is inclined to think that the
+aspirant must look after himself. Not that I conceive for a moment that
+Miss Mountjoy should ever look after me."
+</p>
+<p>
+When Mrs. Mountjoy came down to the drawing-room there seemed to be
+quite "a party" collected to enjoy the hospitality of Sir Magnus, but
+there were not, in truth, many more than the usual number at the board.
+There were Lady Mountjoy, and Miss Abbot, and Mr. Anderson, with Mr.
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, the two attach&eacute;s. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+especially proud of his name, but was otherwise rather a humble young
+man as an attach&eacute;, having as yet been only three months with Sir Magnus,
+and desirous of perfecting himself in Foreign Office manners under the
+tuition of Mr. Anderson. Mr. Blow, Secretary of Legation, was not there.
+He was a married man of austere manners, who, to tell the truth, looked
+down from a considerable height, as regarded Foreign Office knowledge,
+upon his chief.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Mr. Blow who did the "grinding" on behalf of the Belgian
+Legation, and who sometimes did not hesitate to let it be known that
+such was the fact. Neither he nor Mrs. Blow was popular at the Embassy;
+or it may, perhaps, be said with more truth that the Embassy was not
+popular with Mr. and Mrs. Blow. It may be stated, also, that there was a
+clerk attached to the establishment, Mr. Bunderdown, who had been there
+for some years, and who was good-naturedly regarded by the English
+inhabitants as a third attach&eacute;. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot did his best to
+let it be understood that this was a mistake. In the small affairs of
+the legation, which no doubt did not go beyond the legation, Mr.
+Bunderdown generally sided with Mr. Blow. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+recognized as a second mounted attach&eacute;, though his attendance on the
+boulevard was not as constant as that of Mr. Anderson, in consequence,
+probably, of the fact that he had not a horse of his own. But there were
+others also present. There were Sir Thomas Tresham, with his wife, who
+had been sent over to inquire into the iron trade of Belgium. He was a
+learned free-trader who could not be got to agree with the old familiar
+views of Sir Magnus,&mdash;who thought that the more iron that was produced in
+Belgium the less would be forthcoming from England. But Sir Thomas knew
+better, and as Sir Magnus was quite unable to hold his own with the
+political economist, he gave him many dinners and was civil to his wife.
+Sir Thomas, no doubt, felt that in doing so Sir Magnus did all that
+could be expected from him. Lady Tresham was a quiet little woman, who
+could endure to be patronized by Lady Mountjoy without annoyance. And
+there was M. Grascour, from the Belgian Foreign Office, who spoke
+English so much better than the other gentlemen present that a stranger
+might have supposed him to be a school-master whose mission it was to
+instruct the English Embassy in their own language.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mrs Mountjoy, I am so ashamed of myself!" said Lady Mountjoy, as
+she waddled into the room two minutes after the guests had been
+assembled. She had a way of waddling that was quite her own, and which
+they who knew her best declared that she had adopted in lieu of other
+graces of manner. She puffed a little also, and did contrive to attract
+peculiar attention. "But I have to be in my carriage every day at the
+same hour. I don't know what would be thought of us if we were absent."
+Then she turned, with a puff and a waddle, to Miss Abbot. "Dear Lady
+Tresham was with us." Mrs. Mountjoy murmured something as to her
+satisfaction at not having delayed the carriage-party, and bethought
+herself how exactly similar had been the excuse made by Sir Magnus
+himself. Then Lady Mountjoy gave another little puff, and assured
+Florence that she hoped she would find Brussels sufficiently gay,&mdash;"not
+that we pretend at all to equal Paris."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We live at Cheltenham," said Florence, "and that is not at all like
+Paris. Indeed, I never slept but two nights at Paris in my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we shall do very well at Brussels." After this she waddled off
+again, and was stopped in her waddling by Sir Magnus, who sternly
+desired her to prepare for the august ceremony of going in to dinner.
+The one period of real importance at the English Embassy was, no doubt,
+the daily dinner-hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence found herself seated between Mr. Anderson, who had taken her
+in, and M. Grascour, who had performed the same ceremony for her
+ladyship. "I am sure you will like this little capital very much," said
+M. Grascour. "It is as much nicer than Paris as it is smaller and less
+pretentious." Florence could only assent. "You will soon be able to
+learn something of us; but in Paris you must be to the manner born, or
+half a lifetime will not suffice."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll put you up to the time of day," said Mr. Anderson, who did not
+choose, as he said afterward, that this tidbit should be taken out of
+his mouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say that all that I shall want will come naturally without any
+putting up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You won't find it amiss to know a little of what's what. You have not
+got a riding-horse here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was going on to say that I can manage to secure one for you.
+Billibong has got an excellent horse that carried the Princess of Styria
+last year." Mr. Anderson was supposed to be peculiarly up to everything
+concerning horses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I have not got a habit. That is a much more serious affair."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes. Billibong does not keep habits: I wish he did. But we can
+manage that too. There does live a habit-maker in Brussels."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ladies' habits certainly are made in Brussels," said M. Grascour. "But
+if Miss Mountjoy does not choose to trust a Belgian tailor there is the
+railway open to her. An English habit can be sent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear Lady Centaur had one sent to her only last year, when she was
+staying here," said Lady Mountjoy across her neighbor, with two little
+puffs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall not at all want the habit," said Florence, "not having the
+horse, and indeed, never being accustomed to ride at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do tell me what it is that you do do," said Mr. Anderson, with a
+convenient whisper, when he found that M. Grascour had fallen into
+conversation with her ladyship. "Lawn-tennis?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do play at lawn-tennis, though I am not wedded to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Billiards? I know you play billiards."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never struck a ball in my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Goodness gracious, how odd! Don't you ever amuse yourself at all? Are
+they so very devotional down at Cheltenham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose we are stupid. I don't know that I ever do especially amuse
+myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We must teach you;&mdash;we really must teach you. I think I may boast of
+myself that I am a good instructor in that line. Will you promise to put
+yourself into my hands?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will find me a most unpromising pupil."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. I will undertake that when you leave this you shall
+be <i>au fait</i> at everything. Leap frog is not too heavy for me and
+spillikins not too light. I am up to them all, from backgammon to a
+cotillon,&mdash;not but what I prefer the cotillon for my own taste."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or leap-frog, perhaps," suggested Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; leap-frog used to be a good game at Gother School, and I
+don't see why we shouldn't have it back again. Ladies, of course, must
+have a costume on purpose. But I am fond of anything that requires a
+costume. Don't you like everything out of the common way? I do."
+Florence assured him that their tastes were wholly dissimilar, as she
+liked everything in the common way. "That's what I call an uncommonly
+pretty girl," he said afterward to M. Grascour, while Sir Magnus was
+talking to Sir Thomas. "What an eye!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed; she is very lovely."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My word, you may say that! And such a turn of the shoulders! I don't
+say which are the best-looking, as a rule, English or Belgians, but
+there are very few of either to come up to her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anderson, can you tell us how many tons of steel rails they turn out at
+Liege every week? Sir Thomas asks me, just as though it were the
+simplest question in the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forty million," said Anderson,&mdash;"more or less."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Twenty thousand would, perhaps, be nearer the mark," said M. Grascour;
+"but I will send him the exact amount to-morrow."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH15"><!-- CH15 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. ANDERSON'S LOVE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Lady Mountjoy had certainly prophesied the truth when she said that Mr.
+Anderson would devote himself to Florence. The first week in Brussels
+passed by quietly enough. A young man can hardly declare his passion
+within a week, and Mr. Anderson's ways in that particular were well
+known. A certain amount of license was usually given to him, both by Sir
+Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and when he would become remarkable by the
+rapidity of his changes the only adverse criticism would come generally
+from Mr. Blow. "Another peerless Bird of Paradise," Mr. Blow would say.
+"If the birds were less numerous, Anderson might, perhaps, do
+something." But at the end of the week, on this occasion, even Sir
+Magnus perceived that Anderson was about to make himself peculiar.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By George!" he said one morning, when Sir Magnus had just left the
+outer office, which he had entered with the object of giving some
+instruction as to the day's ride, "take her altogether, I never saw a
+girl so fit as Miss Mountjoy." There was something very remarkable in
+this speech, as, according to his usual habit of life, Anderson would
+certainly have called her Florence, whereas his present appellation
+showed an unwonted respect.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean when you say that a young lady is fit?" said Mr. Blow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean that she is right all round, which is a great deal more than can
+be said of most of them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The divine Florence&mdash;" began Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot, struggling to
+say something funny.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young man, you had better hold your tongue, and not talk of young
+ladies in that language."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do believe that he is going to fall in love," said Mr. Blow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say that Miss Mountjoy is the fittest girl I have seen for many a
+day; and when a young puppy calls her the divine Florence, he does not
+know what he is about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why didn't you blow Mr. Blow up when he called her a Bird of Paradise?"
+said Montgomery Arbuthnot. "Divine Florence is not half so disrespectful
+of a young lady as Bird of Paradise. Divine Florence means divine
+Florence, but Bird of Paradise is chaff."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Blow, as a married man," said Anderson, "has a certain freedom
+allowed him. If he uses it in bad taste, the evil falls back upon his
+own head. Now, if you please, we'll change the conversation." From this
+it will be seen that Mr. Anderson had really fallen in love with Miss
+Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+But though the week had passed in a harmless way to Sir Magnus and Lady
+Mountjoy,&mdash;in a harmless way to them as regarded their niece and their
+attach&eacute;,&mdash;a certain amount of annoyance had, no doubt, been felt by
+Florence herself. Though Mr. Anderson's expressions of admiration had
+been more subdued than usual, though he had endeavored to whisper his
+love rather than to talk it out loud, still the admiration had been both
+visible and audible, and especially so to Florence herself. It was
+nothing to Sir Magnus with whom his attach&eacute; flirted. Anderson was the
+younger son of a baronet who had a sickly elder brother, and some
+fortune of his own. If he chose to marry the girl, that would be well
+for her; and if not, it would be quite well that the young people should
+amuse themselves. He expected Anderson to help to put him on his horse,
+and to ride with him at the appointed hour. He, in return, gave Anderson
+his dinner and as much wine as he chose to drink. They were both
+satisfied with each other, and Sir Magnus did not choose to interfere
+with the young man's amusements. But Florence did not like being the
+subject of a young man's love-making, and complained to her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, it had come to pass that not a word had been said as to Harry
+Annesley since the mother and daughter had reached Brussels. Mrs.
+Mountjoy had declared that she would consult her brother-in-law in that
+difficulty, but no such consultation had as yet taken place. Indeed,
+Florence would not have found her sojourn at Brussels to be unpleasant
+were it not for Mr. Anderson's unpalatable little whispers. She had
+taken them as jokes as long as she had been able to do so, but was now
+at last driven to perceive that other people would not do so. "Mamma,"
+she said, "don't you think that that Mr. Anderson is an odious young
+man?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, my dear, by no means. What is there odious about him? He is very
+lively; he is the second son of Sir Gregory Anderson, and has very
+comfortable means of his own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, what does that signify?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, my dear, it does signify. In the first place, he is a gentleman,
+and in the next, has a right to make himself attentive to any young lady
+in your position. I don't say anything more. I am not particularly
+wedded to Mr. Anderson. If he were to come to me and ask for my
+permission to address you, I should simply refer him to yourself, by
+which I should mean to imply that if he could contrive to recommend
+himself to you I should not refuse my sanction."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the subject for that moment dropped, but Florence was astonished to
+find that her mother could talk about it, not only without reference to
+Harry Annesley, but also without an apparent thought of Mountjoy
+Scarborough; and it was distressing to her to think that her mother
+should pretend to feel that she, her own daughter, should be free to
+receive the advances of another suitor. As she reflected it came across
+her mind that Harry was so odious that her mother would have been
+willing to accept on her behalf any suitor who presented himself, even
+though her daughter, in accepting him, should have proved herself to be
+heartless. Any alternative would have been better to her mother than
+that choice to which Florence had determined to devote her whole life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma," she said, going back to the subject on the next day, "if I am
+to stay here for three weeks longer&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, my dear, you are to stay here for three weeks longer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then somebody must say something to Mr. Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not see who can say it but you yourself. As far as I can see, he
+has not misbehaved."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you would speak to my uncle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What am I to tell him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That I am engaged."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He would ask me to whom, and I cannot tell him. I should then be driven
+to put the whole case in his hands, and to ask his advice. You do not
+suppose that I am going to say that you are engaged to marry that odious
+young man? All the world knows how atrociously badly he has behaved to
+your own cousin. He left him lying for dead in the street by a blow from
+his own hand; and though from that day to this nothing has been heard of
+Mountjoy, nothing is known to the police of what may have been his
+fate;&mdash;even stranger, he may have perished under the usage which he
+received, yet Mr. Annesley has not thought it right to say a word of
+what had occurred. He has not dared even to tell an inspector of police
+the events of that night. And the young man was your own cousin, to whom
+you were known to have been promised for the last two years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, no!" said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say that it was so. You were promised to your cousin, Mountjoy
+Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not with my own consent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All your friends,&mdash;your natural friends,&mdash;knew that it was to be so. And
+now you expect me to take by the hand this young man who has almost been
+his murderer!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, mamma, it is not true. You do not know the circumstances, and you
+assert things which are directly at variance with the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"From whom do you get your information? From the young man himself. Is
+that likely to be true? What would Sir Magnus say as to that were I to
+tell him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know what he would say, but I do know what is the truth. And
+can you think it possible that I should now be willing to accept this
+foolish young man in order thus to put an end to my embarrassments?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Then she left her mother's room, and, retreating to her own, sat for a
+couple of hours thinking, partly in anger and partly in grief, of the
+troubles of her situation. Her mother had now, in truth, frightened her
+as to Harry's position. She did begin to see what men might say of him,
+and the way in which they might speak of his silence, though she was
+resolved to be as true to him in her faith as ever. Some exertion of
+spirit would, indeed, be necessary. She was beginning to understand in
+what way the outside world might talk of Harry Annesley, of the man to
+whom she had given herself and her whole heart. Then her mother was
+right. And as she thought of it she began to justify her mother. It was
+natural that her mother should believe the story which had been told to
+her, let it have come from where it might. There was in her mind some
+suspicion of the truth. She acknowledged a great animosity to her cousin
+Augustus, and regarded him as one of the causes of her unhappiness. But
+she knew nothing of the real facts; she did not even suspect that
+Augustus had seen his brother after Harry had dealt with him, or that he
+was responsible for his brother's absence. But she knew that she
+disliked him, and in some way she connected his name with Harry's
+misfortune.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of one thing she was certain: let them,&mdash;the Mountjoys, and Prospers, and
+the rest of the world,&mdash;think and say what they would of Harry, she would
+be true to him. She could understand that his character might be made to
+suffer, but it should not suffer in her estimation. Or rather, let it
+suffer ever so, that should not affect her love and her truth. She did
+not say this to herself. By saying it even to herself she would have
+committed some default of truth. She did not whisper it even to her own
+heart. But within her heart there was a feeling that, let Harry be right
+or wrong in what he had done, even let it be proved, to the satisfaction
+of all the world, that he had sinned grievously when he had left the man
+stunned and bleeding on the pavement,&mdash;for to such details her mother's
+story had gone,&mdash;still, to her he should be braver, more noble, more
+manly, more worthy of being loved, than was any other man. She,
+perceiving the difficulties that were in store for her, and looking
+forward to the misfortune under which Harry might be placed, declared to
+herself that he should at least have one friend who would be true to
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Mountjoy, I have come to you with a message from your aunt." This
+was said, three or four days after the conversation between Florence and
+her mother, by Mr. Anderson, who had contrived to follow the young lady
+into a small drawing-room after luncheon. What was the nature of the
+message it is not necessary for us to know. We may be sure that it had
+been manufactured by Mr. Anderson for the occasion. He had looked about
+and spied, and had discovered that Miss Mountjoy was alone in the little
+room. And in thus spying we consider him to have been perfectly
+justified. His business at the moment was that of making love, a
+business which is allowed to override all other considerations. Even the
+making an office copy of a report made by Mr. Blow for the signature of
+Sir Magnus might, according to our view of life, have been properly laid
+aside for such a purpose. When a young man has it in him to make love to
+a young lady, and is earnest in his intention, no duty, however
+paramount, should be held as a restraint. Such was Mr. Anderson's
+intention at the present moment; and therefore we think that he was
+justified in concocting a message from Lady Mountjoy. The business of
+love-making warrants any concoction to which the lover may resort. "But
+oh, Miss Mountjoy, I am so glad to have a moment in which I can find you
+alone!" It must be understood that the amorous young gentleman had not
+yet been acquainted with the young lady for quite a fortnight.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was just about to go up-stairs to my mother," said Florence, rising
+to leave the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, bother your mother! I beg her pardon and yours;&mdash;I really didn't
+mean it. There is such a lot of chaff going on in that outer room, that
+a fellow falls into the way of it whether he likes it or no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My mother won't mind it at all; but I really must go."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no. I am sure you can wait for five minutes. I don't want to keep
+you for more than five minutes. But it is so hard for a fellow to get an
+opportunity to say a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What words can you want to say to me, Mr. Anderson?" This she said with
+a look of great surprise, as though utterly unable to imagine what was
+to follow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I did hope that you might have some idea of what my feelings
+are."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haven't you, now? I suppose I am bound to believe you, though I doubt
+whether I quite do. Pray excuse me for saying this, but it is best to be
+open." Florence felt that he ought to be excused for doubting her, as
+she did know very well what was coming. "I&mdash;I&mdash;Come, then; I love you!
+If I were to go on beating about the bush for twelve months I could only
+come to the same conclusion."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps you might then have considered it better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. Fancy considering such a thing as that for twelve
+months before you speak of it! I couldn't do it,&mdash;not for twelve days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I perceive, Mr. Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, isn't it best to speak the truth when you're quite sure of it? If
+I were to remain dumb for three months, how should I know but what some
+one else might come in the way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you can't expect that I should be so sudden?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just where it is. Of course I don't. And yet girls have to be
+sudden too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have they?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"They're expected to be ready with their answer as soon as they're
+asked. I don't say this by way of impertinence, but merely to show that
+I have some justification. Of course, if you like to say that you must
+take a week to think of it, I am prepared for that. Only let me tell my
+own story first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You shall tell your own story, Mr. Anderson; but I am afraid that it
+can be to no purpose."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't say that,&mdash;pray, don't say that,&mdash;but do let me tell it." Then he
+paused; but, as she remained silent, after a moment he resumed the
+eloquence of his appeal. "By George! Miss Mountjoy, I have been so
+struck of a heap that I do not know whether I am standing on my head or
+my heels. You have knocked me so completely off my pins that I am not at
+all like the same person. Sir Magnus himself says that he never saw such
+a difference. I only say that to show that I am quite in earnest. Now I
+am not quite like a fellow that has no business to fall in love with a
+girl. I have four hundred a year besides my place in the Foreign Office.
+And then, of course, there are chances." In this he alluded to his
+brother's failing health, of which he could not explain the details to
+Miss Mountjoy on the present occasion. "I don't mean to say that this is
+very splendid, or that it is half what I should like to lay at your
+feet. But a competence is comfortable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Money has nothing to do with it, Mr. Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What, then? Perhaps it is that you don't like a fellow. What girls
+generally do like is devotion, and, by George, you'd have that. The very
+ground that you tread upon is sweet to me. For beauty,&mdash;I don't know how
+it is, but to my taste there is no one I ever saw at all like you. You
+fit me&mdash;well, as though you were made for me. I know that another fellow
+might say it a deal better, but no one more truly. Miss Mountjoy, I
+love you with all my heart, and I want you to be my wife. Now you've got
+it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+He had not pleaded his cause badly, and so Florence felt. That he had
+pleaded it hopelessly was a matter of course. But he had given rise to
+feelings of gentle regard rather than of anger. He had been honest, and
+had contrived to make her believe him. He did not come up to her ideal
+of what a lover should be, but he was nearer to it than Mountjoy
+Scarborough. He had touched her so closely that she determined at once
+to tell him the truth, thinking that she might best in this way put an
+end to his passion forever. "Mr. Anderson," she said, "though I have
+known it to be vain, I have thought it best to listen to you, because
+you asked it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure I am awfully obliged to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I ought to thank you for the kind feeling you have expressed to me.
+Indeed, I do thank you. I believe every word you have said. It is better
+to show my confidence in your truth than to pretend to the humility of
+thinking you untrue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is true; it is true,&mdash;every word of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I am engaged." Then it was sad to see the thorough change which
+came over the young man's face. "Of course a girl does not talk of her
+own little affairs to strangers, or I would let you have known this
+before, so as to have prevented it. But, in truth, I am engaged."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does Sir Magnus know it, or Lady Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does your mother?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now you are taking advantage of my confidence, and pressing your
+questions too closely. But my mother does know of it. I will tell you
+more;&mdash;she does not approve of it. But it is fixed in Heaven itself. It
+may well be that I shall never be able to marry the gentleman to whom I
+allude, but most certainly I shall marry no one else. I have told you
+this because it seems to be necessary to your welfare, so that you may
+get over this passing feeling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is no passing feeling," said Anderson, with some tragic grandeur.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, you have now my story, and remember that it is trusted to
+you as a gentleman. I have told it you for a purpose." Then she walked
+out of the room, leaving the poor young man in temporary despair.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH16"><!-- CH16 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XVI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. AND MISS GREY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It was now the middle of October, and it may be said that from the time
+in which old Mr. Scarborough had declared his intention of showing that
+the elder of his sons had no right to the property, Mr. Grey, the
+lawyer, had been so occupied with the Scarborough affairs as to have had
+left him hardly a moment for other considerations.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had a partner, who during these four months had, in fact, carried on
+the business. One difficulty had grown out of another till Mr. Grey's
+whole time had been occupied; and all his thoughts had been filled with
+Mr. Scarborough, which is a matter of much greater moment to a man than
+the loss of his time. The question of Mountjoy Scarborough's position
+had been first submitted to him in June. October had now been reached
+and Mr. Grey had been out of town only for a fortnight, during which
+fortnight he had been occupied entirely in unravelling the mystery. He
+had at first refused altogether to have anything to do with the
+unravelling, and had desired that some other lawyer might be employed.
+But it had gradually come to pass that he had entered heart and soul
+into the case, and, with many execrations on his own part against Mr.
+Scarborough, could find a real interest in nothing else. He had begun
+his investigations with a thorough wish to discover that Mountjoy
+Scarborough was, in truth, the heir. Though he had never loved the young
+man, and, as he went on with his investigations, became aware that the
+whole property would go to the creditors should he succeed in proving
+that Mountjoy was the heir, yet for the sake of abstract honesty he was
+most anxious that it should be so. And he could not bear to think that
+he and other lawyers had been taken in by the wily craft of such a man
+as the Squire of Tretton. It went thoroughly against the grain with him
+to have to acknowledge that the estate would become the property of
+Augustus. But it was so, and he did acknowledge it. It was proved to him
+that, in spite of all the evidence which he had hitherto seen in the
+matter, the squire had not married his wife until after the birth of his
+eldest son. He did acknowledge it, and he said bravely that it must be
+so. Then there came down upon him a crowd of enemies in the guise of
+baffled creditors, all of whom believed, or professed to believe, that
+he, Mr. Grey, was in league with the squire to rob them of their rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+If it could be proved that Mountjoy had no claim to the property, then
+would it go nominally to Augustus, who according to their showing was
+also one of the confederates, and the property could thus, they said, be
+divided. Very shortly the squire would be dead, and then the
+confederates would get everything, to the utter exclusion of poor Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and poor Mr. Samuel Hart, and all the other poor creditors,
+who would thus be denuded, defrauded, and robbed by a lawyer's trick. It
+was in this spirit that Mr. Grey was attacked by Mr. Tyrrwhit and the
+others; and Mr. Grey found it very hard to bear.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then there was another matter which was also very grievous to him.
+If it were as he now stated,&mdash;if the squire had been guilty of this
+fraud,&mdash;to what punishment would he be subjected? Mountjoy was declared
+to have been innocent. Mr. Tyrrwhit, as he put the case to his own
+lawyers, laughed bitterly as he made this suggestion. And Augustus was,
+of course, innocent. Then there was renewed laughter. And Mr. Grey! Mr.
+Grey had, of course, been innocent. Then the laughter was very loud. Was
+it to be believed that anybody could be taken in by such a story as
+this? There was he, Mr. Tyrrwhit: he had ever been known as a sharp
+fellow; and Mr. Samuel Hart, who was now away on his travels, and the
+others;&mdash;they were all of them sharp fellows. Was it to be believed that
+such a set of gentlemen, so keenly alive to their own interest, should
+be made the victims of such a trick as this? Not if they knew it! Not if
+Mr. Tyrrwhit knew it!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was in this shape that the matter reached Mr. Grey's ears; and then
+it was asked, if it were so, what would be the punishment to which they
+would be subjected who had defrauded Mr. Tyrrwhit of his just claim. Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, who on one occasion made his way into Mr. Grey's presence,
+wished to get an answer to that question from Mr. Grey. "The man is
+dying," said Mr. Grey, solemnly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dying! He is not more likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At
+this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the
+creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there
+had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of
+almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill at all," said Mr.
+Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot help your belief," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But because a man doesn't die and recovers, is he on that account to be
+allowed to cheat people, as he has cheated me, with impunity?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not going to defend Mr. Scarborough; but he has not, in fact,
+cheated you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who has? Come; do you mean to tell me that if this goes on I shall not
+have been defrauded of a hundred thousand pounds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you ever see Mr. Scarborough on the matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; it was not necessary."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or have you got his writing to any document? Have you anything to show
+that he knew what his son was doing when he borrowed money of you? Is it
+not perfectly clear that he knew nothing about it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he knew nothing about it then,&mdash;at that time. It was afterward
+that his fraud began. When he found that the estate was in jeopardy,
+then the falsehood was concocted."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, there, Mr. Tyrrwhit, I can only say, that I disagree with you. I
+must express my opinion that if you endeavor to recover your money on
+that plea you will be beaten. If you can prove fraud of that kind, no
+doubt you can punish those who have been guilty of it,&mdash;me among the
+number."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say nothing of that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you have been led into your present difficulty by an illegal
+attempt on the part of my client to prove an illegitimate son to have
+been legitimate, and then to have changed his mind for certain purposes,
+I do not see how you are to punish him. The act will have been attempted
+and not completed. And it will have been an act concerning his son and
+not concerning you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not concerning me!" shrieked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not, legally. You are not in a position to prove that he knew
+that his son was borrowing money from you on the credit of the estate.
+As a fact he certainly did not know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We shall see about that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you must see about it, but not with my aid. As a fact I am telling
+you all that I know about it. If I could I would prove Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be his father's heir to-morrow. Indeed, I am altogether
+on your side in the matter,&mdash;if you would believe it." Here Mr. Tyrrwhit
+again laughed. "But you will not believe it, and I do not ask you to do
+so. As it is we must be opposed to each other."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where is the young man?" asked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, that is a question I am not bound to answer, even if I knew. It is
+a matter on which I say nothing. You have lent him money, at an
+exorbitant rate of interest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is not true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate it seems so to me; and it is out of the question that I
+should assist you in recovering it. You did it at your own peril, and
+not on my advice. Good-morning, Mr. Tyrrwhit." Then Mr. Tyrrwhit went
+his way, not without sundry threats as to the whole Scarborough family.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was very hard upon Mr. Grey, because he certainly was an honest man
+and had taken up the matter simply with a view of learning the truth. It
+had been whispered to him within the last day or two that Mountjoy
+Scarborough had lately been seen alive, and gambling with reckless
+prodigality, at Monte Carlo. It had only been told to him as probably
+true, but he certainly believed it. But he knew nothing of the details
+of his disappearance, and had not been much surprised, as he had never
+believed that the young man had been murdered or had made away with
+himself. But he had heard before that of the quarrel in the street
+between him and Harry Annesley; and the story had been told to him so as
+to fall with great discredit on Harry Annesley's head.
+</p>
+<p>
+According to that story Harry Annesley had struck his foe during the
+night and had left him for dead upon the pavement. Then Mountjoy
+Scarborough had been missing, and Harry Annesley had told no one of the
+quarrel. There had been some girl in question. So much and no more Mr.
+Grey had heard, and was, of course, inclined to think that Harry
+Annesley must have behaved very badly. But of the mode of Mountjoy's
+subsequent escape he had heard nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey at this time was living down at Fulham, in a small,
+old-fashioned house which over-looked the river, and was called the
+Manor-house. He would have said that it was his custom to go home every
+day by an omnibus, but he did, in truth, almost always remain at his
+office so late as to make it necessary that he should return by a cab.
+He was a man fairly well to do in the world, as he had no one depending
+on him but one daughter,&mdash;no one, that is to say, whom he was obliged to
+support. But he had a married sister with a scapegrace husband and six
+daughters whom, in fact, he did support. Mrs. Carroll, with the kindest
+intentions in the world, had come and lived near him. She had taken a
+genteel house in Bolsover Terrace,&mdash;a genteel new house on the Fulham
+Road, about a quarter of a mile from her brother. Mr. Grey lived in the
+old Manor-house, a small, uncomfortable place, which had a nook of its
+own, close upon the water, and with a lovely little lawn. It was
+certainly most uncomfortable as a gentleman's residence, but no
+consideration would induce Mr. Grey to sell it. There were but two
+sitting-rooms in it, and one was for the most part uninhabited. The
+up-stairs drawing-room was furnished, but any one with half an eye could
+see that it was never used. A "stray" caller might be shown up there,
+but callers of that class were very uncommon in Mr. Grey's
+establishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+With his own domestic arrangements Mr. Grey would have been quite
+contented, had it not been for Mrs. Carroll. It was now some years since
+he had declared that though Mr. Carroll,&mdash;or Captain Carroll, as he had
+then been called,&mdash;was an improvident, worthless, drunken Irishman, he
+would never see his sister want. The consequence was that Carroll had
+come with his wife and six daughters and taken a house close to him.
+There are such "whips and scorns" in the world to which a man shall be
+so subject as to have the whole tenor of his life changed by them. The
+hero bears them heroically, making no complaints to those around him.
+The common man shrinks, and squeals, and cringes, so that he is known to
+those around him as one especially persecuted. In this respect Mr. Grey
+was a grand hero. When he spoke to his friends of Mrs. Carroll his
+friends were taught to believe that his outside arrangements with his
+sister were perfectly comfortable. No doubt there did creep out among
+those who were most intimate with him a knowledge that Mr. Carroll,&mdash;for
+the captain had, in truth, never been more than a lieutenant, and had
+now long since sold out,&mdash;was impecunious, and a trouble rather than
+otherwise. But I doubt whether there was a single inhabitant of the
+neighborhood of Fulham who was aware that Mrs. Carroll and the Miss
+Carrolls cost Mr. Grey on an average above six hundred a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was one in Mr. Grey's family to whom he was so attached that he
+would, to oblige her, have thrown over the whole Carroll family; but of
+this that one person would not hear. She hated the whole Carroll family
+with an almost unholy hatred, of which she herself was endeavoring to
+repent daily, but in vain. She could not do other than hate them, but
+she could do other than allow her father to withdraw his fostering
+protection; for this one person was Mr. Grey's only daughter and his one
+close domestic associate. Miss Dorothy Grey was known well to all the
+neighborhood, and was both feared and revered. As we shall have much to
+do with her in the telling of our story, it may be well to make her
+stand plainly before the reader's eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the first place, it must be understood that she was motherless,
+brotherless and sisterless. She had been Mr. Grey's only child, and her
+mother had been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. She was now about
+thirty years of age, but was generally regarded as ranging somewhere
+between forty and fifty. "If she isn't nearer fifty than forty I'll eat
+my old shoes," said a lady in the neighborhood to a gentleman. "I've
+known her these twenty years, and she's not altered in the least." As
+Dolly Grey had been only ten twenty years ago, the lady must have been
+wrong. But it is singular how a person's memory of things may be created
+out of their present appearances. Dorothy herself had apparently no
+desire to set right this erroneous opinion which the neighborhood
+entertained respecting her. She did not seem to care whether she was
+supposed to be thirty, or forty, or fifty. Of youth, as a means of
+getting lovers, she entertained a profound contempt. That no lover would
+ever come she was assured, and would not at all have known what to do
+with one had he come. The only man for whom she had ever felt the
+slightest regard was her father. For some women about she did entertain
+a passionless, well-regulated affection, but they were generally the
+poor, the afflicted, or the aged. It was, however, always necessary that
+the person so signalized should be submissive. Now, Mrs. Carroll, Mr.
+Grey's sister, had long since shown that she was not submissive enough,
+nor were the girls, the eldest of whom was a pert, ugly, well-grown
+minx, now about eighteen years old. The second sister, who was
+seventeen, was supposed to be a beauty, but which of the two was the
+more odious in the eyes of their cousin it would be impossible to say.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Dorothy Grey was Dolly only to her father. Had any one else so
+ventured to call her she would have started up at once, the outraged
+aged female of fifty. Even her aunt, who was trouble enough to her, felt
+that it could not be so. Her uncle tried it once, and she declined to
+come into his presence for a month, letting it be fully understood that
+she had been insulted.
+</p>
+<p>
+And yet she was not, according to my idea, by any means an ill-favored
+young woman. It is true that she wore spectacles; and, as she always
+desired to have her eyes about with her, she never put them off when out
+of bed. But how many German girls do the like, and are not accounted for
+that reason to be plain? She was tall and well-made, we may almost say
+robust. She had the full use of all her limbs, and was never ashamed of
+using them. I think she was wrong when she would be seen to wheel the
+barrow about the garden, and that her hands must have suffered in her
+attempts to live down the conventional absurdities of the world. It is
+true that she did wear gloves during her gardening, but she wore them
+only in obedience to her father's request. She had bright eyes, somewhat
+far apart, and well-made, wholesome, regular features. Her nose was
+large, and her mouth was large, but they were singularly intelligent,
+and full of humor when she was pleased in conversation. As to her hair,
+she was too indifferent to enable one to say that it was attractive; but
+it was smoothed twice a day, was very copious, and always very clean.
+Indeed, for cleanliness from head to foot she was a model. "She is very
+clean, but then it's second to nothing to her," had said a sarcastic old
+lady, who had meant to imply that Miss Dorothy Grey was not constant at
+church. But the sarcastic old lady had known nothing about it. Dorothy
+Grey never stayed away from morning church unless her presence was
+desired by her father, and for once or twice that she might do so she
+would take her father with her three or four times,&mdash;against the grain
+with him, it must be acknowledged.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the most singular attribute of the lady's appearance has still to be
+mentioned. She always wore a slouch hat, which from motives of propriety
+she called her bonnet, which gave her a singular appearance, as though
+it had been put on to thatch her entirely from the weather. It was made
+generally of black straw, and was round, equal at all points of the
+circle, and was fastened with broad brown ribbons. It was supposed in
+the neighborhood to be completely weather-tight.
+</p>
+<p>
+The unimaginative nature of Fulham did not allow the Fulham mind to
+gather in the fact that, at the same time, she might possess two or
+three such hats. But they were undoubtedly precisely similar, and she
+would wear them in London with exactly the same indifference as in the
+comparatively rural neighborhood of her own residence. She would, in
+truth, go up and down in the omnibus, and would do so alone, without the
+slightest regard to the opinion of any of her neighbors. The Carroll
+girls would laugh at her behind her back, but no Carroll girl had been
+seen ever to smile before her face, instigated to do so by their
+cousin's vagaries.
+</p>
+<p>
+But I have not yet mentioned that attribute of Miss Grey's which is,
+perhaps, the most essential in her character. It is necessary, at any
+rate, that they should know it who wish to understand her nature. When
+it had once been brought home to her that duty required her to do this
+thing or the other, or to say this word or another, the thing would be
+done or the word said, let the result be what it might. Even to the
+displeasure of her father the word was said or the thing was done. Such
+a one was Dolly Grey.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH17"><!-- CH17 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XVII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. GREY DINES AT HOME.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey returned home in a cab on the day of Mr. Tyrrwhit's visit, not
+in the happiest humor. Though he had got the best of Mr. Tyrrwhit in the
+conversation, still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed
+him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which
+he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not
+expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you
+you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it
+impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a
+thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a
+tone of voice as to make you understand that he conceives you to be
+both. We all know the parliamentary mode of giving an opponent the lie
+so as to make it impossible that the Speaker shall interfere.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had treated Mr. Grey in the same fashion; and as Mr. Grey
+was irritable, thin-skinned, and irascible, and as he would brood over
+things of which it was quite unnecessary that a lawyer should take any
+cognizance, he went back home an unhappy man. Indeed, the whole
+Scarborough affair had been from first to last a great trouble to him.
+The work which he was now performing could not, he imagined, be put into
+his bill. To that he was supremely indifferent; but his younger partner
+thought it a little hard that all the other work of the firm should be
+thrown on his shoulders during the period which naturally would have
+been his holidays, and he did make his feelings intelligible to Mr.
+Grey. Mr. Grey, who was essentially a just man, saw that his partner was
+right, and made offers, but he would not accede to the only proposition
+which his partner made. "Let him go and look for a lawyer elsewhere,"
+said his partner. They both of them knew that Mr. Scarborough had been
+thoroughly dishonest, but he had been an old client. His father before
+him had been a client of Mr. Grey's father. It was not in accordance
+with Mr. Grey's theory to treat the old man after this fashion. And he
+had taken intense interest in the matter. He had, first of all, been
+quite sure that Mountjoy Scarborough was the heir; and though Mountjoy
+Scarborough was not at all to his taste, he had been prepared to fight
+for him. He had now assured himself, after most laborious inquiry, that
+Augustus Scarborough was the heir; and although, in the course of the
+business, he had come to hate the cautious, money-loving Augustus twice
+worse than the gambling spendthrift Mountjoy, still, in the cause of
+honesty and truth and justice, he fought for Augustus against the world
+at large, and against the band of creditors, till the world at large and
+the band of creditors began to think that he was leagued with
+Augustus,&mdash;so as to be one of those who would make large sums of money
+out of the irregularity of the affair. This made him cross, and put him
+into a very bad humor as he went back to Fulham.
+</p>
+<p>
+One thing must be told of Mr. Grey which was very much to his discredit,
+and which, if generally known, would have caused his clients to think
+him to be unfit to be the recipient of their family secrets;&mdash;he told all
+the secrets to Dolly. He was a man who could not possibly be induced to
+leave his business behind him at his office. It made the chief subject
+of conversation when he was at home. He would even call Dolly into his
+bedroom late at night, bringing her out of bed for the occasion, to
+discuss with her some point of legal strategy,&mdash;of legal but still honest
+strategy,&mdash;which had just occurred to him. Maybe he had not quite seen
+his way as to the honesty, and wanted Dolly's opinion on the subject.
+Dolly would come in in her dressing-gown, and, sitting on his bed, would
+discuss the matter with him as advocate against the devil. Sometimes she
+would be convinced; more frequently she would hold her own. But the
+points which were discussed in that way, and the strength of
+argumentation which was used on either side, would have surprised the
+clients, and the partner, and the clerks, and the eloquent barrister who
+was occasionally employed to support this side or the other. The
+eloquent barrister, or it might be the client himself, startled
+sometimes at the amount of enthusiasm which Mr. Grey would throw into
+his argument, would little dream that the very words had come from the
+young lady in her dressing-gown. To tell the truth, Miss Grey thoroughly
+liked these discussions, whether held on the lawn, or in the
+dining-room arm-chairs, or during the silent hours of the night. They
+formed, indeed, the very salt of her life. She felt herself to be the
+Conscience of the firm. Her father was the Reason. And the partner, in
+her own phraseology, was the&mdash;Devil. For it must be understood that
+Dolly Grey had a spice of fun about her, of which her father had the
+full advantage. She would not have called her father's partner the
+"Devil" to any other ear but her father's. And that her father knew,
+understanding also the spirit in which the sobriquet had been applied.
+He did not think that his partner was worse than another man, nor did he
+think that his daughter so thought. The partner, whose name was Barry,
+was a man of average honesty, who would occasionally be surprised at the
+searching justness with which Mr. Grey would look into a matter after it
+had been already debated for a day or two in the office. But Mr. Barry,
+though he had the pleasure of Miss Grey's acquaintance, had no idea of
+the nature of the duties which she performed in the firm.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm nearly broken-hearted about this abominable business," said Mr.
+Grey, as he went upstairs to his dressing room. The normal hour for
+dinner was half-past six. He had arrived on this occasion at half-past
+seven, and had paid a shilling extra to the cabman to drive him quick.
+The man, having a lame horse, had come very slowly, fidgeting Mr. Grey
+into additional temporary discomfort. He had got his additional
+shilling, and Mr. Grey had only additional discomfort. "I declare I
+think he is the wickedest old man the world ever produced." This he said
+as Dolly followed him upstairs; but Dolly, wiser than her father, would
+say nothing about the wicked old man in the servants' hearing.
+</p>
+<p>
+In five minutes Mr. Grey came down "dressed,"&mdash;by the use of which word
+was implied the fact that he had shaken his neckcloth, washed his hands
+and face, and put on his slippers. It was understood in the household
+that, though half-past six was the hour named for dinner, half-past
+seven was a much more probable time. Mr. Grey pertinaciously refused to
+have it changed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Stare super vias antiquas," he had stoutly said when the proposition
+had been made to him; by which he had intended to imply that, as during
+the last twenty years he had been compelled to dine at half-past six
+instead of six, he did not mean to be driven any farther in the same
+direction. Consequently his cook was compelled to prepare his dinner in
+such a manner that it might be eaten at one hour or the other, as chance
+would have it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The dinner passed without much conversation other than incidental to
+Mr. Grey's wants and comforts. His daughter knew that he had been at the
+office for eight hours, and knew also that he was not a young man. Every
+kind of little cosseting was, therefore, applied to him. There was a
+pheasant for dinner, and it was essentially necessary, in Dolly's
+opinion, that he should have first the wing, quite hot, and then the
+leg, also hot, and that the bread-sauce should be quite hot on the two
+occasions. For herself, if she had had an old crow for dinner it would
+have been the same thing. Tea and bread-and-butter were her luxuries,
+and her tea and bread-and-butter had been enjoyed three hours ago. "I
+declare I think that, after all, the leg is the better joint of the
+two."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why don't you have the two legs?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There would be a savor of greediness in that, though I know that the
+leg will go down,&mdash;and I shouldn't then be able to draw the comparison. I
+like to have them both, and I like always to be able to assert my
+opinion that the leg is the better joint. Now, how about the
+apple-pudding? You said I should have an apple-pudding." From which it
+appeared that Mr. Grey was not superior to having the dinner discussed
+in his presence at the breakfast-table. The apple-pudding came, and was
+apparently enjoyed. A large portion of it was put between two plates.
+"That's for Mrs. Grimes," suggested Mr. Grey. "I am not quite sure that
+Mrs. Grimes is worthy of it." "If you knew what it was to be left
+without a shilling of your husband's wages you'd think yourself worthy."
+When the conversation about the pudding was over Mr. Grey ate his
+cheese, and then sat quite still in his arm-chair over the fire while
+the things were being taken away. "I declare I think he is the wickedest
+man the world has ever produced," said Mr. Grey as soon as the door was
+shut, thus showing by the repetition of the words he had before used
+that his mind had been intent on Mr. Scarborough rather than on the
+pheasant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you have done with them?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all very well; but you wouldn't have done with them if you had
+known them all your life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't spend my time and energies in white-washing any rascal,"
+said Dolly, with vigor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know what you'd do. And a man isn't to be left in the lurch
+altogether because he's a rascal. Would you have a murderer hanged
+without some one to stand up for him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I would," said Dolly, thoughtlessly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he mightn't have been a murderer after all; or not legally so,
+which as far as the law goes is the same thing."
+</p>
+<p>
+But this special question had been often discussed between them, and Mr.
+Grey and Dolly did not intend to be carried away by it on the present
+occasion. "I know all about that," she said; "but this isn't a case of
+life and death. The old man is only anxious to save his property, and
+throws upon you all the burden of doing it. He never agrees with you as
+to anything you say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As to legal points he does."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he keeps you always in hot water, and puts forward so much villany
+that I would have nothing farther to do with him. He has been so crafty
+that you hardly know now which is, in truth, the heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, I do," said the lawyer. "I know very well, and am very sorry
+that it should be so. And I cannot but feel for the rascal because the
+dishonest effort was made on behalf of his own son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why was it necessary?" said Dolly, with sparks flying from her eye.
+"Throughout from the beginning he has been bad. Why was the woman not
+his wife?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah! why, indeed. But had his sin consisted only in that, I should not
+have dreamed of refusing my assistance as a family lawyer. All that
+would have gone for nothing then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When evil creeps in," said Dolly, sententiously, "you cannot put it
+right afterward."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind about that. We shall never get to the end if you go back to
+Adam and Eve."
+</p>
+<p>
+"People don't go back often enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother!" said Mr. Grey, finishing his second and last glass of
+port-wine. "Do keep yourself in some degree to the question in dispute.
+In advising an attorney of to-day as to how he is to treat a client you
+can't do any good by going back to Adam and Eve. Augustus is the heir,
+and I am bound to protect the property for him from these money-lending
+harpies. The moment the breath is out of the old man's body they will
+settle down upon it if we leave them an inch of ground on which to
+stand. Every detail of his marriage must be made as clear as daylight;
+and that must be done in the teeth of former false statements."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As far as I can see, the money-lending harpies are the honestest lot of
+people concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The law is not on their side. They have got no right. The estate, as a
+fact, will belong to Augustus the moment his father dies. Mr.
+Scarborough endeavored to do what he could for him whom he regarded as
+his eldest son. It was very wicked. He was adding a second and a worse
+crime to the first. He was flying in the face of the laws of his
+country. But he was successful; and he threw dust into my eyes, because
+he wanted to save the property for the boy. And he endeavored to make it
+up to his second son by saving for him a second property. He was not
+selfish; and I cannot but feel for him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you say he is the wickedest man the world ever produced."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he boasts of it all, and cannot be got in any way to repent. He
+gives me my instructions as though from first to last he had been a
+highly honorable man, and only laughs at me when I object. And yet he
+must know that he may die any day. He only wishes to have this matter
+set straight so that he may die. I could forgive him altogether if he
+would but once say that he was sorry for what he'd done. But he has
+completely the air of the fine old head of a family who thinks he is to
+be put into marble the moment the breath is out of his body, and that he
+richly deserves the marble he is to be put into."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is a question between him and his God," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He hasn't got a God. He believes only in his own reason,&mdash;and is content
+to do so, lying there on the very brink of eternity. He is quite content
+with himself, because he thinks that he has not been selfish. He cares
+nothing that he has robbed every one all round. He has no reverence for
+property and the laws which govern it. He was born only with the
+life-interest, and he has determined to treat it as though the
+fee-simple had belonged to him. It is his utter disregard for law, for
+what the law has decided, which makes me declare him to have been the
+wickedest man the world ever produced."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is his disregard for truth which makes you think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He cares nothing for truth. He scorns it and laughs at it. And yet
+about the little things of the world he expects his word to be taken as
+certainly as that of any other gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not take it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, you would, and would be right too. If he would say he'd pay me a
+hundred pounds to-morrow, or a thousand, I would have his word as soon
+as any other man's bond. And yet he has utterly got the better of me,
+and made me believe that a marriage took place, when there was no
+marriage. I think I'll have a cup of tea."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You won't go to sleep, papa?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, I shall. When I've been so troubled as that I must have a cup
+of tea." Mr. Grey was often troubled, and as a consequence Dolly was
+called up for consultations in the middle of the night.
+</p>
+<p>
+At about one o'clock there came the well-known knock at Dolly's door and
+the usual invitation. Would she come into her father's room for a few
+minutes? Then her father trotted back to his bed, and Dolly, of course,
+followed him as soon as she had clothed herself decently.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought I had made up my mind not to go; or I thought rather that I
+should be able to make up my mind not to go. But it is possible that
+down there I may have some effect for good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does he want of you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a long question about raising money with which Augustus
+desires to buy the silence of the creditors."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could he get the money?" asked Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I think he could. The property at present is altogether
+unembarrassed. To give Mr. Scarborough his due, he has never put his
+name to a scrap of paper; nor has he had occasion to do so. The Tretton
+pottery people want more land, or rather more water, and a large sum of
+money will be forthcoming. But he doesn't see the necessity of giving
+Mr. Tyrrwhit a penny-piece, or certainly Mr. Hart. He would send them
+away howling without a scruple. Now, Augustus is anxious to settle with
+them, for some reason which I do not clearly understand. But he wishes
+to do so without any interference on his father's part. In fact, he and
+his father have very different ideas as to the property. The squire
+regards it as his, but Augustus thinks that any day may make it his own.
+In fact, they are on the very verge of quarrelling." Then, after a long
+debate, Dolly consented that her father should go down to Tretton, and
+act, if possible, the part of peace-maker.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH18"><!-- CH18 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XVIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE CARROLL FAMILY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"Aunt Carroll is coming to dinner to-day," said Dolly the next day, with
+a serious face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know she is. Have a nice dinner for her. I don't think she ever has a
+nice dinner at home."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And the three eldest girls are coming."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Three!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You asked them yourself on Sunday."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well. They said their papa would be away on business." It was
+understood that Mr. Carroll was never asked to the Manor-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Business! There is a club he belongs to where he dines and gets drunk
+once a month. It's the only thing he does regularly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They must have their dinner, at any rate," said Mr. Grey. "I don't
+think they should suffer because he drinks." This had been a subject
+much discussed between them, but on the present occasion Miss Grey would
+not renew it. She despatched her father in a cab, the cab having been
+procured because he was supposed to be a quarter of an hour late, and
+then went to work to order her dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been said that Miss Grey hated the Carrolls; but she hated the
+daughters worse than the mother, and of all the people she hated in the
+world she hated Amelia Carroll the worst. Amelia, the eldest,
+entertained an idea that she was more of a personage in the world's eyes
+than her cousin,&mdash;that she went to more parties, which certainly was true
+if she went to any,&mdash;that she wore finer clothes, which was also true,
+and that she had a lover, whereas Dolly Grey,&mdash;as she called her cousin
+behind her back,&mdash;had none. This lover had something to do with horses,
+and had only been heard of, had never been seen, at the Manor-house.
+Sophy was a good deal hated also, being a forward, flirting, tricky girl
+of seventeen, who had just left the school at which Uncle John had paid
+for her education. Georgina, the third, was still at school under
+similar circumstances, and was pardoned her egregious noisiness and
+romping propensities under the score of youth. She was sixteen, and was
+possessed of terrible vitality. "I am sure they take after their father
+altogether," Mr. Grey had once said when the three left the Manor-house
+together. At half-past six punctually they came. Dolly heard a great
+clatter of four people leaving their clogs and cloaks in the hall, and
+would not move out of the unused drawing-room, in which for the moment
+she was seated. Betsey had to prepare the dinner-table down-stairs, and
+would have been sadly discomfited had she been driven to do it in the
+presence of three Carroll girls. For it must be understood that Betsey
+had no greater respect for the Carroll girls than her mistress. "Well,
+Aunt Carroll, how does the world use you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very badly. You haven't been up to see me for ten days."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I haven't counted; but when I do come I don't often do any good. How
+are Minna, and Brenda, and Potsey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Potsey has got a nasty boil under her arm."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It comes from eating too much toffy," said Georgina. "I told her it
+would."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How very nasty you are!" said Miss Carroll. "Do leave the child and her
+ailments alone!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor papa isn't very well, either," said Sophy, who was supposed to be
+her father's pet.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his
+friends to-night," said Miss Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have always something ill-natured to say about papa," said Sophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his
+presence." This came from his afflicted wife, who, in spite of all his
+misfortunes, would ever speak with some respect of her husband's
+employments. "He wasn't at all in a fit state to go to-night, but he had
+promised, and that was enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+When they had waited three-quarters of an hour Amelia began to
+complain,&mdash;certainly not without reason. "I wonder why Uncle John always
+keeps us waiting in this way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa has, unfortunately, something to do with his time, which is not
+altogether his own." There was not much in these words, but the tone in
+which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than
+Amelia Carroll. But at that moment the cab arrived, and Dolly went down
+to meet her father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have they come?" he asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come," she answered, taking his gloves and comforter from him, and
+giving him a kiss as she did so. "That girl up-stairs is nearly
+famished."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I won't be half a moment," said the repentant father, hastening
+up-stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't hurry for her," said Dolly; "but of course you'll hurry.
+You always do, don't you, papa?" Then they sat down to dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, girls, what is your news?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"We were out to-day on the Brompton Road," said the eldest, "and there
+came up Prince Chitakov's drag with four roans."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Prince Chitakov! I didn't know there was such a prince."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, dear, yes; with very stiff mustaches, turned up high at the
+corners, and pink cheeks, and a very sharp, nobby-looking hat, with a
+light-colored grey coat, and light gloves. You must know the prince."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word, I never heard of him, my dear. What did the prince do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was tooling his own drag, and he had a lady with him on the box. I
+never saw anything more tasty than her dress,&mdash;dark red silk, with little
+fluffy fur ornaments all over it. I wonder who she was?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mrs. Chitakov, probably," said the attorney.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think the prince is a married man," said Sophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They never are, for the most part," said Amelia; "and she wouldn't be
+Mrs. Chitakov, Uncle John."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wouldn't she, now? What would she be? Can either of you tell me what
+the wife of a Prince of Chitakov would call herself?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Princess of Chitakov, of course," said Sophy. "It's the Princess of
+Wales."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it isn't the Princess of Christian, nor yet the Princess of Teck,
+nor the Princess of England. I don't see why the lady shouldn't be Mrs.
+Chitakov, if there is such a lady."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa, don't bamboozle her," said his daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," continued the attorney, "why shouldn't the lady have been his
+wife? Don't married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish, John, you wouldn't talk to the girls in that strain," said
+their mother. "It really isn't becoming."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To suggest that the lady was the gentleman's wife?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I was going to say," continued Amelia, "that as the prince drove by
+he kissed his hand&mdash;he did, indeed. And Sophy and I were walking along
+as demurely as possible. I never was so knocked of a heap in all my
+life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He did," said Sophy. "It's the most impertinent thing I ever heard. If
+my father had seen it he'd have had the prince off the box of the coach
+in no time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, my dear," said the attorney, "I am very glad that your father
+did not see it." Poor Dolly, during this conversation about the prince,
+sat angry and silent, thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of
+vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty. That she
+should be sitting at table with a girl who could boast that a reprobate
+foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable
+four-horsed coach! For it was in that light that Miss Grey regarded it.
+"And did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable
+encounter with the prince?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing nearly so interesting," said Sophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was hardly to be expected," said the attorney. "Jane, you will
+have a glass of port-wine? Girls, you must have a glass of port-wine to
+support you after your disappointment with the prince."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We were not disappointed in the least," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pray, pray, let the subject drop," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you," said Sophy.
+Then Miss Grey sunk again into silence, crushed beneath this last blow.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the evening, when the dinner-things had been taken away, a matter of
+business came up, and took the place of the prince and his mustaches.
+Mrs. Carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could "lend"
+her a small sum of twenty pounds. It came out in conversation that the
+small sum was needed to satisfy some imperious demand made upon Mr.
+Carroll by a tailor. "He must have clothes, you know," said the poor
+woman, wailing. "He doesn't have many, but he must have some." There had
+been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since, and, to
+tell the truth, Mr. Grey did require to have the subject argued, in fear
+of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his
+daughter if he gave the money too easily. The loan had to be arranged in
+full conclave, as otherwise Mrs. Carroll would have found it difficult
+to obtain access to her brother's ear. But the one auditor whom she
+feared was her niece. On the present occasion Miss Grey simply took up
+her book to show that the subject was one which had no interest for her;
+but she did undoubtedly listen to all that was said on the subject.
+"There was never anything settled about poor Patrick's clothes," said
+Mrs. Carroll, in a half-whisper. She did not care how much her own
+children heard, and she knew how vain it was to attempt so to speak that
+Dolly should not hear.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say something ought to be done at some time," said Mr. Grey, who
+knew that he would be told, when the evening was over, that he would
+give away all his substance to that man if he were asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa has not had a new pair of trousers this year," said Sophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Except those green ones he wore at the races," said Georgina.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hold your tongue, miss!" said her mother. "That was a pair I made up
+for him and sent them to the man to get pressed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the hundred a year was arranged for all our dresses," said Amelia,
+"not a word was said about papa. Of course, papa is a trouble."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see that he is more of a trouble than any one else," said
+Sophy. "Uncle John would not like not to have any clothes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I should not, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And his own income is all given up to the house uses." Here Sophy
+touched imprudently on a sore subject. His "own" income consisted of
+what had been saved out of his wife's fortune, and was thus named as in
+opposition to the larger sum paid to Mrs. Carroll by Mr. Grey. There was
+one hundred and fifty pounds a year coming from settled property, which
+had been preserved by the lawyer's care, and which was regarded in the
+family as "papa's own."
+</p>
+<p>
+It certainly is essential for respectability that something should be
+set apart from a man's income for his wearing apparel; and though the
+money was, perhaps, improperly so designated, Dolly would not have
+objected had she not thought that it had already gone to the
+race-course,&mdash;in company with the green trousers. She had her own means
+of obtaining information as to the Carroll family. It was very necessary
+that she should do so, if the family was to be kept on its legs at all.
+"I don't think any good can come from discussing what my uncle does with
+the money." This was Dolly's first speech. "If he is to have it, let him
+have it, but let him have as little as possible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never heard anybody so cross as you always are to papa," said Sophy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your cousin Dorothy is very fortunate," said Mrs. Carroll. "She does
+not know what it is to want for anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She never spends anything&mdash;on herself," said her father. "It is Dolly's
+only fault that she won't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because she has it all done for her," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dolly had gone back to her book, and disdained to make any farther
+reply. Her father felt that quite enough had been said about it, and
+was prepared to give the twenty pounds, under the idea that he might be
+thought to have made a stout fight upon the subject. "He does want them
+very badly&mdash;for decency's sake," said the poor wife, thus winding up her
+plea. Then Mr. Grey got out his check-book and wrote the check for
+twenty pounds. But he made it payable, not to Mr. but to Mrs. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose, papa, nothing can be done about Mr. Carroll." This was said
+by Dolly as soon as the family had withdrawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In what way 'done,' my dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As to settling some farther sum for himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'd only spend it, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That would be intended," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then he would come back just the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But in that case he should have nothing more. Though they were to
+declare that he hadn't a pair of trousers in which to appear at a
+race-course, he shouldn't have it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear," said Mr. Grey, "you cannot get rid of the gnats of the world.
+They will buzz and sting and be a nuisance. Poor Jane suffers worse from
+this gnat than you or I. Put up with it; and understand in your own mind
+that when he comes for another twenty pounds he must have it. You
+needn't tell him, but so it must be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I had my way," said Dolly, after ten minutes' silence, "I would
+punish him. He is an evil thing, and should be made to reap the proper
+reward. It is not that I wish to avoid my share of the world's burdens,
+but that justice should be done. I don't know which I hate the
+worst,&mdash;Uncle Carroll or Mr. Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+The next day was Sunday, and Dolly was very anxious before breakfast to
+induce her father to say that he would go to church with her; but he was
+inclined to be obstinate, and fell back upon his usual excuse, saying
+that there were Scarborough papers which it would be necessary that he
+should read before he started for Tretton on the following day.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa, I think it would do you good if you came."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I suppose it would. That is the intention; but somehow it
+fails with me sometimes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think that you hate people when you go to church as much as when
+you don't?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not sure that I hate anybody very much."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That seems an argument for your going."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if you don't hate them it is because you won't take the trouble,
+and that again is not right. If you would come to church you would be
+better for it all round. You'd hate Uncle Carroll's idleness and
+abominable self-indulgence worse than you do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't love him, as it is, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I should hate him less. I felt last night as though I could rise
+from my bed and go and murder him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you certainly ought to go to church."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you had passed him off just as though he were a gnat from which you
+were to receive as little annoyance as possible, forgetting the
+influence he must have on those six unfortunate children. Don't you know
+that you gave her that twenty pounds simply to be rid of a disagreeable
+subject?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should have given it ever so much sooner, only that you were looking
+at me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you would, you dear, sweet, kind-hearted, but most un-Christian,
+father. You must come to church, in order that some idea of what
+Christianity demands of you may make its way into your heart. It is not
+what the clergyman may say of you, but that your mind will get away for
+two hours from that other reptile and his concerns." Then Mr. Grey, with
+a loud, long sigh, allowed his boots, and his gloves, and his
+church-going hat, and his church-going umbrella to be brought to him. It
+was, in fact, his aversion to these articles that Dolly had to
+encounter.
+</p>
+<p>
+It may be doubted whether the church services of that day did Mr. Grey
+much good; but they seemed to have had some effect upon his daughter,
+from the fact that in the afternoon she wrote a letter in kindly words
+to her aunt: "Papa is going to Tretton, and I will come up to you on
+Tuesday. I have got a frock which I will bring with me as a present for
+Potsey; and I will make her sew on the buttons for herself. Tell Minna I
+will lend her that book I spoke of. About those boots&mdash;I will go with
+Georgina to the boot-maker." But as to Amelia and Sophy she could not
+bring herself to say a good-natured word, so deep in her heart had sunk
+that sin of which they had been guilty with reference to Prince
+Chitakov.
+</p>
+<p>
+On that night she had a long discussion with her father respecting the
+affairs of the Scarborough family. The discussion was held in the
+dining-room, and may, therefore, be supposed to have been premeditated.
+Those at night in Mr. Grey's own bedroom were generally the result of
+sudden thought. "I should lay down the law to him&mdash;" began Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The law is the law," said her father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mean the law in that sense. I should tell him firmly what I
+advised, and should then make him understand that if he did not follow
+my advice I must withdraw. If his son is willing to pay these
+money-lenders what sums they have actually advanced, and if by any
+effort on his part the money can be raised, let it be done. There seems
+to be some justice in repaying out of the property that which was lent
+to the property when by Mr. Scarborough's own doing the property was
+supposed to go into the eldest son's hands. Though the eldest son and
+the money-lenders be spendthrifts and profligates alike, there will in
+that be something of fairness. Go there prepared with your opinion. But
+if either father or son will not accept it, then depart, and shake the
+dust from your feet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You propose it all as though it were the easiest thing in the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Easy or difficult. I would not discuss anything of which the justice
+may hereafter be disputed."
+</p>
+<p>
+What was the result of the consultation on Mr. Grey's mind he did not
+declare, but he resolved to take his daughter's advice in all that she
+said to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH19"><!-- CH19 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XIX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. GREY GOES TO TRETTON.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey went down to Tretton with a great bag of papers. In fact,
+though he told his daughter that he had to examine them all before he
+started, and had taken them to Fulham for that purpose, he had not
+looked at them. And, as another fact, the bag was not opened till he got
+home again. They had been read;&mdash;at any rate, what was necessary. He knew
+his subject. The old squire knew it well.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey was going down to Tretton, not to convey facts or to explain
+the law, but in order that he might take the side either of the father
+or of the son. Mr. Scarborough had sent for the lawyer to support his
+view of the case; and the son had consented to meet him in order that he
+might the more easily get the better of his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey had of late learned one thing which had before been dark to
+him,&mdash;had seen one phase of this complicated farrago of dishonesty which
+had not before been visible to him. Augustus suspected his father of
+some farther treachery. That he should be angry at having been debarred
+from his birthright so long,&mdash;debarred from the knowledge of his
+birthright,&mdash;was, Mr. Grey thought, natural. A great wrong had been, at
+least, intended; and that such a man should resent it was to have been
+expected. But of late Mr. Grey had discovered that it was not in that
+way that the son's mind worked. It was not anger but suspicion that he
+showed; and he used his father's former treatment of him as a
+justification for the condemnation implied in his thoughts. There is no
+knowing what an old man may do who has already acted as he had done. It
+was thus that he expressed himself both by his words and deeds, and did
+so openly in his father's presence, Mr. Grey had not seen them together,
+but knew from the letters of both of them that such was the case. Old
+Mr. Scarborough scorned his son's suspicions, and disregarded altogether
+any words that might be said as to his own past conduct. He was willing,
+or half willing, that Mountjoy's debts should be, not paid, but settled.
+But he was willing to do nothing toward such a step except in his own
+way. While the breath was in his body the property was his, and he chose
+to be treated as its only master. If Augustus desired to do anything by
+"post-obits," let him ruin himself after his own fashion. "It is not
+very likely that Augustus can raise money by post obits, circumstanced
+as the property is," he had written to Mr. Grey, with a conveyed sneer
+and chuckle as to the success of his own villany. It was as though he
+had declared that the money-lenders had been too well instructed as to
+what tricks Mr. Scarborough could play with his property to risk a
+second venture.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus had, in truth, been awaiting his father's death with great
+impatience. It was unreasonable that a man should live who had acted in
+such a way and who had been so cut about by the doctors. His father's
+demise had, in truth, been promised to him, and to all the world. It was
+an understood thing, in all circles which knew anything, that old Mr.
+Scarborough could not live another month. It had been understood some
+time, and was understood at the present moment; and yet Mr. Scarborough
+went on living,&mdash;no doubt, as an invalid in the last stage of probable
+dissolution, but still with the full command of his intellect and mental
+powers for mischief. Augustus, suspecting him as he did, had begun to
+fear that he might live too long. His brother had disappeared, and he
+was the heir. If his father would die,&mdash;such had been his first
+thought,&mdash;he could settle with the creditors immediately, before any
+tidings should be heard of his brother. But tidings had come. His
+brother had been seen by Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo; and though Mr. Hart
+had not yet sent home the news to the other creditors, the news had been
+sent at once to Augustus Scarborough by his own paid attendant upon his
+brother. Of Mr. Hart's "little game" he did not yet know the
+particulars; but he was confident that there was some game.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus by no means gave his mother credit for the disgraceful conduct
+imputed to her in the story as now told by her surviving husband. It was
+not that he believed in the honesty of his mother, whom he had never
+known, and for whose memory he cared little, but that he believed so
+fully in the dishonesty of his father. His father, when he had
+thoroughly understood that Mountjoy had enveloped the property in debt,
+so that nothing but a skeleton would remain when the bonds were paid,
+had set to work, and by the ingenuity of his brain had resolved to
+redeem, as far as the Scarboroughs were concerned, their estate from its
+unfortunate position.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was so that Augustus believed; this was the theory existing in his
+mind. That his father should have been so clever, and Mr. Grey so blind,
+and even Mr. Hart and Mr. Tyrrwhit so easily hoodwinked, was remarkable.
+But so it was,&mdash;or might probably be so. He felt no assurance, but there
+was ever present to him the feeling of great danger. But the state of
+things as arranged by his father might be established by himself. If he
+could get these creditors to give up their bonds while his father's
+falsehood was still believed, it would be a great thing. He had learned
+by degrees how small a proportion of the money claimed had, in fact,
+been advanced to Mountjoy, and had resolved to confine himself to paying
+that. That might now probably be accepted with gratitude. The increasing
+value of the estate might bear that without being crushed. But it should
+be done at once, while Mountjoy was still absent and before Mr. Tyrrwhit
+at any rate knew that Mountjoy had not been killed. Then had happened
+that accidental meeting with Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo. That idiot of a
+keeper of his had been unable to keep Mountjoy from the gambling-house.
+But Mr. Hart had as yet told nothing. Mr. Hart was playing some game of
+his own, in which he would assuredly be foiled. The strong hold which
+Augustus had was in the great infirmity of his father and in the
+blindness of Mr. Grey, but it would be settled. It ought to have been
+well that the thing should be settled already by his father's death.
+Augustus did feel strongly that the squire ought to complete his work by
+dying. Were the story, as now told by him, true, he ought certainly to
+die, so as to make speedy atonement for his wickedness. Were it false,
+then he ought to go quickly, so that the lie might be effectual. Every
+day that he continued to live would go far to endanger the discovery.
+Augustus felt that he must at once have the property in his own hands,
+so as to buy the creditors and obtain security.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey, who was not so blind as Augustus thought him, saw a great deal
+of this. Augustus suspected him as well as the squire. His mind went
+backward and forward on these suspicions. It was more probable that the
+squire should have contrived all this with the attorney's assistance
+than without it. The two, willing it together, might be very powerful.
+But then Mr. Grey would hardly dare to do it. His father knew that he
+was dying; but Mr. Grey had no such easy mode of immediate escape if
+detected. And his father was endowed with a courage as peculiar as it
+was great. He did not think that Mr. Grey was so brave a man as his
+father. And then he could trace the payment of no large sum to Mr.
+Grey,&mdash;such as would have been necessary as a bribe in such a case.
+Augustus suspected Mr. Grey, on and off. But Mr. Grey was sure that
+Augustus suspected his own father. Now, of one thing Mr. Grey was
+certain:&mdash;Augustus was, in truth, the rightful heir. The squire had at
+first contrived to blind him,&mdash;him, Mr. Grey,&mdash;partly by his own
+acuteness, partly through the carelessness of himself and those in his
+office, partly by the subornation of witnesses who seemed to have been
+actually prepared for such an event. But there could be no subsequent
+blinding. Mr. Grey had a well-earned reputation for professional
+acuteness and honesty. He knew there was no need for such suspicions as
+those now entertained by the young man; but he knew also that they
+existed, and he hated the young man for entertaining them.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he arrived at Tretton Park he first of all saw Mr. Septimus Jones,
+with whom he was not acquainted. "Mr. Scarborough will be here directly.
+He is out somewhere about the stables," said Mr. Jones, in that tone of
+voice with which a guest at the house,&mdash;a guest for pleasure,&mdash;may address
+sometimes a guest who is a guest on business. In such a case the guest
+on pleasure cannot be a gentleman, and must suppose that the guest on
+business is not one either.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey, thinking that the Mr. Scarborough spoken of could not be the
+squire, put Mr. Jones right. "It is the elder Mr. Scarborough whom I
+wish to see. There is quite time enough. No doubt Miss Scarborough will
+be down presently."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are Mr. Grey, I believe?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is my name."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My friend, Augustus Scarborough, is particularly anxious to see you
+before you go to his father. The old man is in very failing health, you
+know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am well acquainted with the state of Mr. Scarborough's health," said
+Mr. Grey, "and will leave it to himself to say when I shall see him.
+Perhaps to-morrow will be best." Then he rung the bell; but the servant
+entered the room at the same moment and summoned him up to the squire's
+chamber. Mr. Scarborough also wished to see Mr. Grey before his son, and
+had been on the alert to watch for his coming.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the landing he met Miss Scarborough. "He does seem to keep up his
+strength," said the lady. "Mr. Merton is living in the house now, and
+watches him very closely." Mr. Merton was a resident young doctor, whom
+Sir William Brodrick had sent down to see that all medical appliances
+were at hand as the sick man might require them. Then Mr. Grey was shown
+in, and found the squire recumbent on a sofa, with a store of books
+within his reach, and reading apparatuses of all descriptions, and every
+appliance which the ingenuity of the skilful can prepare for the relief
+of the sick and wealthy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This is very kind of you, Mr. Grey," said the squire, speaking in a
+cheery voice. "I wanted you to come very much, but I hardly thought that
+you would take the trouble. Augustus is here, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I have heard from that gentleman down-stairs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Jones? I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jones. What sort
+of a gentleman is Mr. Jones to look at?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very much like other gentlemen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say. He has done me the honor to stay a good deal at my house
+lately. Augustus never comes without him. He is 'Fidus Achates,' I take
+it, to Augustus. Augustus has never asked whether he can be received. Of
+course it does not matter. When a man is the eldest son, and, so to say,
+the only one, he is apt to take liberties with his father's house. I am
+so sorry that in my position I cannot do the honors and receive him
+properly. He is a very estimable and modest young man, I believe?" As
+Mr. Grey had not come down to Tretton either to be a spy on Mr. Jones or
+to answer questions concerning him, he held his tongue. "Well, Mr. Grey,
+what do you think about it;&mdash;eh?" This was a comprehensive question, but
+Mr. Grey well understood its purport. What did he, Mr. Grey, think of
+the condition to which the affairs of Tretton had been brought, and
+those of Mr. Scarborough himself and of his two sons? What did he think
+of Mountjoy, who had disappeared and was still absent? What did he think
+of Augustus, who was not showing his gratitude in the best way for all
+that had been done for him? And what did he think of the squire himself,
+who from his death-bed had so well contrived to have his own way in
+everything,&mdash;to do all manner of illegal things without paying any of the
+penalties to which illegality is generally subject? And having asked the
+question he paused for an answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey had had no personal interview with the squire since the time at
+which it had been declared that Mountjoy was not the heir. Then some
+very severe words had been spoken. Mr. Grey had first sworn that he did
+not believe a word of what was said to him, and had refused to deal with
+the matter at all. If carried out Mr. Scarborough must take it to some
+other lawyer's office. There had, since that, been a correspondence as
+to much of which Mr. Scarborough had been forced to employ an
+amanuensis. Gradually Mr. Grey had assented, in the first instance on
+behalf of Mountjoy, and then on behalf of Augustus. But he had done so
+in the expectation that he should never again see the squire in this
+world. He, too, had been assured that the man would die, and had felt
+that it would be better that the management of things should then be in
+honest hands, such as his own, and in the hands of those who understood
+them, than be confided to those who did not not understand them, and who
+might probably not be honest.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the squire had not died, and here he was again at Tretton as the
+squire's guest. "I think," said Mr. Grey, "that the less said about a
+good deal of it the better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That, of course, is sweeping condemnation, which, however, I expect.
+Let that be all as though it had been expressed. You don't understand
+the inner man which rules me,&mdash;how it has struggled to free itself from
+conventionalities. Nor do I quite understand how your inner man has
+succumbed to them and encouraged them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have encouraged an obedience to the laws of my country. Men generally
+find it safer to do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Exactly, and men like to be safe. Perhaps a condition of danger has
+had its attractions for me. It is very stupid, but perhaps it is so. But
+let that go. The rope has been round my own neck and not round that of
+others. Perhaps I have thought of late that if danger should come I
+could run away from it all, by the help of the surgeon. They have become
+so skilful now that a man has no chance in that way. But what do you
+think of Mountjoy and Augustus?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that Mountjoy has been very ill-used."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I endeavored to do the best I could for him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that Augustus has been worse used."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he, at any rate, has been put right quite in time. Had he been
+brought up as the eldest son he might have done as Mountjoy did." Then
+there came a little gleam of satisfaction across the squire's face as he
+felt the sufficiency of his answer. "But they are neither of them
+pleased."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You cannot please men by going wrong, even in their own behalf."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not so sure of that. Were you to say that we cannot please men ever
+by doing right on their behalf you would perhaps be nearer the mark.
+Where do you think that Mountjoy is?" A rumor, had reached Mr. Grey that
+Mountjoy had been seen at Monte Carlo, but it had been only a rumor. The
+same had, in truth, reached Mr. Scarborough, but he chose to keep his
+rumor to himself. Indeed, more than a rumor had reached him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that he will turn up safely," said the lawyer. "I think that if
+it were made worth his while he would turn up at once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it not better that he should be away?" Mr. Grey shrugged his
+shoulders. "What's the good of his coming back into a nest of hornets? I
+have always thought that he did very well to disappear. Where is he to
+live if he came back? Should he come here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not with his gambling debts unpaid at the club."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That might have been settled. Though, indeed, his gambling was as a tub
+that has no bottom to it. There has been nothing for it but to throw him
+over altogether. And yet how very much the better he has been of the
+two! Poor Mountjoy!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Mountjoy!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see, if I hadn't disinherited him I should have had to go on paying
+for him till the whole estate would have been squandered even during my
+lifetime."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You speak as though the law had given you the power of disinheriting
+him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So it did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But not the power of giving him the inheritance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I took that upon myself. There I was stronger than the law. Now I
+simply and humbly ask the law to come and help me. And the upshot is
+that Augustus takes upon himself to lecture me and to feel aggrieved. He
+is not angry with me for what I did about Mountjoy, but is quarrelling
+with me because I do not die. I have no idea of dying just to please
+him. I think it important that I should live just at present."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But will you let him have the money to pay these creditors?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is what I want to speak about. If I can see the list of the sums
+to be paid, and if you can assure yourself that by paying them I shall
+get back all the post-obit bonds which Mountjoy has given, and that the
+money can be at once raised upon a joint mortgage, to be executed by me
+and Augustus, I will do it. But the first thing must be to know the
+amount. I will join Augustus in nothing without your consent. He wants
+to assume the power himself. In fact, the one thing he desires is that I
+shall go. As long as I remain he shall do nothing except by my
+co-operation. I will see you and him to-morrow, and now you may go and
+eat your dinner. I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for
+coming." And then Mr. Grey left the room, went to his chamber, and in
+process of time made his way into the drawing-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH20"><!-- CH20 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. GREY'S OPINION OF THE SCARBOROUGH FAMILY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Had Augustus been really anxious to see Mr. Grey before Mr. Grey went to
+his father, he would probably have managed to do so. He did not always
+tell Mr. Jones everything. "So the fellow has hurried up to the governor
+the moment he came into the house," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's with him now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he is. Never mind. I'll be even with him in the long-run."
+Then he greeted the lawyer with a mock courtesy as soon as he saw him.
+"I hope your journey has done you no harm, Mr. Grey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's very kind of you, I am sure, to look after our poor concerns with
+so much interest. Jones, don't you think it is time they gave us some
+dinner? Mr. Grey, I'm sure, must want his dinner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All in good time," said the lawyer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You shall have your dinner, Mr. Grey. It is the least we can do for
+you." Mr. Grey felt that in every sound of his voice there was an
+insult, and took special notice of every tone, and booked them all down
+in his memory. After dinner he asked some unimportant question with
+reference to the meeting that was to take place in the morning, and was
+at once rebuked. "I do not know that we need trouble our friend here
+with our private concerns," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least," said Mr. Grey. "You have already been talking about
+them in my presence and in his. It is necessary that I should have a
+list of the creditors before I can advise your father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see it; but, however, that is for you to judge. Indeed, I do
+not know on what points my father wants your advice. A lawyer generally
+furnishes such a list." Then Mr. Grey took up a book, and was soon left
+alone by the younger men.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the morning he walked out in the park, so as to have free time for
+thought. Not a word farther had been said between him and Augustus
+touching their affairs. At breakfast Augustus discussed with his friend
+the state of the odds respecting some race and then the characters of
+certain ladies. No subjects could have been less interesting to Mr.
+Grey, as Augustus was aware. They breakfasted at ten, and twelve had
+been named for the meeting. Mr. Grey had an hour or an hour and a half
+for his walk, in which he could again turn over in his mind all these
+matters of which his thoughts had been full for now many a day.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of two or three facts he was certain. Augustus was the legitimate heir
+of his father. Of that he had seen ample documentary evidence. The word
+of no Scarborough should go for anything with him;&mdash;but of that fact he
+was assured. Whether the squire knew aught of Mountjoy he did not feel
+sure, but that Augustus did he was quite certain. Who was paying the
+bills for the scapegrace during his travels he could not say, but he
+thought it probable that Augustus was finding the money. He, Mountjoy,
+was kept away, so as to be out of the creditors' way.
+</p>
+<p>
+He thought, therefore, that Augustus was doing this, so that he might
+the more easily buy up the debts. But why should Augustus go to the
+expense of buying up the debts, seeing that the money must ultimately
+come out of his own pocket? Because,&mdash;so Mr. Grey thought,&mdash;Augustus would
+not trust his own father. The creditors, if they could get hold of
+Mountjoy when his father was dead, and when the bonds would all become
+payable, might possibly so unravel the facts as to make it apparent
+that, after all, the property was Mountjoy's. This was not Mr. Grey's
+idea, but was Mr. Grey's idea of the calculation which Augustus was
+making for his own government. According to Mr. Grey's reading of all
+the facts of the case, such were the suspicions which Augustus
+entertained in the matter. Otherwise, why should he be anxious to take a
+step which would redound only to the advantage of the creditors? He was
+quite certain that no money would be paid, at any rate, by Augustus,
+solely with the view of honestly settling their claims.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was another subject which troubled his mind excessively as he
+walked across the park. Why should he soil his hands, or, at any rate,
+trouble his conscience, with an affair so unclean, so perplexed, and so
+troublesome? Why was he there at Tretton at all, to be insulted by a
+young blackguard such as he believed Augustus Scarborough to be?
+Augustus Scarborough, he knew, suspected him. But he, in return,
+suspected Augustus Scarborough. The creditors suspected him. Mountjoy
+suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the
+squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of
+trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in
+reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should
+he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he
+not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament
+compelling him to meddle with the dirt.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such were his thoughts. But yet he knew that he was compelled. He did
+feel himself bound to look after interests which he had taken in hand
+now for many years. It had been his duty,&mdash;or the duty of some one
+belonging to him,&mdash;to see into the deceit by which an attempt had been
+made to rob Augustus Scarborough of his patrimony. It had been his duty,
+for a while, to protect Mountjoy, and the creditors who had lent their
+money to Mountjoy, from what he had believed to be a flagitious attempt.
+Then, as soon as he felt that the flagitious attempt had been made
+previously, in Mountjoy's favor, it became his duty to protect Augustus,
+in spite of the strong personal dislike which from the first he had
+conceived for that young man.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then he doubtless had been attracted by the singularity of all that
+had been done in the affair, and of all that was likely to be done. He
+had said to himself that the matter should be made straight, and that he
+would make it straight. Therefore, during his walk in the park, he
+resolved that he must persevere.
+</p>
+<p>
+At twelve o'clock he was ready to be taken up to the sick man's room.
+When he entered it, under the custody of Miss Scarborough, he found that
+Augustus was there. The squire was sitting up, with his feet supported,
+and was apparently in a good humor. "Well, Mr. Grey," he said, "have you
+settled this matter with Augustus?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have settled nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has not spoken to me about it at all," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told him I wanted a list of the creditors. He said that it was my
+duty to supply it. That was the extent of our conversation."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Which he thought it expedient to have in the presence of my friend, Mr.
+Jones. Mr. Jones is very well in his way, but he is not acquainted with
+all my affairs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your son, Mr. Scarborough, has made no tender to me of any
+information."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor, sir, has Mr. Grey sought for any information from me." During this
+little dialogue Mr. Scarborough turned his face, with a smile, from one
+to the other, without a word.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If Mr. Grey has anything to suggest in the way of advice, let him
+suggest it," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Mr. Grey," said the squire, with the same smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Till I get farther information," said Mr. Grey, "I can only limit
+myself to giving the advice which I offered to you yesterday."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps you will repeat it, so that he may hear it," said the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you get a list of those to whom your son Mountjoy owes money, and an
+assurance that the moneys named in that list have been from time to time
+lent by them to him,&mdash;the actual amount, I mean,&mdash;then I think that if you
+and your son Augustus shall together choose to pay those amounts, you
+will make the best reparation in your power for the injury you have no
+doubt done in having contrived that it should be understood that
+Mountjoy was legitimate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need not discuss," said the squire, "any injuries that I have done.
+I have done a great many, no doubt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But," continued the lawyer, "before any such payment is made, close
+inquiries should be instituted as to the amounts of money which have
+absolutely passed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We should certainly be taken in," said the squire. "I have great
+admiration for Mr. Samuel Hart. I do believe that it would be found
+impossible to extract the truth from Mr. Samuel Hart. If Mr. Samuel Hart
+does not make money yet out of poor Mountjoy I shall be surprised."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The truth may be ascertained," said Mr. Grey. "You should get some
+accountant to examine the checks."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I remember how easy it was to deceive some really clever men as to
+the evidence of my marriage&mdash;" began Mr. Scarborough. So the squire
+began, but then stopped himself, with a shrug of his shoulders. Among
+the really clever men who had been easily deceived Mr. Grey was, if not
+actually first in importance, foremost, at any rate, in name.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The truth may be ascertained," Mr. Grey repeated, almost with a scowl
+of anger upon his brow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I suppose it may. It will be difficult, in opposition to Mr.
+Samuel Hart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must satisfy yourselves, at any rate. These men will know that they
+have no other hope of getting a shilling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a little hard to make them believe anything," said the squire.
+"They fancy, you know, that if they could get a hold of Mountjoy, so as
+to have him in their hands when the breath is out of my body and the
+bonds are really due, that then it may be made to turn out that he is
+really the heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We know that it is not so," said Mr. Grey. At this Augustus smiled
+blandly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We know. But it is what we can make Mr. Samuel Hart know. In truth, Mr.
+Samuel Hart never allows himself to know anything,&mdash;except the amount of
+money which he may have at his banker's. And it will be difficult to
+convince Mr. Tyrrwhit. Mr. Tyrrwhit is assured that all of us,&mdash;you and
+I, and Mountjoy and Augustus,&mdash;are in a conspiracy to cheat him and the
+others."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't wonder at it," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps not," continued the squire; "the circumstances, no doubt, are
+suspicious. But he will have to find out his mistake. Augustus is very
+anxious to pay these poor men their money. It is a noble feeling on the
+part of Augustus; you must admit that, Mr. Grey." The irony with which
+this was said was evident in the squire's face and voice. Augustus only
+quietly laughed. The attorney sat as firm as death. He was not going to
+argue with such a statement or to laugh at such a joke. "I suppose it
+will come to over a hundred thousand pounds."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Eighty thousand, I should think," said Augustus. "The bonds amount to a
+great deal more than that&mdash;twice that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is for him to judge," said the squire, "whether he is bound by his
+honor to pay so large a sum to men whom I do not suppose he loves very
+well."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The estate can bear it," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, the estate can bear it," said the attorney. "They should be paid
+what they have expended. That is my idea. Your son thinks that their
+silence will be worth the money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What makes you say that?" demanded Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just my own opinion."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I look upon it as an insult."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would you be kind enough to explain to us what is your reason for
+wishing to do this thing?" asked Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir; I decline to give any reason. But those which you ascribe to
+me are insulting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Will you deny them?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will not assent to anything,&mdash;coming from you,&mdash;nor will I deny
+anything. It is altogether out of your place as an attorney to ascribe
+motives to your clients. Can you raise the money, so that it shall be
+forthcoming at once? That is the question."
+</p>
+<p>
+"On your father's authority, backed by your signature, I imagine that I
+can do so. But I will not answer as a certainty. The best thing would be
+to sell a portion of the property. If you and your father will join, and
+Mountjoy also with you, it may be done."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What has Mountjoy got to do with it?" asked the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better have Mountjoy also. There may be some doubt as to the
+title. People will think so after the tricks that have been played."
+This was said by the lawyer; but the squire only laughed. He always
+showed some enjoyment of the fun which arose from the effects of his own
+scheming. The legal world, with its entails, had endeavored to dispose
+of his property, but he had shown the legal world that it was not an
+easy task to dispose of anything in which he was concerned.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How will you get hold of Mountjoy?" asked Augustus. Then the two older
+men only looked at each other. Both of them believed that Augustus knew
+more about his brother than any one else. "I think you had better send
+to Mr. Annesley and ask him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does Annesley know about him?" asked the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was the last person who saw him, at any rate, in London."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Are you sure of that?" said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I may say that I am. I think, at any rate, that I know that
+there was a violent quarrel between them in the streets,&mdash;a quarrel in
+which the two men proceeded to blows,&mdash;and that Annesley struck him in
+such a way as to leave him for dead upon the pavement. Then the young
+man walked away, and Mountjoy has not been heard of, or, at least, has
+not been seen since. That a man should have struck such a blow, and
+then, on the spur of the moment, thinking of his own safety, should have
+left his opponent, I can understand. I should not like to be accused of
+such treatment myself, but I can understand it. I cannot understand that
+the man should have been missing altogether, and that then he should
+have held his tongue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you know all this?" asked the attorney.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is sufficient that I do know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe a word of it," said the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Coming from you, of course I must put up with any contradiction," said
+Augustus. "I should not bear it from any one else," and he looked at the
+attorney.
+</p>
+<p>
+"One has a right to ask for your authority," said his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot give it. A lady is concerned whose name I shall not mention.
+But it is of less importance, as his own friends are acquainted with the
+nature of his conduct. Indeed, it seems odd to see you two gentlemen so
+ignorant as to the matter which has been a subject of common
+conversation in most circles. His uncle means to cut him out from the
+property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can he too deal with entails?" said the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is still in middle life, and he can marry. That is what he intended
+to do, so much is he disgusted with his nephew. He has already stopped
+the young man's allowance, and swears that he shall not have a shilling
+of his money if he can help it. The police for some time were in great
+doubt whether they would not arrest him. I think I am justified in
+saying that he is a thorough reprobate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are not at all justified," said the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can only express my opinion, and am glad to say that the world agrees
+with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is sickening, absolutely sickening," said the squire, turning to the
+attorney. "You would not believe, now&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+But he stopped himself. "What would not Mr. Grey believe?" asked the
+son.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no one one knows better than you that after the row in the
+street,&mdash;when Mountjoy was, I believe, the aggressor,&mdash;he was again seen
+by another person. I hate such deceit and scheming." Here Augustus
+smiled. "What are you sniggering there at, you blockhead?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your hatred, sir, at deceit and scheming. The truth is that when a man
+plays a game well, he does not like to find that he has any equal.
+Heaven forbid that I should say that there is rivalry here. You, sir,
+are so pre-eminently the first that no one can touch you." Then he
+laughed long,&mdash;a low, bitter, inaudible laugh,&mdash;during which Mr. Grey sat
+silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This comes well from you!" said the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir, you would try your hand upon me. I have passed over all that
+you have done on my behalf. But when you come to abuse me I cannot quite
+take your words as calmly as though there had been&mdash;no, shall I say,
+antecedents? Now about this money. Are we to pay it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care one straw about the money. What is it to me? I don't owe
+these creditors anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor do I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let them rest, then, and do the worst they can. But upon the whole, Mr.
+Grey," he added, after a pause, "I think we had better pay them. They
+have endeavored to be insolent to me, and I have therefore ignored their
+claim. I have told them to do their worst. If my son here will agree
+with you in raising the money, and if Mountjoy,&mdash;as he, too, is
+necessary,&mdash;will do so, I too will do what is required of me. If eighty
+thousand pounds will settle it all, there ought not to be any
+difficulty. You can inquire what the real amount would be. If they
+choose to hold to their bonds, nothing will come of it;&mdash;that's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, Mr. Scarborough. Then I shall know how to proceed. I
+understand that Mr. Scarborough, junior, is an assenting party?" Mr.
+Scarborough, junior, signified his assent by nodding his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will do, then, for I think that I have a little exhausted myself."
+Then he turned round upon his couch, as though he intended to slumber.
+Mr. Grey left the room, and Augustus followed him, but not a word was
+spoken between them. Mr. Grey had an early dinner and went up to London
+by an evening train. What became of Augustus he did not inquire, but
+simply asked for his dinner and for a conveyance to the train. These
+were forthcoming, and he returned that night to Fulham.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?" said Dolly, as soon as she had got him his slippers and made
+him his tea.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish with all my heart I had never seen any one of the name of
+Scarborough!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is of course;&mdash;but what have you done?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The father has been a great knave. He has set the laws of his country
+at defiance, and should be punished most severely. And Mountjoy
+Scarborough has proved himself to be unfit to have any money in his
+hands. A man so reckless is little better than a lunatic. But compared
+with Augustus they are both estimable, amiable men. The father has ideas
+of philanthropy, and Mountjoy is simply mad. But Augustus is as
+dishonest as either of them, and is odious also all round." Then at
+length he explained all that he had learned, and all that he had
+advised, and at last went to bed combating Dolly's idea that the
+Scarboroughs ought now to be thrown over altogether.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH21"><!-- CH21 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S THOUGHTS OF HIMSELF.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When Mr. Scarborough was left alone he did not go to sleep, as he had
+pretended, but lay there for an hour, thinking of his position and
+indulging to the full the feelings of anger which he now entertained
+toward his second son. He had never, in truth, loved Augustus. Augustus
+was very like his father in his capacity for organizing deceit, for
+plotting, and so contriving that his own will should be in opposition to
+the wills of all those around him. But they were thoroughly unlike in
+the object to be attained. Mr. Scarborough was not a selfish man.
+Augustus was selfish and nothing else. Mr. Scarborough hated the
+law,&mdash;because it was the law and endeavored to put a restraint upon him
+and others. Augustus liked the law,&mdash;unless when in particular points it
+interfered with his own actions. Mr. Scarborough thought that he could
+do better than the law. Augustus wished to do worse. Mr. Scarborough
+never blushed at what he himself attempted, unless he failed, which was
+not often the case. But he was constantly driven to blush for his son.
+Augustus blushed for nothing and for nobody. When Mr. Scarborough had
+declared to the attorney that just praise was due to Augustus for the
+nobility of the sacrifice he was making, Augustus had understood his
+father accurately and determined to be revenged, not because of the
+expression of his father's thoughts, but because he had so expressed
+himself before the attorney. Mr. Scarborough also thought that he was
+entitled to his revenge.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he had been left alone for an hour he rung the bell, which was
+close at his side, and called for Mr. Merton. "Where is Mr. Grey?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he has ordered the wagonette to take him to the station."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And where is Augustus?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Mr. Jones? I suppose they have not gone to the station. Just feel
+my pulse, Merton. I am afraid I am very weak." Mr. Merton felt his pulse
+and shook his head. "There isn't a pulse, so to speak."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; but it is irregular. If you will exert yourself so violently&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is all very well; but a man has to exert himself sometimes, let
+the penalty be what it may. When do you think that Sir William will have
+to come again?" Sir William, when he came, would come with his knife,
+and his advent was always to be feared.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It depends very much on yourself, Mr. Scarborough. I don't think he can
+come very often, but you can make the distances long or short. You
+should attend to no business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is absolute rubbish."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nevertheless, it is my duty to say so. Whatever arrangements may be
+required, they should be made by others. Of course, if you do as you
+have done this morning, I can suggest some little relief. I can give you
+tonics and increase the amount; but I cannot resist the evil which you
+yourself do yourself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand all about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will kill yourself if you go on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mean to go on any farther,&mdash;not as I have done to-day; but as to
+giving up business, that is rubbish. I have got my property to manage,
+and I mean to manage it myself as long as I live. Unfortunately, there
+have been accidents which make the management a little rough at times. I
+have had one of the rough moments to-day, but they shall not be
+repeated. I give you my word for that. But do not talk to me about
+giving up my business. Now I'll take your tonics, and then would you
+have the kindness to ask my sister to come to me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Scarborough, who was always in waiting on her brother, was at once
+in the room. "Martha," he said, "where is Augustus?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he has gone out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And where is Mr. Septimus Jones?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is with him, John. The two are always together."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would not mind giving my compliments to Mr. Jones, and telling him
+that his bedroom is wanted?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"His bedroom wanted! There are lots of bedrooms, and nobody to occupy
+them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a hint that I want him to go; he'd understand that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would it not be better to tell Augustus?" asked the lady, doubting much
+her power to carry out the instructions given to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He would tell Augustus. It is not, you see, any objection I have to Mr.
+Jones. I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. He is a most
+agreeable young man, I'm sure; but I do not care to entertain an
+agreeable young man without having a word to say on the subject.
+Augustus does not think it worth his while even to speak to me about
+him. Of course, when I am gone, in a month or so,&mdash;perhaps a week or
+two,&mdash;he can do as he pleases."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't, John!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it is so. While I live I am master at least of this house. I cannot
+see Mr. Jones, and I do not wish to have another quarrel with Augustus.
+Mr. Merton says that every time I get angry it gives Sir William another
+chance with the knife. I thought that perhaps you could do it." Then
+Miss Scarborough promised that she would do it, and, having her
+brother's health very much at heart, she did do it. Augustus stood
+smiling while the message was, in fact, conveyed to him, but he made no
+answer. When the lady had done he bobbed his head to signify that he
+acknowledged the receipt of it, and the lady retired.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have got my walking-papers," he said to Septimus Jones ten minutes
+afterward.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what you mean."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you? Then you must be very thick-headed. My father has sent me
+word that you are to be turned out. Of course he means it for me. He
+does not wish to give me the power of saying that he sent me away from
+the house,&mdash;me, whom he has so long endeavored to rob,&mdash;me, to whom he
+owes so much for taking no steps to punish his fraud. And he knows that
+I can take none, because he is on his death-bed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you couldn't, could you, if he were&mdash;were anywhere else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Couldn't I? That's all you know about it. Understand, however, that I
+shall start to-morrow morning, and unless you like to remain here on a
+visit to him, you had better go with me." Mr. Jones signified his
+compliance with the hint, and so Miss Scarborough had done her work.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough, when thus left alone, spent his time chiefly in
+thinking of the condition of his sons. His eldest son, Mountjoy, who had
+ever been his favorite, whom as a little boy he had spoiled by every
+means in his power, was a ruined man. His debts had all been paid,
+except the money due to the money-lenders. But he was not the less a
+ruined man. Where he was at this moment his father did not know. All the
+world knew the injustice of which he had been guilty on his boy's
+behalf, and all the world knew the failure of the endeavor. And now he
+had made a great and a successful effort to give back to his legitimate
+heir all the property. But in return the second son only desired his
+death, and almost told him so to his face. He had been proud of Augustus
+as a lad, but he had never loved him as he had loved Mountjoy. Now he
+knew that he and Augustus must henceforward be enemies. Never for a
+moment did he think of giving up his power over the estate as long as
+the estate should still be his. Though it should be but for a month,
+though it should be but for a week, he would hold his own. Such was the
+nature of the man, and when he swallowed Mr. Merton's tonics he did so
+more with the idea of keeping the property out of his son's hands than
+of preserving his own life. According to his view, he had done very much
+for Augustus, and this was the return which he received!
+</p>
+<p>
+And in truth he had done much for Augustus. For years past it had been
+his object to leave to his second son as much as would come to his
+first. He had continued to put money by for him, instead of spending his
+income on himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of this Mr. Grey had known much, but had said nothing when he was
+speaking those severe words which Mr. Scarborough had always contrived
+to receive with laughter. But he had felt their injustice, though he had
+himself ridiculed the idea of law. There had been the two sons, both
+born from the same mother, and he had willed that they should be both
+rich men, living among the foremost of their fellowmen, and the
+circumstances of the property would have helped him. The income from
+year to year went on increasing.
+</p>
+<p>
+The water-mills of Tretton and the town of Tretton had grown and been
+expanded within his domain, and the management of the sales in Mr.
+Grey's hands had been judicious. The revenues were double now what they
+had been when Mr. Scarborough first inherited it. It was all, no doubt,
+entailed, but for twenty years he had enjoyed the power of accumulating
+a sum of money for his second son's sake,&mdash;or would have enjoyed it, had
+not the accumulation been taken from him to pay Mountjoy's debts. It was
+in vain that he attempted to make Mountjoy responsible for the money.
+Mountjoy's debts, and irregularities, and gambling went on, till Mr.
+Scarborough found himself bound to dethrone the illegitimate son, and to
+place the legitimate in his proper position.
+</p>
+<p>
+In doing the deed he had not suffered much, though the circumstances
+which had led to the doing of it had been full of pain. There had been
+an actual pleasure to him in thus showing himself to be superior to the
+conventionalities of the world. There was Augustus still ready to occupy
+the position to which he had in truth been born. And at the moment
+Mountjoy had gone&mdash;he knew not where. There had been gambling debts
+which, coming as they did after many others, he had refused to pay. He
+himself was dying at the moment, as he thought. It would be better for
+him to take up with Augustus. Mountjoy he must leave to his fate. For
+such a son, so reckless, so incurable, so hopeless, it was impossible
+that anything farther should be done. He would at least enjoy the power
+of leaving those wretched creditors without their money. There would be
+some triumph, some consolation, in that. So he had done, and now his
+heir turned against him!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was very bitter to him, as he lay thinking of it all. He was a man
+who was from his constitution and heart capable of making great
+sacrifices for those he loved. He had a most thorough contempt for the
+character of an honest man. He did not believe in honesty, but only in
+mock honesty. And yet he would speak of an honest man with admiration,
+meaning something altogether different from the honesty of which men
+ordinarily spoke. The usual honesty of the world was with him all
+pretence, or, if not, assumed for the sake of the character it would
+achieve. Mr. Grey he knew to be honest; Mr. Grey's word he knew to be
+true; but he fancied that Mr. Grey had adopted this absurd mode of
+living with the view of cheating his neighbors by appearing to be better
+than others. All virtue and all vice were comprised by him in the words
+"good-nature" and "ill-nature." All church-going propensities,&mdash;and
+these propensities in his estimate extended very widely,&mdash;he scorned from
+the very bottom of his heart. That one set of words should be deemed
+more wicked than another, as in regard to swearing, was to him a sign
+either of hypocrisy, of idolatry, or of feminine weakness of intellect.
+To women he allowed the privilege of being, in regard to thought, only
+something better than dogs. When his sister Martha shuddered at some
+exclamation from his mouth, he would say to himself simply that she was
+a woman, not an idiot or a hypocrite. Of women, old and young, he had
+been very fond, and in his manner to them very tender; but when a woman
+rose to a way of thinking akin to his own, she was no longer a woman to
+his senses. Against such a one his taste revolted. She sunk to the level
+of a man contaminated by petticoats. And law was hardly less absurd to
+him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got
+together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the
+many.
+</p>
+<p>
+Robbery, if you could get to the bottom of it, was bad, as was all
+violence; but taxation was robbery, rent was robbery, prices fixed
+according to the desire of the seller and not in obedience to justice,
+were robbery. "Then you are the greatest of robbers," his friends would
+say to him. He would admit it, allowing that in such a state of society
+he was not prepared to go out and live naked in the streets if he could
+help it. But he delighted to get the better of the law, and triumphed in
+his own iniquity, as has been seen by his conduct in reference to his
+sons.
+</p>
+<p>
+In this way he lived, and was kind to many people, having a generous and
+an open hand. But he was a man who could hate with a bitter hatred, and
+he hated most those suspected by him of mean or dirty conduct. Mr. Grey,
+who constantly told him to his face that he was a rascal, he did not
+hate at all. Thinking Mr. Grey to be in some respects idiotic, he
+respected him, and almost loved him. He thoroughly believed Mr. Grey,
+thinking him to be an ass for telling so much truth unnecessarily. And
+he had loved his son Mountjoy in spite of all his iniquities, and had
+fostered him till it was impossible to foster him any longer. Then he
+had endeavored to love Augustus, and did not in the least love him the
+less because his son told him frequently of the wicked things he had
+done. He did not object to be told of his wickedness even by his son.
+But Augustus suspected him of other things than those of which he
+accused him, and attempted to be sharp with him and to get the better
+of him at his own game. And his son laughed at him and scorned him, and
+regarded him as one who was troublesome only for a time, and who need
+not be treated with much attention, because he was there only for a
+time. Therefore he hated Augustus. But Augustus was his heir, and he
+knew that he must die soon.
+</p>
+<p>
+But for how long could he live? And what could he yet do before he died?
+A braver man than Mr. Scarborough never lived,&mdash;that is, one who less
+feared to die. Whether that is true courage may be a question, but it
+was his, in conjunction with courage of another description. He did not
+fear to die, nor did he fear to live. But what he did fear was to fail
+before he died. Not to go out with the conviction that he was vanishing
+amid the glory of success, was to him to be wretched at his last moment,
+and to be wretched at his last moment, or to anticipate that he should
+be so, was to him,&mdash;even so near his last hours,&mdash;the acme of misery. How
+much of life was left to him, so that he might recover something of
+success? Or was any moment left to him?
+</p>
+<p>
+He could not sleep, so he rung his bell, and again sent for Mr. Merton.
+"I have taken what you told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So best," said Mr. Merton. For he did not always feel assured that this
+strange patient would take what had been ordered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I have tried to sleep."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will come after a while. You would not naturally sleep just after
+the tonic."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I have been thinking of what you said about business. There is one
+thing I must do, and then I can remain quiet for a fortnight, unless I
+should be called upon to disturb my rest by dying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We will hope not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That may go as it pleases," said the sick man. "I want you now to write
+a letter for me to Mr. Grey." Mr. Merton had undertaken to perform the
+duties of secretary as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to
+obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but
+he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down
+at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance
+with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,&mdash;the lawyer, you
+know,&mdash;is a good man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The world, as far as I hear it, says that he is honest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care a straw what the world says. The world says that I am
+dishonest, but I am not." Merton could only shrug his shoulders. "I
+don't say that because I want you to change your opinion. I don't care
+what you think. But I tell you a fact. I doubt whether Grey is so
+absolutely honest as I am, but, as things go, he is a good man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the world, I suppose, says that my son Augustus is honest?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I should suppose so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you have looked into him and have seen the contrary, I respect your
+intelligence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did not mean anything particular."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say not, and if so, I mean nothing particular as to your
+intelligence. He, at any rate, is a scoundrel. Mountjoy&mdash;you know
+Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never saw him in my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think he is a scoundrel,&mdash;not all round. He has gambled when he
+has not had money to pay. That is bad. And he has promised when he
+wanted money, and broken his word as soon as he had got it, which is bad
+also. And he has thought himself to be a fine fellow because he has been
+intimate with lords and dukes, which is very bad. He has never cared
+whether he paid his tailor. I do not mean that he has merely got into
+debt, which a young man such as he cannot help; but he has not cared
+whether his breeches were his or another man's. That too is bad. Though
+he has been passionately fond of women, it has only been for himself,
+not for the women, which is very bad. There is an immense deal to be
+altered before he can go to heaven."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope the change may come before it is too late," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"These changes don't come very suddenly, you know. But there is some
+chance for Mountjoy. I don't think that there is any for Augustus." Here
+he paused, but Merton did not feel disposed to make any remark. "You
+don't happen to know a young man of the name of Annesley,&mdash;Harry
+Annesley?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have heard his name from your son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Augustus? Then you didn't hear any good of him, I'm sure. You have
+heard all the row about poor Mountjoy's disappearance?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I heard that he did disappear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"After a quarrel with that Annesley?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"After some quarrel. I did not notice the name at the time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry Annesley was the name. Now, Augustus says that Harry Annesley
+was the last person who saw Mountjoy before his disappearance,&mdash;the last
+who knew him. He implies thereby that Annesley was the conscious or
+unconscious cause of his disappearance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly it is so. And as it has been thought by the police, and by
+other fools, that Mountjoy was murdered,&mdash;that his disappearance was
+occasioned by his death, either by murder or suicide, it follows that
+Annesley must have had something to do with it. That is the inference,
+is it not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should suppose so," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is manifestly the inference which Augustus draws. To hear him
+speak to me about it you would suppose that he suspected Annesley of
+having killed Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not that, I hope."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Something of the sort. He has intended it to be believed that Annesley,
+for his own purposes, has caused Mountjoy to be made away with. He has
+endeavored to fill the police with that idea. A policeman, generally, is
+the biggest fool that London, or England, or the world produces, and has
+been selected on that account. Therefore the police have a beautifully
+mysterious but altogether ignorant suspicion as to Annesley. That is the
+doing of Augustus, for some purpose of his own. Now, let me tell you
+that Augustus saw Mountjoy after Annesley had seen him, that he knows
+this to be the case, and that it was Augustus, who contrived Mountjoy's
+disappearance. Now what do you think of Augustus?" This was a question
+which Merton did not find it very easy to answer. But Mr. Scarborough
+waited for a reply. "Eh?" he exclaimed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I had rather not give an opinion on a point so raised."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may. Of course you understand that I intend to assert that Augustus
+is the greatest blackguard you ever knew. If you have anything to say in
+his favor you can say it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only that you may be mistaken. Living down here, you may not know the
+truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just that. But I do know the truth. Augustus is very clever; but there
+are others as clever as he is. He can pay, but then so can I. That he
+should want to get Mountjoy out of the way is intelligible. Mountjoy has
+become disreputable, and had better be out of the way. But why
+persistently endeavor to throw the blame upon young Annesley? That
+surprises me;&mdash;only I do not care much about it. I hear now for the first
+time that he has ruined young Annesley, and that does appear to be very
+horrible. But why does he want to pay eighty thousand pounds to these
+creditors? That I should wish to do so,&mdash;out of a property which must in
+a very short time become his,&mdash;would be intelligible. I may be supposed
+to have some affection for Mountjoy, and, after all, am not called upon
+to pay the money out of my own pocket. Do you understand it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least," said Merton, who did not, indeed, very much care
+about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor do I;&mdash;only this, that if he could pay these men and deprive them of
+all power of obtaining farther payment, let who would have the property,
+they at any rate would be quiet. Augustus is now my eldest son. Perhaps
+he thinks he might not remain so. If I were out of the way, and these
+creditors were paid, he thinks that poor Mountjoy wouldn't have a
+chance. He shall pay this eighty thousand pounds. Mountjoy hasn't a
+chance as it is; but Augustus shall pay the penalty."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he threw himself back on the bed, and Mr. Merton begged him to
+spare himself the trouble of the letter for the present. But in a few
+minutes he was again on his elbow and took some farther medicine. "I'm a
+great ass," he said, "to help Augustus in playing his game. If I were to
+go off at once he would be the happiest fellow left alive. But come, let
+us begin." Then he dictated the letter as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAR MR. GREY,&mdash;I have been thinking much of what passed between us the
+other day. Augustus seems to be in a great hurry as to paying the
+creditors, and I do not see why he should not be gratified, as the money
+may now be forthcoming. I presume that the sales, which will be
+completed before Christmas, will nearly enable us to stop their mouths.
+I can understand that Mountjoy should be induced to join with me and
+Augustus, so that in disposing of so large a sum of money the authority
+of all may be given, both of myself and of the heir, and also of him who
+a short time since was supposed to be the heir. I think that you may
+possibly find Mountjoy's address by applying to Augustus, who is always
+clever in such matters.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you will have to be certain that you obtain all the bonds. If you
+can get Tyrrwhit to help you you will be able to be sure of doing so.
+The matter to him is one of vital importance, as his sum is so much the
+largest. Of course he will open his mouth very wide; but when he finds
+that he can get his principal and nothing more, I think that he will
+help you. I am afraid that I must ask you to put yourself in
+correspondence with Augustus. That he is an insolent scoundrel I will
+admit; but we cannot very well complete this affair without him. I fancy
+that he now feels it to be his interest to get it all done before I die,
+as the men will be clamorous with their bonds as soon as the breath is
+out of my body.&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours sincerely, JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will do," he said, when the letter was finished. But when Mr.
+Merton turned to leave the room Mr. Scarborough detained him. "Upon the
+whole, I am not dissatisfied with my life," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that you have occasion," rejoined Mr. Merton. In this he
+absolutely lied, for, according to his thinking, there was very much in
+the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's life which ought to have induced
+regret. He knew the whole story of the birth of the elder son, of the
+subsequent marriage, of Mr. Scarborough's fraudulent deceit which had
+lasted so many years, and of his later return to the truth, so as to
+save the property, and to give back to the younger son all of which for
+so many years he, his father, had attempted to rob him.
+</p>
+<p>
+All London had talked of the affair, and all London had declared that so
+wicked and dishonest an old gentleman had never lived. And now he had
+returned to the truth simply with the view of cheating the creditors and
+keeping the estate in the family. He was manifestly an old gentleman who
+ought to be, above all others, dissatisfied with his own life; but Mr.
+Merton, when the assertion was made to him, knew not what other answer
+to make.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I really do not think I have, nor do I know one to whom heaven with all
+its bliss will be more readily accorded. What have I done for myself?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't quite know what you have done all your life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was born a rich man, and then I married,&mdash;not rich as I am now, but
+with ample means for marrying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"After Mr. Mountjoy's birth," said Merton, who could not pretend to be
+ignorant of the circumstance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes. I have my own ideas about marriage and that kind of thing,
+which are, perhaps, at variance with yours." Whereupon Merton bowed. "I
+had the best wife in the world, who entirely coincided with me in all
+that I did. I lived entirely abroad, and made most liberal allowances to
+all the agricultural tenants. I rebuilt all the cottages;&mdash;go and look at
+them. I let any man shoot his own game till Mountjoy came up in the
+world and took the shooting into his own hands. When the people at the
+pottery began to build I assisted them in every way in the world. I
+offered to keep a school at my own expense, solely on the understanding
+that what they call Dissenters should be allowed to come there. The
+parson spread abroad a rumor that I was an atheist, and consequently the
+School was kept for the Dissenters only. The School-board has come and
+made that all right, though the parson goes on with his rumor. If he
+understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more
+of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on
+them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes
+were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I
+have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became richer, but
+Mountjoy grew more and more expensive. I began to find that with all my
+economies the estate could not keep pace with him, so as to allow me to
+put by anything for Augustus. Then I had to bethink myself what I had to
+do to save the estate from those rascals."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You took peculiar steps."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am a man who does take peculiar steps. Another would have turned his
+face to the wall in my state of health, and have allowed two dirty Jews
+such as Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart to have revelled in the wealth of
+Tretton. I am not going to allow them to revel. Tyrrwhit knows me, and
+Hart will have to know me. They could not keep their hands to themselves
+till the breath was out of my body. Now I am about to see that each
+shall have his own shortly, and the estate will still be kept in the
+family."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For Mr. Augustus Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, alas, yes! But that is not my doing. I do not know that I have
+cause to be dissatisfied with myself, but I cannot but own that I am
+unhappy. But I wished you to understand that though a man may break the
+law, he need not therefore be accounted bad, and though he may have
+views of his own as to religious matters, he need not be an atheist. I
+have made efforts on behalf of others, in which I have allowed no
+outward circumstances to control me. Now I think I do feel sleepy."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH22"><!-- CH22 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS SUMMONED HOME.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"Just now I am triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he
+left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was
+absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the
+abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well
+of his own parts as to have flattered himself that the girl must
+certainly be his.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are at present a number of young men about who think that few
+girls are worth the winning, but that any girl is to be had, not by
+asking,&mdash;which would be troublesome,&mdash;but simply by looking at her. You
+can see the feeling in their faces. They are for the most part small in
+stature, well made little men, who are aware that they have something to
+be proud of, wearing close-packed, shining little hats, by which they
+seem to add more than a cubit to their stature; men endowed with certain
+gifts of personal&mdash;dignity I may perhaps call it, though the word rises
+somewhat too high. They look as though they would be able to say a
+clever thing; but their spoken thoughts seldom rise above a small, acrid
+sharpness. They respect no one; above all, not their elders. To such a
+one his horse comes first, if he have a horse; then a dog; and then a
+stick; and after that the mistress of his affections. But their fault is
+not altogether of their own making. It is the girls themselves who spoil
+them and endure their inanity, because of that assumed look of
+superiority which to the eyes of the outside world would be a little
+offensive were it not a little foolish. But they do not marry often.
+Whether it be that the girls know better at last, or that they
+themselves do not see sufficiently clearly their future dinners, who can
+say? They are for the most part younger brothers, and perhaps have
+discovered the best way of getting out of the world whatever scraps the
+world can afford them. Harry Annesley's faults were altogether of
+another kind. In regard to this young woman, the Florence whom he had
+loved, he had been over-modest. Now his feeling of glory was altogether
+redundant. Having been told by Florence that she was devoted to him, he
+walked with his head among the heavens. The first instinct with such a
+young man as those of whom I have spoken teaches him, the moment he has
+committed himself, to begin to consider how he can get out of the
+scrape. It is not much of a scrape, for when an older man comes this
+way, a man verging toward baldness, with a good professional income, our
+little friend is forgotten and he is passed by without a word. But Harry
+had now a conviction,&mdash;on that one special night,&mdash;that he never would be
+forgotten and never would forget. He was filled at once with an unwonted
+pride. All the world was now at his feet, and all the stars were open to
+him. He had begun to have a glimmering of what it was that Augustus
+Scarborough intended to do; but the intentions of Augustus Scarborough
+were now of no moment to him. He was clothed in a panoply of armor which
+would be true against all weapons. At any rate, on that night and during
+the next day this feeling remained the same with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he received a summons from his mother at Buston. His mother pressed
+him to come at once down to the parsonage. "Your uncle has been with
+your father, and has said terrible things about you. As you know, my
+brother is not very strong-minded, and I should not care so much for
+what he says were it not that so much is in his hands. I cannot
+understand what it is all about, but your father says that he does
+nothing but threaten. He talks of putting the entail on one side.
+Entails used to be fixed things, I thought; but since what old Mr.
+Scarborough did nobody seems to regard them now. But even suppose the
+entail does remain, what are you to do about the income? Your father
+thinks you had better come down and have a little talk about the
+matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+This was the first blow received since the moment of his exaltation.
+Harry knew very well that the entail was fixed, and could not be put
+aside by Mr. Prosper, though Mr. Scarborough might have succeeded with
+his entail; but yet he was aware that his present income was chiefly
+dependent on his uncle's good-will. To be reduced to live on his
+fellowship would be very dreadful. And that income, such as it was,
+depended entirely on his celibacy. And he had, too, as he was well
+aware, engendered habits of idleness during the last two years. The mind
+of a young man so circumstanced turns always first to the Bar, and then
+to literature. At the Bar he did not think that there could be any
+opening for him. In the first place, it was late to begin; and then he
+was humble enough to believe of himself that he had none of the peculiar
+gifts necessary for a judge or for an advocate. Perhaps the knowledge
+that six or seven years of preliminary labor would be necessary was
+somewhat of a deterrent.
+</p>
+<p>
+The rewards of literature might be achieved immediately. Such was his
+idea. But he had another idea,&mdash;perhaps as erroneous,&mdash;that this career
+would not become a gentleman who intended to be Squire of Buston. He had
+seen two or three men, decidedly Bohemian in their modes of life, to
+whom he did not wish to assimilate himself. There was Quaverdale, whom
+he had known intimately at St. John's, and who was on the Press.
+Quaverdale had quarrelled absolutely with his father, who was also a
+clergyman, and having been thrown altogether on his own resources, had
+come out as a writer for <i>The Coming Hour</i>. He made his five or six
+hundred a year in a rattling, loose, uncertain sort of fashion, and
+was,&mdash;so thought Harry Annesley,&mdash;the dirtiest man of his acquaintance. He
+did not believe in the six hundred a year, or Quaverdale would certainly
+have changed his shirt more frequently, and would sometimes have had a
+new pair of trousers. He was very amusing, very happy, very thoughtless,
+and as a rule altogether impecunious. Annesley had never known him
+without the means of getting a good dinner, but those means did not rise
+to the purchase of a new hat. Putting Quaverdale before him as an
+example, Annesley could not bring himself to choose literature as a
+profession. Thinking of all this when he received his mother's letter,
+he assured himself that Florence would not like professional literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+He wrote to say that he would be down at Buston in five days' time. It
+does not become a son who is a fellow of a college and the heir to a
+property to obey his parents too quickly. But he gave up the
+intermediate days to thinking over the condition which bound him to his
+uncle, and to discussing his prospects with Quaverdale, who, as usual,
+was remaining in town doing the editor's work for <i>The Coming Hour</i>. "If
+he interfered with me I should tell him to go to bed," said Quaverdale.
+The allusion was, of course, made to Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not on those sort of terms with him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should make my own terms, and then let him do his worst. What can he
+do? If he means to withdraw his beggarly two hundred and fifty pounds,
+of course he'll do it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose I do owe him something, in the way of respect."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if he threatens you in regard to money. What does it come to? That
+you are to cringe at his heels for a beggarly allowance which he has
+been pleased to bestow upon you without your asking. 'Very well, my dear
+fellow,' I should say to him, 'you can stop it the moment you please.
+For certain objects of your own,&mdash;that your heir might live in the world
+after a certain fashion,&mdash;you have bestowed it. It has been mine since I
+was a child. If you can reconcile it to your conscience to discontinue
+it, do so.' You would find that he would have to think twice about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will stop it, and what am I to do then? Can I get an opening on any
+of these papers?" Quaverdale whistled,&mdash;a mode of receiving the overture
+which was not pleasing to Annesley. "I don't suppose that anything so
+very super-human in the way of intellect is required." Annesley had got
+a fellowship, whereas Quaverdale had done nothing at the university.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Couldn't you make a pair of shoes? Shoemakers do get good wages."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean? A fellow never can get you to be serious for two
+minutes together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never was more serious in my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That I am to make shoes?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I don't quite think that. I don't suppose you can make them. You'd
+have first to learn the trade and show that you were an adept."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I must show that I am an adept before I can write for <i>The Coming
+Hour</i>." There was a tone of sarcasm in this which was not lost on
+Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly you must; and that you are a better adept than I who have got
+the place, or some other unfortunate who will have to be put out of his
+berth. <i>The Coming Hour</i> only requires a certain number. Of course there
+are many newspapers in London, and many magazines, and much literary
+work going. You may get your share of it, but you have got to begin by
+shoving some incompetent fellow out. And in order to be able to begin
+you must learn the trade."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How did you begin?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just in that way. While you were roaming about London like a fine
+gentleman I began by earning twenty-four shillings a week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Can I earn twenty-four shillings a week?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You won't because you have already got your fellowship. You had a knack
+at writing Greek iambics, and therefore got a fellowship. I picked up at
+the same time the way of stringing English together. I also soon learned
+the way to be hungry. I'm not hungry now very often, but I've been
+through it. My belief is that you wouldn't get along with my editor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's your idea of being independent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly it is. I do his work, and take his pay, and obey his orders.
+If you think you can do the same, come and try. There's not room here,
+but there is, no doubt, room elsewhere. There's the trade to be
+learned, like any other trade; but my belief is that even then you could
+not do it. We don't want Greek iambics."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry turned away disgusted. Quaverdale was like the rest of the world,
+and thought that a peculiar talent and a peculiar tact were needed for
+his own business. Harry believed that he was as able to write a leading
+article, at any rate, as Quaverdale, and that the Greek iambics would
+not stand in his way. But he conceived it to be probable that his habits
+of cleanliness might do so, and gave up the idea for the present. He
+thought that his friend should have welcomed him with an open hand into
+the realms of literature; and, perhaps, it was the case that Quaverdale
+attributed too much weight to the knack of turning readable paragraphs
+on any subject at any moment's notice.
+</p>
+<p>
+But what should he do down at Buston? There were three persons there
+with whom he would have to contend,&mdash;his father, his mother, and his
+uncle. With his father he had always been on good terms, but had still
+been subject to a certain amount of gentle sarcasm. He had got his
+fellowship and his allowance, and so had been lifted above his father's
+authority. His father thoroughly despised his brother-in-law, and looked
+down upon him as an absolute ass. But he was reticent, only dropping a
+word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a
+feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were
+encouraged to laugh at his benefactor. He had said a word or two as to a
+profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to
+nothing. In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and
+the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether
+opposed the notion. The rector himself was an idle, good-looking,
+self-indulgent man,&mdash;a man who read a little and understood what he read,
+and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no
+trouble about anything. To go through the world comfortably with a
+rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his
+ambition. In regard to his eldest son he had begun well. Harry had been
+educated free, and had got a fellowship. He had never cost his father a
+shilling. And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be
+married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford.
+This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a
+thankful heart. There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a
+third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school
+at Royston. Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world
+with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his
+troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages. Of
+these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be
+careful to guard it. It was quite out of the question that he should
+find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty
+pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was Harry's mother, who had already very frequently
+discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a
+dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be
+swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of
+plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the
+young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be
+stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung
+were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,&mdash;an
+amusement which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit
+of following. Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having
+been born at the Hall. She was an excellent mother of a family, and a
+good clergyman's wife, being in both respects more painstaking and
+assiduous than her husband. But she did maintain something of respect
+for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool.
+But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have
+reached the age of fifty unmarried, so as to leave the position of heir
+open to her own son, was more. To such a one a great deal was due; but
+of that deal Harry was but little disposed to pay any part. He must be
+talked to, and very seriously talked to, and if possible saved from the
+sin of offending his easily-offended uncle. A terrible idea had been
+suggested to her lately by her husband. The entail might be made
+altogether inoperative by the marriage of her brother. It was a fearful
+notion, but one which if it entered into her brother's head might
+possibly be carried out. No one before had ever dreamed of anything so
+dangerous to the Annesley interests, and Mrs. Annesley now felt that by
+due submission on the part of the heir it might be avoided.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the squire himself was the foe whom Harry most feared. He quite
+understood that he would be required to be submissive, and, even if he
+were willing, he did not know how to act the part. There was much now
+that he would endure for the sake of Florence. If Mr. Prosper demanded
+that after dinner he should hear a sermon, he would sit and hear it out.
+It would be a bore, but might be endured on behalf of the girl whom he
+loved. But he much feared that the cause of his uncle's displeasure was
+deeper than that. A rumor had reached him that his uncle had declared
+his conduct to Mountjoy Scarborough to have been abominable. He had
+heard no words spoken by his uncle, but threats had reached him through
+his mother, and also through his uncle's man of business. He certainly
+would go down to Buston, and carry himself toward his uncle with what
+outward signs of respect would be possible. But if his uncle accused
+him, he could not but tell his uncle that he knew nothing of the matter
+of which he was talking. Not for all Buston could he admit that he had
+done anything mean or ignoble. Florence, he was quite sure, would not
+desire it. Florence would not be Florence were she to desire it. He
+thought that he could trace the hands,&mdash;or rather the tongues,&mdash;through
+which the calumny had made its way down to the Hall. He would at once go
+to the Hall, and tell his uncle all the facts. He would describe the
+gross ill-usage to which he had been subjected. No doubt he had left the
+man sprawling upon the pavement, but there had been no sign that the man
+had been dangerously hurt; and when two days afterward the man had
+vanished, it was clear that he could not have vanished without legs. Had
+he taken himself off,&mdash;as was probable,&mdash;then why need Harry trouble
+himself as to his vanishing? If some one else had helped him in
+escaping,&mdash;as was also probable,&mdash;why had not that some one come and told
+the circumstances when all the inquiries were being made? Why should he
+have been expected to speak of the circumstances of such an encounter,
+which could not have been told but to Captain Scarborough's infinite
+disgrace? And he could not have told of it without naming Florence
+Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+His uncle, when he heard the truth, must acknowledge that he had not
+behaved badly. And yet Harry, as he turned it all in his mind was uneasy
+as to his own conduct. He could not quite acquit himself in that he had
+kept secret all the facts of that midnight encounter in the face of the
+inquiries which had been made, in that he had falsely assured Augustus
+Scarborough of his ignorance. And yet he knew that on no consideration
+would he acknowledge himself to have been wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH23"><!-- CH23 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE RUMORS AS TO MR. PROSPER.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It was still October when Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and the
+Mountjoys had just reached Brussels. Mr. Grey had made his visit to
+Tretton and had returned to London. Harry went home on an
+understanding,&mdash;on the part of his mother, at any rate,&mdash;that he should
+remain there till Christmas. But he felt himself very averse to so long
+a sojourn. If the Hall and park were open to him he might endure it. He
+would take down two or three stiff books which he certainly would never
+read, and would shoot a few pheasants, and possibly ride one of his
+future brother-in-law's horses with the hounds. But he feared that there
+was to be a quarrel by which he would be debarred from the Hall and the
+park; and he knew, too, that it would not be well for him to shoot and
+hunt when his income should have been cut off. It would be necessary
+that some great step should be taken at once; but then it would be
+necessary, also, that Florence should agree to that step. He had a
+modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for
+what must occur by giving notice. "I don't say as yet that I shall give
+them up; but I might as well let you know that it's possible." This he
+said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this
+intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do. But where should he betake
+himself when his home at Mrs. Brown's had been lost? He would, he
+thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the
+rectory. Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to
+Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.
+</p>
+<p>
+He saw it all in his mother's eye the moment she embraced him. There was
+some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle?
+"Well, mother, what is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is my uncle dead?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dead! No!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why do you look so sad?&mdash;
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+  "'Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,<br>
+  So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,<br>
+  Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.'"<br>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+"Oh Harry do not laugh. Your uncle says such dreadful things!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't care much what he says. The question is&mdash;what does he mean to
+do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He declares that he will cut you off altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is sooner said than done."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it. Oh, Harry! But come and
+sit down and talk to me. I told your father to be out, so that I might
+have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, like them! Thoroughbung will have enough of them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is our only happiness now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Thoroughbung! I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole
+household."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Joshua is a most excellent young man. Where we should be without him I
+do not know." The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had
+been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a
+brother-in-law.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure he is; particularly as he has chosen Molly to be his wife. He
+is just the young man who ought to have a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he ought."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because he can keep a family. But now about my uncle. He is to perform
+this ceremony of cutting me off. Will he turn out to have had a wife and
+family in former ages? I have no doubt old Scarborough could manage it,
+but I don't give my uncle credit for so much cleverness."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But in future ages&mdash;" said the unhappy mother, shaking her head and
+rubbing her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean that he is going to have a family?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is all in the hands of Providence," said the parson's wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; that is true. He is not too old yet to be a second Priam, and have
+his curtains drawn the other way. That's his little game, is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's a sort of rumor about, that it is possible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And who is the lady?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may be sure there will be no lack of a lady if he sets his mind
+upon it. I was turning it over in my mind, and I thought of Matilda
+Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Joshua's aunt!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well; she is Joshua's aunt, no doubt. I did just whisper the idea to
+Joshua, and he says that she is fool enough for anything. She has
+twenty-five thousand pounds of her own, but she lives all by herself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know where she lives,&mdash;just out of Buntingford, as you go to Royston.
+But she's not alone. Is Uncle Prosper to marry Miss Tickle also?" Miss
+Tickle was an estimable lady living as companion to Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know how they may manage; but it has to be thought of, Harry.
+We only know that your uncle has been twice to Buntingford."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The lady is fifty, at any rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The lady is barely forty. She gives out that she is thirty-six. And he
+could settle a jointure on her which would leave the property not worth
+having."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can I do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed, my dear; what can you do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why is he going to upset all the arrangements of my life, and his life,
+after such a fashion as this?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just what your father says."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose he can do it. The law will allow him. But the injustice would
+be monstrous. I did not ask him to take me by the hand when I was a boy
+and lead me into this special walk of life. It has been his own doing.
+How will he look me in the face and tell me that he is going to marry a
+wife? I shall look him in the face and tell him of my wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But is that settled?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, mother; it is settled. Wish me joy for having won the finest lady
+that ever walked the earth." His mother blessed him,&mdash;but said nothing
+about the finest lady,&mdash;who at that moment she believed to be the future
+bride of Mr. Joshua Thoroughbung. "And when I shall tell my uncle that
+it is so, what will he say to me? Will he have the face then to tell me
+that I am to be cut out of Buston? I doubt whether he will have the
+courage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has thought of that, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How thought of it, mother?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has given orders that he is not to see you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to see me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So he declares. He has written a long letter to your father, in which
+he says that he would be spared the agony of an interview."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What! is it all done, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father got the letter yesterday. It must have taken my poor
+brother a week to write it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he tells the whole plan,&mdash;Matilda Thoroughbung, and the future
+family?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, he does not say anything about Miss Thoroughbung He says that he
+must make other arrangements about the property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He can't make other arrangements; that is, not until the boy is born.
+It may be a long time first, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the jointure?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does Molly say about it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Molly is mad about it and so is Joshua. Joshua talks about it just as
+though he were one of us, and he says that the old people at Buntingford
+would not hear of it." The old people spoken of were the father and
+mother of Joshua, and the half-brother of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung.
+"But what can they do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"They can do nothing. If Miss Matilda likes Uncle Prosper&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Likes, my dear! How young you are! Of course she would like a country
+house to live in, and the park, and the county society. And she would
+like somebody to live with besides Miss Tickle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My uncle, for instance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, your uncle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I had my choice, mother, I should prefer Miss Tickle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you are a silly boy. But what are you to do now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this long letter which he has written to my father does he give no
+reason?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father will show you the letter. Of course he gives reasons. He
+says that you have done something which you ought not to have
+done&mdash;about that wretched Mountjoy Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does he know about it?&mdash;the idiot!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Harry!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, mother, what better can I say of him? He has taken me as a child
+and fashioned my life for me; has said that this property should be
+mine, and has put an income into my hand as though I were an eldest son;
+has repeatedly declared, when his voice was more potent than mine, that
+I should follow no profession. He has bound himself to me, telling all
+the world that I was his heir. And now he casts me out because he has
+heard some cock-and-bull story, of the truth of which he knows nothing.
+What better can I say of him than call him an idiot? He must be that or
+else a heartless knave. And he says that he does not mean to see me,&mdash;me
+with whose life he has thus been empowered to interfere, so as to blast
+it if not to bless it, and intends to turn me adrift as he might do a
+dog that did not suit him! And because he knows that he cannot answer me
+he declares that he will not see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is very hard, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Therefore I call him an idiot in preference to calling him a knave. But
+I am not going to be dropped out of the running in that way, just in
+deference to his will. I shall see him. Unless they lock him up in his
+bedroom I shall compel him to see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What good would that do, Harry? That would only set him more against
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't know his weakness."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, I do; he is very weak."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will not see me, because he will have to yield when he hears what I
+have to say for myself. He knows that, and would therefore fain keep
+away from me. Why should he be stirred to this animosity against me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why indeed?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because there is some one who wishes to injure me more strong than he
+is, and who has got hold of him. Some one has lied behind my back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who has done this?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, that is the question. But I know who has done it, though I will not
+name him just now. This enemy of mine, knowing him to be weak,&mdash;knowing
+him to be an idiot, has got hold of him and persuaded him. He believes
+the story which is told to him, and then feels happy in shaking off an
+incubus. No doubt I have not been very soft with him,&mdash;nor, indeed, hard.
+I have kept out of his way, and he is willing to resent it; but he is
+afraid to face me and tell me that it is so. Here are the girls come
+back from Buntingford. Molly, you blooming young bride, I wish you joy
+of your brewer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's none the worse on that account, Master Harry," said the eldest
+sister.
+</p>
+<p>
+"All the better,&mdash;very much the better. Where would you be if he was not
+a brewer? But I congratulate you with all my heart, old girl. I have
+known him ever so long, and he is one of the best fellows I do know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, Harry," and she kissed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish Fanny and Kate may even do so well."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All in good time," said Fanny.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean to have a banker&mdash;all to myself," said Kate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you may have half as good a man for your husband," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I am to tell you," continued Molly, who was now in high
+good-humor, "that there will be always one of his horses for you to ride
+as long as you remain at home. It is not every brother-in-law that would
+do as much as that for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor yet every uncle," said Kate, shaking her head, from which Harry
+could see that this quarrel with his uncle had been freely discussed in
+the family circle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncles are very different," said the mother; "uncles can't be expected
+to do everything as though they were in love."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle
+Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. Then the other two
+girls shook their heads very gravely, from which Harry learned that the
+question respecting the choice of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung as a
+mistress for the Hall had been discussed also before them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not going to marry all the family," said Molly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not Miss Matilda, for instance," said her brother, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, especially not Matilda. Joshua is quite as angry about his aunt as
+anybody here can be. You'll find that he is more of an Annesley than a
+Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear," said the mother, "your husband will, as a matter of course,
+think most of his own family. And so ought you to do of his family,
+which will be yours. A married woman should always think most of her
+husband's family." In this way the mother told her daughter of her
+future duties; but behind the mother's back Kate made a grimace, for the
+benefit of her sister Fanny, showing thereby her conviction that in a
+matter of blood,&mdash;what she called being a gentleman,&mdash;a Thoroughbung could
+not approach an Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma does not know it as yet," Molly said afterward in privacy to her
+brother, "but you may take it for granted that Uncle Peter has been into
+Buntingford and has made an offer to Aunt Matilda. I could tell it at
+once, because she looked so sharp at me to-day. And Joshua says that he
+is sure it is so by the airs she gives herself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think she'll have him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have him! Of course she'll have him. Why shouldn't she? A wretched old
+maid living with a companion like that would have any one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She has got a lot of money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She'll take care of her money, let her alone for that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she'll have his house to live in. And there'll be a jointure. Of
+course, if there were to be children&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, bother!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, perhaps there will not. But it will be just as bad. We don't mean
+even to visit them; we think it so very wicked. And we shall tell them a
+bit of our mind as soon as the thing has been publicly declared."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH24"><!-- CH24 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S MISERY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+The conversation which took place that evening between Harry and his
+father was more serious in its language, though not more important in
+its purpose. "This is bad news, Harry," said the rector.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed, sir."'
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your uncle, no doubt, can do as he pleases."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean as to the income he has allowed me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As to the income! As to the property itself. It is bad waiting for dead
+men's shoes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet it is what everybody does in this world. No one can say that I
+have been at all in a hurry to step into my uncle's shoes. It was he
+that first told you that he should never marry, and as the property had
+been entailed on me, he undertook to bring me up as his son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So he did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a doubt about it, sir. But I had nothing to say to it. As far as I
+understand, he has been allowing me two hundred and fifty pounds a year
+for the last dozen years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ever since you went to the Charter-house."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At that time I could not be expected to have a word to say to it. And
+it has gone on ever since."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it has gone on ever since."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And when I was leaving Cambridge he required that I should not go into
+a profession."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly that, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was so that I understood it. He did not wish his heir to be burdened
+with a profession. He said so to me himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, just when he was in his pride because you had got your fellowship.
+But there was a contract understood, if not made."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What contract?" asked Harry, with an air of surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That you should be to him as a son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never undertook it. I wouldn't have done it at the price,&mdash;or for any
+price. I never felt for him the respect or the love that were due to a
+father. I did feel both of them, to the full, for my own father. They
+are a sort of a thing which we cannot transfer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They may be shared, Harry," said the rector, who was flattered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, sir; in this instance that was not possible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You might have sat by while he read a sermon to his sister and nieces.
+You understood his vanity, and you wounded it, knowing what you were
+doing. I don't mean to blame you, but it was a misfortune. Now we must
+look it in the face and see what must be done. Your mother has told you
+that he has written to me. There is his letter. You will see that he
+writes with a fixed purpose." Then he handed to Harry a letter written
+on a large sheet of paper, the reading of which would be so long that
+Harry seated himself for the operation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The letter need not here be repeated at length. It was written with
+involved sentences, but in very decided language. It said nothing of
+Harry's want of duty, or not attending to the sermons, or of other
+deficiencies of a like nature, but based his resolution in regard to
+stopping the income on his nephew's misconduct,&mdash;as it appeared to
+him,&mdash;in a certain particular case. And unfortunately,&mdash;though Harry was
+prepared to deny that his conduct on that occasion had been subject to
+censure,&mdash;he could not contradict any of the facts on which Mr. Prosper
+had founded his opinion. The story was told in reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough, but not the whole story. "I understand that there was a row
+in the streets late at night, at the end of which young Mr. Scarborough
+was left as dead under the railings." "Left for dead!" exclaimed Harry.
+"Who says that he was left for dead? I did not think him to be dead."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better read it to the end," said his father, and Harry read it.
+The letter went on to describe how Mountjoy Scarborough was missed from
+his usual haunts, how search was made by the police, how the newspapers
+were filled with the strange incident, and how Harry had told nothing of
+what had occurred. "But beyond this," the letter went on to say, "he
+positively denied, in conversation with the gentleman's brother, that he
+had anything to do with the gentleman on the night in question. If this
+be so, he absolutely lied. A man who would lie on such an occasion,
+knowing himself to have been guilty of having beaten the man in such a
+way as to have probably caused his death,&mdash;for he had left him for dead
+under the railings in a London street and in the midnight hour,&mdash;and
+would positively assert to the gentleman's brother that he had not seen
+the gentleman on the night in question, when he had every reason to
+believe that he had killed him,&mdash;a deed which might or might not be
+murder,&mdash;is not fit to be recognized as my heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+There were other sentences equally long and equally complicated, in all
+of which Mr. Prosper strove to tell the story with tragic effect, but
+all of which had reference to the same transaction. He said nothing as
+to the ultimate destination of the property, nor of his own proposed
+marriage. Should he have a son, that son would, of course, have the
+property. Should there be no son, Harry must have it, even though his
+conduct might have been ever so abominable. To prevent this outrage on
+society, his marriage,&mdash;with its ordinary results,&mdash;would be the only
+step. Of that he need say nothing. But the two hundred and fifty pounds
+would not be paid after the Christmas quarter, and he must decline for
+the future the honor of receiving Mr. Henry Annesley at the Hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry, when he had read it all, began to storm with anger. The man, as
+he truly observed, had grossly insulted him. Mr. Prosper had called him
+a liar and had hinted that he was a murderer. "You can do nothing to
+him," his father said. "He is your uncle, and you have eaten his bread."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't call him out and fight him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must let it alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can make my way into the house and see him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think you can do that. You will find it difficult to get beyond
+the front-door, and I would advise you to abandon all such ideas. What
+can you say to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is false!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is false? Though in essence it is false, in words it is true. You
+did deny that you had seen him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I forget what passed. Augustus Scarborough endeavored to pump me about
+his brother, and I did not choose to be pumped. As far as I can
+ascertain now, it is he that is the liar. He saw his brother after the
+affair with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Has he denied it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Practically he denies it by asking me the question. He asked me with
+the ostensible object of finding out what had become of his brother when
+he himself knew what had become of him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you can't prove it. He positively says that you did deny having
+seen him on the night in question, I am not speaking of Augustus
+Scarborough, but of your uncle. What he says is true, and you had better
+leave him alone. Take other steps for driving the real truth into his
+brain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What steps can be taken with such a fool?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Write your own account of the transaction, so that he shall read it.
+Let your mother have it. I suppose he will see your mother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so beg his favor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need beg for nothing. Or if the marriage comes off&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have heard of the marriage, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I have heard of the marriage. I believe that he contemplates it.
+Put your statement of what did occur, and of your motives, into the
+hands of the lady's friends. He will be sure to read it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What good will that do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No good, but that of making him ashamed of himself. You have got to
+read the world a little more deeply than you have hitherto done. He
+thinks that he is quarrelling with you about the affair in London, but
+it is in truth because you have declined to hear him read the sermons
+after having taken his money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then it is he that is the liar rather than I."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I, who am a moderate man, would say that neither is a liar. You did not
+choose to be pumped, as you call it, and therefore spoke as you did.
+According to the world's ways that was fair enough. He, who is sore at
+the little respect you have paid him, takes any ground of offence rather
+than that. Being sore at heart, he believes anything. This young
+Scarborough in some way gets hold of him, and makes him accept this
+cock-and-bull story. If you had sat there punctual all those Sunday
+evenings, do you think he would have believed it then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I have got to pay such a penalty as this?" The rector could only
+shrug his shoulders. He was not disposed to scold his son. It was not
+the custom of the house that Harry should be scolded. He was a fellow of
+his college and the heir to Buston, and was therefore considered to be
+out of the way of scolding. But the rector felt that his son had made
+his bed and must now lie on it, and Harry was aware that this was his
+father's feeling.
+</p>
+<p>
+For two or three days he wandered about the country very down in the
+mouth. The natural state of ovation in which the girls existed was in
+itself an injury to him. How could he join them in their ovation, he who
+had suffered so much? It seemed to be heartless that they should smile
+and rejoice when he,&mdash;the head of the family, as he had been taught to
+consider himself,&mdash;was being so cruelly ill-used. For a day or two he
+hated Thoroughbung, though Thoroughbung was all that was kind to him. He
+congratulated him with cold congratulations, and afterward kept out of
+his way. "Remember, Harry, that up to Christmas you can always have one
+of the nags. There's Belladonna and Orange Peel. I think you'd find the
+mare a little the faster, though perhaps the horse is the bigger
+jumper." "Oh, thank you!" said Harry, and passed on. Now, Thoroughbung
+was fond of his horses, and liked to have them talked about, and he knew
+that Harry Annesley was treating him badly. But he was a good-humored
+fellow, and he bore it without complaint. He did not even say a cross
+word to Molly. Molly, however, was not so patient. "You might be a
+little more gracious when he's doing the best he can for you. It is not
+every one who will lend you a horse to hunt for two months." Harry shook
+his head, and wandered away miserable through the fields, and would not
+in these days even set his foot upon the soil of the park. "He was not
+going to intrude any farther," he said to the rector. "You can come to
+church, at any rate," his father said, "for he certainly will not be
+there while you are at the parsonage." Oh yes, Harry would go to the
+church. "I have yet to understand that Mr. Prosper is owner of the
+church, and the path there from the rectory is, at any rate, open to the
+public;" for at Buston the church stands on one corner of the park.
+</p>
+<p>
+This went on for two or three days, during which nothing farther was
+said by the family as to Harry's woes. A letter was sent off to Mrs.
+Brown, telling her that the lodgings would not be required any longer,
+and anxious ideas began to crowd themselves on Harry's mind as to his
+future residence. He thought that he must go back to Cambridge and take
+his rooms at St. John's and look for college work. Two fatal years,
+years of idleness and gayety, had been passed, but still he thought that
+it might be possible. What else was there open for him? And then, as he
+roamed about the fields, his mind naturally ran away to the girl he
+loved. How would he dare again to look Florence in the face? It was not
+only the two hundred and fifty pounds per annum that was gone: that
+would have been a small income on which to marry. And he had never taken
+the girl's own money into account. He had rather chosen to look forward
+to the position as squire of Buston, and to take it for granted that it
+would not be very long before he was called upon to fill the position.
+He had said not a word to Florence about money, but it was thus that he
+had regarded the matter. Now the existing squire was going to marry, and
+the matter could not so be regarded any longer. He saw half a dozen
+little Prospers occupying half a dozen little cradles, and a whole suite
+of nurseries established at the Hall. The name of Prosper would be fixed
+at Buston, putting it altogether beyond his reach.
+</p>
+<p>
+In such circumstances would it not be reasonable that Florence should
+expect him to authorize her to break their engagement? What was he now
+but the penniless son of a poor clergyman, with nothing on which to
+depend but a miserable stipend, which must cease were he to marry? He
+knew that he ought to give her back her troth; and yet, as he thought of
+doing so, he was indignant with her. Was love to come to this? Was her
+regard for him to be counted as nothing? What right had he to expect
+that she should be different from any other girl?
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he was more miserable than ever, as he told himself that such would
+undoubtedly be her conduct. As he walked across the fields, heavy with
+the mud of a wet October day, there came down a storm of rain which wet
+him through. Who does not know the sort of sensation which falls upon a
+man when he feels that even the elements have turned against him,&mdash;how he
+buttons up his coat and bids the clouds open themselves upon his devoted
+bosom?
+</p>
+<blockquote>
+  "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage, blow,<br>
+  You cataracts and hurricanes!"<br>
+</blockquote>
+<p>
+It is thus that a man is apt to address the soft rains of heaven when he
+is becoming wet through in such a frame of mind; and on the present
+occasion Harry likened himself to Leer. It was to him as though the
+steeples were to be drenched and the cocks drowned when he found himself
+wet through. In this condition he went back to the house, and so bitter
+to him were the misfortunes of the world that he would hardly condescend
+to speak while enduring them. But when he had entered the drawing-room
+his mother greeted him with a letter. It had come by the day mail, and
+his mother looked into his face piteously as she gave it to him. The
+letter was from Brussels, and she could guess from whom it had come. It
+might be a sweetly soft love-letter; but then it might be neither sweet
+nor soft, in the condition of things in which Harry was now placed. He
+took it and looked at it, but did not dare to open it on the spur of the
+moment. Without a word he went up to his room, and then tore it asunder.
+No doubt, he said to himself, it would allude to his miserable stipend
+and penniless condition. The letter ran as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAREST HARRY,&mdash;I think it right to write to you, though mamma does not
+approve of it. I have told her, however, that in the present
+circumstances I am bound to do so, and that I should implore you not to
+answer. Though I must write, there must be no correspondence between us.
+Rumors have been received here very detrimental to your character."
+Harry gnashed his teeth as he read this. "Stories are told about your
+meeting with Captain Scarborough in London, which I know to be only in
+part true. Mamma says that because of them I ought to give up my
+engagement, and my uncle, Sir Magnus, has taken upon himself to advise
+me to do so. I have told them both that that which is said of you is in
+part untrue; but whether it be true or whether it be false, I will never
+give up my engagement unless you ask me to do so. They tell me that as
+regards your pecuniary prospects you are ruined. I say that you cannot
+be ruined as long as you have my income. It will not be much, but it
+will, I should think, be enough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now you can do as you please. You may be quite sure that I shall be
+true to you, through ill report and good report. Nothing that mamma can
+say to me will change me, and certainly nothing from Sir Magnus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now there need not be a word from you, if you mean to be true to
+me. Indeed, I have promised that there shall be no word, and I expect
+you to keep my promise for me. If you wish to be free of me, then you
+must write and say so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you won't wish it, and therefore I am yours, always, always, always
+your own
+</p>
+<center>
+"FLORENCE."
+</center>
+<p>
+Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half
+a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to
+the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and
+his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
+</p>
+<p>
+He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized
+her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!"
+Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was
+just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of
+spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had
+been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not
+write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But she seems to be in earnest there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow
+should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must
+write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think she means that you should be silent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She has taken a very odd way of assuming it. I am to keep her promise
+for her,&mdash;my darling, my angel, my life! But I cannot do that one thing.
+Oh, mother, mother, if you knew how happy I am! What the mischief does
+it all signify,&mdash;Uncle Prosper, Miss Thoroughbung, and the rest of
+it,&mdash;with a girl like that?"
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH25"><!-- CH25 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY AND HIS UNCLE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Harry was kissed all round by the girls, and was congratulated warmly on
+the heavenly excellence of his mistress. They could afford to be
+generous if he would be good-natured. "Of course you must write to her,"
+said Molly, when he came down-stairs with dry clothes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should think so, mother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only she does seem to be so much in earnest about it," said Mrs.
+Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think she would rather get just a line to say that he is in earnest
+too," said Fanny.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should not she like a love-letter as much as any one else?" said
+Kate, who had her own ideas. "Of course she has to tell him about her
+mamma, but what need he care for that? Of course mamma thinks that
+Joshua need not write to Molly, but Molly won't mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think anything of the kind, miss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And besides, Joshua lives in the next parish," said Fanny, "and has a
+horse to ride over on if he has anything to say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, I shall write," said Harry, "even at the risk of making
+her angry." And he did write as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"BUSTON, <i>October</i>, 188&mdash;.
+</p>
+<p>
+"MY OWN DEAR GIRL,&mdash;It is impossible that I should not send one line in
+answer. Put yourself in my place, and consult your own feelings. Think
+that you have a letter so full of love, so noble, so true, so certain to
+fill you with joy, and then say whether you would let it pass without a
+word of acknowledgment. It would be absolutely impossible. It is not
+very probable that I should ask you to break your engagement, which in
+the midst of my troubles is the only consolation I have. But when a man
+has a rock to stand upon like that, he does not want anything else. As
+long as a man has the one person necessary to his happiness to believe
+in him, he can put up with the ill opinion of all the others. You are to
+me so much that you outweigh all the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus
+Scarborough. I can tell you the whole truth now. Mountjoy Scarborough
+had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to
+say that I would&mdash;drop you. You know now how probable that was. He was
+drunk on the occasion,&mdash;had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get
+over all scruples,&mdash;and attacked me with his stick. Then came a
+scrimmage, in which he was upset. A sober man has always the best of
+it." I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.
+The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.
+"I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.
+But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come
+out. Now I should not mind. Now I might tell the truth about you,&mdash;with
+great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn't do it then. What
+would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a
+girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the
+reason why I told an untruth,&mdash;because I did not choose to fall into the
+trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object
+to me on that score. If she does quarrel with me, she will only be
+fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her. I am
+afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,&mdash;not because
+of my sins, but from auld lang syne.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a
+terrible injury. My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed
+against me from other circumstances. He thinks that I have neglected
+him, and is willing to believe anything against me. He has stopped my
+income,&mdash;two hundred and fifty pounds a year,&mdash;and is going to revenge
+himself on me by marrying a wife. It is too absurd, and the proposed
+wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry. It makes such
+a heap of confusion. Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I
+shall be nowhere. Had I not better take to some profession? Only what
+shall I take to? It is almost too late for the Bar. I must see you and
+talk over it all.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter! It
+is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. But when a man's character
+is at stake he feels that he must plead for it. You won't be angry with
+me because I have not done all that you told me? It was absolutely
+necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break
+your engagement, and one word has led to all the others. There shall be
+only one other, which means more than all the rest:&mdash;that I am yours,
+dearest, with all my heart,
+</p>
+<center>
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+</center>
+<p>
+"There," he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope,
+"she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been
+pleased had I not written at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+That afternoon Joshua was at the rectory, having just trotted over after
+business hours at the brewery because of some special word which had to
+be whispered to Molly, and Harry put himself in his way as he went out
+to get on his horse in the stable-yard. "Joshua," he said, "I know that
+I owe you an apology."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have been awfully good to me about the horses, and I have been very
+ungracious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I have. The truth is, I have been made thoroughly miserable by
+circumstances, and, when that occurs, a man cannot pick himself up all
+at once. It isn't my uncle that has made me wretched. That is a kind of
+thing that a man has to put up with, and I think that I can bear it as
+well as another. But an attack has been made upon me which has wounded
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know all about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mind telling you, as you and Molly are going to hit it off
+together. There is a girl I love, and they have tried to interfere with
+her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They haven't succeeded?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, by George! And now I'm as right as a trivet. When it came across me
+that she might have&mdash;might have yielded, you know,&mdash;it was as though all
+had been over. I ought not to have suspected her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But she's all right?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed she is. I think you'll like her when you see her some day. If
+you don't, you have the most extraordinary taste I ever knew a man to
+possess. How about the horse?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have four, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What a grand thing it is to be a brewer!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And there are two of them will carry you. The other two are not quite
+up to your weight."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You haven't been out yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, no;&mdash;not exactly out. The governor is the best fellow in the
+world, but he draws the line at cub-hunting. He says the business should
+be the business till November. Upon my word, I think he's right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how many days a week after that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, three regular. I do get an odd day with the Essex sometimes, and
+the governor winks."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The governor hunts himself as often as you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear no; three a week does for the governor, and he is beginning to
+like frosty weather, and to hear with pleasure that one of the old
+horses isn't as fit as he should be. He's what they call training off.
+Good-bye, old fellow. Mind you come out on the 7th of November."
+</p>
+<p>
+But Harry, though he had been made happy by the letter from Florence,
+had still a great many troubles on his mind. His first trouble was the
+having to do something in reference to his uncle. It did not appear to
+him to be proper to accept his uncle's decision in regard to his income,
+without, at any rate, attempting to see Mr. Prosper. It would be as
+though he had taken what was done as a matter of course,&mdash;as though his
+uncle could stop the income without leaving him any ground of complaint.
+Of the intended marriage,&mdash;if it were intended,&mdash;he would say nothing. His
+uncle had never promised him in so many words not to marry, and there
+would be, he thought, something ignoble in his asking his uncle not to
+do that which he intended to do himself without even consulting his
+uncle about it. As he turned it all over in his mind he began to ask
+himself why his uncle should be asked to do anything for him, whereas he
+had never done anything for his uncle. He had been told that he was the
+heir, not to the uncle, but to Buston, and had gradually been taught to
+look upon Buston as his right,&mdash;as though he had a certain defeasible
+property in the acres. He now began to perceive that there was no such
+thing. A tacit contract had been made on his behalf, and he had declined
+to accept his share of the contract. But he had been debarred from
+following any profession by his uncle's promised allowance. He did not
+think that he could complain to his uncle about the proposed marriage;
+but he did think that he could ask a question or two as to the income.
+</p>
+<p>
+Without saying a word to any of his own family he walked across the
+park, and presented himself at the front-door of Buston Hall. In doing
+so he would not go upon the grass. He had told his father that he would
+not enter the park, and therefore kept himself to the road. And he had
+dressed himself with some little care, as a man does when he feels that
+he is going forth on some mission of importance. Had he intended to call
+on old Mr. Thoroughbung there would have been no such care. And he rung
+at the front-door, instead of entering the house by any of the numerous
+side inlets with which he was well acquainted. The butler understood the
+ring, and put on his company-coat when he answered the bell.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is my uncle at home, Matthew?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Prosper, Mr. Harry? Well, no; I can't say that he just is;" and the
+old man groaned, and wheezed, and looked unhappy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not often out at this time." Matthew groaned again, and wheezed
+more deeply, and looked unhappier. "I suppose you mean to say that he
+has given orders that I am not to be admitted?" To this the butler made
+no answer, but only looked woefully into the young man's face. "What is
+the meaning of it all, Matthew?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Harry, you shouldn't ask me, as is merely a servant."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry felt the truth of this rebuke, but was not going to put up with
+it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all my eye, Matthew; you know all about it as well as any one.
+It is so. He does not want to see me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think he does, Mr. Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And why not? You know the whole of my family story as well as my
+father does, or my uncle. Why does he shut his doors against me, and
+send me word that he does not want to see me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well Mr. Harry, I'm not just able to say why he does it,&mdash;and you the
+heir. But if I was asked I should make answer that it has come along of
+them sermons." Then Matthew looked very serious, and bathed his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was it, Mr. Harry. We, none of us, were very fond of the sermons."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We in the kitchen. But we was bound to have them, or we should have
+lost our places."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now I must lose my place." The butler said nothing, but his face
+assented. "A little hard, isn't it, Matthew? But I wish to say a few
+words to my uncle,&mdash;not to express any regret about the sermons, but to
+ask what it is that he intends to do." Here Matthew shook his head very
+slowly. "He has given positive orders that I shall not be admitted?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It must be over my dead body, Mr. Harry," and he stood in the way with
+the door in his hand, as though intending to sacrifice himself should he
+be called upon to do so by the nature of the circumstances. Harry,
+however, did not put him to the test; but bidding him good-bye with some
+little joke as to his fidelity, made his way back to the parsonage.
+</p>
+<p>
+That night before he went to bed he wrote a letter to his uncle, as to
+which he said not a word to either his father, or mother, or sisters. He
+thought that the letter was a good letter, and would have been proud to
+show it; but he feared that either his father or mother would advise him
+not to send it, and he was ashamed to read it to Molly. He therefore
+sent the letter across the park the next morning by the gardener.
+</p>
+<p>
+The letter was as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"MY DEAR UNCLE,&mdash;My father has shown me your letter to him, and, of
+course, I feel it incumbent on me to take some notice of it. Not wishing
+to trouble you with a letter I called this morning, but I was told by
+Matthew that you would not see me. As you have expressed yourself to my
+father very severely as to my conduct, I am sure you will agree with me
+that I ought not to let the matter pass by without making my own
+defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You say that there was a row in the streets between Mountjoy
+Scarborough and myself in which he was 'left for dead.' When I left him
+I did not think he had been much hurt, nor have I had reason to think so
+since. He had attacked me, and I had simply defended myself. He had come
+upon me by surprise; and, when I had shaken him off, I went away. Then
+in a day or two he had disappeared. Had he been killed, or much hurt,
+the world would have heard of it: but the world simply heard that he had
+disappeared, which could hardly have been the case had he been much
+hurt.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you say that I denied, in conversation with Augustus Scarborough,
+that I had seen his brother on the night in question. I did deny it.
+Augustus Scarborough, who was evidently well acquainted with the whole
+transaction, and who had, I believe, assisted his brother in
+disappearing, wished to learn from me what I had done, and to hide what
+he had done. He wished to saddle me with the disgrace of his brother's
+departure, and I did not choose to fall into his trap. At the moment of
+his asking me he knew that his brother was safe. I think that the word
+'lie,' as used by you, is very severe for such an occurrence. A man is
+not generally held to be bound to tell everything respecting himself to
+the first person that shall ask him. If you will ask any man who knows
+the world,&mdash;my father, for instance,&mdash;I think you will be told that such
+conduct was not faulty.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it is at any rate necessary that I should ask you what you intend
+to do in reference to my future life. I am told that you intend to stop
+the income which I have hitherto received. Will this be considerate on
+your part?" (In his first copy of the letter Harry had asked whether it
+would be "fair," and had then changed the word for one that was milder.)
+"When I took my degree you yourself said that it would not be necessary
+that I should go into any profession, because you would allow me an
+income, and would then provide for me, I took your advice in opposition
+to my father's, because it seemed then that I was to depend on you
+rather than on him. You cannot deny that I shall have been treated
+hardly if I now be turned loose upon the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall be happy to come and see you if you shall wish it, so as to
+save you the trouble of writing to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your affectionate nephew,
+</p>
+<center>
+"HENRY ANNESLEY."
+</center>
+<p>
+Harry might have been sure that his uncle would not see him,&mdash;probably
+was sure when he added the last paragraph. Mr. Prosper enjoyed greatly
+two things,&mdash;the mysticism of being invisible and the opportunity of
+writing a letter. Mr. Prosper had not a large correspondence, but it was
+laborious, and, as he thought, effective. He believed that he did know
+how to write a letter, and he went about it with a will. It was not
+probable that he would make himself common by seeing his nephew on such
+an occasion, or that he would omit the opportunity of spending an entire
+morning with pen and ink. The result was very short, but, to his idea,
+it was satisfactory.
+</p>
+<p>
+"SIR," he began. He considered this matter very deeply; but as the
+entire future of his own life was concerned in it he felt that it became
+him to be both grave and severe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have received your letter and have read it with attention. I observe
+that you admit that you told Mr. Augustus Scarborough a deliberate
+untruth. This is what the plain-speaking world, when it wishes to be
+understood as using the unadorned English language, which is always the
+language which I prefer myself, calls a lie&mdash;A LIE! I do not choose that
+this humble property shall fall at my death into the hands of A LIAR.
+Therefore I shall take steps to prevent it,&mdash;which may or may not be
+successful.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As such steps, whatever may be their result, are to be taken, the
+income,&mdash;intended to prepare you for another alternative, which may
+possibly not now be forth-coming,&mdash;will naturally now be no longer
+allowed.&mdash;I am, sir, your obedient servant, PETER PROSPER."
+</p>
+<p>
+The first effect of the letter was to produce laughter at the rectory.
+Harry could not but show it to his father, and in an hour or two it
+became known to his mother and sister, and, under an oath of secrecy, to
+Joshua Thoroughbung. It could not be matter of laughter when the future
+hopes of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung were taken into consideration. "I
+declare I don't know what you are all laughing about," said Kate,
+"except that Uncle Peter does use such comical phrases." But Mrs.
+Annesley, though the most good-hearted woman in the world, was almost
+angry. "I don't know what you all see to laugh at in it. Peter has in
+his hands the power of making or marring Harry's future."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he hasn't," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or he mayn't have," said the rector.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's all in the hands of the Almighty," said Mrs. Annesley, who felt
+herself bound to retire from the room and to take her daughter with her.
+</p>
+<p>
+But, when they were alone, both the father and his son were very angry.
+"I have done with him forever," said Harry. "Let come what may, I will
+never see him or speak to him again. A 'lie,' and 'liar!' He has written
+those words in that way so as to salve his own conscience for the
+injustice he is doing. He knows that I am not a liar. He cannot
+understand what a liar means, or he would know that he is one himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man seldom has such knowledge as that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it not so when he stigmatizes me in this way merely as an excuse to
+himself? He wants to be rid of me,&mdash;probably because I did not sit and
+hear him read the sermons. Let that pass. I may have been wrong in that,
+and he may be justified; but because of that he cannot believe really
+that I have been a liar,&mdash;a liar in such a determined way as to make me
+unfit to be his heir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is a fool, Harry! That is the worst of him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think it is the worst."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You cannot have worse. It is dreadful to have to depend on a fool,&mdash;to
+have to trust to a man who cannot tell wrong from right. Your uncle
+intends to be a good man. If it were brought home to him that he were
+doing a wrong he would not do it. He would not rob; he would not steal;
+he must not commit murder, and the rest of it. But he is a fool, and he
+does not know when he is doing these things."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will wash my hands of him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; and he will wash his hands of you. You do not know him as I do. He
+has taken it into his silly head that you are the chief of sinners
+because you said what was not true to that man, who seems really to be
+the sinner, and nothing will eradicate the idea. He will go and marry
+that woman because he thinks that in that way he can best carry his
+purpose, and then he will repent at leisure. I used to tell you that you
+had better listen to the sermons."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now I must pay for it!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, my boy, it is no good crying for spilt milk. As I was saying just
+now, there is nothing worse than a fool."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH26"><!-- CH26 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXVI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MARMADUKE LODGE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+On the 7th of next month two things occurred, each of great importance.
+Hunting commenced in the Puckeridge country, and Harry with that famous
+mare Belladonna was there. And Squire Prosper was driven in his carriage
+into Buntingford, and made his offer with all due formality to Miss
+Thoroughbung. The whole household, including Matthew, and the cook, and
+the coachman, and the boy, and the two house-maids, knew what he was
+going to do. It would be difficult to say how they knew, because he was
+a man who never told anything. He was the last man in England who, on
+such a matter, would have made a confidant of his butler. He never spoke
+to a servant about matters unconnected with their service. He considered
+that to do so would be altogether against his dignity. Nevertheless when
+he ordered his carriage, which he did not do very frequently at this
+time of the year, when the horses were wanted on the farm,&mdash;and of which
+he gave twenty-four hours' notice to all the persons concerned,&mdash;and when
+early in the morning he ordered that his Sunday suit should be prepared
+for wearing, and when his aspect grew more and more serious as the hour
+drew nigh, it was well understood by them all that he was going to make
+the offer that day.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was both proud and fearful as to the thing to be done,&mdash;proud that he,
+the Squire of Buston, should be called on to take so important a step;
+proud by anticipation of his feelings as he would return home a jolly
+thriving wooer,&mdash;and yet a little fearful lest he might not succeed. Were
+he to fail the failure would be horrible to him. He knew that every man
+and woman about the place would know all about it. Among the secrets of
+the family there was a story, never now mentioned, of his having done
+the same thing, once before. He was then a young man, about twenty-five,
+and he had come forth to lay himself and Buston at the feet of a
+baronet's daughter who lived some twenty-five miles off. She was very
+beautiful, and was said to have a fitting dower, but he had come back,
+and had shut himself up in the house for a week afterward. To no human
+ears had he ever since spoken of his interview with Miss Courteney. The
+doings of that day had been wrapped in impenetrable darkness. But all
+Buston and the neighboring parishes had known that Miss Courteney had
+refused him. Since that day he had never gone forth again on such a
+mission.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were those who said of him that his love had been so deep and
+enduring that he had never got the better of it. Miss Courteney had been
+married to a much grander lover, and had been taken off to splendid
+circles. But he had never mentioned her name. That story of his abiding
+love was throughly believed by his sister, who used to tell it of him to
+his credit when at the rectory the rector would declare him to be a
+fool. But the rector used to say that he was dumb from pride, or that he
+could not bear to have it known that he had failed at anything. At any
+rate, he had never again attempted love, and had formally declared to
+his sister that, as he did not intend to marry, Harry should be regarded
+as his son. Then at last had come the fellowship, and he had been proud
+of his heir, thinking that in some way he had won the fellowship
+himself, as he had paid the bills. But now all was altered, and he was
+to go forth to his wooing again.
+</p>
+<p>
+There had been a rumor about the country that he was already accepted;
+but such was not the case. He had fluttered about Buntingford, thinking
+of it: but he had never put the question. To his thinking it would not
+have been becoming to do so without some ceremony. Buston was not to be
+made away during the turnings of a quadrille or as a part of an ordinary
+conversation. It was not probable,&mdash;nay, it was impossible,&mdash;that he
+should mention the subject to any one; but still he must visibly prepare
+for it, and I think that he was aware that the world around him knew
+what he was about.
+</p>
+<p>
+And the Thoroughbung's knew, and Miss Matilda Thoroughbung knew well.
+All Buntingford knew. In those old days in which he had sought the hand
+of the baronet's daughter, the baronet's daughter, and the baronet's
+wife, and the baronet himself, had known what was coming, though Mr.
+Prosper thought that the secret dwelt alone in his own bosom. Nor did he
+dream now that Harry and Harry's father, and Harry's mother and sisters,
+had all laughed at the conspicuous gravity of his threat. It was the
+general feeling on the subject which made the rumor current that the
+deed had been done. But when he came down-stairs with one new gray
+kid-glove on, and the other dangling in his hand, nothing had been done.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Drive to Buntingford," said the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir," said Matthew, the door of the carriage in his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To Marmaduke Lodge."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, sir." Then Matthew told the coachman, who had heard the
+instructions very plainly, and knew them before he had heard them. The
+squire threw himself back in the carriage, and applied himself to
+wondering how he should do the deed. He had, in truth, barely studied
+the words,&mdash;but not, finally, the manner of delivering them. With his
+bare hand up to his eyes so that he might hold the glove unsoiled in the
+other, he devoted his intellect to the task; nor did he withdraw his
+hand till the carriage turned in at the gate. The drive up to the door
+of Marmaduke Lodge was very short, and he had barely time to arrange his
+waistcoat and his whiskers before the carriage stood still. He was soon
+told that Miss Thoroughbung was at home, and within a moment he found
+himself absolutely standing on the carpet in her presence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Report had dealt unkindly with Miss Thoroughbung in the matter of her
+age. Report always does deal unkindly with unmarried young women who
+have ceased to be girls. There is an idea that they will wish to make
+themselves out to be younger than they are, and therefore report always
+makes them older. She had been called forty-five, and even fifty. Her
+exact age at this moment was forty-two, and as Mr. Prosper was only
+fifty there was no discrepancy in the marriage. He would have been
+young-looking for his age, but for an air of ancient dandyism which had
+grown upon him. He was somewhat dry, too, and skinny, with high
+cheekbones and large dull eyes. But he was clean, and grave, and
+orderly,&mdash;a man promising well to a lady on the lookout for a husband.
+Miss Thoroughbung was fat, fair, and forty to the letter, and she had a
+just measure of her own good looks, of which she was not unconscious.
+But she was specially conscious of twenty-five thousand pounds, the
+possession of which had hitherto stood in the way of her search after a
+husband. It was said commonly about Buntingford that she looked too
+high, seeing that she was only a Thoroughbung and had no more than
+twenty-five thousand pounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Miss Tickle was in the room, and might have been said to be in the
+way, were it not that a little temporary relief was felt by Mr. Prosper
+to be a comfort. Miss Tickle was at any rate twenty years older than
+Miss Thoroughbung, and was of all slaves at the same time the humblest
+and the most irritating. She never asked for anything, but was always
+painting the picture of her own deserts. "I hope I have the pleasure of
+seeing Miss Tickle quite well," said the squire, as soon as he had paid
+his first compliments to the lady of his love.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank you, Mr. Prosper, pretty well. My anxiety is all for Matilda."
+Matilda had been Matilda to her since she had been a little girl, and
+Miss Tickle was not going now to drop the advantage which the old
+intimacy gave her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I trust there is no cause for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I'm not so sure. She coughed a little last night, and would not
+eat her supper. We always do have a little supper. A despatched crab it
+was; and when she would not eat it I knew there was something wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nonsense! what a fuss you make. Well, Mr. Prosper, have you seen your
+nephew yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Miss Thoroughbung; nor do I intend to see him. The young man has
+disgraced himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear, dear; how sad!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Young men do disgrace themselves, I fear, very often," said Miss
+Tickle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We won't talk about it, if you please, because it is a family affair."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"At least, not as yet. It may be;&mdash;but never mind, I would not wish to be
+premature in anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am always telling Matilda so. She is so impulsive. But as you may
+have matters of business, Mr. Prosper, on which to speak to Miss
+Thoroughbung, I will retire."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is very thoughtful on your part, Miss Tickle."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Miss Tickle retired; from which it may be surmised that the
+probable circumstances of the interview had been already discussed
+between the ladies. Mr. Prosper drew a long breath, and sighed audibly,
+as soon as he was alone with the object of his affections. He wondered
+whether men were ever bright and jolly in such circumstances. He sighed
+again, and then he began: "Miss Thoroughbung!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Prosper!"
+</p>
+<p>
+All the prepared words had flown from his memory. He could not even
+bethink himself how he ought to begin. And, unfortunately, so much must
+depend upon manner! But the property was unembarrassed, and Miss
+Thoroughbung thought it probable that she might be allowed to do what
+she would with her own money. She had turned it all over to the right
+and to the left, and she was quite minded to accept him. With this view
+she had told Miss Tickle to leave the room, and she now felt that she
+was bound to give the gentleman what help might be in her power. "Oh,
+Miss Thoroughbung!" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Prosper, you and I are such good friends, that&mdash;that&mdash;that&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed. You can have no more true friend than I am,&mdash;not even Miss
+Tickle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, bother Miss Tickle! Miss Tickle is very well."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Exactly so. Miss Tickle is very well; a most estimable person."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll leave her alone just at present."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, certainly. We had better leave her alone in our present
+conversation. Not but what I have a strong regard for her." Mr. Prosper
+had surely not thought of the opening he might be giving as to a future
+career for Miss Tickle by such an assertion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So have I, for the matter of that, but we'll drop her just now." Then
+she paused, but he paused also. "You have come over to Buntingford
+to-day probably in order that you might congratulate them at the brewery
+on the marriage with one of your family." Then Mr. Prosper frowned, but
+she did not care for his frowning. "It will not be a bad match for the
+young lady, as Joshua is fairly steady, and the brewery is worth money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I could have wished him a better brother-in-law," said the lover, who
+was taken away from the consideration of his love by the allusion to the
+Annesleys. He had thought of all that, and in the dearth of fitting
+objects of affection had resolved to endure the drawback of the
+connection. But it had for a while weighed very seriously with him, so
+that had the twenty-five thousand pounds been twenty thousand pounds, he
+might have taken himself to Miss Puffle, who lived near Saffron Walden
+and who would own Snickham Manor when her father died. The property was
+said to be involved, and Miss Puffle was certainly forty-eight. As an
+heir was the great desideratum, he had resolved that Matilda Thoroughbung
+should be the lady, in spite of the evils attending the new connection.
+He did feel that in throwing over Harry he would have to abandon all the
+Annesleys, and to draw a line between himself with Miss Thoroughbung and
+the whole family of the Thoroughbungs generally.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mustn't be too bitter against poor Molly," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper did not like to be called bitter, and, in spite of the
+importance of the occasion, could not but show that he did not like it.
+"I don't think that we need talk about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear no. Kate and Miss Tickle need neither of them be talked
+about." Mr. Prosper disliked all familiarity, and especially that of
+being laughed at, but Miss Thoroughbung did laugh. So he drew himself
+up, and dangled his glove more slowly than before. "Then you were not
+going on to congratulate them at the brewery?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did not know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My purpose carries me no farther than Marmaduke Lodge. I have no desire
+to see any one to-day besides Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is a compliment."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then his memory suddenly brought back to him one of his composed
+sentences. "In beholding Miss Thoroughbung I behold her on whom I hope I
+may depend for all the future happiness of my life." He did feel that it
+had come in the right place. It had been intended to be said immediately
+after her acceptance of him. But it did very well where it was. It
+expressed, as he assured himself, the feelings of his heart, and must
+draw from her some declaration of hers.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Goodness gracious me, Mr. Prosper!"
+</p>
+<p>
+This sort of coyness was to have been expected, and he therefore
+continued with another portion of his prepared words, which now came
+glibly enough to him. But it was a previous portion. It was all the same
+to Miss Thoroughbung, as it declared plainly the gentleman's intention.
+"If I can induce you to listen to me favorably, I shall say of myself
+that I am the happiest gentleman in Hertfordshire."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Prosper!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My purpose is to lay at your feet my hand, my heart, and the lands of
+Buston." Here he was again going backward, but it did not much matter
+now in what sequence the words were said. The offer had been thoroughly
+completed and was thoroughly understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A lady, Mr. Prosper, has to think of these things," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I would not wish to hurry you prematurely to any declaration
+of your affections."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there are other considerations, Mr. Prosper. You know about my
+property?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing particularly. It has not been a matter of consideration with
+me." This he said with some slight air of offence. He was a gentleman,
+whereas Miss Thoroughbung was hardly a lady. Matter of consideration her
+money of course had been. How should he not consider it? But he was
+aware that he ought not to rush on that subject, but should leave it to
+the arrangement of lawyers, expressing his own views through her own
+lawyer. To her it was the thing of most importance, and she had no
+feelings which induced her to be silent on a matter so near to her. She
+rushed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it has to be considered, Mr. Prosper. It is all my own, and comes
+to very nearly one thousand a year. I think it is nine hundred and
+seventy-two pounds six shillings and eightpence. Of course, when there
+is so much money it would have to be tied up somehow." Mr. Prosper was
+undoubtedly disgusted, and if he could have receded at this moment would
+have transferred his affections to Miss Puffle. "Of course you
+understand that."
+</p>
+<p>
+She had not accepted him as yet, nor said a word of her regard for him.
+All that went, it seemed, as a matter of no importance whatever. He had
+been standing for the last few minutes, and now he remained standing and
+looking at her. They were both silent, so that he was obliged to speak.
+"I understand that between a lady and gentleman so circumstanced there
+should be a settlement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I also have some property," said Mr. Prosper, with a touch of pride in
+his tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course you have. Goodness gracious me! Why else would you come? You
+have got Buston, which I suppose is two thousand a year. At any rate it
+has that name. But it isn't your own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not my own?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, no. You couldn't leave it to your widow, so that she might give
+it to any one she pleased when you were gone." Here the gentleman
+frowned very darkly, and thought that after all Miss Puffle would be the
+woman for him. "All that has to be considered, and it makes Buston not
+exactly your own. If I were to have a daughter she wouldn't have it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not a daughter," said Mr. Prosper, still wondering at the thorough
+knowledge of the business in hand displayed by the lady.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, if it were to be a son, that would be all right, and then my money
+would go to the younger children, divided equally between the boys and
+girls." Mr. Prosper shook his head as he found himself suddenly provided
+with so plentiful and thriving a family. "That, I suppose, would be the
+way of the settlement, together with a certain income out of Buston set
+apart for my use. It ought to be considered that I should have to
+provide a house to live in. This belongs to my brother, and I pay him
+forty pounds a year for it. It should be something better than this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Miss Thoroughbung, the lawyer would do all that." There did
+come upon him an idea that she, with her aptitude for business, would
+not be altogether a bad helpmate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The lawyers are very well; but in a transaction of this kind there is
+nothing like the principals understanding each other. Young women are
+always robbed when their money is left altogether to the gentlemen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Robbed!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't suppose I mean you, Mr. Prosper; and the robbery I mean is not
+considered disgraceful at all. The gentlemen I mean are the fathers and
+the brothers, and the uncles and the lawyers. And they intend to do
+right after the custom of their fathers and uncles. But woman's rights
+are coming up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hate woman's rights."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nevertheless they are coming up. A young woman doesn't get taken in as
+she used to do. I don't mean any offence, you know." This was said in
+reply to Mr. Prosper's repeated frown. "Since woman's rights have come
+up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper was willing to admit that Miss Thoroughbung was fair, but
+she was fat also, and at least forty. There was hardly need that she
+should refer so often to her own unprotected youth. "I should like to
+have the spending of my own income, Mr. Prosper;&mdash;that's a fact."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, indeed!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I should. I shouldn't care to have to go to my husband if I wanted
+to buy a pair of stockings."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An allowance, I should say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that should be my own income."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing to go to the house?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes. There might be certain things which I might agree to pay for. A
+pair of ponies I should like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I always keep a carriage and a pair of horses."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the ponies would be my lookout. I shouldn't mind paying for my own
+maid, and the champagne, and my clothes, of course, and the
+fish-monger's bill. There would be Miss Tickle, too. You said you would
+like Miss Tickle. I should have to pay for her. That would be about
+enough, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper was thoroughly disgusted; but when he left Marmaduke Lodge
+he had not said a word as to withdrawing from his offer. She declared
+that she would put her terms into writing and give them to her lawyer,
+who would communicate with Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper was surprised to find that she knew the name of his lawyer,
+who was in truth our old friend. And then, while he was still
+hesitating, she astounded,&mdash;nay, shocked him by her mode of ending the
+conference. She got up and, throwing her arms round his neck, kissed him
+most affectionately. After that there was no retreating for Mr.
+Prosper,&mdash;no immediate mode of retreat, at all events. He could only back
+out of the room, and get into his carriage, and be carried home as
+quickly as possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH27"><!-- CH27 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXVII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE PROPOSAL.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It had never happened to him before. The first thought that came upon
+Mr. Prosper, when he got into his carriage, was that it had never
+occurred to him before. He did not reflect that he had not put himself
+in the way of it: but now the strangeness of the sensation overwhelmed
+him. He inquired of himself whether it was pleasant, but he found
+himself compelled to answer the question with a negative. It should have
+come from him, but not yet; not yet, probably, for some weeks. But it
+had been done, and by the doing of it she had sealed him utterly as her
+own. There was no getting out of it now. He did feel that he ought not
+to attempt to get out of it after what had taken place. He was not sure
+but that the lady had planned it all with that purpose; but he was sure
+that a strong foundation had been laid for a breach of promise case if
+he were to attempt to escape. What might not a jury do against him,
+giving damages out of the acres of Buston Hall? And then Miss
+Thoroughbung would go over to the other Thoroughbungs and to the
+Annesleys, and his condition would become intolerable. In some moments,
+as he was driven home, he was not sure but that it had all been got up
+as a plot against him by the Annesleys.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he got out of his carriage Matthew knew that things had gone badly
+with his master; but he could not conjecture in what way. The matter had
+been fully debated in the kitchen, and it had been there decided that
+Miss Thoroughbung was certainly to be brought home as the future
+mistress of Buston. The step to be taken by their master was not
+popular in the Buston kitchen. It had been there considered that Master
+Harry was to be the future master, and, by some perversity of intellect,
+they had all thought that this would occur soon. Matthew was much older
+than the squire, who was hardly to be called a sickly man, and yet
+Matthew had made up his mind that Mr. Harry was to reign over him as
+Squire of Buston. When, therefore, the tidings came that Miss
+Thoroughbung was to brought to Buston as the mistress, there had been
+some slight symptoms of rebellion. "They didn't want any 'Tilda
+Thoroughbung there." They had their own idea of a lady and a gentleman,
+which, as in all such cases, was perfectly correct. They knew the squire
+to be a fool, but they believed him to be a gentleman. They heard that
+Miss Thoroughbung was a clever woman, but they did not believe her to be
+a lady. Matthew had said a few words to the cook as to a public-house at
+Stevenage. She had told him not to be an old fool, and that he would
+lose his money, but she had thought of the public-house. There had been
+a mutinous feeling. Matthew helped his master out of the carriage, and
+then came a revulsion. That "froth of a beer-barrel," as Matthew had
+dared to call her, had absolutely refused his master.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper went into the house very meditative, and sad at heart. It
+was a matter almost of regret to him that it had not been as Matthew
+supposed. But he was caught and bound, and must make the best of it. He
+thought of all the particulars of her proposed mode of living, and
+recapitulated them to himself. A pair of ponies, her own maid,
+champagne, the fish-monger's bill, and Miss Tickle. Miss Puffle would
+certainly not have required such expensive luxuries. Champagne and the
+fish would require company for their final consumption.
+</p>
+<p>
+The ponies assumed a tone of being quite opposed to that which he had
+contemplated. He questioned with himself whether he would like Miss
+Tickle as a perpetual inmate. He had, in sheer civility, expressed a
+liking for Miss Tickle, but what need could there be to a married woman
+of a Miss Tickle? And then he thought of the education of the five or
+six children which she had almost promised him! He had suggested to
+himself simply an heir,&mdash;just one heir,&mdash;so that the nefarious Harry might
+be cut out. He already saw that he would not be enriched to the extent
+of a shilling by the lady's income. Then there would be all the trouble
+and the disgrace of a separate purse. He felt that there would be
+disgrace in having the fish and champagne, which were consumed in his
+own house,&mdash;paid for by his wife without reference to him. What if the
+lady had a partiality for champagne? He knew nothing about it, and would
+know nothing about it, except when he saw it in her heightened color.
+Despatched crabs for supper! He always went to bed at ten, and had a
+tumbler of barley-water brought to him,&mdash;a glass of barley-water with
+just a squeeze of lemon-juice.
+</p>
+<p>
+He saw ruin before him. No doubt she was a good manager, but she would
+be a good manager for herself. Would it not be better for him to stand
+the action for breach of promise, and betake himself to Miss Puffle? But
+Miss Puffle was fifty, and there could be no doubt that the lady ought
+to be younger than the gentleman. He was much distressed in mind. If he
+broke off with Miss Thoroughbung, ought he to do so at once, before she
+had had time to put the matter into the hands of the lawyer? And on what
+plea should he do it? Before he went to bed that night he did draw out a
+portion of a letter, which, however, was never sent:
+</p>
+<p>
+"MY DEAR MISS THOROUGHBUNG,&mdash;In the views which we both promulgated this
+morning I fear that there was some essential misunderstanding as to the
+mode of life which had occurred to both of us. You, as was so natural at
+your age, and with your charms, have not been slow to anticipate a
+coming period of uncheckered delights. Your allusion to a pony-carriage,
+and other incidental allusions,"&mdash;he did not think it well to mention
+more particularly the fish and the champagne,&mdash;"have made clear the sort
+of future life which you have pictured to yourself. Heaven forbid that I
+should take upon myself to find fault with anything so pleasant and so
+innocent! But my prospects of life are different, and in seeking the
+honor of an alliance with you I was looking for a quiet companion in my
+declining years, and it might be also to a mother to a possible future
+son. When you honored me with an unmistakable sign of your affection, on
+my going, I was just about to explain all this. You must excuse me if my
+mouth was then stopped by the mutual ardor of our feeling. I was about
+to say&mdash;" But he had found it difficult to explain what he had been
+about to say, and on the next morning, when the time for writing had
+come, he heard news which detained him for the day, and then the
+opportunity was gone.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the following morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his
+cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the
+Buntingford <i>Gazette</i>, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it,
+opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information,
+which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir,
+I suppose, as yet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heard what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"About Miss Puffle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What about Miss Puffle? I haven't heard a word. What about Miss
+Puffle?" He had been thinking that moment of Miss Puffle,&mdash;of how she
+would be superior to Miss Thoroughbung in many ways,&mdash;so that he sat up
+in his bed, holding the untasted tea in his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She's gone off with young Farmer Tazlehurst."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Puffle gone off, and with her father's tenant's son!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes indeed, sir. She and her father have been quarrelling for the last
+ten years, and now she's off. She was always riding and roistering about
+the country with them dogs and them men; and now she's gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh heavens!" exclaimed the squire, thinking of his own escape.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed, sir. There's no knowing what any one of them is up to.
+Unless they gets married afore they're thirty, or thirty-five at most,
+they're most sure to get such ideas into their head as no one can mostly
+approve." This had been intended by Matthew as a word of caution to his
+master, but had really the opposite effect. He resolved at the moment
+that the latter should not be said of Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+And he turned Matthew out of the room with a flea in his ear. "How dare
+you speak in that way of your betters? Mr. Puffle, the lady's father,
+has for many years been my friend. I am not saying anything of the lady,
+nor saying that she has done right. Of course, down-stairs, in the
+servants' hall, you can say what you please; but up here, in my
+presence, you should not speak in such language of a lady behind whose
+chair you may be called upon to wait."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, sir; I won't no more," said Matthew, retiring with mock
+humility. But he had shot his bolt, and he supposed successfully. He did
+not know what had taken place between his master and Miss Thoroughbung;
+but he did think that his speech might assist in preventing a repetition
+of the offer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Puffle gone off with the tenant's son! The news made matrimony
+doubly dangerous to him, and yet robbed him of the chief reason by
+which he was to have been driven to send her a letter. He could not, at
+any rate, now fall back upon Miss Puffle. And he thought that nothing
+would have induced Miss Thoroughbung to go off with one of the carters
+from the brewery. Whatever faults she might have, they did not lie in
+that direction. Champagne and ponies were, as faults, less deleterious.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Puffle gone off with young Tazlehurst,&mdash;a lady of fifty, with a
+young man of twenty-five! and she the reputed heiress of Snickham Manor!
+It was a comfort to him as he remembered that Snickham Manor had been
+bought no longer ago than by the father of the present owner. The
+Prospers been at Buston ever since the time of George the First. You
+cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He had been ever assuring
+himself of that fact, which was now more of a fact than ever. And fifty
+years old! It was quite shocking. With a steady middle-aged man like
+himself, and with the approval of her family, marriage might have been
+thought of. But this harum-scarum young tenant's son, who was in no
+respect a gentleman, whose only thought was of galloping over hedges and
+ditches, such an idea showed a state of mind which&mdash;well, absolutely
+disgusted him. Mr. Prosper, because he had grown old himself, could not
+endure to think that others, at his age, should retain a smack of their
+youth. There are ladies besides Miss Puffle who like to ride across the
+country with a young man before them, or perhaps following, and never
+think much of their fifty years.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the news certainly brought to him a great change of feelings, so
+that the letter to which he had devoted the preceding afternoon was put
+back into the letter-case, and was never finished. And his mind
+immediately recurred to Miss Thoroughbung, and he bethought himself that
+the objection which he felt was, perhaps, in part frivolous. At any
+rate, she was a better woman than Miss Puffle. She certainly would run
+after no farmer's son. Though she might be fond of champagne, it
+was, he thought, chiefly for other people. Though she was ambitious of
+ponies, the ambition might be checked. At any rate, she could pay for
+her own ponies, whereas Mr. Puffle was a very hale old man of seventy.
+Puffle, he told himself, had married young, and might live for the next
+ten years, or twenty. To Mr. Prosper, whose imagination did not fly far
+afield, the world afforded at present but two ladies. These were Miss
+Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung, and as Miss Puffle had fallen out of the
+running, there seemed to be a walk-over for Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+He did think, during the two or three days which passed without any
+farther step on his part,&mdash;he did think how it might be were he to remain
+unmarried. As regarded his own comfort, he was greatly tempted. Life
+would remain so easy to him! But then duty demanded of him that he
+should marry, and he was a man who, in honest, sober talk, thought much
+of his duty. He was absurdly credulous, and as obstinate as a mule. But
+he did wish to do what was right. He had been convinced that Harry
+Annesley was a false knave, and had been made to swear an oath that
+Harry should not be his heir. Harry had been draped in the blackest
+colors, and to each daub of black something darker had been added by his
+uncle's memory of those neglected sermons. It was now his first duty in
+life to beget an heir, and for that purpose a wife must be had.
+</p>
+<p>
+Putting aside the ponies and the champagne,&mdash;and the despatched crab, the
+sound of which, as coming to him from Miss Tickle's mouth, was uglier
+than the other sounds,&mdash;he still thought that Miss Thoroughbung would
+answer his purpose. From her side there would not be making of a silk
+purse; but then "the boy" would be his boy as well as hers, and would
+probably take more after the father. He passed much of these days with
+the "Peerage" in his hand, and satisfied himself that the best blood had
+been maintained frequently by second-rate marriages. Health was a great
+thing. Health in the mother was everything. Who could be more healthy
+than Miss Thoroughbung? Then he thought of that warm embrace. Perhaps,
+after all, it was right that she should embrace him after what he had
+said to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Three days only had passed by, and he was still thinking what ought to
+be his next step, when there came to him a letter from Messrs. Soames &amp;
+Simpson, attorneys in Buntingford. He had heard of Messrs. Soames &amp;
+Simpson, had been familiar with their names for the last twenty years,
+but had never dreamed that his own private affairs should become a
+matter of consultation in their office. Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, were his lawyers, who were quite gentlemen. He knew
+nothing against Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson, but he thought that their work
+consisted generally in the recovery of local debts. Messrs. Soames &amp;
+Simpson now wrote to him with full details as to his future life. Their
+client Miss Thoroughbung, had communicated to them his offer of
+marriage. They were acquainted with all the lady's circumstances, and
+she had asked them for their advice. They had proposed to her that the
+use of her own income should be by deed left to herself. Some proportion
+of it should go into the house, and might be made matter of agreement.
+They suggested that an annuity of a thousand pounds a year, in shape of
+dower, should be secured to their client in the event of her outliving
+Mr. Prosper. The estate should, of course, be settled on the eldest
+child. The mother's property should be equally divided among the other
+children. Buston Hall should be the residence of the widow till the
+eldest son should be twenty-four, after which Mr. Prosper would no doubt
+feel that their client would have to provide a home for herself. Messrs.
+Soames &amp; Simpson did not think that there was anything in this to which
+Mr. Prosper would object, and if this were so, they would immediately
+prepare the settlement. "That woman didn't say against it, after all,"
+said Matthew to himself as he gave the letter from the lawyers to his
+master.
+</p>
+<p>
+The letter made Mr. Prosper very angry. It did, in truth, contain
+nothing more than a repetition of the very terms which the lady had
+herself suggested; but coming to him through these local lawyers it was
+doubly distasteful. What was he to do? He felt it to be out of the
+question to accede at once. Indeed, he had a strong repugnance to
+putting himself into communication with the Buntingford lawyers. Had the
+matter been other than it was, he would have gone to the rector for
+advice. The rector generally advised him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But that was out of the question now. He had seen his sister once since
+his visit to Buntingford, but had said nothing to her about it. Indeed,
+he had been anything but communicative, so that Mrs. Annesley had been
+forced to leave him with a feeling almost of offense. There was no help
+to be had in that quarter, and he could only write to Mr. Grey, and ask
+that gentleman to assist him in his difficulties.
+</p>
+<p>
+He did write to Mr. Grey, begging for his immediate attention. "There is
+that fool Prosper going to marry a brewer's daughter down at
+Buntingford," said Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's sixty years old."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, my love. He looks it, but he's only fifty. A man at fifty is
+supposed to be young enough to marry. There's a nephew who has been
+brought up as his heir; that's the hard part of it. And the nephew is
+mixed up in some way with the Scarboroughs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it he who is to marry that young lady?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think it is. And now there's some devil's play going on. I've got
+nothing to do with it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you will have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a turn. Mr. Prosper can marry if he likes it. They have sent him
+most abominable proposals as to the lady's money; and as to her
+jointure, I must stop that if I can, though I suppose he is not such a
+fool as to give way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is he soft?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, not exactly. He likes his own money. But he's a gentleman, and
+wants nothing but what is or ought to be his own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are but few like that now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's true of him. But then he does not know what is his own, or what
+ought to be. He's almost the biggest fool I have ever known, and will do
+an injustice to that boy simply from ignorance." Then he drafted his
+letter to Mr. Prosper, and gave it to Dolly to read. "That's what I
+shall propose. The clerk can put it into proper language. He must offer
+less than he means to give."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is that honest, father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's honest on my part, knowing the people with whom I have to deal. If
+I were to lay down the strict minimum which he should grant, he would
+add other things which would cause him to act not in accordance with my
+advice. I have to make allowance for his folly,&mdash;a sort of windage, which
+is not dishonest. Had he referred her lawyers to me I could have been as
+hard and honest as you please." All which did not quite satisfy Dolly's
+strict ideas of integrity.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the terms proposed were that the lady's means should be divided so
+that one-half should go to herself for her own personal expenses, and
+the other half to her husband for the use of the house; that the lady
+should put up with a jointure of two hundred and fifty pounds, which
+ought to suffice when joined to her own property, and that the
+settlement among the children should be as recommended by Messrs. Soames
+&amp; Simpson.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And if there are not any children, papa?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then each will receive his or her own property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it may be so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly, my dear; very probably."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH28"><!-- CH28 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXVIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. HARKAWAY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When the first Monday in November came Harry was still living at the
+rectory. Indeed, what other home had he in which to live? Other friends
+had become shy of him besides his uncle. He had been accustomed to
+receive many invitations. Young men who are the heirs to properties, and
+are supposed to be rich because they are idle, do get themselves asked
+about here and there, and think a great deal of themselves in
+consequence. "There's young Jones. He is fairly good-looking, but hasn't
+a word to say for himself. He will do to pair off with Miss Smith,
+who'll talk for a dozen. He can't hit a hay-stack, but he's none the
+worse for that. We haven't got too many pheasants. He'll be sure to come
+when you ask him,&mdash;and he'll be sure to go."
+</p>
+<p>
+So Jones is asked, and considers himself to be the most popular man in
+London. I will not say that Harry's invitations had been of exactly that
+description; but he too had considered himself to be popular, and now
+greatly felt the withdrawal of such marks of friendship. He had received
+one "put off"&mdash;from the Ingoldsbys of Kent. Early in June he had
+promised to be there in November. The youngest Miss Ingoldsby was very
+pretty, and he, no doubt, had been gracious. She knew that he had meant
+nothing,&mdash;could have meant nothing. But he might come to mean something,
+and had been most pressingly asked. In September there came a letter to
+him to say that the room intended for him at Ingoldsby had been burnt
+down. Mrs. Ingoldsby was so extremely sorry, and so were the "girls!"
+Harry could trace it all up. The Ingoldsbys knew the Greens, and Mrs.
+Green was Sister to Septimus Jones, who was absolutely the slave,&mdash;the
+slave, as Harry said, repeating the word to himself with emphasis,&mdash;of
+Augustus Scarborough. He was very unhappy, not that he cared in the
+least for any Miss Ingoldsby, but that he began to be conscious that he
+was to be dropped.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was to be taken up, on the other hand, by Joshua Thoroughbung. Alas!
+alas! though he smiled and resolved to accept his brother-in-law with a
+good heart, this did not in the least salve the wound. His own county
+was to him less than other counties, and his own neighborhood less than
+other neighborhoods. Buntingford was full of Thoroughbungs, the best
+people in the world, but not quite up to what he believed to be his
+mark. Mr. Prosper himself was the stupidest ass! At Welwyn people
+smelled of the City. At Stevenage the parsons' set began. Baldock was a
+<i>caput mortuum</i> of dulness. Royston was alive only on market-days. Of
+his own father's house, and even of his mother and sisters, he
+entertained ideas that savored a little of depreciation. But, to redeem
+him from this fault,&mdash;a fault which would have led to the absolute ruin
+of his character had it not been redeemed and at last cured,&mdash;there was a
+consciousness of his own vanity and weakness. "My father is worth a
+dozen of them, and my mother and sisters two dozen," he would say of the
+Ingoldsbys when he went to bed in the room that was to be burnt down in
+preparation for his exile. And he believed it. They were honest; they
+were unselfish; they were unpretending. His sister Molly was not above
+owning that her young brewer was all the world to her; a fine, honest,
+bouncing girl, who said her prayers with a meaning, thanked the Lord for
+giving her Joshua, and laughed so loud that you could hear her out of
+the rectory garden half across the park. Harry knew that they were
+good,&mdash;did in his heart know that where the parsons begin the good things
+were likely to begin also.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was in this state of mind, the hand of good pulling one way and the
+devil's pride the other, when young Thoroughbung called for him one
+morning to carry him on to Cumberlow Green. Cumberlow Green was a
+popular meet in that county, where meets have not much to make them
+popular except the good-humor of those who form the hunt. It is not a
+county either pleasant or easy to ride over, and a Puckeridge fox is
+surely the most ill-mannered of foxes. But the Puckeridge men are
+gracious to strangers, and fairly so among themselves. It is more than
+can be said of Leicestershire, where sportsmen ride in brilliant boots
+and breeches, but with their noses turned supernaturally into the air.
+"Come along; we've four miles to do, and twenty minutes to do it in.
+Halloo, Molly, how d'ye do? Come up on to the step and give us a kiss."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go away!" said Molly, rushing back into the house. "Did you ever hear
+anything like his impudence?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't you?" said Kate. "All the world knows it." Then the gig,
+with the two sportsmen, was driven on. "Don't you think he looks
+handsome in his pink coat?" whispered Molly, afterward, to her elder
+sister. "Only think; I have never seen him in a red coat since he was my
+own. Last April, when the hunting was over, he hadn't spoken out; and
+this is the first day he has worn pink this year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry, when he reached the meet, looked about him to watch how he was
+received. There are not many more painful things in life than when an
+honest, gallant young fellow has to look about him in such a frame of
+mind. It might have been worse had he deserved to be dropped, some one
+will say. Not at all. A different condition of mind exists then, and a
+struggle is made to overcome the judgment of men which is not in itself
+painful. It is part of the natural battle of life, which does not hurt
+one at all,&mdash;unless, indeed, the man hate himself for that which has
+brought upon him the hatred of others. Repentance is always an
+agony,&mdash;and should be so. Without the agony there can be no repentance.
+But even then it is hardly so sharp as that feeling of injustice which
+accompanies the unmeaning look, and dumb faces, and pretended
+indifference of those who have condemned.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Harry descended from the gig he found himself close to old Mr.
+Harkaway, the master of the hounds. Mr. Harkaway was a gentleman who had
+been master of these hounds for more than forty years, and had given as
+much satisfaction as the county could produce. His hounds, which were
+his hobby, were perfect. His horses were good enough for the
+Hertfordshire lanes and Hertfordshire hedges. His object was not so much
+to run a fox as to kill him in obedience to certain rules of the game.
+Ever so many hinderances have been created to bar the killing a fox,&mdash;as
+for instance that you shouldn't knock him on the head with a
+brick-bat,&mdash;all of which had to Mr. Harkaway the force of a religion. The
+laws of hunting are so many that most men who hunt cannot know them all.
+But no law had ever been written, or had become a law by the strength of
+tradition, which he did not know.
+</p>
+<p>
+To break them was to him treason. When a young man broke them he pitied
+the young man's ignorance, and endeavored to instruct him after some
+rough fashion. When an old man broke them, he regarded him as a fool who
+should stay at home, or as a traitor who should be dealt with as such.
+And with such men he could deal very hardly. Forty years of reigning had
+taught him to believe himself to be omnipotent, and he was so in his own
+hunt. He was a man who had never much affected social habits. The
+company of one or two brother sportsmen to drink a glass of port-wine
+with him and then to go early to bed, was the most of it. He had a small
+library, but not a book ever came off the shelf unless it referred to
+farriers or the <i>res venatica</i>. He was unmarried. The time which other
+men gave to their wives and families he bestowed upon his hounds. To his
+stables he never went, looking on a horse as a necessary adjunct to
+hunting,&mdash;expensive, disagreeable, and prone to get you into danger. When
+anyone flattered him about his horse he would only grunt, and turn his
+head on one side. No one in these latter years had seen him jump any
+fence. But yet he was always with his hounds, and when any one said a
+kind word as to their doings, that he would take as a compliment. It was
+they who were there to do the work of the day, which horses and men
+could only look at. He was a sincere, honest, taciturn, and withal,
+affectionate man, who could on an occasion be very angry with those who
+offended him. He knew well what he could do, and never attempted that
+which was beyond his power. "How are you, Mr. Harkaway?" said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How are you, Mr. Annesley? how are you?" said the master, with all the
+grace of which he was capable. But Harry caught a tone in his voice
+which he thought implied displeasure. And Mr. Harkaway had in truth
+heard the story,&mdash;how Harry had been discarded at Buston because he had
+knocked the man down in the streets at night-time and had then gone
+away. After that Mr. Harkaway toddled off, and Harry sat and frowned
+with embittered heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Malt-and-hops, and how are you?" This came from a fast young
+banker who lived in the neighborhood, and who thus intended to show his
+familiarity with the brewer; but when he saw Annesley, he turned round
+and rode away. "Scaly trick that fellow played the other day. He knocked
+a fellow down, and, when he thought that he was dead, he lied about it
+like old boots." All of which made itself intelligible to Harry. He told
+himself that he had always hated that banker.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you let such a fellow as that call you Malt-and-hops?" he said
+to Joshua.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What,&mdash;young Florin? He's a very good fellow, and doesn't mean
+anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A vulgar cad, I should say."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he rode on in silence till he was addressed by an old gentleman of
+the county who had known his father for the last thirty years. The old
+gentleman had had nothing about him to recommend him either to Harry's
+hatred or love till he spoke; and after that Harry hated him. "How d'you
+do, Mr. Annesley?" said the old gentleman, and then rode on. Harry knew
+that the old man had condemned him as the others had done, or he would
+never have called him Mr. Annesley. He felt that he was "blown upon" in
+his own county, as well as by the Ingoldsbys down in Kent.
+</p>
+<p>
+They had but a moderate day's sport, going a considerable distance in
+search of it, till an incident arose which gave quite an interest to the
+field generally, and nearly brought Joshua Thoroughbung into a scrape.
+They were drawing a covert which was undoubtedly the property of their
+own hunt,&mdash;or rather just going to draw it,&mdash;when all of a sudden they
+became aware that every hound in the pack was hunting. Mr. Harkaway at
+once sprung from his usual cold, apathetic manner into full action. But
+they who knew him well could see that it was not the excitement of joy.
+He was in an instant full of life, but it was not the life of successful
+enterprise. He was perturbed and unhappy, and his huntsman, Dillon,&mdash;a
+silent, cunning, not very popular man, who would obey his master in
+everything,&mdash;began to move about rapidly, and to be at his wit's end. The
+younger men prepared themselves for a run,&mdash;one of those sudden, short,
+decisive spurts which come at the spur of the moment, and on which a
+man, if he is not quite awake to the demands of the moment, is very apt
+to be left behind. But the old stagers had their eyes on Mr. Harkaway,
+and knew that there was something amiss.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there appeared another field of hunters, first one man leading
+them, then others following, and after them the first ruck and then the
+crowd. It was apparent to all who knew anything that two packs had
+joined. These were the Hitchiners, as the rival sportsmen would call
+them, and this was the Hitchin Hunt, with Mr. Fairlawn, their master.
+Mr. Fairlawn was also an old man, popular, no doubt, in his own country,
+but by no means beloved by Mr. Harkaway. Mr. Harkaway used to declare
+how Fairlawn had behaved very badly about certain common coverts about
+thirty years ago, when the matter had to be referred to a committee of
+masters. No one in these modern days knew aught of the quarrel, or
+cared. The men of the two hunts were very good friends, unless they met
+under the joint eyes of the two masters, and then they were supposed to
+be bound to hate each other. Now the two packs were mixed together, and
+there was only one fox between them.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fox did not trouble them long. He could hardly have saved himself
+from one pack, but very soon escaped from the fangs of the two. Each
+hound knew that his neighbor hound was a stranger, and, in scrutinizing
+the singularity of the occurrence, lost all the power of hunting. In ten
+minutes there were nearly forty couples of hounds running hither and
+thither, with two huntsmen and four whips swearing at them with strange
+voices, and two old gentlemen giving orders each in opposition to the
+other. Then each pack was got together, almost on the same ground, and
+it was necessary that something should be done. Mr. Harkaway waited to
+see whether Mr. Fairlawn would ride away quickly to his own country. He
+would not have spoken to Mr. Fairlawn if he could have helped it. Mr.
+Fairlawn was some miles away from his country. He must have given up the
+day for lost had he simply gone away. But there was another covert a
+mile off, and he thought that one of his hounds had "shown a line,"&mdash;or
+said that he thought so.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, it is well known that you may follow a hunted fox through whatever
+country he may take you to, if only your hounds are hunting him
+continuously. And one hound for that purpose is as good as thirty, and
+if a hound can only "show a line" he is held to be hunting. Mr. Fairlawn
+was quite sure that one of his hounds had been showing a line, and had
+been whipped off it by one of Mr. Harkaway's men. The man swore that he
+had only been collecting his own hounds. On this plea Mr. Fairlawn
+demanded to take his whole pack into Greasegate Wood,&mdash;the very covert
+that Mr. Harkaway had been about to draw. "I'm d&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;d
+if you do!" said Mr.
+Harkaway, standing, whip in hand, in the middle of the road, so as to
+prevent the enemy's huntsman passing by with his hounds. It was
+afterward declared that Mr. Harkaway had not been heard to curse and
+swear for the last fifteen years. "I'm d&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;d if
+I don't!" said Mr.
+Fairlawn, riding up to him. Mr. Harkaway was ten years the older man,
+and looked as though he had much less of fighting power. But no one saw
+him quail or give an inch. Those who watched his face declared that his
+lips were white with rage and quivered with passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+To tell the words which passed between them after that would require
+Homer's pathos and Homer's imagination. The two old men scowled and
+scolded at each other, and, had Mr. Fairlawn attempted to pass, Mr.
+Harkaway would certainly have struck him with his whip. And behind their
+master a crowd of the Puckeridge men collected themselves,&mdash;foremost
+among whom was Joshua Thoroughbung. "Take 'em round to the covert by
+Winnipeg Lane," said Mr. Fairlawn to his huntsman. The man prepared to
+take his pack round by Winnipeg Lane, which would have added a mile to
+the distance. But the huntsman, when he had got a little to the left,
+was soon seen scurrying across the country in the direction of the
+covert, with a dozen others at his heels, and the hounds following him.
+But old Mr. Harkaway had seen it too, and having possession of the road,
+galloped along it at such a pace that no one could pass him.
+</p>
+<p>
+All the field declared that they had regarded it as impossible that
+their master should move so fast. And Dillon, and the whips, and
+Thoroughbung, and Harry Annesley, with half a dozen others, kept pace
+with him. They would not sit there and see their master outmanoeuvred by
+any lack of readiness on their part. They got to the covert first, and
+there, with their whips drawn, were ready to receive the second pack.
+Then one hound went in without an order; but for their own hounds they
+did not care. They might find a fox and go after him, and nobody would
+follow them. The business here at the covert-side was more important and
+more attractive.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then it was that Mr. Thoroughbung nearly fell into danger. As to the
+other hounds,&mdash;Mr. Fairlawn's hounds,&mdash;doing any harm in the covert, or
+doing any good for themselves or their owners, that was out of the
+question. The rival pack was already there, with their noses up in the
+air, and thinking of anything but a fox; and this other pack,&mdash;the
+Hitchiners,&mdash;were just as wild. But it was the object of Mr. Fairlawn's
+body-guard to say that they had drawn the covert in the teeth of Mr.
+Harkaway, and to achieve this one of the whips thought that he could
+ride through the Puckeridge men, taking a couple of hounds with him.
+That would suffice for triumph.
+</p>
+<p>
+But to prevent such triumph on the part of the enemy Joshua Thoroughbung
+was prepared to sacrifice himself. He rode right at the whip, with his
+own whip raised, and would undoubtedly have ridden over him had not the
+whip tried to turn his horse sharp round, stumbled and fallen in the
+struggle, and had not Thoroughbung, with his horse, fallen over him.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will be the case that a slight danger or injury in one direction will
+often stop a course of action calculated to create greater dangers and
+worse injuries. So it was in this case. When Dick, the Hitchin whip,
+went down, and Thoroughbung, with his horse, was over him,&mdash;two men and
+two horses struggling together on the ground,&mdash;all desire to carry on the
+fight was over.
+</p>
+<p>
+The huntsman came up, and at last Mr. Fairlawn also, and considered it
+to be their duty to pick up Dick, whose breath was knocked out of him by
+the weight of Joshua Thoroughbung, and the Puckeridge side felt it to be
+necessary to give their aid to the valiant brewer. There was then no
+more attempt to draw the covert. Each general in gloomy silence took off
+his forces, and each afterward deemed that the victory was his. Dick
+swore, when brought to himself, that one of his hounds had gone in,
+whereas Squire 'Arkaway "had swore most 'orrid oaths that no 'Itchiner
+'ound should ever live to put his nose in. One of 'is 'ounds 'ad, and
+Squire 'Arkaway would have to be&mdash;" Well, Dick declared that he would
+not say what would happen to Mr. Harkaway.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH29"><!-- CH29 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXIX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+RIDING HOME.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+The two old gentlemen rode away, each in his own direction, in gloomy
+silence. Not a word was said by either of them, even to one of his own
+followers. It was nearly twenty miles to Mr. Harkaway's house, and along
+the entire twenty miles he rode silent. "He's in an awful passion," said
+Thoroughbung; "he can't speak from anger." But, to tell the truth, Mr.
+Harkaway was ashamed of himself. He was an old gentleman, between
+seventy and eighty, who was supposed to go out for his amusement, and
+had allowed himself to be betrayed into most unseemly language. What
+though the hound had not "shown a line?" Was it necessary that he, at
+his time of life, should fight on the road for the maintenance of a
+trifling right of sport. But yet there came upon him from time to time a
+sense of the deep injury done to him. That man Fairlawn, that
+blackguard, that creature of all others the farthest removed from a
+gentleman, had declared that in his, Mr. Harkaway's teeth, he would draw
+his, Mr. Harkaway's covert! Then he would urge on his old horse, and
+gnash his teeth; and then, again, he would be ashamed. "Tantaene animis
+coelestibus irae?"
+</p>
+<p>
+But Thoroughbung rode home high in spirits, very proud, and conscious of
+having done good work. He was always anxious to stand well with the hunt
+generally, and was aware that he had now distinguished himself. Harry
+Annesley was on one side of him, and on the other rode Mr. Florin, the
+banker. "He's an abominable liar!" said Thoroughbung, "a wicked,
+wretched liar!" He was alluding to the Hitchiner's whip, whom in his
+wrath he had nearly sent to another world. "He says that one of his
+hounds got into the covert, but I was there and saw it all. Not a nose
+was over the little bank which runs between the field and the covert."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must have seen a hound if he had been there," said the banker.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was as cool as a cucumber, and could count the hounds he had with
+him. There were three of them. A big black-spotted bitch was leading,
+the one that I nearly fell upon. When the man went down the hound
+stopped, not knowing what was expected of him. How should he? The man
+would have been in the covert, but, by George! I managed to stop him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What did you mean to do to him when you rode at him so furiously?"
+asked Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not let him get in there. That was my resolute purpose. I suppose I
+should have knocked him off his horse with my whip."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But suppose he had knocked you off your horse?" suggested the banker.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no knowing how that might have been. I never calculated those
+chances. When a man wants to do a thing like that he generally does it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you did it?" said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I think I did. I dare say his bones are sore. I know mine are. But
+I don't care for that in the least. When this day comes to be talked
+about, as I dare say it will be for many a long year, no one will be
+able to say that the Hitchiners got into that covert." Thoroughbung,
+with the genuine modesty of an Englishman, would not say that he had
+achieved by his own prowess all this glory for the Puckeridge Hunt, but
+he felt it down to the very end of his nails.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had he not been there that whip would have got into the wood, and a very
+different tale would then have been told in those coming years to which
+his mind was running away with happy thoughts. He had ridden the
+aggressors down; he had stopped the first intrusive hound. But though he
+continued to talk of the subject, he did not boast in so many words that
+he had done it. His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom.
+</p>
+<p>
+As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round
+Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one
+they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one
+addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them
+in this. It was he that fell away, and courted loneliness, and then in
+his heart accused them. There was no doubt something of truth in his
+accusations; but another man, less sensitive, might have lived it down.
+He did more than meet their coldness half-way, and then complained to
+himself of the bitterness of the world. "They are like the beasts of the
+field," he said, "who when another beast has been wounded, turn upon him
+and rend him to death." His future brother-in-law, the best natured
+fellow that ever was born, rode on thoughtless, and left Harry alone for
+three or four miles, while he received the pleasant plaudits of his
+companions. In Joshua's heart was that tale of the whip's discomfiture.
+He did not see that Molly's brother was alone as soon as he would have
+done but for his own glory. "He is the same as the others," said Harry
+to himself. "Because that man has told a falsehood of me, and has had
+the wit to surround it with circumstances, he thinks it becomes him to
+ride away and cut me." Then he asked himself some foolish questions as
+to himself and as to Joshua Thoroughbung, which he did not answer as he
+should have done, had he remembered that he was then riding
+Thoroughbung's horse, and that his sister was to become Thoroughbung's
+wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+After half an hour of triumphant ovation, Joshua remembered his
+brother-in-law, and did fall back so as to pick him up. "What's the
+matter, Harry? Why don't you come on and join us?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sick of hearing of that infernal squabble."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well; as to a squabble, Mr. Harkaway behaved quite right. If a hunt is
+to be kept up, the right of entering coverts must be preserved for the
+hunt they belong to. There was no line shown. You must remember that
+there isn't a doubt about that. The hounds were all astray when we
+joined them. It's a great question whether they brought their fox into
+that first covert. There are they who think that Bodkin was just riding
+across the Puckeridge country in search of a fox." Bodkin was Mr.
+Fairlawn's huntsman. "If you admit that kind of thing, where will you
+be? As a hunting country, just nowhere. Then as a sportsman, where are
+you? It is necessary to put down such gross fraud. My own impression is
+that Mr. Fairlawn should be turned out from being master. I own I feel
+very strongly about it. But then I always have been fond of hunting."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so," said Harry, sulkily, who was not in the least interested as
+to the matter on which Joshua was so eloquent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Proctor rode by, the gentleman who in the early part of the day
+disgusted Harry by calling him "mister." "Now, Mr. Proctor," continued
+Joshua, "I appeal to you whether Mr. Harkaway was not quite right? If
+you won't stick up for your rights in a hunting county&mdash;" But Mr.
+Proctor rode on, wishing them good-night, very discourteously declining
+to hear the remainder of the brewer's arguments. "He's in a hurry, I
+suppose," said Joshua.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'd better follow him. You'll find that he'll listen to you then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't want him to listen to me particularly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought you did." Then for half an hour the two men rode on in
+silence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter with you Harry?" said Joshua. "I can see there's
+something up that riles you. I know you're a fellow of your college, and
+have other things to think of besides the vagaries of a fox."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The fellow of a college!" said Harry, who, had he been in a good-humor,
+would have thought much more of being along with a lot of fox-hunters
+than of any college honors.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I suppose it is a great thing to be a fellow of a college. I
+never could have been one if I had mugged forever."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My being a fellow of a college won't do me much good. Did you see that
+old man Proctor go by just now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; he never likes to be out after a certain hour."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And did you see Florin, and Mr. Harkaway, and a lot of others? You
+yourself have been going on ahead for the last hour without speaking to
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How do you mean without speaking to you?" said Joshua, turning sharp
+round.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry Annesley reflected that he was doing an injustice to his
+future brother-in-law.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps I have done you wrong," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg your pardon. I believe you are as honest and true a fellow as
+there is in Hertfordshire, but for those others&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think it's about Mountjoy Scarborough, then?" asked Joshua.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do. That infernal fool, Peter Prosper, has chosen to publish to the
+world that he has dropped me because of something that he has heard of
+that occurrence. A wretched lie has been told with a purpose by
+Mountjoy Scarborough's brother, and my uncle has taken it into his wise
+head to believe it. The truth is, I have not been as respectful to him
+as he thinks I ought, and now he resents my neglect in this fashion. He
+is going to marry your aunt in order that he may have a lot of children,
+and cut me out. In order to justify himself, he has told these lies
+about me, and you see the consequence;&mdash;not a man in the county is
+willing to speak to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I really think a great deal of it's fancy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You go and ask Mr. Harkaway. He's honest, and he'll tell you. Ask this
+new cousin of yours, Mr. Prosper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that they are going to make a match of it, after all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ask my own father. Only think of it,&mdash;that a puling, puking idiot like
+that, from a mere freak, should be able to do a man such a mischief! He
+can rob me of my income, which he himself has brought me up to expect.
+That he can do by a stroke of his pen. He can threaten to have sons like
+Priam. All that is within his own bosom. But to justify himself to the
+world at large, he picks up a scandalous story from a man like Augustus
+Scarborough, and immediately not a man in the county will speak to me. I
+say that that is enough to break a man's heart,&mdash;not the injury done
+which a man should bear, but the injustice of the doing. Who wants his
+beggarly allowance! He can do as he likes about his own money. I shall
+never ask him for his money. But that he should tell such a lie as this
+about the county is more than a man can endure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What was it that did happen?" asked Joshua.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The man met me in the street when he was drunk, and he struck at me and
+was insolent. Of course I knocked him down. Who wouldn't have done the
+same? Then his brother found him somewhere, or got hold of him, and sent
+him out of the country, and says that I had held my tongue when I left
+him in the street. Of course I held my tongue. What was Mountjoy to me?
+Then Augustus has asked me sly questions, and accuses me of lying
+because I did not choose to tell him everything. It all comes out of
+that."
+</p>
+<p>
+Here they had reached the rectory, and Harry, after seeing that the
+horses were properly supplied with gruel, took himself and his ill-humor
+up-stairs to his own chamber. But Joshua had a word or two to say to one
+of the inmates of the rectory.
+</p>
+<p>
+He felt that it would be improper to ride his horse home without giving
+time to the animal to drink his gruel, and therefore made his way into
+the little breakfast-parlor, where Molly had a cup of tea and buttered
+toast ready for him. He of course told her first of the grand occurrence
+of the day,&mdash;how the two packs of hounds had mixed themselves together,
+how violently the two masters had fallen out and had nearly flogged each
+other, how Mr. Harkaway had sworn horribly,&mdash;who had never been heard to
+swear before,&mdash;how a final attempt had been made to seize a second
+covert, and how, at last, it had come to pass that he had distinguished
+himself. "Do you mean to say that you absolutely rode over the
+unfortunate man?" asked Molly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did. Not that the man had the worst of it,&mdash;or very much the worse.
+There we were both down, and the two horses, all in a heap together."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Joshua, suppose you had been kicked!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"In that case I should have been&mdash;kicked."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But a kick from an infuriated horse!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There wasn't much infuriation about him. The man had ridden all that
+out of the beast."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are sure to laugh at me, Joshua, because I think what terrible
+things might have happened to you. Why do you go putting yourself so
+forward in every danger, now that you have got somebody else to depend
+upon you and to care for you? It's very, very wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Somebody had to do it, Molly. It was most important, in the interests
+of hunting generally, that those hounds should not have been allowed to
+get into that covert. I don't think that outsiders ever understand how
+essential it is to maintain your rights. It isn't as though it were an
+individual. The whole county may depend upon it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't it be some man who hasn't got a young woman to look
+after?" said Molly, half laughing and half crying.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's the man who first gets there who ought to do it," said Joshua. "A
+man can't stop to remember whether he has got a young woman or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think you ever want to remember." Then that little quarrel was
+brought to the usual end with the usual blandishments, and Joshua went
+on to discuss with her that other source of trouble, her brother's fall.
+"Harry is awfully cut up," said the brewer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean these affairs about his uncle?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. It isn't only the money he feels, or the property, but people
+look askew at him. You ought all of you to be very kind to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure we are."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is something in it to vex him. That stupid old fool, your
+uncle&mdash;I beg your pardon, you know, for speaking of him in that way&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is a stupid old fool."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is behaving very badly. I don't know whether he shouldn't be treated as
+I did that fellow up at the covert."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ride over him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Something of that kind. Of course Harry is sore about it, and when a
+man is sore he frets at a thing like that more than he ought to do. As
+for that aunt of mine at Buntingford, there seems to be some hitch in
+it. I should have said she'd have married the Old Gentleman had he asked
+her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't talk like that, Joshua."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there is some screw loose. Simpson came up to my father about it
+yesterday, and the governor let enough of the cat out of the bag to make
+me know that the thing is not going as straight as she wishes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has offered, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure he has asked her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And your aunt will accept him?" asked Molly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's probably some difference about money. It's all done with the
+intention of injuring poor Harry. If he were my own brother I could not
+be more unhappy about him. And as to Aunt Matilda, she's a fool. There
+are two fools together. If they choose to marry we can't hinder them.
+But there is some screw loose, and if the two young lovers don't know
+their own minds things may come right at last." Then, with some farther
+blandishments, the prosperous brewer walked away.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH30"><!-- CH30 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+PERSECUTION.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+In the mean time Florence Mountjoy was not passing her time pleasantly
+at Brussels. Various troubles there attended her. All her friends around
+her were opposed to her marriage with Harry Annesley. Harry Annesley had
+become a very unsavory word in the mouths of Sir Magnus and the British
+Embassy generally. Mrs. Mountjoy told her grief to her brother-in-law,
+who thoroughly took her part, as did also, very strongly, Lady Mountjoy.
+It got to be generally understood that Harry was a <i>mauvais sujet</i>. Such
+was the name that was attached to him, and the belief so conveyed was
+thoroughly entertained by them all. Sir Magnus had written to friends in
+London, and the friends in London bore out the reports that were so
+conveyed. The story of the midnight quarrel was told in a manner very
+prejudicial to poor Harry, and both Sir Magnus and his wife saw the
+necessity of preserving their niece from anything so evil as such a
+marriage. But Florence was very firm, and was considered to be very
+obstinate. To her mother she was obstinate but affectionate To Sir
+Magnus she was obstinate and in some degree respectful. But to Lady
+Mountjoy she was neither affectionate nor respectful. She took a great
+dislike to Lady Mountjoy, who endeavored to domineer; and who, by the
+assistance of the two others, was in fact tyrannical. It was her opinion
+that the girl should be compelled to abandon the man, and Mrs. Mountjoy
+found herself constrained to follow this advice. She did love her
+daughter, who was her only child. The main interest of her life was
+centred in her daughter. Her only remaining ambition rested on her
+daughter's marriage. She had long revelled in the anticipation of being
+the mother-in-law of the owner of Tretton Park. She had been very proud
+of her daughter's beauty.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then had come the first blow, when Harry Annesley had come to Montpelier
+Place and had been welcomed by Florence. Mrs. Mountjoy had seen it all
+long before Florence had been aware of it. And the first coming of Harry
+had been long before the absolute disgrace of Captain Scarborough,&mdash;at
+any rate, before the tidings of that disgrace had reached Cheltenham.
+Mrs. Mountjoy had been still able to dream of Tretton Park, after the
+Jews had got their fingers on it,&mdash;even after the Jews had been forced to
+relinquish their hold. It can hardly be said that up to this very time
+Mrs. Mountjoy had lost all hope in her nephew, thinking that as the
+property had been entailed some portion of it must ultimately belong to
+him. She had heard that Augustus was to have it, and her desires had
+vacillated between the two. Then Harry had positively declared himself,
+and Augustus had given her to understand how wretched, how mean, how
+wicked had been Harry's conduct. And he fully explained to her that
+Harry would be penniless. She had indeed been aware that Buston,&mdash;quite a
+trifling thing compared to Tretton,&mdash;was to belong to him. But entails
+were nothing nowadays. It was part of the radical abomination to which
+England was being subjected. Not even Buston was now to belong to Harry
+Annesley. The small income which he had received from his uncle was
+stopped. He was reduced to live upon his fellowship,&mdash;which would be
+stopped also if he married. She even despised him because he was the
+fellow of a college;&mdash;she had looked for a husband for her daughter so
+much higher than any college could produce. It was not from any lack of
+motherly love that she was opposed to Florence, or from any innate
+cruelty that she handed her daughter over to the tender mercies of Lady
+Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+And since she had been at Brussels there had come up farther hopes.
+Another mode had shown itself of escaping Harry Annesley, who was of all
+catastrophes the most dreaded and hated. Mr. Anderson, the second
+secretary of legation,&mdash;he whose business it was to ride about the
+boulevard with Sir Magnus,&mdash;had now declared himself in form. "Never saw
+a fellow so bowled over," Sir Magnus had declared, by which he had
+intended to signify that Mr. Anderson was now truly in love. "I've seen
+him spooney a dozen times," Sir Magnus had said, confidentially, to his
+sister-in-law, "but he has never gone to this length. He has asked a lot
+of girls to have him, but he has always been off it again before the
+week was over. He has written to his mother now."
+</p>
+<p>
+And Mr. Anderson showed his love by very unmistakable signs. Sir Magnus
+too, and Lady Mountjoy, were evidently on the same side as Mr. Anderson.
+Sir Magnus thought there was no longer any good in waiting for his
+nephew, the captain, and of that other nephew, Augustus, he did not
+entertain any very high idea. Sir Magnus had corresponded lately with
+Augustus, and was certainly not on his side. But he so painted Mr.
+Anderson's prospects in life, as did also Lady Mountjoy, as to make it
+appear that if Florence could put up with young Anderson she would do
+very well with herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's sure to be a baronet some of these days, you know," said Sir
+Magnus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think that would go very far with Florence," said her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it ought. Look about in the world and you'll see that it does go a
+long way. He'd be the fifth baronet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But his elder brother is alive."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The queerest fellow you ever saw in your born days, and his life is not
+worth a year's purchase. He's got some infernal disease,&mdash;nostalgia, or
+what 'd'ye call it?&mdash;which never leaves him a moment's peace, and then
+he drinks nothing but milk. Sure to go off;&mdash;cock sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shouldn't like Florence to count upon that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then Hugh Anderson, the fellow here, is very well off as it is. He
+has four hundred pounds here, and another five hundred pounds of his
+own. Florence has, or will have, four hundred pounds of her own. I
+should call them deuced rich. I should, indeed, as beginners. She could
+have her pair of ponies here, and what more would she want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+These arguments did go very far with Mrs. Mountjoy, the farther because
+in her estimation Sir Magnus was a great man. He was the greatest
+Englishman, at any rate, in Brussels, and where should she go for advice
+but to an Englishman? And she did not know that Sir Magnus had succeeded
+in borrowing a considerable sum of money from his second secretary of
+legation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Leave her to me for a little;&mdash;just leave her to me," said Lady
+Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not say anything hard to her," said the mother, pleading for
+her naughty child.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not too hard, but she must be made to understand. You see there have
+been misfortunes. As to Mountjoy Scarborough, he's past hoping for."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Altogether. When a man has disappeared there's an end of him. There was
+Lord Baltiboy's younger son disappeared, and he turned out to be a
+Zouave corporal in a French regiment. They did get him out, of course,
+but then he went preaching in America. You may take it for granted, that
+when a man has absolutely vanished from the clubs, he'll never be any
+good again as a marrying man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there's his brother, who, they say, is to have the property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A very cold-blooded sort of young man, who doesn't care a straw for his
+own family." He had received very sternly the overtures for a loan from
+Sir Magnus. "And he, as I understand, has never declared himself in
+Florence's favor. You can't count upon Augustus Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not just count upon him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whereas there's young Anderson, who is the most gentleman-like young
+man I know, all ready. It will have been such a turn of luck your coming
+here and catching him up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that it can be called a turn of luck. Florence has a very
+nice fortune of her own&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she wants to give it to this penniless reprobate. It is just one of
+those cases in which you must deal roundly with a girl. She has to be
+frightened, and that's about the truth of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with
+herself into her morning-room. When her mother told her that her aunt
+wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to
+see her aunt. Her mother declared that in her aunt's house she was bound
+to go when her aunt sent for her. To this Florence demurred. She was,
+she thought, her aunt's guest, but by no means at her aunt's disposal.
+But at last she obeyed her mother. She had resolved that she would obey
+her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to
+her aunt's chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and
+taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room. "My
+dear," he said, "just come in here for two minutes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am on my way up to my aunt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it, my dear. Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me.
+Upon my word you can't do anything better than take young Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't do that, Uncle Magnus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not? There's poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no question of my cousin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Augustus is no better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no question of Augustus either."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As to that other chap, he isn't any good;&mdash;he isn't indeed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean Mr. Annesley?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; Harry Annesley, as you call him. He hasn't got a shilling to bless
+himself with, or wouldn't have if he was to marry you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I have got something."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not enough for both of you, I'm afraid. That uncle of his has
+disinherited him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"His uncle can't disinherit him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's quite young enough to marry and have a family, and then Annesley
+will be disinherited. He has stopped his allowance, anyway, and you
+mustn't think of him. He did something uncommonly unhandsome the other
+day, though I don't quite know what."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He did nothing unhandsome, Uncle Magnus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course a young lady will stand up for her lover, but you will
+really have to drop him. I'm not a hard sort of man, but this was
+something that the world will not stand. When he thought the man had
+been murdered he didn't say anything about it for fear they should tax
+him with it. And then he swore he had never seen him. It was something
+of that sort."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He never feared that any one would suspect him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now young Anderson has proposed. I should not have spoken else, but
+it's my duty to tell you about young Anderson. He's a gentleman all
+round."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So is Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Anderson has got into no trouble at all. He does his duty here
+uncommonly well. I never had less trouble with any young fellow than I
+have had with him. No licking him into shape,&mdash;or next to none,&mdash;and he
+has a very nice private income. You together would have plenty, and
+could live here till you had settled on apartments. A pair of ponies
+would be just the thing for you to drive about and support the British
+interests. You think of it, my dear, and you'll find that I'm right."
+Then Florence escaped from that room and went up to receive the much
+more severe lecture which she was to have from her aunt.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come in, my dear," said Lady Mountjoy, in her most austere voice. She
+had a voice which could assume austerity when she knew her power to be
+in the ascendant. As Florence entered the room Miss Abbott left it by a
+door on the other side. "Take that chair, Florence. I want to have a few
+minutes' conversation with you." Then Florence sat down. "When a young
+lady is thinking of being married, a great many things have to be taken
+into consideration." This seemed to be so much a matter of fact that
+Florence did not feel it necessary to make any reply. "Of course I am
+aware you are thinking of being married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But to whom?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To Harry Annesley," said Florence, intending to imply that all the
+world knew that.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope not; I hope not. Indeed, I may say that it is quite out of the
+question. In the first place, he is a beggar."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has begged from none," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is what the world calls a beggar, when a young man without a penny
+thinks of being married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not a beggar, and what I've got will be his."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear, you're talking about what you don't understand. A young lady
+cannot give her money away in that manner; it will not be allowed.
+Neither your mother, nor Sir Magnus, nor will I permit it." Here
+Florence restrained herself, but drew herself up in her chair as though
+prepared to speak out her mind if she should be driven. Lady Mountjoy
+would not permit it! She thought that she would feel herself quite able
+to tell Lady Mountjoy that she had neither power nor influence in the
+matter, but she determined to be silent a little longer. "In the first
+place, a gentleman who is a gentleman never attempts to marry a lady for
+her money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But when a lady has the money she can express herself much more clearly
+than she could otherwise."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't quite understand what you mean by that, my dear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When Mr. Annesley proposed to me he was the acknowledged heir to his
+uncle's property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A trumpery affair at the best of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It would have sufficed for me. Then I accepted him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That goes for nothing from a lady. Of course your acceptance was
+contingent on circumstances."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was so;&mdash;on my regard. Having accepted him, and as my regard remains
+just as warm as ever, I certainly shall not go back because of anything
+his uncle may do. I only say this to explain that he was quite justified
+in his offer. It was not for my small fortune that he came to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not so sure of that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if my money can be of any use to him, he's quite welcome to it. Sir
+Magnus spoke to me about a pair of ponies. I'd rather have him than a
+pair of ponies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm coming to that just now. Here is Mr. Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; he's here."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was certainly a touch of impatience in the tone in which this was
+uttered. It was as though she had said that Mr. Anderson had so
+contrived that she could have no doubt whatever about his continued
+presence. Mr. Anderson had made himself so conspicuous as to be visible
+to her constantly. Lady Mountjoy, who intended at present to sing Mr.
+Anderson's praises, felt this to be impertinent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what you mean by that. Mr. Anderson has behaved himself
+quite like a gentleman, and you ought to be very proud of any token you
+may receive of his regard and affection."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm not bound to return to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are bound to think of it when those who are responsible for your
+actions tell you to do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I mean your uncle, Sir Magnus Mountjoy." She did not quite dare to say
+that she had meant herself. "I suppose you will admit that Sir Magnus is
+a competent judge of young men's characters?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He may be a judge of Mr. Anderson, because Mr. Anderson is his clerk."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something of an intention to depreciate in the word "clerk."
+Florence had not thought much of Mr. Anderson's worth, nor, as far as
+she had seen them, of the duties generally performed at the British
+Embassy. She was ignorant of the peculiar little niceties and
+intricacies which required the residence at Brussels of a gentleman with
+all the tact possessed by Sir Magnus. She did not know that while the
+mere international work of the office might be safely intrusted to Mr.
+Blow and Mr. Bunderdown, all those little niceties, that smiling and
+that frowning, that taking off of hats and only half taking them off,
+that genial, easy manner, and that stiff hauteur, formed the peculiar
+branch of Sir Magnus himself,&mdash;and, under Sir Magnus, of Mr. Anderson.
+She did not understand that even to that pair of ponies which was
+promised to her were to be attached certain important functions, which
+she was to control as the deputy of the great man's deputy And now she
+had called the great man's deputy a clerk!
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Anderson is no such thing," said Lady Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"His young man, then,&mdash;or private secretary;&mdash;only somebody else
+is that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are very impertinent and very ungrateful. Mr. Anderson is second
+secretary of legation. There is no officer attached to our establishment
+of more importance. I believe you say it on purpose to anger me. And
+then you compare this gentleman to Mr. Annesley, a man to whom no one
+will speak."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will speak to him." Had Harry heard her say that, he ought to have
+been a happy man in spite of his trouble.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You! What good can you do him?" Florence nodded her head, almost
+imperceptibly, but still there was a nod, signifying more than she could
+possibly say. She thought that she could do him a world of good if she
+were near him, and some good, too, though she were far away. If she were
+with him she could hang on to his arm,&mdash;or perhaps at some future time
+round his neck,&mdash;and tell him that she would be true to him though all
+others might turn away. And she could be just as true where she was,
+though she could not comfort him by telling him so with her own words.
+Then it was that she resolved upon writing that letter. He should
+already have what little comfort she might administer in his absence.
+"Now, listen to me, Florence. He is a thorough reprobate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will not hear him so called. He is no reprobate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has behaved in such a way that all England is crying out about him.
+He has done that which will never allow any gentleman to speak to him
+again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then there will be more need that a lady should do so. But it is not
+true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You put your knowledge of character against that of Sir Magnus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir Magnus does not know the gentleman; I do. What's the good of
+talking of it, aunt? Harry Annesley has my word, and nothing on earth
+shall induce me to go back from it. Even were he what you say I would be
+true to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly I would. I could not willingly begin to love a man whom I
+knew to be base; but when I had loved him I would not turn because of
+his baseness;&mdash;I couldn't do it. It would be a great&mdash;a terrible
+misfortune; but it would have to be borne. But here&mdash;I know all the
+story to which you allude."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know it too."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am quite sure that the baseness has not been on his part. In defence
+of my name he has been silent. He might have spoken out, if he had known
+all the truth then. I was as much his own then as I am now. One of these
+days I suppose I shall be more so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean to marry him, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Most certainly I do, or I will never be married; and as he is poor now,
+and I must have my own money when I am twenty-four, I suppose I shall
+have to wait till then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Will your mother's word go for nothing with you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor mamma! I do believe that mamma is very unhappy, because she makes
+me unhappy. What may take place between me and mamma I am not bound, I
+think, to tell you. We shall be away soon, and I shall be left to mamma
+alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+And mamma would be left alone to her daughter, Lady Mountjoy thought.
+The visit must be prolonged so that at last Mr. Anderson might be
+enabled to prevail.
+</p>
+<p>
+The visit had been originally intended for a month, but was now
+prolonged indefinitely. After that conversation between Lady Mountjoy
+and her niece two or three things happened, all bearing upon our story.
+Florence at once wrote her letter. If things were going badly in England
+with Harry Annesley, Harry should at any rate have the comfort of
+knowing what were her feelings,&mdash;if there might be comfort to him in
+that. "Perhaps, after all, he won't mind what I may say," she thought to
+herself; but only pretended to think it, and at once flatly contradicted
+her own "perhaps." Then she told him most emphatically not to reply. It
+was very important that she should write. He was to receive her letter,
+and there must be an end of it. She was quite sure that he would
+understand her. He would not subject her to the trouble of having to
+tell her own people that she was maintaining a correspondence, for it
+would amount to that. But still when the time came for the answer she
+had counted it up to the hour. And when Sir Magnus sent for her and
+handed to her the letter,&mdash;having discussed that question with her
+mother,&mdash;she fully expected it, and felt properly grateful to her uncle.
+She wanted a little comfort, too, and when she had read the letter she
+knew that she had received it.
+</p>
+<p>
+There had been a few words spoken between the two elder ladies after the
+interview between Florence and Lady Mountjoy. "She is a most self-willed
+young woman," said Lady Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course she loves her lover," said Mrs. Mountjoy, desirous of making
+some excuse for her own daughter. The girl was very troublesome, but not
+the less her daughter. "I don't know any of them that don't who are
+worth anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you regard it in that light, Sarah, she'll get the better of you. If
+she marries him she will be lost; that is the way you have got to look
+at it. It is her future happiness you must think of&mdash;and respectability.
+She is a headstrong young woman, and has to be treated accordingly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What would you do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would be very severe."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what am I to do? I can't beat her; I can't lock her up in her
+room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you mean to give it up?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I don't. You shouldn't be so cross to me," said poor Mrs. Mountjoy.
+When it had reached this the two ladies had become intimate. "I don't
+mean to give it up at all; but what am I to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remain here for the next month, and&mdash;and worry her; let Mr. Anderson
+have his chance with her. When she finds that everything will smile
+with her if she accepts him, and that her life will be made a burden to
+her if she still sticks to her Harry Annesley, she'll come round, if she
+be like other girls. Of course a girl can't be made to marry a man, but
+there are ways and means." By this Lady Mountjoy meant that the utmost
+cruelty should be used which would be compatible with a good breakfast,
+dinner, and bedroom. Now, Mrs. Mountjoy knew herself to be incapable of
+this, and knew also, or thought that she knew, that it would not be
+efficacious.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You stay here,&mdash;up to Christmas, if you like it," said Sir Magnus to his
+sister-in-law. "She can't but see Anderson every day, and that goes a
+long way. She, of course, puts on a resolute air as well as she can.
+They all know how to do that. Do you be resolute in return. The deuce is
+in it if we can't have our way with her among us. When you talk of ill
+usage nobody wants you to put her in chains. There are different ways of
+killing a cat. You get friends to write to you from England about young
+Annesley, and I'll do the same. The truth, of course, I mean."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing can be worse than the truth," said Mrs. Mountjoy, shaking her
+head, sorrowfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so," said Sir Magnus, who was not at all sorrowful to hear so bad
+an account of the favored suitor. "Then we'll read her the letters. She
+can't help hearing them. Just the true facts, you know. That's fair;
+nobody can call that cruel. And then, when she breaks down and comes to
+our call, we'll all be as soft as mother's milk to her. I shall see her
+going about the boulevards with a pair of ponies yet." Mrs. Mountjoy
+felt that when Sir Magnus spoke of Florence coming to his call he did
+not know her daughter. But she had nothing better to do than to obey Sir
+Magnus. Therefore she resolved to stay at Brussels another period of six
+weeks and told Florence that she had so resolved. Just at present
+Brussels and Cheltenham would be all the same to Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be a dreadful bore having them so long," said poor Lady
+Mountjoy, piteously, to her husband. For in the presence of Sir Magnus
+she was by no means the valiant woman that she was with some of her
+friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You find everything a bore. What's the trouble?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What am I to do with them?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Take 'em about in the carriage. Lord bless my soul! what have you got a
+carriage for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, with Miss Abbott, there's never room for any one else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Leave Miss Abbott at home, then. What's the good of talking to me about
+Miss Abbott? I suppose it doesn't matter to you whom my brother's
+daughter marries?" Lady Mountjoy did not think that it did matter much;
+but she declared that she had already evinced the most tender
+solicitude. "Then stick to it. The girl doesn't want to go out every
+day. Leave her alone, where Anderson can get at her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's always out riding with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, he's not; not always. And leave Miss Abbott at home. Then there'll
+be room for two others. Don't make difficulties. Anderson will expect
+that I shall do something for him, of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because of the money," said Lady Mountjoy, whispering.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I've got to do something for her too." Now, there was a spice of
+honesty about Sir Magnus. He knew that as he could not at once pay back
+these sums, he was bound to make it up in some other way. The debts
+would be left the same. But that would remain with Providence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then came Harry's letter, and there was a deep consultation. It was
+known to have come from Harry by the Buntingford post-mark. Mrs.
+Mountjoy proposed to consult Lady Mountjoy; but to that Sir Magnus would
+not agree. "She'd take her skin off her if she could, now that she's
+angered," said the lady's husband, who no doubt knew the lady well. "Of
+course she'll learn that the letter has been written, and then she'll
+throw it in our teeth. She wouldn't believe that it had gone astray in
+coming here. We should give her a sort of a whip-hand over us." So it
+was decided that Florence should have her letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH31"><!-- CH31 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+FLORENCE'S REQUEST.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson's way.
+Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding. There
+were moments in which even he was off duty. And Sir Magnus contrived to
+ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the
+carriage was still out on its rounds. Lady Mountjoy certainly did her
+duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so
+that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson. She
+could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as
+yet become so bad as that. Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to
+her. She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous
+in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this
+time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her
+she would tell him the exact truth of the case. As a gentleman, and as a
+young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her. The one enemy
+whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy. She too had felt that her aunt
+could "take her skin off her," as Sir Magnus had said. She had not heard
+the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy
+was in proportion. It cannot be said that she was afraid. She did not
+intend to leave her skin in her aunt's hands. For every inch of skin
+taken she resolved to have an inch in return. She was not acquainted
+with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but
+she was prepared for all such attacks. For Sir Magnus himself, since he
+had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.
+</p>
+<p>
+Behind the British minister's house, which, though entitled to no such
+name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which,
+though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a
+valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for
+exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his
+riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man
+was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the
+glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw
+in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair
+of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the
+sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes
+really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A
+secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy
+wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary
+of legation,&mdash;the second secretary, he told himself,&mdash;was bound, if he
+married at all, to have a pretty and <i>distingu&eacute;e</i> wife. He knew all
+about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own
+hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have
+been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not
+want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets
+of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.
+There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called
+"sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his
+own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very
+fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were
+little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great
+esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court,
+and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of
+no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself
+in a carriage. It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and
+he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,&mdash;as
+behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in
+love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.
+He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight
+she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be
+always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz,
+she had nothing to say for herself at three o'clock in the morning. And
+he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl
+without a shilling. "It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to
+do unless he's sure of his position," he had said on such an occasion to
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother's state of
+health. When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was
+always considered to allude to his brother's health. In this way he had
+nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given
+some trouble to Sir Magnus. But now he was quite sure. "It's all there
+all round," he had said to Arbuthnot more than once. Arbuthnot said that
+it was there&mdash;"all round, all round." Waxlight and daylight made no
+difference to her. She was always graceful. "Nobody with an eye in his
+head can doubt that," said Anderson. "I should think not, by Jove!"
+replied Arbuthnot. "And for talking,&mdash;you never catch her out; never." "I
+never did, certainly," said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was
+obedient and kind-hearted. "And then look at her money. Of course a
+fellow wants something to help him on. My position is so uncertain that
+I cannot do without it." "Of course not." "Now, with some girls it's so
+deuced hard to find out. You hear that a girl has got money, but when
+the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn't think of
+dying;&mdash;damme, doesn't think of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all
+about it. When she's twenty-four,&mdash;only twenty-four,&mdash;she'll have ten
+thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that's
+beastly." "Nobody can say that of me. Circumstanced as I am, I want
+something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,&mdash;quite as much
+as I want,&mdash;quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in
+the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid
+the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells
+me that if I'll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There's some
+fellow in England has just touched her heart,&mdash;just touched it, you
+know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a
+fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome
+fellows without conduct and without courage." "I've known lots of 'em,"
+said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him
+in my life, but that's what Sir Magnus says. He has done something
+awfully disreputable. I don't quite understand what it is, but it's
+something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. Nobody knows
+the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "Nobody
+does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that
+conversation was brought to an end.
+</p>
+<p>
+One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother
+and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and
+Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half
+an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I'm never in better company."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn't be all alone, would
+you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if you were with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the
+world at large. Mayn't they?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used
+to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast
+could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same sort of thing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it.
+Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and
+then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't understand the joke."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She had been told she couldn't break an egg in an empty stocking. Then
+she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains. I
+don't know what made me tell you that story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a very good story. I'll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night. She
+believes everything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And everybody? Then she's a happy woman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you'd believe everybody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I do;&mdash;nearly everybody. There are some inveterate liars whom nobody
+can believe."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope I am not regarded as one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You? certainly not. If anybody were to speak of you as such behind your
+back no one would take your part more loyally than I. But nobody would."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's something, at any rate. Then you do believe that I love you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe that you think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that I don't know my own heart?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's very common, Mr. Anderson. I wasn't quite sure of my own heart
+twelve months ago, but I know it now." He felt that his hopes ran very
+low when this was said. She had never before spoken to him of his rival,
+nor had he to her. He knew, or fancied that he knew, that "her heart had
+been touched," as he had said to Arbuthnot. But the "touch" must have
+been very deep if she felt herself constrained to speak to him on the
+subject. It had been his desire to pass over Mr. Annesley, and never to
+hear the name mentioned between them. "You were speaking of your own
+heart."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well I was, no doubt. It is a silly thing to talk of, I dare say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm going to tell you of my heart, and I hope you won't think it silly.
+I do so because I believe you to be a gentleman, and a man of honor." He
+blushed at the words and the tone in which they were spoken, but his
+heart fell still lower. "Mr. Anderson, I am engaged." Here she paused a
+moment, but he had nothing to say. "I am engaged to marry a gentleman
+whom I love with all my heart, and all my strength, and all my body. I
+love him so that nothing can ever separate me from him, or, at least,
+from the thoughts of him. As regards all the interests of life, I feel
+as though I were already his wife. If I ever marry any man I swear to
+you that it will be him." Then Mr. Anderson felt that all hope had
+utterly departed from him. She had said that she believed him to be a
+man of truth. He certainly believed her to be a true-speaking woman. He
+asked himself, and he found it to be quite impossible to doubt her word
+on this subject. "Now I will go on and tell you my troubles. My mother
+disapproves of the man. Sir Magnus has taken upon himself to disapprove,
+and Lady Mountjoy disapproves especially. I don't care two straws about
+Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy. As to Lady Mountjoy, it is simply an
+impertinence on her part, interfering with me." There was something in
+her face as she said this which made Mr. Anderson feel that if he could
+only succeed in having her and the pair of ponies he would be a prouder
+man than the ambassador at Paris. But he knew that it was hopeless. "As
+to my mother, that is indeed a sorrow. She has been to me the dearest
+mother, putting her only hopes of happiness in me. No mother was ever
+more devoted to a child, and of all children I should be the most
+ungrateful were I to turn against her. But from my early years she has
+wished me to marry a man whom I could not bring myself to love. You have
+heard of Captain Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The man who disappeared?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was and is my first cousin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is in some way connected with Sir Magnus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Through mamma. Mamma is aunt to Captain Scarborough, and she married
+the brother of Sir Magnus. Well, he has disappeared and been
+disinherited. I cannot explain all about it, for I don't understand it;
+but he has come to great trouble. It was not on that account that I
+would not marry him. It was partly because I did not like him, and
+partly because of Harry Annesley. I will tell you everything because I
+want you to know my story. But my mother has disliked Mr. Annesley,
+because she has thought that he has interfered with my cousin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understand all that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she has been taught to think that Mr. Annesley has behaved very
+badly. I cannot quite explain it, because there is a brother of Captain
+Scarborough who has interfered. I never loved Captain Scarborough, but
+that man I hate. He has spread those stories. Captain Scarborough has
+disappeared, but before he went he thought it well to revenge himself on
+Mr. Annesley. He attacked him in the street late at night, and
+endeavored to beat him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why indeed. That such a trumpery cause as a girl's love should operate
+with such a man!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can understand it; oh yes,&mdash;I can understand it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe he was tipsy, and he had been gambling, and had lost all his
+money&mdash;more than all his money. He was a ruined man, and reckless and
+wretched. I can forgive him, and so does Harry. But in the struggle
+Harry got the best of it, and left him there in the street. No weapons
+had been used, except that Captain Scarborough had a stick. There was no
+reason to suppose him hurt, nor was he much hurt. He had behaved very
+badly, and Harry left him. Had he gone for a policeman he could only
+have given him in charge. The man was not hurt, and seems to have walked
+away."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The papers were full of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, the papers were full of it, because he was missing. I don't know
+yet what became of him, but I have my suspicions."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They say that he has been seen at Monaco."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very likely. But I have nothing to do with that. Though he was my
+cousin, I am touched nearer in another place. Young Mr. Scarborough,
+who, I suspect, knows all about his brother, took upon himself to
+cross-question Mr. Annesley. Mr. Annesley did not care to tell anything
+of that struggle in the streets, and denied that he had seen him. In
+truth, he did not want to have my name mentioned. My belief is that
+Augustus Scarborough knew exactly what had taken place when he asked the
+question. It was he who really was false. But he is now the heir to
+Tretton and a great man in his way, and in order to injure Harry
+Annesley he has spread abroad the story which they all tell here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He does;&mdash;that is all I know. But I will not be a hypocrite. He chose to
+wish that I should not marry Harry Annesley. I cannot tell you farther
+than that. But he has persuaded mamma, and has told every one. He shall
+never persuade me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everybody seems to believe him," said Mr. Anderson, not as intending to
+say that he believed him now, but that he had done so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course they do. He has simply ruined Harry. He too has been
+disinherited now. I don't know how they do these things, but it has been
+done. His uncle has been turned against him, and his whole income has
+been taken from him. But they will never persuade me. Nor, if they did,
+would I be untrue to him. It is a grand thing for a girl to have a
+perfect faith in the man she has to marry, as I have&mdash;as I have. I know
+my man, and will as soon disbelieve in Heaven as in him. But were he
+what they say he is, he would still have to become my husband. I should
+be broken-hearted, but I should still be true. Thank God, though,&mdash;thank
+God,&mdash;he has done nothing and will do nothing to make me ashamed of him.
+Now you know my story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; now I know it." The tears came very near the poor man's eyes as he
+answered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what will you do for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What shall I do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; what will you do? I have told you all my story, believing you to
+be a fine-tempered gentleman. You have entertained a fancy which has
+been encouraged by Sir Magnus. Will you promise me not to speak to me of
+it again? Will you relieve me of so much of my trouble? Will you;&mdash;will
+you?" Then, when he turned away, she followed him, and put both her
+hands upon his arm. "Will you do that little thing for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A little thing!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it not a little thing,&mdash;when I am so bound to that other man that
+nothing can move me? Whether it be little or whether it be much, will
+you not do it?" She still held him by the arm, but his face was turned
+from her so that she could not see it. The tears, absolute tears, were
+running down his cheeks. What did it behoove him as a man to do? Was he
+to believe her vows now and grant her request, and was she then to give
+herself to some third person and forget Harry Annesley altogether? How
+would it be with him then? A faint heart never won a fair lady. All is
+fair in love and war. You cannot catch cherries by holding your mouth
+open. A great amount of wisdom such as this came to him at the spur of
+the moment. But there was her hand upon his arm, and he could not elude
+her request. "Will you not do it for me?" she asked again.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will," he said, still keeping his face turned away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew it;&mdash;I knew you would. You are high-minded and honest, and cannot
+be cruel to a poor girl. And if in time to come, when I am Harry
+Annesley's wife, we shall chance to meet each other,&mdash;as we will,&mdash;he
+shall thank you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall not want that. What will his thanks do for me? You do not think
+that I shall be silent to oblige him?" Then he walked forth from out of
+the garden, and she had never seen his tears. But she knew well that he
+was weeping, and she sympathized with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH32"><!-- CH32 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. ANDERSON IS ILL.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When they went down to dinner that day it became known that Mr. Anderson
+did not intend to dine with them. "He's got a headache," said Sir
+Magnus. "He says he's got a headache. I never knew such a thing in my
+life before." It was quite clear that Sir Magnus did not think that his
+lieutenant ought to have such a headache as would prevent his coming to
+dinner, and that he did not quite believe in the headache. There was a
+dinner ready, a very good dinner, which it was his business to provide.
+He always did provide it, and took a great deal of trouble to see that
+it was good. "There isn't a table so well kept in all Brussels," he used
+to boast. But when he had done his share he expected that Anderson and
+Arbuthnot should do theirs, especially Anderson. There had been
+sometimes a few words,&mdash;not quite a quarrel but nearly so,&mdash;on the subject
+of dining out. Sir Magnus only dined out with royalty, cabinet
+ministers, and other diplomats. Even then he rarely got a good
+dinner&mdash;what he called a good dinner. He often took Anderson with him.
+He was the <i>doyen</i> among the diplomats in Brussels, and a little
+indulgence was shown to him. Therefore he thought that Anderson should
+be as true to him as was he to Anderson. It was not for Anderson's sake,
+indeed, who felt the bondage to be irksome;&mdash;and Sir Magnus knew that his
+subordinate sometimes groaned in spirit. But a good dinner is a good
+dinner,&mdash;especially the best dinner in Brussels,&mdash;and Sir Magnus felt that
+something ought to be given in return. He had not that perfect faith in
+mankind which is the surest evidence of a simple mind. Ideas crowded
+upon him. Had Anderson a snug little dinner-party, just two or three
+friends, in his own room? Sir Magnus would not have been very angry,&mdash;he
+was rarely very angry,&mdash;but he should like to show his cleverness by
+finding it out. Anderson had been quite well when he was out riding, and
+he did not remember him ever before to have had a headache. "Is he very
+bad, Arbuthnot?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I haven't seen him, sir, since he was riding."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who has seen him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was in the garden with me," said Florence, boldly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose that did not give him a headache."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not that I perceived."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is very singular that he should have a headache just when dinner is
+ready," continued Sir Magnus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better leave the young man alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+And one who knew the ways of living at the British Embassy would be sure
+that after this Sir Magnus would not leave the young man alone. His
+nature was not simple. It seemed to him again that there might be a
+little dinner-party, and that Lady Mountjoy knew all about it.
+"Richard," he said to the butler, "go into Mr. Anderson's room and see
+if he is very bad." Richard came back, and whispered to the great man
+that Anderson was not in his room. "This is very remarkable. A bad
+headache, and not in his room! Where is he? I insist on knowing where
+Mr. Anderson is!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had better leave him alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Leave a man alone because he's ill! He might die."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Shall I go and see?" said Arbuthnot.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish you would, and bring him in here, if he's well enough to show. I
+don't approve of a young man going without his dinner. There's nothing
+so bad."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll be sure to get something, Sir Magnus," said Lady Mountjoy. But
+Sir Magnus insisted that Mr. Arbuthnot should go and look after his
+friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now November, and at eight o'clock was quite dark, but the
+weather was fine, and something of the mildness of autumn remained.
+Arbuthnot was not long in discovering that Mr. Anderson was again
+walking in the garden. He had left Florence there and had gone to the
+house, but had found himself to be utterly desolate and miserable. She
+had exacted from him a promise which was not compatible with any kind of
+happiness to which he could now look forward. In the first place, all
+Brussels knew that he had been in love with Florence Mountjoy. He
+thought that all Brussels knew it. And they knew that he had been in
+earnest in this love. He did believe that all Brussels had given him
+credit for so much. And now they would know that he had suddenly ceased
+to make love. It might be that this should be attributed to gallantry on
+his part,&mdash;that it should be considered that the lady had been deserted.
+But he was conscious that he was not so good a hypocrite as not to show
+that he was broken-hearted. He was quite sure that it would be seen that
+he had got the worst of it. But when he asked himself questions as to
+his own condition he told himself that there was suffering in store for
+him more heavy to bear than these. There could be no ponies, with
+Florence driving them, and a boy in his own livery behind, seen upon the
+boulevards. That vision was gone, and forever. And then came upon him an
+idea that the absence of the girl from other portions of his life might
+touch him more nearly. He did feel something like actual love. And the
+more she had told him of her devotion to Harry Annesley, the more
+strongly he had felt the value of that devotion. Why should this man
+have it and not he? He had not been disinherited. He had not been
+knocked about in a street quarrel. He had not been driven to tell a lie
+as to his having not seen a man when he had, in truth, knocked him down.
+He had quite agreed with Florence that Harry was justified in the lie;
+but there was nothing in it to make the girl love him the better for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then, looking forward, he could perceive the possibility of an event
+which, if it should occur, would cover him with confusion and disgrace.
+If, after all, Florence were to take, not Harry Annesley, but somebody
+else? How foolish, how credulous, how vain would he have been then to
+have made the promise! Girls did such things every day. He had promised,
+and he thought that he must keep his promise; but she would be bound by
+no promise! As he thought of it, he reflected that he might even yet
+exact such a promise from her.
+</p>
+<p>
+But when the dinner-time came he really was sick with love,&mdash;or sick with
+disappointment. He felt that he could not eat his dinner under the
+battery of raillery which was always coming from Sir Magnus, and
+therefore he had told the servants that as the evening progressed he
+would have something to eat in his own room. And then he went out to
+wander in the dusk beneath the trees in the garden. Here he was
+encountered by Mr. Arbuthnot, with his dress boots and white cravat.
+"What the mischief are you doing here, old fellow?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not very well. I have an awfully bilious headache."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir Magnus is kicking up a deuce of a row because you're not there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir Magnus be blowed! How am I to be there if I've got a bilious
+headache? I'm not dressed. I could not have dressed myself for a
+five-pound note."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Couldn't you, now? Shall I go back and tell him that? But you must have
+something to eat. I don't know what's up, but Sir Magnus is in a
+taking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's always in a taking. I sometimes think he's the biggest fool out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And there's the place kept vacant next to Miss Mountjoy. Grascour
+wanted to sit there, but her ladyship wouldn't let him. And I sat next
+Miss Abbott because I didn't want to be in your way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tell Grascour to go and sit there, or you may do so. It's all nothing
+to me." This he said in the bitterness of his heart, by no means
+intending to tell his secret, but unable to keep it within his own
+bosom.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's the matter, Anderson?" asked the other piteously.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am clean broken-hearted. I don't mind telling you. I know you're a
+good fellow, and I'll tell you everything. It's all over."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All over&mdash;with Miss Mountjoy?" Then Anderson began to tell the whole
+story; but before he had got half through, or a quarter through, another
+message came from Sir Magnus. "Sir Magnus is becoming very angry
+indeed," whispered the butler. "He says that Mr. Arbuthnot is to go
+back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd better go, or I shall catch it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's up with him, Richard?" asked Anderson.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, if you ask me, Mr. Anderson, I think he's&mdash;a-suspecting of
+something."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does he suspect?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he's a-thinking that perhaps you are having a jolly time of
+it." Richard had known his master many years, and could almost read his
+inmost thoughts. "I don't say as it so, but that's what I am thinking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You tell him I ain't. You tell him I've a bad bilious headache, and
+that the air in the garden does it good. You tell him that I mean to
+have something to eat up-stairs when my head is better; and do you mind
+and let me have it, and a bottle of claret."
+</p>
+<p>
+With this the butler went back, and so did Arbuthnot, after asking one
+other question: "I'm so sorry it isn't all serene with Miss Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It isn't then. Don't mind now, but it isn't serene. Don't say a word
+about her; but she has done me. I think I shall get leave of absence and
+go away for two months. You'll have to do all the riding, old fellow. I
+shall go,&mdash;but I don't know where I shall go. You return to them now, and
+tell them I've such a bilious headache I don't know which way to turn
+myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+Arbuthnot went back, and found Sir Magnus quarrelling grievously with
+the butler. "I don't think he's doing anything as he shouldn't," the
+butler whispered, having seen into his master's mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do let the matter drop," said Lady Mountjoy, who had also seen into her
+husband's mind, and saw, moreover, that the butler had done so. "A young
+man's dinner isn't worth all this bother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I won't let the matter drop. What does he mean when he says that he
+isn't doing anything that he shouldn't? I've never said anything about
+what he was doing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He isn't dressed, Sir Magnus. He finds himself a little better now, and
+means to have something up-stairs." Then there came an awful silence,
+during which the dinner was eaten. Sir Magnus knew nothing of the truth,
+simply suspecting the headache to be a myth. Lady Mountjoy, with a
+woman's quickness, thought that there had been some words between
+Florence and her late lover, and, as she disliked Florence, was inclined
+to throw all the blame upon her. A word had been said to Mrs.
+Mountjoy,&mdash;"I don't think he'll trouble me any more, mamma,"&mdash;which Mrs.
+Mountjoy did not quite understand, but which she connected with the
+young man's absence. But Florence understood it all, and liked Mr.
+Anderson the better. Could it really be that for love of her he would
+lose his dinner? Could it be that he was so grievously afflicted at the
+loss of a girl's heart? There he was, walking out in the dark and the
+cold, half-famished, all because she loved Harry Annesley so well that
+there could be no chance for him! Girls believe so little in the truth
+of the love of men that any sign of its reality touches them to the
+core. Poor Hugh Anderson! A tear came into her eye as she thought that
+he was wandering there in the dark, and all for the love of her. The
+rest of the dinner passed away in silence, and Sir Magnus hardly became
+cordial and communicative with M. Grascour, even under the influence of
+his wine.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next morning just before lunch Florence was waylaid by Mr.
+Anderson as she was passing along one of the passages in the back part
+of the house. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I want to ask from your great
+goodness the indulgence of a few words."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could you come into the garden?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you will give me time to go and change my boots and get a shawl. We
+ladies are not ready to go out always, as are you gentlemen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Anywhere will do. Come in here," and he led the way into a small parlor
+which was not often used.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was so sorry to hear last night that you were unwell, Mr. Anderson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was not very well, certainly, after what I had heard before dinner."
+He did not tell her that he so far recovered as to be able to drink a
+bottle of claret and to smoke a couple of cigars in his bedroom. "Of
+course you remember what took place yesterday."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Remember! Oh yes. I shall not readily forget it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I made you a promise&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You did&mdash;very kindly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I mean to keep it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure you do, because you're a gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think I ought to have made it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think I ought. See what I am giving up."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing, except the privilege of troubling me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if it should be something else? Do not be angry with me, but,
+loving you as I do, of course my mind is full of it. I have promised,
+and must be dumb."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I shall be spared great vexation."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But suppose I were to hear that in six months' time you had married
+some one else?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Annesley, you mean. Not in six months."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Somebody else. Not Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is nobody else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there might be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is impossible. After all that I told you, do not you understand?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if there were?" The poor man, as he made the suggestion, looked
+very piteous. "If there were, I think you should promise me I shall be
+that somebody else. That would be no more than fair."
+</p>
+<p>
+She paused a moment to think, frowning the while. "Certainly not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can make no such promise, nor should you ask it. I am to promise that
+under certain circumstances I would become your wife, when I know that
+under no circumstances I would do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Under no circumstances?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Under none. What would you have me say, Mr. Anderson? Supposing
+yourself engaged to marry a girl&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I were&mdash;to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To a girl who loved you, and whom you loved?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no doubt about my loving her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can follow my meaning, and I wish that you would do so. What would
+you think if you were to hear that she had promised to marry some one
+else in the event of your deserting her? It is out of the question. I
+mean to be the wife of Harry Annesley. Say that it is not to be so, and
+you will simply destroy me. Of one thing I may be sure,&mdash;that I will
+marry him or nobody. You promised me, not because your promise was
+necessary for that, but to spare me from trouble till that time shall
+come. And I am grateful,&mdash;very grateful." Then she left him suffering
+from another headache.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Was there anything said between you and Mr. Anderson yesterday?" her
+aunt inquired, that afternoon.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you ask?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it is necessary that I should know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not see the necessity. Mr. Anderson has, at any rate, your
+permission to say what he likes to me, but I am not on that account
+bound to tell you all that he does say. But I will tell you. He has
+promised to trouble me no farther. I told him that I was engaged to Mr.
+Annesley, and he, like a gentleman, has assured me that he will desist."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just because you asked him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, aunt; just because I asked him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will not be bound by such a promise for a moment. It is a thing not
+to be heard of. If that kind of thing is to go on, any young lady will
+be entitled to ask any young gentleman not to say a word of marriage,
+just at her request."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some of the young ladies would not care for that, perhaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't be impertinent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should not, for one, aunt; only that I am already engaged."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And of course the young ladies would be bound to make such requests,
+which would go for nothing at all. I never heard of anything so
+monstrous. You are not only to have the liberty of refusing, but are to
+be allowed to bind a gentleman not to ask!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has promised."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pshaw! It means nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is between him and me. I asked him because I wished to save myself
+from being troubled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As for that other man, my dear, it is quite out of the question. From
+all that I hear, it is on the cards that he may be arrested and put into
+prison. I am quite sure that at any rate he deserves it. The letters
+which Sir Magnus gets about him are fearful. The things that he has
+done,&mdash;well, penal servitude for life would be the proper punishment. And
+it will come upon him sooner or later. I never knew a man of that kind
+escape. And you now to come and tell us that you intend to be his wife!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do," said Florence, bobbing her head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what your uncle says to you has no effect?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not the least in the world; nor what my aunt says. I believe that
+neither the one nor the other know what they are talking about. You have
+been defaming a gentleman of the highest character, a Fellow of a
+college, a fine-hearted, noble, high-spirited man, simply
+because&mdash;because&mdash;because&mdash;" Then she burst into tears and rushed out of
+the room; but she did not break down before she had looked at her aunt,
+and spoken to her aunt with a fierce indignation which had altogether
+served to silence Lady Mountjoy for the moment.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="PART2"><!-- PART2 --></a>
+<a name="CH33"><!-- CH33 --></a>
+<h2>
+	PART II.
+</h2>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. BARRY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, sir. You ought not to be angry with me. I am sure it will be
+better for us both to remain as we are." This was said by Miss Dorothy
+Grey, as a gentleman departed from her and made his way out of the
+front-door at the Fulham Manor-house. Miss Grey had received an offer of
+marriage, and had declined it. The offer had been made by a worthy man,
+he being no other than her father's partner, Mr. Barry.
+</p>
+<p>
+It may be remembered that, on discussing the affairs of the firm with
+her father, Dolly Grey had been accustomed to call this partner "the
+Devil." It was not that she had thought this partner to be specially
+devilish, nor was he so. It had ever been Miss Grey's object to have the
+affairs of the firm managed with an integrity which among lawyers might
+be called Quixotic. Her father she had dubbed "Reason," and herself
+"Conscience;" but in calling Mr. Barry "the Devil" she had not intended
+to signify any defalcation from honesty more than ordinary in lawyers'
+offices. She did, in fact, like Mr. Barry. He would occasionally come
+out and dine with her father. He was courteous and respectful, and
+performed his duties with diligence. He spent nobody's money but his
+own, and not all of that; nor did he look upon the world as a place to
+which men were sent that they might play. He was nearly forty years old,
+was clean, a little bald, and healthy in all his ways. There was nothing
+of a devil about him, except that his conscience was not peculiarly
+attentive to abstract honesty and abstract virtue. There must, according
+to him, be always a little "give and take" in the world; but in the
+pursuit of his profession he gave a great deal more than he took. He
+thought himself to be an honest practitioner, and yet in all domestic
+professional conferences with her father Mr. Barry had always been Miss
+Grey's "Devil."
+</p>
+<p>
+The possibility of such a request as had been now made had been already
+discussed between Dolly and her father. Dolly had said that the idea was
+absurd. Mr. Grey had not seen the absurdity. There had been nothing more
+common, he had said, than that a young partner should marry an old
+partner's daughter. "It's not put into the partnership deed?" Dolly had
+rejoined. But Dolly had never believed that the time would come. Now it
+had come.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Barry had as yet possessed no more than a fourth of the business. He
+had come in without any capital, and had been contented with a fourth.
+He now suggested to Dolly that on their marriage the business should be
+equally divided. And he had named the house in which they would live.
+There was a pleasant, genteel residence on the other side of the water,
+at Putney. Miss Grey had suggested that the business might be divided in
+a manner that would be less burdensome to Mr. Barry. As for the house,
+she could not leave her father. Upon the whole, she had thought that it
+would be better for both of them that they should remain as they were.
+By that Miss Grey had not intended to signify that Mr. Barry was to
+remain single, but that he would have to do so in reference to Miss
+Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he was gone Dolly Grey spent the remainder of the afternoon in
+contemplating what would have been her condition had she agreed to join
+her lot to that of Mr. Barry, and she came to the conclusion that it
+would have been simply unendurable. There was nothing of romance in her
+nature; but as she looked at matrimony, with all its blisses,&mdash;and Mr.
+Barry among them,&mdash;she told herself that death would be preferable. "I
+know myself," she said. "I should come to hate him with a miserable
+hatred. And then I should hate myself for having done him so great an
+evil." And as she continued thinking she assured herself that there was
+but one man with whom she could live, and that that was her father. And
+then other questions presented themselves to her, which were not so
+easily answered. What would become of her when he should go? He was now
+sixty-six, and she was only thirty-two. He was healthy for his age, but
+would complain of his work. She knew that he must in course of nature go
+much the first. Ten years he might live, while she might probably be
+called upon to endure for thirty more. "I shall have to do it all
+alone," she said; "all alone; without a companion, without one soul to
+whom I can open my own. But if I were to marry Mr. Barry," she
+continued, "I should at once be encumbered with a soul to whom I could
+not open my own. I suppose I shall be enabled to live through it, as do
+others." Then she began to prepare for her father's coming. As long as
+he did remain with her she would make the most of him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa," she said, as she took him by the hand as he entered the house
+and led him into the dining-room,&mdash;"who do you think has been here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then he has told you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a word,&mdash;not even that he was coming. But I saw him as he left the
+chambers, and he had on a bright hat and a new coat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he thought that those could move me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have not known that he has wanted to move you. You asked me to guess,
+and I have guessed right, it seems."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; you have guessed right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And why did he come?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only to ask me to be his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what did you say to him, Dolly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What did I say to the Devil?" She still held him by the hand, and now
+she laughed lightly as she looked into his face. "Cannot you guess what
+I said to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sorry for it;&mdash;that's all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sorry for it? Oh, papa, do not say that you are sorry. Do you want to
+lose me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not want to think that for my own selfish purposes I have retained
+you. So he has asked you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; he has asked me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you have answered him positively?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Most positively."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And for my sake?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, papa; I have not said that. I was joking when I asked whether you
+wished to lose me. Of course you do not want to lose me." Then she wound
+her arm round him, and put up her face to be kissed. "But now come and
+dress yourself, as you call it. The dinner is late. We will talk about
+it again after dinner."
+</p>
+<p>
+But immediately after dinner the conversation went away to Mr.
+Scarborough and the Scarborough matters. "I am to see Augustus, and he
+is to tell me something about Mountjoy and his affairs. They say that
+Mountjoy is now in Paris. The money can be given to them now, if he will
+consent and will sign the deed releasing the property. But the men have
+not all as yet agreed to accept the simple sums which they advanced.
+That fellow Hart stands out, and says that he would sooner lose it all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then he will lose it all," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the squire will consent to pay nothing unless they all agree.
+Augustus is talking about his excessive generosity."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is generous on his part," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He sees his own advantage, though I cannot quite understand where. He
+tells Tyrrwhit that as there is so great an increase to the property he
+is willing, for the sake of the good name of the family, to pay all that
+has been in truth advanced; but he is most anxious to do it now, while
+his father is alive. I think he fears that there will be lawsuits, and
+that they may succeed. I doubt whether he thanks his father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why should his father lie for his sake, since they are on such bad
+terms?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because his father was on worse terms with Mountjoy when he told the
+lie. That is what I think Augustus thinks. But his father told no lie at
+that time, and cannot now go back to falsehood. My belief is that if he
+were confident that such is the fact he would not surrender a shilling
+to pay these men their moneys. He may stop a lawsuit, which is like
+enough, though they could only lose it. And if Mountjoy should turn out
+to be the heir, which is impossible, he will be able to turn round and
+say that by his efforts he had saved so much of the property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My head becomes so bewildered," said Dolly, "that I can hardly
+understand it yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I understand it; but I can only guess at his mind. But he has
+got Tyrrwhit to accept forty thousand pounds, which is the sum he, in
+truth, advanced. The stake is too great for the man to lose it without
+ruin. He can get it back now, and save himself. But Hart was the more
+determined blackguard. He, with two others, has a claim for thirty-five
+thousand pounds, for which he has given but ten thousand pounds in hard
+cash, and he thinks that he may get some profit out of Tyrrwhit's money,
+and holds out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For how much?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"For the entire debt, he tells me; but I know that he is trying to deal
+with Tyrrwhit. Tyrrwhit would pay him five thousand, I think, so as to
+secure the immediate payment of his own money. Then there are a host of
+others who are contented to take what they have advanced, but not
+contented if Hart was to have more. There are other men in the background
+who advanced the money. All the rascaldom of London is let loose upon
+me. But Hart was the one man who holds his head the highest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if they will accept no terms they will get nothing," said Dolly.
+"If once they attempt to go to law all will be lost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are wheels within wheels. When the old man dies Mountjoy himself
+will probably put in a claim to the entire estate, and will get some
+lawyer to take up the case for him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not, because I know that Augustus is the eldest legitimate
+son. As far as I can make it out, Augustus is at present allowing
+Mountjoy the money on which he lives. His father does not. But the old
+man must know that Augustus does, though he pretends to be ignorant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why is Hart to get money out of Tyrrwhit?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To secure the payment of the remainder. Mr. Tyrrwhit would be very glad
+to get his forty thousand pounds back; would pay five thousand pounds to
+get the forty back. But nothing will be paid unless they all agree to
+join in freeing the property. Therefore Hart, who is the sharpest rascal
+of the lot, stands out for some share of his contemplated plunder."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you must be joined in such an arrangement?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all. I cannot help surmising what is to be done. In dealing with
+the funds of the property I go to the men, and say to them so much, and
+so much, and so much you have actually lost. Agree among yourselves to
+accept that, and it shall be paid to you. That is honest?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I do. Every shilling that the son of my client has had from them my
+client is ready to pay. There is some hitch among them, and I make my
+surmises. But I have no dealings with them. It is for them to come to me
+now." Dolly only shook her head. "You cannot touch pitch and not be
+defiled." That was what Dolly said, but said it to herself. And then she
+went on and declared to herself still farther, that Mr. Barry was pitch.
+She knew that Mr. Barry had seen Hart, and had seen Tyrrwhit, and had
+been bargaining with them. She excused her father because he was her
+father; but according to her thinking there should have been no
+dealings with such men as these, except at the end of a pair of tongs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now, Dolly," said her father, after a long pause, "tell me about
+Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is nothing more to be told."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not of what you said to him, but of the reasons which have made you so
+determined. Would it not be better for you to be married?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I could choose my husband."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Whom would you choose?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is nonsense. I am your father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know what I mean. There is no one else among my circle of
+acquaintances with whom I should care to live. There is no one else with
+whom I should care to do more than die. When I look at it all round it
+seems to be absolutely impossible. That I should on a sudden entertain
+habits of the closest intimacy with such a one as Mr. Barry! What should
+I say to him when he went forth in the morning? How should I welcome him
+when he came back at night? What would be our breakfast, and what would
+be our dinner? Think what are yours and mine,&mdash;all the little
+solicitudes, all the free abuse, all the certainty of an affection which
+has grown through so many years; all the absolute assurance on the part
+of each that the one does really know the inner soul of the other."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It would come."
+</p>
+<p>
+"With Mr. Barry? That is your idea of my soul with which you have been
+in communion for so many years? In the first place, you think that I am
+a person likely to be able to transfer myself suddenly to the first man
+that comes my way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gradually you might do so,&mdash;at any rate so as to make life possible. You
+will be all alone. Think what it will be to have to live all alone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have thought. I do know that it would be well that you should be able
+to take me with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I cannot."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No. There is the hardship. You must leave me, and I must be alone. That
+is what we have to expect. But for her sake, and for mine, we may be
+left while we can be left. What would you be without me? Think of that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should bear it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You couldn't. You'd break your heart and die. And if you can imagine my
+living there, and pouring out Mr. Barry's tea for him, you must imagine
+also what I should have to say to myself about you. 'He will die, of
+course. But then he has come to that sort of age at which it doesn't
+much signify.' Then I should go on with Mr. Barry's tea. He'd come to
+kiss me when he went away, and I&mdash;should plunge a knife into him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dolly!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or into myself, which would be more likely. Fancy that man calling me
+Dolly." Then she got up and stood behind his chair and put her arm round
+his neck. "Would you like to kiss him?&mdash;or any man, for the matter of
+that? There is no one else to whom my fancy strays, but I think that I
+should murder them all,&mdash;or commit suicide. In the first place, I should
+want my husband to be a gentleman. There are not a great many gentlemen
+about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are fastidious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Come now;&mdash;be honest; is our Mr. Barry a gentleman?" Then there was a
+pause, during which she waited for a reply. "I will have an answer. I
+have a right to demand an answer to that question, since you have
+proposed the man to me as a husband."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nay, I have not proposed him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have expressed a regret that I have not accepted him. Is he a
+gentleman?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well;&mdash;yes; I think he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mind; we are sworn, and you are bound to speak the truth. What right
+has he to be a gentleman? Who was his father and who was his mother? Of
+what kind were his nursery belongings? He has become an attorney, and so
+have you. But has there been any one to whisper to him among his
+teachings that in that profession, as in all others, there should be a
+sense of high honor to guide him? He must not cheat, or do anything to
+cause him to be struck off the rolls; but is it not with him what his
+client wants, and not what honor demands? And in the daily intercourse
+of life would he satisfy what you call my fastidiousness?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing on earth will ever do that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You do. I agree with you that nothing else on earth ever will. The man
+who might, won't come. Not that I can imagine such a man, because I know
+that I am spoiled. Of course there are gentlemen, though not a great
+many. But he mustn't be ugly and he mustn't be good-looking. He mustn't
+seem to be old, and certainly he mustn't seem to be young. I should not
+like a man to wear old clothes, but he mustn't wear new. He must be well
+read, but never show it. He must work hard, but he must come home to
+dinner at the proper time." Here she laughed, and gently shook her head.
+"He must never talk about his business at night. Though, dear, darling
+old father, he shall do that if he will talk like you. And then, which
+is the hardest thing of all, I must have known him intimately for at any
+rate, ten years. As for Mr. Barry, I never should know him intimately,
+though I were married to him for ten years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And it has all been my doing?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so. You have made the bed and you must lie on it. It hasn't been a
+bad bed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not for me. Heaven knows it has not been bad for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor for me, as things go; only that there will come an arousing before
+we shall be ready to get up together. Your time will probably be the
+first. I can better afford to lose you than you to lose me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"God send that it shall be so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is nature," she said. "It is to be expected, and will on that
+account be the less grievous because it has been expected. I shall have
+to devote myself to those Carroll children. I sometimes think that the
+work of the world should not be made pleasant to us. What profit will it
+be to me to have done my duty by you? I think there will be some profit
+if I am good to my cousins."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, you won't have Mr. Barry?" said the father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if I know it," said the daughter; "and you, I think, are a wicked
+old man to suggest it." Then she bade him good-night and went to bed,
+for they had been talking now till near twelve.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had
+progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first
+opportunity. He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house,
+and resolved as to certain little changes which should be made. Thus one
+room should look here, and the nursery should look there. The walk to
+the railway would only take five minutes, and there would be five
+minutes again from the Temple Station in London. He thought it would do
+very well for domestic felicity. And as for a fortune, half the business
+would not be bad. And then the whole business would follow, and he in
+his turn would be enabled to let some young fellow in who should do the
+greater part of the work and take the smaller part of the pay, as had
+been the case with himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it had not occurred to him that the young lady had meant what she
+said when she refused him. It was the ordinary way with young ladies. Of
+course he had expected no enthusiasm of love;&mdash;nor had he wanted it. He
+would wait for three weeks and then he would go to Fulham again.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH34"><!-- CH34 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. JUNIPER.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly
+when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,&mdash;as when she
+said that she would "stick a knife" into Mr. Barry,&mdash;still there was a
+seriousness in all she said which was more than grave. She was pathetic
+and melancholy. She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay
+with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom
+she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred. And she knew that it
+would be a good thing to be married,&mdash;if only the right man would come.
+The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same
+house with him to the end. The right man must be a <i>preux chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche</i>. The right man must be strong-minded and
+masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded
+always for good. And where was she to find such a man as this? she who
+was only an attorney's daughter,&mdash;plain, too, and with many
+eccentricities. She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only
+man who came in her way was her father's partner, for whom, in regard to
+a share in the business, she might be desirable.
+</p>
+<p>
+Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty. The two eldest
+girls she absolutely did hate, and their father. To hate the father,
+because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could
+not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous
+sin. Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her. Their
+amusements, their literature, their clothes, their manners,&mdash;especially
+in regard to men,&mdash;their gestures and color, were distasteful to her.
+"They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery," said Dolly to
+her father. He had replied by telling her that she was nasty. "No; but,
+unfortunately, I cannot but see nastiness." Dolly herself was clean to
+fastidiousness. Take off her coarse frock, and there the well-dressed
+lady began. "Look at the heels of Sophie's boots! Give her a push, and
+she'd fall off her pins as though they were stilts. They're always
+asking to have a shoemaker's bill paid, and yet they won't wear stout
+boots." "I'll pay the man," she said to Amelia one day, "if you'll
+promise to wear what I'll buy you for the next six months." But Amelia
+had only turned up her nose. These were the relatives to whom it would
+become her duty to devote her life!
+</p>
+<p>
+The next morning she started off to call in Bolsover Terrace with an
+intention, not to begin her duty, but to make a struggle at the adequate
+performance of it. She took with her some article of clothing intended
+for one of the younger children, but which the child herself was to
+complete. But when she entered the parlor she was astounded at finding
+that Mr. Carroll was there. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and at that
+time Mr. Carroll never was there. He was either in bed, or at
+Tattersall's, or&mdash;Dolly did not care where. She had long since made up
+her mind that there must be a permanent quarrel between herself and her
+uncle, and her desire was generally respected. Now, unfortunately, he
+was present, and with him were his wife and two elder daughters. To be
+devoted, thought Dolly to herself, to such a family as this,&mdash;and without
+anybody else in the world to care for! She gave her aunt a kiss, and
+touched the girls' hands, and made a very distant bow to Mr. Carroll.
+Then she began about the parcel in her hands, and, having given her
+instructions, was preparing to depart.
+</p>
+<p>
+But her aunt stopped her. "I think you ought to know, Dorothea."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly," said Mr. Carroll. "It is quite right that your cousin
+should know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you think it proper, I'm sure I can't object," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She won't approve, I'm sure," said Sophie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Her young man has come forward and spoken," said Mr. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And quite in a proper spirit," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course," said Mrs. Carroll, "we are not to expect too much. Though
+we are respectable in birth, and all that, we are poor. Mr. Carroll has
+got nothing to give her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've been the most unfortunate man in the world," said Mr. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We won't talk about that now," continued Mrs. Carroll. "Here we are
+without anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have decent blood," said Dolly; "at any rate on one side,"&mdash;for she
+did not believe in the Carrolls.
+</p>
+<p>
+"On both,&mdash;on both," said Mr. Carroll, rising up, and putting his hand
+upon his heart. "I can boast of royal blood among my ancestors."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But here we are without anything," said Mrs. Carroll again. "Mr.
+Juniper is a most respectable man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has been attached to some of the leading racing establishments in
+the kingdom," said Mr. Carroll. Dolly had heard of Mr. Juniper as a
+trainer, though she did not accurately know what a trainer meant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is almost as great a man as the owner, for the matter of that," said
+Amelia, standing up for her lover.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not to say young,&mdash;perhaps forty," said Mrs. Carroll, "and he has
+a very decent house of his own at Newmarket." Dolly immediately began to
+think whether this might be for the better or for the worse. Newmarket
+was a long way off, and the girl would be taken away; and it might be a
+good thing to dispose of one of such a string of daughters, even to Mr.
+Juniper. Of course there would be the disagreeable nature of the
+connection. But, as Dolly had once said to her father, their share of
+the world's burdens had to be borne, and this was one of them. Her first
+cousin must marry the trainer. She, who had spoken so enthusiastically
+about gentlemen, must put up with it. She knew that Mr. Juniper was but
+a small man in his own line, but she would never disown him by word of
+mouth. He should be her cousin Juniper. But she did hope that she might
+not be called upon to see him frequently. After all, he might be much
+more respectable than Mr. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am glad he has a house of his own," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a much better house than Fulham Manor," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dolly was angered, not at the comparison between the houses, but at the
+ingratitude and insolence of the girl. "Very well," said she, addressing
+herself to her aunt; "if her parents are contented, of course it is not
+for me or for papa to be discontented. The thing to think of is the
+honesty of the man and his industry,&mdash;not the excellence of the house."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you seemed to think that we were to live in a pigsty," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Juniper stands very high on the turf," said Mr. Carroll. "Mr.
+Leadabit's horses have always run straight, and Mousetrap won the
+Two-year-old Trial Stakes last spring, giving two pounds to
+Box-and-Cox. A good-looking, tall fellow. You remember seeing him here
+once last summer." This was addressed to Miss Grey; but Miss Grey had
+made up her mind never to exchange a word with Mr. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When is it to be, my dear?" said Miss Grey, turning to the ladies, but
+intending to address herself to Amelia. She had already made up her mind
+to forgive the girl for her insolence about the house. If the girl was
+to be taken away, there was so much the more reason for forgiving her
+that and other things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! I thought that you did not mean to speak to me at all," said
+Amelia. "I supposed the cut was to be extended from papa to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Amelia, how can you be so silly?" said the mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you think I'm going to put up with that kind of thing, you're
+mistaken," said Amelia. She had got not only a lover but a husband in
+prospect, and was much superior to her cousin,&mdash;who had neither one or
+the other, as far as she was aware. "Mr. Juniper, with an excellent
+house and a plentiful income, is quite good enough for me, though he
+hasn't got any regal ancestors." She did not intend to laugh at her
+father, but was aware that something had been said about ancestors by
+her cousin. "A gentleman who has the management of horses is almost the
+same as owning them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But when is it to be?" again asked Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That depends a little upon my brother," said Mrs. Carroll, in a voice
+hardly above a whisper. "Mr. Juniper has spoken about a day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then it will depend chiefly on himself and the young lady, I suppose?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Dorothea, there are money difficulties. There's no denying it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish I could shower gold into her lap," said Mr. Carroll, "only for
+the accursed conventionalities of the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother, papa!" said Sophia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be the last of it, as far as I am concerned," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Juniper has said something about a few hundred pounds," said Mrs.
+Carroll. "It isn't much that he wants."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Miss Grey spoke in a severe tone. "You must speak to my father
+about that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not to have your good word, I suppose," said Amelia. Human flesh
+and blood could not but remember all that had been done, and always with
+her consent. "Five hundred pounds is not a great deal for portioning off
+a girl when that is to be the last that she is ever to have." One of
+six nieces whose father and mother were maintained, and that without the
+slightest claim! It was so that Dorothy argued; but her arguments were
+kept to her own bosom. "But I must trust to my dear uncle. I see that I
+am not to have a word from you."
+</p>
+<p>
+The matter was now becoming serious. Here was the eldest girl, one of
+six daughters, putting in her claim for five hundred pounds portion.
+This would amount to three thousand pounds for the lot, and, as the
+process of marrying them went on, they would all have to be maintained
+as at present. What with their school expenses and their clothes, the
+necessary funds for the Carroll family amounted to six hundred pounds a
+year. That was the regular allowance, and there were others whenever Mr.
+Carroll wanted a pair of trousers. And Dolly's acerbation was aroused by
+a belief on her part that the money asked for trousers took him
+generally to race-courses. And now five hundred pounds was boldly
+demanded so as to induce a groom to make one of the girls his wife! She
+almost regretted that in former years she had promised to assist her
+father in befriending the Carroll relations. "Perhaps, Dorothea, you
+won't mind stepping into my bedroom with me, just for a moment." This
+was said by Mrs. Carroll, and Dolly most unwillingly followed her aunt
+up-stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I know all that you've got to say," began Mrs. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, aunt, why bring me in here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I wish to explain things a little. Don't be ill-natured,
+Dorothea."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I won't if I can help it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know your nature, how good it is." Here Dorothy shook her head. "Only
+think of me and of my sufferings! I haven't come to this without
+suffering." Then the poor woman began to cry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I feel for you through it all,&mdash;I do," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That poor man! To have to be always with him, and always doing my best
+to keep him out of mischief!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man who will do nothing else must do harm."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he must. But what can he do now? And the children! I can
+see&mdash;of course I know that they are not all that they ought to be. But
+with six of them, and nobody but myself, how can I do it all? And they
+are his children as well as mine." Dolly's heart was filled with pity as
+she heard this, which she knew to be so true! "In answering you they
+have uppish, bad ways. They don't like to submit to one so near their
+own age."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a word that has come from the mouth of one of them addressed to
+myself has ever done them any harm with my father. That is what you
+mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No,&mdash;but with yourself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not take anger&mdash;against them&mdash;out of the room with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, about Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The question is one much too big for me. Am I to tell my father?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was thinking that&mdash;if you would do so!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot tell him that he ought to find five hundred pounds for Mr.
+Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps four would do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor can I ask him to drive a bargain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How much would he give her&mdash;to be married?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should he give her anything? He feeds her and gives her clothes. It
+is only fit that the truth should be explained to you. Girls so
+circumstanced, when they are clothed and fed by their own fathers, must
+be married without fortunes or must remain unmarried. As Sophie, and
+Georgina, and Minna, and Brenda come up, the same requests will be
+made."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Potsey!" said the mother. For Potsey was a plain girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If this be done for Amelia, must it not be done for all of them? Papa
+is not a rich man, but he has been very generous. Is it fair to ask him
+for five hundred pounds to give to&mdash;Mr. Juniper?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A gentleman nowadays does not like not to get something."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then a gentleman must go where something is to be got. The truth has to
+be told, Aunt Carroll. My father is willing enough to do what he can for
+you and the girls, but I do not think that he will give five hundred
+pounds to Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is once for all. Four hundred pounds, perhaps, would do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not think that he can make a bargain, nor that he will pay any sum
+to Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To get one of them off would be so much! What is to become of them? To
+have one married would be the way for others. Oh, Dorothy, if you would
+only think of my condition! I know your papa will do what you tell him."
+</p>
+<p>
+Dolly felt that her father would be more likely to do it if she were
+not to interfere at all; but she could not say that. She did feel the
+request to be altogether unreasonable. She struggled to avert from her
+own mind all feeling of dislike for the girl, and to look at it as she
+might have done if Amelia had been her special friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Aunt Carroll," she said, "you had better go up to London and see my
+father there&mdash;in his chambers. You will catch him if you go at once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Alone?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, alone. Tell him about the girl's marriage, and let him judge what
+he ought to do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could not you come with me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No. You don't understand. I have to think of his money. He can say what
+he will do with his own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will never give it without coming to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He never will if he does come to me. You may prevail with him. A man
+may throw away his own money as he pleases. I cannot tell him that he
+ought to do it. You may say that you have told me, and that I have sent
+you to him. And tell him, let him do what he will, that I shall find no
+fault with him. If you can understand me and him you will know that I
+can do nothing for you beyond that." Then Dolly took her leave and went
+home.
+</p>
+<p>
+The mother, turning it all over in her mind, did understand something of
+her niece, and went off to London as quick as the omnibus could take
+her. There she did see her brother, and he came back, in consequence, to
+dinner a little earlier than usual.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why did you send my sister to me?" were the first words which he said to
+Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it was your business, and not mine."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How dare you separate my business and yours? What do you think I have
+done?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Given the young lady five hundred pounds down on the nail."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Worse than that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Worse?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Much worse. But why did you send my sister to my chambers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what have you done, papa? You don't mean that you have given the
+shark more than he demands?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that he's a shark. Why shouldn't the man want five hundred
+pounds with his wife? Mr. Barry would want much more with you, and would
+be entitled to ask for much more."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are my father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; but those poor girls have been taught to look upon me almost as
+their father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what have you done?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have promised them each three hundred and fifty pounds on their
+wedding day,&mdash;three hundred pounds to go to their husbands, and fifty
+pounds for wedding expenses,&mdash;on condition that they marry with my
+approval. I shall not be so hard to please for them as for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you have approved of Mr. Juniper?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have already set on foot inquiries down at Newmarket; and I have made
+an exception in favor of Mr. Juniper. He is to have four hundred and
+fifty pounds. Jane only asked four hundred pounds to begin with. You are
+not to find fault with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; that is part of the bargain. I wonder whether my aunt knew what a
+thoroughly good-natured thing I did. We must have no more puddings now,
+and you must come down by the omnibus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is not quite so bad as that, Dolly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When one has given away one's money extravagantly one ought to be made
+to feel the pinch one's self. But dear, dear, darling old man! why
+shouldn't you give away your money as you please? I don't want it. I am
+not in the least afraid but what there will be plenty for me. But when
+the girl talks about her five hundred pounds so glibly, as though she
+had a right to expect it, and spoke of this jockey with such inward
+pride of heart&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A girl ought to be proud of her husband."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your niece ought not to be proud of marrying a groom. But she angered
+me, and so did my aunt,&mdash;though I pitied her. Then I reflected that they
+could get nothing from me in my anger,&mdash;not even a promise of a good
+word. So I sent her to you. It was, at any rate, the best thing I could
+do for them." Mr. Grey thought that it was.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH35"><!-- CH35 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. BARRY AND MR. JUNIPER.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+The joy in Bolsover Terrace was intense when Mrs. Carroll returned home.
+"We are all to have three hundred and fifty pound fortunes when we get
+husbands!" said Georgina, anticipating at once the pleasures of
+matrimony.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am to have four hundred and fifty," said Amelia. "I do think he might
+have made it five hundred pounds. If I had it to give away, I never
+would show the cloven foot about the last fifty pounds!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he's only to have four hundred pounds," said Sophia. "Your things
+are to be bought with the other fifty pounds."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never can do it for fifty pounds," said Amelia. "I did not expect
+that I was to find my own trousseau out of my own fortune."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Girls, how can you be so ungrateful?" said their mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not ungrateful, mamma," said Potsey. "I shall be very much obliged
+when I get my three hundred and fifty pounds. How long will it be?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've got to find the young man first, Potsey. I don't think you'll
+ever do that," said Georgina, who was rather proud of her own good
+looks.
+</p>
+<p>
+This took place on the evening of the day on which Mrs. Carroll had gone
+to London, where Mr. Carroll was about attending to some of those duties
+of conviviality in the performance of which he was so indefatigable. On
+the following morning at twelve o'clock he was still in bed. It was a
+well-known fact in the family that on such an occasion he would lie in
+bed, and that before twelve o'clock he would have managed to extract
+from his wife's little hoardings at any rate two bottles of soda-water
+and two glasses of some alcoholic mixture which was generally called
+brandy. "I'll have a gin-and-potash, Sophie," he had said on this
+occasion, with reference to the second dose, "and do make haste. I wish
+you'd go yourself, because that girl always drinks some of the
+sperrits."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What! go to the gin-shop?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a most respectable publican's,&mdash;just round the corner."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. You've no feeling about your
+daughters at all!" But Sophie went on her errand, and in order to
+protect her father's small modicum of "sperrits" she slipped on her
+cloak and walked out so as to be able to watch the girl. Still, I think
+that the maiden managed to get a sip as she left the bar. The father, in
+the mean-time with his head between his hands, was ruminating on the
+"cocked-up way which girls have who can't do a turn for their father."
+</p>
+<p>
+But with the gin-and-potash, and with Sophie, Mr. Juniper made his
+appearance. He was a well-featured, tall man, but he looked the stable
+and he smelled of it. His clothes, no doubt, were decent, but they were
+made by some tailor who must surely work for horsey men and no others.
+There is a class of men who always choose to show by their outward
+appearance that they belong to horses, and they succeed. Mr. Juniper was
+one of them. Though good-looking he was anything but young, verging by
+appearance on fifty years.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So he has been at it again, Miss Sophie," said Juniper. Sophie, who did
+not like being detected in the performance of her filial duties, led the
+way in silence into the house, and disappeared up-stairs with the
+gin-and-potash. Mr. Juniper turned into the parlor, where was Mrs.
+Carroll with the other girls. She was still angry, as angry as she could
+be, with her husband, who on being informed that morning of what his
+wife had done had called her brother "a beastly, stingy old beau,"
+because he had cut Amelia off with four hundred and fifty instead of
+five hundred pounds. Mr. Carroll probably knew that Mr. Juniper would
+not take his daughter without the entirety of the sum stipulated, and
+would allow no portion of it to be expended on wedding-dresses.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Dick, is this you?" said Amelia. "I suppose you've come for your
+news." (Mr. Juniper's Christian-name was Richard.) On this occasion he
+showed no affectionate desire to embrace his betrothed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it's me," he said, and then gave his hand all round, first to Mrs.
+Carroll and then to the girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've seen Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Carroll. But Dick Juniper held his
+tongue and sat down and twiddled his hat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where have you come from?" asked Georgina.
+</p>
+<p>
+"From the Brompton Road. I come down on a 'bus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You've come from Tattersall's, young man!" said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I just didn't!" But to tell the truth he had come from
+Tattersall's, and it might be difficult to follow up the workings of his
+mind and find out why he had told the lie. Of course it was known that
+when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall's. But the
+horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his
+trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus prepared
+for a gratuitous lie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncle's gone a deal farther than ever I expected," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's been most generous to all the girls," said Mrs. Carroll, moved
+nearly to tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Juniper did not care very much about "all the girls," thinking that
+the uncle's affection at the present moment should be shown to the one
+girl who had found a husband, and thinking also that if the husband was
+to be secured, the proper way of doing so would be by liberality to him.
+Amelia had said that her uncle had gone farther than she expected. Mr.
+Juniper concluded from this that he had not gone as far as he had been
+asked, and boldly resolved, at the spur of the moment, to stand by his
+demand. "Five hundred pounds ain't much," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dick, don't make a beast of yourself!" said Amelia. Upon this Dick only
+smiled.
+</p>
+<p>
+He continually twiddled his hat for three or four minutes, and then rose
+up straight. "I suppose," said he, "I had better go up-stairs and talk
+to the old man. I seed Miss Sophie taking a pick-up to him, so I suppose
+he'll be able to talk."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't he talk?" said Mrs. Carroll. But she quite understood
+what Mr. Juniper's words were intended to imply.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It don't always follow," said Juniper, as he walked out of the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now there'll be a row in the house;&mdash;you see if there isn't!" said
+Amelia. But Mrs. Carroll expressed her opinion that the man must be the
+most ungrateful of creatures if he kicked up a row on the present
+occasion. "I don't know so much about that, mamma," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Juniper walked up-stairs with heavy, slow steps, and knocked at the
+door of the marital chamber. There are men who can't walk up-stairs as
+though to do so were an affair of ordinary life. They perform the task
+as though they walked up-stairs once in three years. It is to be
+presumed that such men always sleep on the ground-floor, though where
+they find their bed-rooms it is hard to say. Mr. Juniper was admitted by
+Sophie, who stepped out as he went in. "Well, old fellow! B.&mdash;and&mdash;S.,
+and plenty of it. That's the ticket, eh?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did have a little headache this morning. I think it was the cigars."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very like,&mdash;and the stuff as washed 'em down. You haven't got any more
+of the same, have you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm uncommonly sorry," said the sick man, rising up on his elbow, "but
+I'm afraid there is not. To tell the truth, I had the deuce of a job to
+get this from the old woman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It don't matter," said the impassive Mr. Juniper, "only I have been
+down among the 'orses at the yard till my throat is full of dust. So
+your lady has been and seen her brother?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; she's done that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He ain't altogether a bad un&mdash;isn't old Grey. Of course he's an
+attorney."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never think much of them chaps."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's good and bad, Juniper. No doubt my brother-in-law has made a
+little money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A pot of it,&mdash;if all they say's true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But all they say isn't true. All they say never is true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose he's got something?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, he's got something."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how is it to be?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's given the girl four hundred pounds on the nail,"&mdash;upon this Mr.
+Juniper turned up his nose,&mdash;"and fifty pounds for her wedding-clothes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'd better let me have that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Girls think so much of it,"&mdash;Mr. Juniper only shook his head,&mdash;"and, upon
+my word, it's more than she had a right to expect."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It ain't what she had a right to expect; but I,"&mdash;here Mr. Carroll shook
+his head,&mdash;"I said five hundred pounds out, and I means to hold by it.
+That's about it. If he wants to get the girl married, why&mdash;he must open
+his pocket. It isn't very much that I'm asking. I'm that sort of a
+fellow that, if I didn't want it, I'd take her without a shilling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you are that sort of fellow that always does want it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wants it now. It's better to speak out, ain't it? I must have the five
+hundred pounds before I put my neck into the noose, and there must be no
+paring off for petticoats and pelisses."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Mr. Grey says that he must make inquiries into character," said
+Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Into what?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Into character. He isn't going to give his money without knowing
+something about the man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm all straight at Newmarket. I ain't going to stand any inquiries
+into me, you know. I can stand inquiries better than some people. He's
+got a partner named Barry, ain't he?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is such a gentleman. I don't know much about the business ways of
+my respected brother-in-law. Mr. Barry is, I believe, a good sort of a
+man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's he as is acting for Captain Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is it, now? It may be, for anything I know."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there came a long conversation, during which Mr. Juniper told some
+details of his former life, and expressed himself very freely upon
+certain points. It appeared that in the event of Mr. Scarborough having
+died, as was expected, in the course of the early summer, and of Captain
+Scarborough succeeding to the property in the accustomed manner, Mr.
+Juniper would have been one of those who would have come forward with a
+small claim upon the estate. He had lent, he said, a certain sum of
+money to help the captain in his embarrassment, and expected to get it
+back again. Now, latterly inquiries had been made very disagreeable in
+their nature to Mr. Juniper; but Mr. Juniper, seeing how the the land
+lay,&mdash;to use his own phrase,&mdash;consented only to accept so much as he had
+advanced. "It don't make much difference to me," he had said. "Let me
+have the three hundred and fifty pounds which the captain got in hard
+money." Then the inquiries were made by Mr. Barry,&mdash;that very Mr. Barry
+to whom subsequent inquiries were committed,&mdash;and Mr. Barry could not
+satisfy himself as to the three hundred and fifty pounds which the
+captain was said to have got in hard money. There had been words spoken
+which seemed to Mr. Juniper to make it very inexpedient,&mdash;and we may say
+very unfair,&mdash;that these farther inquiries into his character as a
+husband should be intrusted to the same person. He regarded Mr. Barry as
+an enemy to the human race, from whom, in the general confusion of
+things, no plunder was to be extracted. Mr Barry had asked for the check
+by which the three hundred and fifty pounds had been paid to Captain
+Scarborough in hard cash. There had been no check, Mr. Juniper had said.
+Such a small sum as that had been paid in notes at Newmarket. He said
+that he could not, or, rather, that he would not, produce any evidence
+as to the money. Mr. Barry had suggested that even so small a sum as
+three hundred and fifty pounds could not have come and could not have
+gone without leaving some trace. Mr. Juniper very indignantly had
+referred to an acknowledgment on a bill-stamp for six hundred pounds
+which he had filled in, and which the captain had undoubtedly signed.
+"It's not worth the paper it's written on," Mr. Barry had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll see about that," said Mr. Juniper. "As soon as the breath is out
+of the old squire's body we'll see whether his son is to repudiate his
+debts in that way. Ain't that the captain's signature?" and he slapped
+the bill with his hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+The old ceremony was gone through of explaining that the captain had no
+right to a shilling of the property. It had become an old ceremony now.
+"Mr. Augustus Scarborough is going to pay out of his own good will only
+those sums of the advance of which he has indisputable testimony."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ain't he my testimony of this?" said Mr. Juniper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"This bill is for six hundred pounds."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In course it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you say you advanced him five hundred and fifty pounds
+instead of three hundred and fifty pounds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I didn't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you say three hundred and fifty pounds instead of one hundred
+and fifty pounds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then we have only your bare word. We are not going to pay any one a
+shilling on such a testimony." Then Mr. Juniper had sworn an awful oath
+that he would have every man bearing the name of Scarborough hanged. But
+Mr. Barry's firm did not care much for any law proceedings which might
+be taken by Mr. Juniper alone. No law proceedings would be taken. The
+sum to be regained would not be worth the while of any lawyer to insure
+the hopeless expense of fighting such a battle. It would be shown in
+court, on Mr. Barry's side, that the existing owner of the estate, out
+of his own generosity, had repaid all sums of money as to which evidence
+existed that they had been advanced to the unfortunate illegitimate
+captain. They would appear with clean hands; but poor Mr. Juniper would
+receive the sympathy of none. Of this Mr. Juniper had by degrees become
+aware, and was already looking on his claim on the Scarborough property
+as lost. And now, on this other little affair of his, on this
+matrimonial venture, it was very hard that inquiries as to his character
+should be referred to the same Mr. Barry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm d&mdash;&mdash; if I stand it!" he said, thumping his fist down on Mr.
+Carroll's bed, on which he was sitting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It isn't any of my doing. I'm on the square with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know so much about that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What have I done? Didn't I send her to the girl's uncle, and didn't she
+get from him a very liberal promise?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Promises! Why didn't he stump up the rhino? What's the good of
+promises? There's as much to do about a beggarly five hundred pounds as
+though it were fifty thousand pounds. Inquiries!" Of course he knew very
+well what that meant. "It's a most ungentlemanlike thing for one
+gentleman to take upon himself to make inquiries about another. He is
+not the girl's father. What right has he to make inquiries?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't put it into his head," said Carroll, almost sobbing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He must be a low-bred, pettifogging lawyer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is a lawyer," said Carroll, on whose mind the memory of the great
+benefit he had received had made some impression. "I have admitted
+that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pshaw!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I don't think he's pettifogging; not Mr. Grey. Four hundred pounds
+down, with fifty pounds for dress, and the same, or most the same, to
+all the girls, isn't pettifogging. If you ever comes to have a family,
+Juniper&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I ain't in the way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But when you are, and there comes six of 'em, you won't find an uncle
+pettifogging when he speaks out like Mr. Grey."
+</p>
+<p>
+The conversation was carried on for some time farther, and then Mr.
+Juniper left the house without again visiting the ladies. His last word
+was that if inquiries were made into him they might all go to&mdash;Bath! If
+the money were forthcoming, they would know where to find him; but it
+must be five hundred pounds "square," with no parings made from it on
+behalf of petticoats and pelisses. With this last word Mr. Juniper
+stamped down the stairs and out of the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's a brute, after all!" said Sophie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, he isn't. What do you know about brutes? Of course a gentleman has
+to make the best fight he can for his money." This was what Amelia said
+at the moment; but in the seclusion of their own room she wept bitterly.
+"Why didn't he come in to see me and just give me one word? I hadn't
+done anything amiss. It wasn't my fault if Uncle John is stingy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he isn't so very stingy, after all," said Sophie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course papa hasn't got anything, and wouldn't have anything, though
+you were to pour golden rivers into his lap."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are worse than papa," said Sophie.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he knows all that, and that our uncle isn't any more than an uncle.
+And why should he be so particular just about a hundred pounds? I do
+think gentlemen are the meanest creatures when they are looking after
+money! Ladies ain't half so bad. He'd no business to expect five hundred
+pounds all out."
+</p>
+<p>
+This was very melancholy, and the house was kept in a state of silent
+sorrow for four or five days, till the result of the inquiries had
+come. Then there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mr. Barry came to
+Bolsover Terrace to communicate the result of the inquiry, and was shut
+up for half an hour with poor Mrs. Carroll. He was afraid that he could
+not recommend the match. "Oh, I'm sorry for that,&mdash;very sorry!" said Mrs.
+Carroll. "The young lady will be&mdash;disappointed." And her handkerchief
+went up to her eyes. Then there was silence for awhile, till she asked
+why an opinion so strongly condemnatory had been expressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The gentleman, ma'am,&mdash;is not what a gentleman should be. You may take
+my word for it. I must ask you not to repeat what I say to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear, no."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But perhaps the least said the soonest mended. He is not what a
+gentleman should be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean a&mdash;fine gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not what a man should be. I cannot say more than that. It would
+not be for the young lady's happiness that she should select such a
+partner for her life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She is very much attached to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sorry that it should be so. But it will be better that she
+should&mdash;live it down. At any rate, I am bound to communicate to you Mr.
+Grey's decision. Though he does not at all mean to withhold his bounty
+in regard to any other proposed marriage, he cannot bring himself to pay
+money to Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing at all?" asked Mrs. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will make no payment that will go into the pocket of Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Barry went, and there was weeping and wailing in the house in
+Bolsover Terrace. So cruel an uncle as Mr. Grey had never been heard of
+in history, or even in romance. "I know it's that old cat, Dolly," said
+Amelia. "Because she hasn't managed to get a husband for herself, she
+doesn't want any one else to get one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My poor child," said Mr. Carroll, in a maudlin condition, "I pity thee
+from the bottom of my heart!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish that Mr. Barry may be made to marry a hideous old maid past
+forty," said Georgina.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shouldn't care what they said, but would take him straight off," said
+Sophie.
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this Mrs. Carroll shook her head. "I don't suppose that he is quite
+all that he ought to be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who is, I should like to know?" said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But my brother has to give his money according to his judgment." As
+she said this the poor woman thought of those other five who in process
+of time might become claimants. But here the whole family attacked her,
+and almost drove her to confess that her brother was a stingy old
+curmudgeon.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH36"><!-- CH36 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXVI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+GURNEY &amp; MALCOLMSON'S.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>
+In Red Lion Square, on the first floor of a house which partakes of the
+general dinginess of the neighborhood, there are two rooms which bear on
+the outside door the well-sounding names of Gurney &amp; Malcolmson; and on
+the front door to the street are the names of Gurney &amp; Malcolmson,
+showing that the business transacted by Messrs. Gurney &amp; Malcolmson
+outweighs in importance any others conducted in the same house. In the
+first room, which is the smaller of the two occupied, sits usually a
+lad, who passes most of his time in making up and directing circulars,
+so that a stranger might be led to suppose that the business of Gurney &amp;
+Malcolmson was of an extended nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+But on the occasion to which we are about to allude the door of the
+premises was closed, and the boy was kept on the alert posting, or
+perhaps delivering, the circulars which were continually issued. This
+was the place of business affected by Mr. Tyrrwhit, or at any rate one
+of them. Who were Gurney &amp; Malcolmson it is not necessary that our
+chronicle should tell. No Gurney or no Malcolmson was then visible; and
+though a part of the business of the firm in which it is to be supposed
+that Gurney &amp; Malcolmson were engaged was greatly discussed, their name
+on the occasion was never mentioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+A meeting had been called at which the presiding genius was Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. You might almost be led to believe that, from the manner in
+which he made himself at home, Mr. Tyrrwhit was Gurney &amp; Malcolmson. But
+there was another there who seemed to be almost as much at home as Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and this was Mr. Samuel Hart, whom we last saw when he had
+unexpectedly made himself known to his friend the captain at Monaco. He
+had a good deal to say for himself; and as he sat during the meeting
+with his hat on, it is to be presumed that he was not in awe of his
+companions. Mr. Juniper also was there. He took a seat at one corner of
+the table, and did not say much. There was also a man who, in speaking
+of himself and his own affairs, always called himself Evans &amp; Crooke.
+And there was one Spicer, who sat silent for the most part, and looked
+very fierce. In all matters, however, he appeared to agree with Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. He is especially named, as his interest in the matter
+discussed was large. There were three or four others, whose affairs were
+of less moment, though to them they were of intense interest. These
+gentlemen assembled were they who had advanced money to Captain
+Scarborough, and this was the meeting of the captain's creditors, at
+which they were to decide whether they were to give up their bonds on
+payment of the sums they had actually advanced, or whether they would
+stand out till the old squire's death, and then go to law with the owner
+of the estate.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the moment at which we may be presumed to be introduced, Mr. Tyrrwhit
+had explained the matter in a nervous, hesitating manner, but still in
+words sufficiently clear. "There's the money down now if you like to
+take it, and I'm for taking it." These were the words with which Mr.
+Tyrrwhit completed his address.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Circumstances is different," said the man with his hat on.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know much about that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Circumstances is different. I can't 'elp whether you know it or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How different?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"They is different,&mdash;and that's all about it. It'll perhaps shuit you and
+them other shentlemen to take a pershentage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It won't suit Evans &amp; Crooke," said the man who represented that firm.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But perhaps Messrs. Evans &amp; Crooke may be willing to save so much of
+their property," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'd like to have what's due to 'em."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We should all like that," said Spicer, and he gnashed his teeth and
+shook his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we can't get it all," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Speak for yourself, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Hart. "I think I can get mine.
+This is the most almighty abandoned swindle I ever met in all my born
+days." The whole meeting, except Mr. Tyrrwhit, received this assertion
+with loudly expressed applause. "Such a blackguard, dirty, thieving job
+never was up before in my time. I don't know 'ow to talk of it in
+language as a man isn't ashamed to commit himself to. It's downright
+robbery."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say so too," said Evans &amp; Crooke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"By George!" continued Mr. Hart, "we come forward to 'elp a shentleman
+in his trouble and to wait for our moneys till the father is dead, and
+then when 'e's 'ad our moneys the father turns round and says that 'is
+own son is a&mdash;Oh, it's too shocking! I 'aven't slept since I 'eard
+it,&mdash;not a regular night's rest. Now, it's my belief the captain 'as no
+'and in it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Here Mr. Juniper scratched his head and looked doubtful, and one or two
+of the other silent gentlemen scratched their heads. Messrs. Evans &amp;
+Crooke scratched his head. "It's a matter on which I would not like to
+give an opinion one way or the other," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No more wouldn't I," said Spicer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let every man speak as he finds," continued Hart. "That's my belief. I
+don't mind giving up a little of my claim, just a thousand or so, for
+ready cash. The old sinner ought to be dead, and can't last long. My
+belief is when 'e's gone I'm so circumstanced I shall get the whole.
+Whether or no, I've gone in for 'elping the captain with all my savings,
+and I mean to stick to them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And lose everything," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't we go and lug the old sinner into prison?" said Evans &amp;
+Crooke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly that's the game," said Juniper, and there was another loud
+acclamation of applause from the entire room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gentlemen, you don't know what you're talking about, you don't indeed,"
+said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't believe as we do," said Spicer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can't touch the old gentleman. He owes you nothing, nor have you a
+scratch of his pen. How are you to lug an old gentleman to prison when
+he's lying there cut up by the doctors almost to nothing? I don't know
+that anybody can touch him. The captain perhaps might, if the present
+story be false; and the younger son, if the other be true. And then
+they'd have to prove it. Mr. Grey says that no one can touch him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's in the swim as bad as any of 'em," said Evans &amp; Crooke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he is," said Hart. "But let everybody speak for himself. I've
+gone in to 'earn a 'eavy stake honestly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all right," said Evans &amp; Crooke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I mean to 'ave it or nothing. Now, Mr. Tyrrwhit, you know a piece
+of my mind. It's a biggish lot of money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We know what your claim is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But no man knows what the captain got, and I don't mean 'em to know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About fifteen thousand," came in a whisper from some one in the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a lie," said Mr. Hart; "so there's no getting out of that. If
+the shentleman will mind 'is own concerns I'll mind mine. Nobody
+knows,&mdash;barring the captain, and he like enough has forgot,&mdash;and nobody's
+going to know. What's written on these eight bits of paper everybody may
+know," and he pulled out of a large case or purse, which he carried in
+his breast coat-pocket, a fat sheaf of bills. "There are five thou'
+written on each of them, and for five thou' on each of them I means to
+stand out. 'It or miss. If any shentleman chooses to talk to me about
+ready money I'll take two thou' off. I like ready money as well as
+another."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We can all say the same as that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt. And if you think you can get it, I advise you to stick to it.
+If you thought you could get it you would say the same. But I should
+like to get that old man's 'ead between my fists. Wouldn't I punch it!
+Thief! scoundrel! 'orrid old man! It ain't for myself that I'm speaking
+now, because I'm a-going to get it,&mdash;I think I'm a-going to get it;&mdash;it's
+for humanity at large. This kind of thing wiolates one's best feelings."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Ear, 'ear, 'ear!" said one of the silent gentlemen.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Them's the sentiments of Evans &amp; Crooke," said the representative of
+that firm.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They're all our sentiments, in course," said Spicer; "but what's the
+use?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a ha'p'orth," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Asking your pardon, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Mr. Hart, "but, as this is a
+meeting of creditors who 'ave a largish lot of money to deal with, I
+don't think they ought to part without expressing their opinions in the
+way of British commerce. I say crucifying 'd be too good for 'im."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can't get at him to crucify him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's no knowing about that," said Mr. Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, drawing out his watch, "I expect Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough to call upon us."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can crucify <i>him</i>," said Evans &amp; Crooke.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is the old man, and neither of the sons, as have done it," said
+Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Scarborough," continued Tyrrwhit, "will be here, and will expect to
+learn whether we have accepted his offer. He will be accompanied by Mr.
+Barry. If one rejects, all reject."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all," said Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will not consent to pay anything unless he can make a clean hit of
+it. He is about to sacrifice a very large sum of money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sacrifice!" said Juniper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; sacrifice a very large sum of money. His father cannot pay it
+without his consent. The father may die any day, and then the money will
+belong altogether to the son. You have, none of you, any claim upon him.
+It is likely he may think you will have a claim on the estate, not
+trusting his own father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't trust him, not 'alf as far as I could see him, though he was
+twice my father." This again came from Mr. Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I want to explain to these gentlemen how the matter stands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They understand," said Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm for securing my own money. It's very hard,&mdash;after all the risk. I
+quite agree with Mr. Hart in what he says about the squire. Such a piece
+of premeditated dishonesty for robbing gentlemen of their property I
+never before heard. It's awful."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Orrid old man!" said Mr. Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so. But half a loaf is better than no bread. Now, here is a list,
+prepared in Mr. Grey's chambers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'E's another, nigh as 'orrid."
+</p>
+<p>
+"On this list we're all down, with the sums he says we advanced. Are we
+to take them? If so we must sign our names, each to his own figure."
+Then he passed the list down the table.
+</p>
+<p>
+The men there assembled all crowded to look at the list, and among
+others Mr. Juniper. He showed his anxiety by the eager way in which he
+nearly annihilated Messrs. Evans &amp; Crooke, by leaning over him as he
+struggled to read the paper. "Your name ain't down at all," said Evans &amp;
+Crooke. Then a tremendous oath, very bitter and very wicked, came from
+the mouth of Mr. Juniper, most unbefitting a young man engaged to marry
+a young lady. "I tell you it isn't here," said Evans &amp; Crooke, trying to
+extricate himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall know how to right myself," said Juniper, with another oath.
+And he then walked out of the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The captain, when he was drunk one night, got a couple of ponies from
+him. It wasn't a couple all out. And Juniper made him write his name for
+five hundred pounds. It was thought then that the squire 'd have been
+dead next day, and Juniper 'd 've got a good thing."'
+</p>
+<p>
+"I 'ate them ways," said Mr. Hart. "I never deal with a shentleman if
+he's, to say&mdash;drunk. Of course it comes in my way, but I never does."
+</p>
+<p>
+Now there was heard a sound of steps on the stairs, and Mr. Tyrrwhit
+rose from his chair so as to perform the duty of master of the
+ceremonies to the gentlemen who were expected. Augustus Scarborough
+entered the room, followed by Mr. Barry. They were received with
+considerable respect, and seated on two chairs at Mr. Tyrrwhit's right
+hand. "Gentlemen, you most of you know these two gentlemen. They are Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry, junior partner in the firm of
+Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We knows 'em," said Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My client has made a proposition to you," said Mr. Barry. "If you will
+give up your bonds against his brother, which are not worth the paper
+they are written on&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gammon!" said Mr. Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will sign checks paying to you the sums of money written on that
+list. But you must all agree to accept such sums in liquidation in full.
+I see you have not signed the paper yet. No time is to be lost. In fact,
+you must sign it now, or my client will withdraw from his offer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Withdraw; will 'e?" said Hart. "Suppose we withdraw? 'O does your
+client think is the honestest man in this 'ere swim?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Barry seemed somewhat abashed by this question. "It isn't necessary
+to go into that, Mr. Hart," said he.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Hart laughed long and loud, and all the gentlemen laughed. There was
+something to them extremely jocose in their occupying, as it were, the
+other side of the question, and appearing as the honest, injured party.
+They enjoyed it thoroughly, and Mr. Hart was disposed to make the most
+of it. "No; it ain't necessary; is it? There ain't no question of
+honesty to be asked in this 'ere business. We quite understand that."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then up and spoke Augustus Scarborough. He rose to his feet, and the
+very fact of his doing so quieted for a time the exuberant mirth of the
+party. "Gentlemen, Mr. Hart speaks to you of honesty. I am not going to
+boast of my own. I am here to consent to the expenditure of a very large
+sum of money, for which I am to get nothing, and which, if not paid to
+you, will all go into my own pocket;&mdash;unless you believed that you
+wouldn't be here to meet me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We don't believe nothing," said Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Hart, you should let Mr. Scarborough speak," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Vell, let 'im speak. Vat's the odds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not wish to delay you, nor to delay myself," continued Augustus.
+"I can go, and will go, at once. But I shall not come back. There is no
+good discussing this matter any longer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no; not the least. Ve don't like discussion; do ve, captain?" said
+Mr. Hart. "But you ain't the captain; is you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As there seems to be no intention of signing that document, I shall
+go," said Augustus. Then Mr. Tyrrwhit took the paper, and signed it on
+the first line with his own name at full length. He wrote his name to a
+very serious sum of money, but it was less than half what he and others
+had expected to receive when the sum was lent. Had that been realized
+there would have been no farther need for the formalities of Gurney &amp;
+Malcolmson, and that young lad must have found other work to do than the
+posting of circulars. The whole matter, however, had been much
+considered, and he signed the document. Mr. Hart's name came next, but
+he passed it on. "I ain't made up my mind yet. Maybe I shall have to
+call on Mr. Barry. I ain't just consulted my partner." Then the document
+went down to Mr. Spicer, who signed it, grinning horribly; as did also
+Evans &amp; Crooke and all the others. They did believe that was the only
+way in which they could get back the money they had advanced. It was a
+great misfortune, a serious blow. But in this way there was something
+short of ruin. They knew that Scarborough was about to pay the money, so
+that he might escape a lawsuit, which might go against him; but then
+they also wished to avoid the necessity of bringing the lawsuit. Looking
+at the matter all round, we may say that the lawyers were the persons
+most aggrieved by what was done on that morning. They all signed it as
+they sat there,&mdash;except Mr. Hart, who passed it on, and still wore his
+hat.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You won't agree, Mr. Hart?" said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not yet I von't," said Hart. "I ain't thought it out. I ain't in the
+same boat with the rest. I'm not afraid of my money. I shall get that
+all right."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I may as well go," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit. "Things of this
+kind can't be done just in a moment." But Augustus explained that they
+must be done in a very few moments, if they were to be done at all. It
+was not his intention to sit there in Gurney &amp; Malcolmson's office
+discussing the matter with Mr. Hart. Notice of his intention had been
+given, and they might take his money or leave it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so, captain," said Mr. Hart. "Only I believe you ain't the
+captain. Where's the captain now? I see him last at Monte Carlo, and he
+had won a pot of money. He was looking uncommon well after his little
+accident in the streets with young Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Tyrrwhit contrived to get all the others out of the room, he
+remaining there with Hart and Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry. And
+then Hart did sign the document with altered figures: only that so much
+was added on to the sum which he agreed to accept, and a similar
+deduction made from that to which Mr. Tyrrwhit's name was signed. But
+this was not done without renewed expostulation from the latter
+gentleman. It was very hard, he said, that all the sacrifice should be
+made by him. He would be ruined, utterly ruined by the transaction. But
+he did sign for the altered sum, and Mr. Hart also signed the paper.
+"Now, Mr. Barry, as the matter is completed, I think I will withdraw,"
+said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's five thousand pounds clean gone out of my pocket," said Hart, "and
+I vas as sure of it as ever I vas in my life. There vas no better money
+than the captain's. Vell, vell! This vorld's a queer place." So saying,
+he followed Augustus and Mr. Barry out of the room, and left Mr.
+Tyrrwhit alone in his misery.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH37"><!-- CH37 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXVII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+VICTORIA STREET.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Lounging in an arm-chair in a small but luxuriously furnished room in
+Victoria Street sat Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, and opposite to him,
+equally comfortably placed, as far as externals were concerned, but
+without any of that lounging look which the captain affected, sat his
+brother. It was nearly eight o'clock, and the sound of the dinner-plates
+could be heard through the open doors from the next room. It was
+evident, or at any rate was the fact, that Augustus found his brother's
+presence a bore, and as evident that the captain intended to disregard
+the dissatisfaction evinced by the owner of the chambers. "Do shut the
+door, Mountjoy," said the younger. "I don't suppose we want the servant
+to hear everything that we say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's welcome for me," said Mountjoy, without moving. Then Augustus got
+up and banged the door. "Don't be angry because I sometimes forget that
+I am no longer considered to be your elder brother," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother about elder brothers! I suppose you can shut a door?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man is sometimes compelled by circumstances to think whether he can
+or not. I'd've shut the door for you readily enough the other day. I
+don't know that I can now. Ain't we going to have some dinner? It's
+eight o'clock."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose they'll get dinner for you;&mdash;I'm not going to dine here." The
+two men were both dressed and after this they remained silent for the
+next five minutes. Then the servant came in and said that dinner was
+ready.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this happened in December. It must be explained that the captain had
+come to London at his brother's instance, and was there, in his rooms,
+at his invitation. Indeed, we may say that he had come at his brother's
+command. Augustus had during the last few months taken upon himself to
+direct the captain's movements; and though he had not always been
+obeyed, still, upon the whole, his purposes had been carried out as well
+as he could expect. He had offered to supply the money necessary for the
+captain's tour, and had absolutely sent a servant to accompany the
+traveller. When the traveller had won money at Monaco he had been
+unruly, but this had not happened very often. When we last saw him he
+had expressed his intention to Mr. Hart of making a return journey to
+the Caucasian provinces. But he got no farther than Genoa on his way to
+the Caucasus, and then, when he found that Mr. Hart was not at his back,
+he turned round and went back to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo, of all places
+on the world's surface, had now charms for him.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was no longer a club open to him, either in London or Paris, at
+which he could win or lose one hundred pounds. At Monte Carlo he could
+still do so readily; and, to do so, need not sink down into any
+peculiarly low depth of social gathering. At Monte Carlo the <i>ennui</i> of
+the day was made to disappear. At Monte Carlo he could lie in bed till
+eleven, and then play till dinner-time. At Monte Carlo there was always
+some one who would drink a glass of wine with him without inquiring too
+closely as to his antecedents. He had begun by winning a large sum of
+money. He had got some sums from his brother, and when at last he was
+summoned home he was penniless. Had his pocket been still full of money
+it may be doubted whether he would have come, although he understood
+perfectly the importance of the matter on which he had been recalled.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had been sent for in order that he might receive from Mr. Grey a
+clear statement of what it was intended to do in reference to the
+payment of money to the creditors. Mr. Grey had, in the first place,
+endeavored to assure him that his co-operation was in no respect made
+necessary by the true circumstances of the case, but in order to satisfy
+the doubts of certain persons. The money to be paid was the joint
+property of his father and his brother,&mdash;of his father, as far as the use
+of it for his life was concerned, and of his brother, as to its
+continued and perpetual enjoyment. They were willing to pay so much for
+the redemption of the bonds given by him, the captain. As far as these
+bonds were concerned the captain would thus be a free man. There could
+be no doubt that nothing but benefit was intended for him,&mdash;as though he
+were himself the heir. "Though as to that I have no hesitation in
+telling you that, you will at your father's death have no right to a
+shilling of the property." The captain had said that he was quite
+willing, and had signed the deed. He was glad that these bonds should be
+recovered so cheaply. But as to the property,&mdash;and here he spoke with
+much spirit to Mr. Grey,&mdash;it was his purpose at his father's death to
+endeavor to regain his position. He would never believe, he said, that
+his mother was&mdash;Then he turned away, and, in spite of all that had come
+and gone, Mr. Grey respected him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But he had signed the deed, and the necessity for his presence was over.
+What should his brother do with him now? He could not keep him
+concealed,&mdash;or not concealed,&mdash;in his rooms. But something must be done.
+Some mode of living must be invented for him. Abroad! Augustus said to
+himself,&mdash;and to Septimus Jones, who was his confidential friend,&mdash;that
+Mountjoy must live "abroad."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; he must go abroad. There's no doubt about that. It's the only
+place for him." So spoke Septimus Jones, who, though confidential
+friend, was not admitted to the post of confidential adviser. Augustus
+liked to have a depositary for his resolutions, but would admit no
+advice. And Septimus Jones had become so much his creature that he had
+to obey him in all things.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are apt to think that a man may be disposed of by being made to go
+abroad; or, if he is absolutely penniless and useless, by being sent to
+the colonies,&mdash;that he may become a shepherd and drink himself out of the
+world. To kill the man, so that he may be no longer a nuisance, is
+perhaps the chief object in both cases. But it was not easy to get the
+captain to go abroad unless, indeed, he was sent back to Monte Carlo.
+Some Monte Carlo, such as a club might be with stakes practically
+unlimited, was the first desire of his heart. But behind that, or
+together with it, was an anxious longing to remain near Tretton and "see
+it out," as he called it, when his father should die. His father must
+die very shortly, and he would like "to see it out," as he told Mr.
+Grey; and, with this wish, there was a longing also for the company of
+Florence Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+He used to tell himself, in those moments of sad thoughts,&mdash;thoughts
+serious as well as sad, which will come even to a gambler,&mdash;that if he
+could have Tretton and Florence Mountjoy he would never touch another
+card. And there was present to him an assurance that his aunt, Mrs.
+Mountjoy, would still be on his side. If he could talk over his
+circumstances with Mrs. Mountjoy, he thought that he might be encouraged
+to recover his position as an English gentleman. His debts at the club
+had already been paid, and he had met on the sly a former friend, who
+had given him some hope that he might be re-admitted. But at the present
+moment his mind turned to Brussels. He had learned that Florence and her
+mother were at the embassy there, and, though he hesitated, still he
+desired to go. But this was not the "abroad" contemplated by Augustus.
+Augustus did not think it well that his father's bastard son, who had
+been turned out of a London club for not paying his card debts, and had
+then disappeared in a mysterious way for six months, should show himself
+at the British embassy, and there claim admittance and relationship. Nor
+was he anxious that his brother should see Florence Mountjoy. He had
+suggested a prolonged tour in South America, which he had declared to be
+the most interesting country in the world. "I think I had rather go to
+Brussels," Mountjoy had answered, gallantly, keeping his seat in the
+arm-chair and picking his teeth the while. This occurred on the evening
+before that on which we found them just now. On the morning of that day
+Mountjoy had had his interview with Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus had declared that he intended to dine out. This he had said in
+disgust at his brother's behavior. No doubt he could get his dinner at
+ten minutes' notice. He had not been expelled from his club. But he had
+ordered the dinner on that day with a view to eat it himself, and in
+effect he carried out his purpose. The captain got up, thinking to go
+alone when the dinner was announced, but expressed himself gratified
+when his brother said that he "had changed his mind." "You made yourself
+such an ass about shutting the door that I resolved to leave you to
+yourself. But come along." And he accompanied the captain into the other
+room.
+</p>
+<p>
+A very pretty little dinner was prepared,&mdash;quite such as one loving
+friend might give to another, when means are sufficient,&mdash;such a dinner
+as the heir of Tretton might have given to his younger brother. The
+champagne was excellent, and the bottle of Leoville. Mountjoy partook of
+all the good things with much gusto, thinking all the while that he
+ought to have been giving the dinner to his younger brother. When that
+conversation had sprung up about going to Brussels or South America,
+Mountjoy had suggested a loan. "I'll pay your fare to Rio, and give you
+an order on a banker there." Mountjoy had replied that that would not at
+all suit his purpose. Then Augustus had felt that it would be almost
+better to send his brother even to Brussels than to keep him concealed
+in London. He had been there now for three or four days, and, even in
+respect of his maintenance, had become a burden. The pretty little
+dinners had to be found every day, and were eaten by the captain alone,
+when left alone, without an attempt at an apology on his part. Augustus
+had begun with some intention of exhibiting his mode of life. He would
+let his brother know what it was to be the heir of Tretton. No doubt he
+did assume all the outward glitter of his position, expecting to fill
+his brother's heart with envy. But Mountjoy had seen and understood it
+all; and remembering the days, not long removed, when he had been the
+heir, he bethought himself that he had never shown off before his
+brother. And he was determined to express no gratitude or thankfulness.
+He would go on eating the little dinners exactly as though they had been
+furnished by himself. It certainly was dull. There was no occupation for
+him, and in the matter of pocket-money he was lamentably ill-supplied.
+But he was gradually becoming used to face the streets again and had
+already entered the shops of one or two of his old tradesmen. He had
+quite a confidential conversation with his boot-maker, and had ordered
+three or four new pairs of boots.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nobody could tell how the question of the property would be decided till
+his father should have died. His father had treated him most cruelly,
+and he would only wait for his death. He could assure the boot-maker
+that when that time came he should look for his rights. He knew that
+there was a suspicion abroad that he was in a conspiracy with his father
+and brother to cheat his creditors. No such thing. He himself was
+cheated. He pledged himself to the boot-maker that, to the best of his
+belief, his father was robbing him, and that he would undoubtedly assert
+his right to the Tretton property as soon as the breath should be out of
+his father's body. The truth of what he told the boot-maker he certainly
+did believe. There was some little garnishing added to his tale,&mdash;which,
+perhaps, under the circumstances, was to be forgiven. The blow had come
+upon him so suddenly, he said, that he was not able even to pay his card
+account, and had left town in dismay at the mine which had been exploded
+under his feet. The boot-maker believed him so far that he undertook to
+supply his orders.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the dinner had been eaten the two brothers lit their cigars and
+drew to the fire. "There must, unfortunately, come an end to this, you
+know," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I certainly can't stand it much longer," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You, at any rate, have had the best of it. I have endeavored to make my
+little crib comfortable for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The grub is good, and the wine. There's no doubt about that. Somebody
+says somewhere that nobody can live upon bread alone. That includes the
+whole <i>menu</i>, I suppose."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you suggest to do with yourself?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You said, go abroad."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I did&mdash;to Rio."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rio is a long way off,&mdash;somewhere across the equator, isn't it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe it is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think we'd better have it out clearly between us, Augustus. It won't
+suit me to be at Rio Janeiro when our father dies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What difference will his death make to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A father's death generally does make a difference to his eldest son,
+particularly if there is any property concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean to say that you intend to dispute the circumstances of your
+birth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dispute them! Do you think that I will allow such a thing to be said of
+my mother without disputing it? Do you suppose that I will give up my
+claim to one of the finest properties in England without disputing it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I had better stop the payment of that money, and let the gentlemen
+know that you mean to raise the question on their behalf."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's your affair. The arrangement is a very good one for me; but you
+made it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know very well that your present threat means nothing. Ask Mr.
+Grey. You can trust him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I can't trust him. After having been so wickedly deceived by my own
+father, I can trust no one. Why did not Mr. Grey find it out before, if
+it be true? I give you my word, Augustus, the lawyers will have to fight
+it out before you will be allowed to take possession."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet you do not scruple to come and live here at my cost."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. At whose cost can I live with less scruple than at
+yours? You, at any rate, have not robbed our mother of her good name, as
+my father has done. The only one of the family with whom I could not
+stay is the governor. I could not sit at the table with a man who has so
+disgraced himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word I am very much obliged to you for the honor you do me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's my feeling. The chance of the game and his villany have given
+you for the moment the possession of all the good things. They are all
+mine by rights."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cards have had nothing to do with it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; they have. But they have had nothing to do with my being the
+eldest legitimate son of my father. The cards have been against me, but
+they have not affected my mother. Then there came the blow from the
+governor, and where was I to look for my bread but to you? I suppose, if
+the truth be known, you get the money from the governor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I do. But not for your maintenance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"On what does he suppose that I have been living since last June? It
+mayn't be in the bond, but I suppose he has made allowance for my
+maintenance. Do you mean to say that I am not to have bread-and-cheese
+out of Tretton?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I were to turn you out of these rooms you'd find it very difficult
+to get it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think you'll do that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not so sure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're meditating it,&mdash;are you? I shouldn't go just at present, because
+I have not got a sovereign in the world. I was going to speak to you
+about money. You must let me have some."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word, I like your impudence!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What the devil am I to do? The governor has asked me to go down to
+Tretton, and I can't go without a five-pound note in my pocket."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The governor has asked you to Tretton?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not? I got a letter from him this morning." Then Augustus asked to
+see the letter, but Mountjoy refused to show it. From this there arose
+angry words, and Augustus told his brother that he did not believe him.
+"Not believe me? You do believe me! You know that what I say is the
+truth, He has asked me with all his usual soft soap. But I have refused
+to go. I told him that I could not go to the house of one who had
+injured my mother so seriously."
+</p>
+<p>
+All that Mountjoy said as to the proposed visit to Tretton was true. The
+squire had written to him without mentioning the name of Augustus, and
+had told him that, for the present, Tretton would be the best home for
+him. "I will do what I can to make you happy, but you will not see a
+card," the squire had said. It was not the want of cards which prevented
+Mountjoy, but a feeling on his part that for the future there could be
+nothing but war between him and his father. It was out of the question
+that he should accept his father's hospitality without telling him of
+his intention, and he did not know his father well enough to feel that
+such a declaration would not affect him at all. He had, therefore,
+declined.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry Annesley's name was mentioned. "I think I've done for that
+fellow," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What have you done?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've cooked his goose. In the first place, his uncle has stopped his
+allowance, and in the second place the old fellow is going to marry a
+wife. At any rate, he has quarrelled with Master Harry <i>&aacute; outrance</i>.
+Master Harry has gone back to the parental parsonage, and is there
+eating the bread of affliction and drinking the waters of poverty.
+Flossy Mountjoy may marry him if she pleases. A girl may marry a man now
+without leave from anybody. But if she does my dear cousin will have
+nothing to eat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you have done this?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Alone I did it, boy.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then it's an infernal shame. What harm had he ever done you? For me I
+had some ground of quarrel with him, but for you there was none."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have my own quarrel with him also."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I quarrelled with him&mdash;with a cause. I do not care if I quarrel with
+him again. He shall never marry Florence Mountjoy if I can help it. But
+to rob a fellow of his property I think a very shabby thing." Then
+Augustus got up and walked out of the chambers into the street, and
+Mountjoy soon followed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must make him understand that he must leave this at once," said
+Augustus to himself, "and if necessary I must order the supplies to be
+cut off."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH38"><!-- CH38 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE SCARBOROUGH CORRESPONDENCE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It was as Mountjoy had said. The squire had written to him a letter
+inviting him to Tretton, and telling him that it would be the best home
+for him till death should have put Tretton into other hands. Mountjoy
+had thought the matter over, sitting in the easy-chair in his brother's
+room, and had at last declined the invitation. As his letter was
+emblematic of the man, it may be as well to give it to the reader:
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear father,&mdash;I don't think it will suit me to go down to Tretton at
+present. I don't mind the cards, and I don't doubt that you would make
+it better than this place. But, to tell the truth, I don't believe a
+word of what you have told to the world about my mother, and some of
+these days I mean to have it out with Augustus. I shall not sit quietly
+by and see Tretton taken out of my mouth. Therefore I think I had better
+not go to Tretton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours truly,
+</p>
+<center>
+"MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH."
+</center>
+<p>
+This had not at all surprised the father, and had not in the least
+angered him. He rather liked his son for standing up for his mother, and
+was by no means offended at the expression of his son's incredulity. But
+what was there in the prospect of a future lawsuit to prevent his son
+coming to Tretton? There need be no word spoken as to the property.
+Tretton would be infinitely more comfortable than those rooms in
+Victoria Street, and he was aware that the hospitality of Victoria
+Street would not be given in an ungrudging spirit. "I shouldn't like
+it," said the old squire to himself as he lay quiet on his sofa. "I
+shouldn't like at all to be the humble guest of Augustus. Augustus would
+certainly say a nasty word or two."
+</p>
+<p>
+The old man knew his younger son well, and he had known, too, the
+character of his elder son; but he had not calculated enough on the
+change which must have been made by such a revelation as he, his father,
+had made to him. Mountjoy had felt that all the world was against him,
+and that, as best he might, he would make use of all the world,
+excepting only his father, who of all the world was the falsest and the
+most cruel. As for his brother, he would bleed his brother to the very
+last drop without any compunction. Every bottle of champagne that came
+into the house was, to Mountjoy's thinking, his own, bought with his
+money, and therefore fit to be enjoyed by him. But as for his father, he
+doubted whether he could remain with his father without flying at his
+throat.
+</p>
+<p>
+The old man decidedly preferred his elder son of the two. He had found
+that Augustus could not bear success, and had first come to dislike him,
+and then to hate him. What had he not done for Augustus? And with what a
+return! No doubt Augustus had, till the spring of this present year,
+been kept in the background; but no injury had come to him from that.
+His father, of his own good will, with infinite labor and successful
+ingenuity, had struggled to put him back in the place which had been
+taken from him. Augustus might, not unnaturally, have expressed himself
+as angry. He had not done so but had made himself persistently
+disagreeable, and had continued to show that he was waiting impatiently
+for his father's death. It had come to pass that at their last meeting
+he had hardly scrupled to tell his father that the world would be no
+world for him till his father had left it. This was the reward which the
+old man received for having struggled to provide handsomely and
+luxuriously for his son! He still made his son a sufficient allowance
+befitting the heir of a man of large property, but he had resolved never
+to see him again. It was true that he almost hated him, and thoroughly
+despised him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But since the departure and mysterious disappearance of his eldest son
+his regard for the sinner had returned. He had become apparently a
+hopeless gambler. His debts had been paid and repaid. At last the
+squire had learned that Mountjoy owed so much on post-obits that the
+farther payment of them was an impossibility. There was no way of saving
+him. To save the property he must undo the doings of his early youth,
+and prove that the elder son was illegitimate. He had still kept the
+proofs, and he did it.
+</p>
+<p>
+To the great disgust of Mr. Grey, to the dismay of creditors, to the
+incredulous wonder of Augustus, and almost to the annihilation of
+Mountjoy himself, he had done it. But there had been nothing in
+Mountjoy's conduct which had in truth wounded him. Mountjoy's vices had
+been dangerous, destructive, absurdly foolish, but not, to his father, a
+shame. He ridiculed gambling as a source of excitement. No man could win
+much without dishonest practices, and fraud at cards would certainly be
+detected. But he did not on that account hate cards. There was no reason
+why Mountjoy should not become to him as pleasant a companion as ever
+for the few days that might be left to him, if only he would come. But,
+when asked, he refused to come. When the squire received the letter
+above given he was not in the least angry with his son, but simply
+determined, if possible, that he should be brought to Tretton.
+Mountjoy's debts would now be paid, and something, if possible, should
+be done for him. He was so angry with Augustus that he would, if
+possible, revoke his last decision;&mdash;but that, alas! would be impossible.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sir William Brodrick had, when he last saw him, expressed some hope,&mdash;not
+of his recovery, which was by all admitted to be impossible,&mdash;but of his
+continuance in the land of the living for another three months, or
+perhaps six, as Sir William had finally suggested, opening out, as he
+himself seemed to think, indefinite hope. "The most wonderful
+constitution, Mr. Scarborough, I ever saw in my life. I've never known a
+dog even so cut about, and yet bear it." Mr. Scarborough bowed and
+smiled, and accepted the compliment. He would have taken the hat off his
+head, had it been his practice to wear a hat in his sitting-room. Mr.
+Merton had gone farther. Of course he did not mean, he said, to set up
+his opinion against Sir William's; but if Mr. Scarborough would live
+strictly by rule, Mr. Merton did not see why either three months or six
+should be the end of it. Mr. Scarborough had replied that he could not
+undertake to live precisely by rule, and Mr. Merton had shaken his head.
+But from that time forth Mr. Scarborough did endeavor to obey the
+injunctions given to him. He had something worth doing in the six months
+now offered to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had heard lately very much of the story of Harry Annesley, and had
+expressed great anger at the ill-usage to which that young man had been
+subjected. It had come to his ears that it was intended that Harry
+should lose the property he had expected, and that he had already lost
+his immediate income. This had come to him through Mr. Merton, between
+whom and Augustus Scarborough there was no close friendship. And the
+squire understood that Florence Mountjoy had been the cause of Harry's
+misfortune. He himself recognized it as a fact that his son Mountjoy was
+unfit to marry any young lady. Starvation would assuredly stare such
+young lady in the face. But not the less was he acerbated and disgusted
+at the idea that Augustus should endeavor to take the young lady to
+himself. "What!" he had exclaimed to Mr. Merton; "he wants both the
+property and the girl. There is nothing on earth that he does not want.
+The greater the impropriety in his craving, the stronger the craving."
+Then he picked up by degrees all the details of the midnight feud
+between Harry and Mountjoy, and set himself to work to undermine
+Augustus. But he had steadily carried out the plan for settling with the
+creditors, and, with the aid of Mr. Grey, had, as he thought, already
+concluded that business. Conjunction with Augustus had been necessary,
+but that had been obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not too much to say that, at the present moment of his life, the
+idea of doing some injury to Augustus was the one object which exercised
+Mr. Scarborough's mind. Since he had fallen into business relations with
+his younger son he had become convinced that a more detestable young man
+did not exist. The reader will, perhaps, agree with Mr. Scarborough, but
+it can hardly be hoped that he should entertain the opinion as strongly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus was now the recognized eldest legitimate son of the squire; and
+as the property was entailed it must no doubt belong to him. But the
+squire was turning in his mind all means of depriving that condition as
+far as was possible of its glory. When he had first heard of the injury
+that had been done to Harry Annesley, he thought that he would leave to
+our hero all the furniture, all the gems, all the books, all the wine,
+all the cattle which were accumulated at Tretton. Augustus should have
+the bare acres, and still barer house, but nothing else. In thinking of
+this he had been actuated by a conviction that it would be useless for
+him to leave them to Mountjoy. Whatever might be left to Mountjoy would
+in fact be left to the creditors; and therefore Harry Annesley with his
+injuries had been felt to be a proper recipient, not of the squire's
+bounty, but of the results of his hatred for his son.
+</p>
+<p>
+To run counter to the law! That had ever been the chief object of the
+squire's ambition. To arrange everything so that it should be seen that
+he had set all laws at defiance! That had been his great pride. He had
+done so notably, and with astonishing astuteness, in reference to his
+wife and two sons. But now there had come up a condition of things in
+which he could again show his cleverness. Augustus had been most anxious
+to get up all the post-obit bonds which the creditors held, feeling, as
+his father well understood, that he would thus prevent them from making
+any farther inquiry when the squire should have died. Why should they
+stir in the matter by going to law when there would be nothing to be
+gained? Those bonds had now been redeemed, and were in the possession of
+Mr. Grey. They had been bought up nominally by himself, and must be
+given to him. Mr. Grey, at any rate, would have the proof that they had
+been satisfied. They could not be used again to gratify any spite that
+Augustus might entertain. The captain, therefore, could now enjoy any
+property which might be left to him. Of course, it would all go to the
+gaming-table. It might even yet be better to leave it to Harry Annesley.
+But blood was thicker than water,&mdash;though it were but the blood of a
+bastard. He would do a good turn for Harry in another way. All the
+furniture, and all the gems, and all the money, should again be the
+future property of Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+But in order that this might be effected before he died he must not let
+the grass grow under his feet. He thought of the promised three months,
+with a possible extension to six, as suggested by Sir William. "Sir
+William says three months," he said to Mr. Merton, speaking in the
+easiest way of the possibility of his living.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He said six."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah! that is, if I do what I'm told. But I shall not exactly do that.
+Three or six would be all the same, only for a little bit of business I
+want to get through. Sir William's orders would include the abandonment
+of my business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The less done the better. Then I do not see why Sir William should
+limit you to six months."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that three will nearly suffice."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man does not want to die, I suppose," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are various ways of looking at that question," replied the
+squire. "Many men desire the prolongation of life as a lengthened period
+of enjoyment. There is, perhaps, something of that feeling with me; but
+when you see how far I am crippled and curtailed, how my enjoyments are
+confined to breathing the air, to eating and drinking, and to the
+occasional reading of a few pages, you must admit that there cannot be
+much of that. A conversation with you is the best of it. Some want to
+live for the sake of their wives and children. In the ordinary
+acceptation of the words, that is all over with me. Many desire to live
+because they fear to die. There is nothing of that in me, I can assure
+you. I am not afraid to meet my Creator. But there are those who wish
+for life that their purposes of love, or stronger purposes of hatred,
+may be accomplished. I am among the number. But, on that account, I only
+wish it till those purposes have been completed. I think I'll go to
+sleep for an hour; but there are a couple of letters I want you to write
+before post-time." Then Mr. Scarborough turned himself round and thought
+of the letters he was to write. Mr. Merton went out, and as he wandered
+about the park in the dirt and slush of December tried to make up his
+mind whether he most admired his patron's philosophy or condemned his
+general lack of principle.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the proper hour he appeared again, and found Mr. Scarborough quite
+alert. "I don't know whether I shall have the three months, unless I
+behave better," he said. "I have been thinking about those letters, and
+very nearly made an attempt to write them. There are things about a son
+which a father doesn't wish to communicate to any one." Merton only
+shook his head. "I'm not a bit afraid of you, nor do I care for your
+knowing what I have to say. But there are words which it would be
+difficult even to write, and almost impossible to dictate." But he did
+make the attempt, though he did not find himself able to say all that he
+had intended. The first letter was to the lawyer:
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Mr. Grey,&mdash;You will be surprised at my writing to summon you
+once again to my bedside. I think there was some kind of a promise made
+that the request should not be repeated; but the circumstances are of
+such a nature that I do not well know how to avoid it. However, if you
+refuse to come, I will give you my instructions. It is my purpose to
+make another will, and to leave everything that I am capable of leaving
+to my son Mountjoy. You are aware that he is now free from debt, and
+capable of enjoying any property that he may possess. As circumstances
+are at present he would on my death be absolutely penniless, and Heaven
+help the man who should find himself dependent on the mercy of Augustus
+Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What I possess would be the balance at the bank, the house in town, and
+everything contained in and about Tretton, as to which I should wish
+that the will should be very explicit in making it understood that every
+conceivable item of property is to belong to Mountjoy. I know the
+strength of an entail, and not for worlds would I venture to meddle with
+anything so holy." There came a grin of satisfaction over his face as he
+uttered these words, and his scribe was utterly unable to keep from
+laughing. "But as Augustus must have the acres, let him have them bare."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Underscore that word, if you please;" and the word was underscored. "If
+I had time I would have every tree about the place cut down."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think you could under the entail," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would use up every stick in building the farmers' barns and mending
+the farmers' gates, and I would cover an acre just in front of the house
+with a huge conservatory. I respect the law, my boy, and they would find
+it difficult to prove that I had gone beyond it. But there is no time
+for that kind of finished revenge."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he went on with the letter: "You will understand what I mean. I
+wish to divide my property so that Mountjoy may have everything that is
+not strictly entailed. You will of course say that it will all go to the
+gambling-table. It may go to the devil, so that Augustus does not have
+it. But it need not go to the gambling-table. If you would consent to
+come down to me once more we might possibly devise some scheme for
+saving it. But whether we can do so or not, it is my request that my
+last will may be prepared in accordance with these instructions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very faithfully yours,
+</p>
+<center>
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+</center>
+<p>
+"And now for the other," said Mr. Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Had you not better rest a bit?" asked Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; this is a kind of work at which a man does not want to rest. He is
+carried on by his own solicitudes and his own eagerness. This will be
+very short, and when it is done then, perhaps, I may sleep."
+</p>
+<p>
+The second letter was as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Mountjoy,&mdash;I think you are foolish in allowing yourself to be
+prevented from coming here by a sentiment. But in truth, independently
+of the pleasure I should derive from your company, I wish you to be here
+on a matter of business which is of some importance to yourself. I am
+about to make a new will; and although I am bound to pay every respect
+to the entail, and would not for worlds do anything in opposition to the
+law, still I may be enabled to do something for your benefit. Your
+brother has kindly interfered for the payment of your creditors; and as
+all the outstanding bonds have been redeemed, you would now, by his
+generosity, be enabled to enjoy any property which might be left to you.
+There are a few tables and chairs at my disposal, and a gem or two, and
+some odd volumes which perhaps you might like to possess. I have written
+to Mr. Grey on the subject, and I would wish you to see him. This you
+might do, whether you come here or not. But I do not the less wish that
+you should come.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your affectionate father,
+</p>
+<center>
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+</center>
+<p>
+"I think that the odd volumes will fetch him. He was always fond of
+literature."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose it means the entire library?" replied Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he likes tables and chairs. I think he will come and look after the
+tables and chairs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not beds and washhand-stands?" said Mr. Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; he may have the beds and washhand-stands. Mountjoy is not a
+fool, and will understand very well what I mean. I wonder whether I
+could scrape the paper off the drawing-room walls, and leave the scraps
+to his brother, without interfering with the entail? But now I am tired,
+and will rest."
+</p>
+<p>
+But he did not even then go to rest, but lay still scheming, scheming,
+scheming, about the property. There was now another letter to be
+written, for the writing of which he would not again summon Mr. Merton.
+He was half ashamed to do so, and at last sent for his sister. "Martha,"
+said he, "I want you to write a letter for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Merton has been writing letters for you all the morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's just the reason why you should write one now. I am still in some
+slight degree afraid of his authority, but I am not at all afraid of
+yours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You ought to be quiet, John; indeed you ought."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And, in order that I may be quiet, you must write this letter. It's
+nothing particular, or I should not have asked you to do it. It's only
+an invitation."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An invitation to ask somebody here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; to ask somebody to come here. I don't know whether he'll come."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do I know him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope you may, if he comes. He's a very good-looking young man, if
+that is anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't talk nonsense, John."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I believe he's engaged to another young lady, with whom I must beg
+you not to interfere. You remember Florence?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Florence Mountjoy? Of course I remember my own niece."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The young man is engaged to her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She was intended for poor Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Mountjoy has put himself beyond all possibility of a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Poor Mountjoy!"&mdash;and the soft-hearted aunt almost shed tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we haven't to do with Mountjoy now. Sit down there and begin. 'Dear
+Mr. Annesley&mdash;'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh! It's Mr. Annesley, is it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, it is. Mr. Annesley is the handsome young man. Have you any
+objection?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only people do say&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do they say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I don't know; only I have heard&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That he is a scoundrel!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Scoundrel is very strong," said the old lady, shocked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A villain, a liar, a thief, and all the rest of it. That's what you
+have heard. And I'll tell you who has been your informant. Either first
+or second hand, it has come to you from Mr. Augustus Scarborough. Now
+we'll begin again. 'Dear Mr. Annesley&mdash;'" The old lady paused a moment,
+and then, setting herself firmly to the task, commenced and finished her
+letter, as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear Mr. Annesley,&mdash;You spent a few days here on one occasion, and I
+want to renew the pleasure which your visit gave me. Will you extend
+your kindness so far as to come to Tretton for any time you may please
+to name beyond two or three days? I am sorry to say that your friend
+Augustus Scarborough cannot be here to meet you. My other son, Mountjoy,
+may be here. If you wish to escape him, I will endeavor so to fix the
+time when I shall have heard from you. But I think there need be no ill
+blood there. Neither of you did anything of which you are, probably,
+ashamed; though as an old man I am bound to express my disapproval."
+</p>
+<p>
+("Surely he must be ashamed," said Miss Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never you mind. Believe me, you know nothing about it." Then he went on
+with his letter.)
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it is not merely for the pleasure of your society that I ask you. I
+have a word to say to you which may be important. Yours faithfully,
+</p>
+<center>
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+</center>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH39"><!-- CH39 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XXXIX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HOW THE LETTERS WERE RECEIVED.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+We must now describe the feelings of Mr. Scarborough's correspondents as
+they received his letters. When Mr. Grey begun to read that which was
+addressed to him he declared that on no consideration would he go down
+to Tretton. But when he came to inquire within himself as to his
+objection he found that it lay chiefly in his great dislike to Augustus
+Scarborough. For poor Mountjoy, as he called him, he entertained a
+feeling of deep pity,&mdash;and pity we know, is akin to love. And for the
+squire, he in his heart felt but little of that profound dislike which
+he was aware such conduct as the squire's ought to have generated. "He
+is the greatest rascal that I ever knew," he said again and again, both
+to Dolly and to Mr. Barry. But yet he did not regard him as an honest
+man regards a rascal, and was angry with himself in consequence. He knew
+that there remained with him even some spark of love for Mr.
+Scarborough, which to himself was inexplicable. From the moment in which
+he had first admitted the fact that Augustus Scarborough was the true
+heir-at-law, he had been most determined in taking care that that
+heirship should be established. It must be known to all men that
+Mountjoy was not the eldest son of his father, as the law required him
+to be for the inheritance of the property, and that Augustus was the
+eldest son; but in arranging that these truths should be notorious it
+had come to pass that he had learned to hate Augustus with an intensity
+that had redounded to the advantage both of Mountjoy and their father.
+It must be so. Augustus must become Augustus Scarborough, Esquire, of
+Tretton,&mdash;but the worse luck for Tretton and all connected with it. And
+Mr. Grey did resolve that, when that day should come, all relation
+between himself and Tretton should cease.
+</p>
+<p>
+It had never occurred to him that, by redeeming the post-obit bonds,
+Mountjoy would become capable of owning and enjoying any property that
+might be left to him. With Tretton, all the belongings of Tretton, in
+the old-fashioned way, would, of course, go to the heir. The belongings
+of Tretton, which were personal property, would, in themselves, amount
+to wealth for a younger son. That which Mr. Scarborough would in this
+way be able to bequeath might, probably, be worth thirty thousand
+pounds. Out of the proceeds of the real property the debts had been
+paid. And because Augustus had consented so to pay them he was now to be
+mulcted of those loose belongings which gave its charm to Tretton!
+Because Augustus had paid Mountjoy's debts Mountjoy was to be enabled to
+rob Augustus! There was a wickedness in this redolent of the old squire.
+But it was a wickedness in arranging which Mr. Grey hesitated to
+participate. As he thought of it, however, he could not but feel what a
+very clever man he had for a client.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will all go to the gambling-table, of course," he said that night to
+Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is no affair of ours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; but when a lawyer is consulted he has to think of the prudent or
+imprudent disposition of property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Scarborough hasn't consulted you, papa."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must look at it as though he had. He tells me what he intends to do,
+and I am bound to give him my advice. I cannot advise him to bestow all
+these things on Augustus, whom I regard as a long way the worst of the
+family."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need not care about that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And here, again," continued Mr. Grey, "comes up the question,&mdash;what is
+it that duty demands? Augustus is the eldest son, and is entitled to
+what the law allots him; but Mountjoy was brought up as the eldest son,
+and is certainly entitled to what provision the father can make him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You cannot provide for such a gambler."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that that comes within my duty. It is not my fault that
+Mountjoy is a gambler, any more than that it is my fault that Augustus
+is a beast. Gambler and beast, there they are. And, moreover, nothing
+will turn the squire from his purpose. I am only a tool in his hands,&mdash;a
+trowel for the laying of his mortar and bricks. Of course I must draw
+his will, and shall do it with some pleasure, because it will dispossess
+Augustus."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Grey went to bed, as did also Dolly; but she was not at all
+surprised at being summoned to his couch after she had been an hour in
+her own bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I shall go down to Tretton," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You declared that you would never go there again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So I did; but I did not know then how much I might come to hate
+Augustus Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Would you go to Tretton merely to injure him?" said his daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have been thinking about that," said Mr. Grey. "I don't know that I
+would go simply to do him an injury; but I think that I would go to see
+that justice is properly done."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That can be arranged without your going to Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By putting our heads together I think we can contrive that the deed
+shall be more effectually performed. What we must attempt to do is to
+save this property from going to the gambling-table. There is only one
+way that occurs to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It must be left to his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He hasn't a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It must be left to some woman whom he will consent to marry. There are
+three objects:&mdash;to keep it from Augustus; to give the enjoyment of it to
+Mountjoy; and to prevent Mountjoy from gambling with it. The only thing
+I can see is a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a girl he wants to marry," said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But she doesn't want to marry him, and I doubt whether he can be got to
+marry any one else. There is still a peck of difficulties."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa, I wish you would wash your hands of the Scarboroughs."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must go to Tretton first," said he. "And now, my dear, you are doing
+no good by sitting up here and talking to me." Then, with a smile, Dolly
+took herself off to her own chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy, when he got his letter, was sitting over a late breakfast in
+Victoria Street. It was near twelve o'clock, and he was enjoying the
+delicious luxury of having his breakfast to eat, with a cigar after it,
+and nothing else that he need do. But the fruition of all these comforts
+was somewhat marred by the knowledge that he had no such dinner to
+expect. He must go out and look for a dinner among the eating-houses.
+The next morning would bring him no breakfast, and if he were to remain
+longer in Victoria Street he must do so in direct opposition to the
+owner of the establishment. He had that morning received notice to quit,
+and had been told that the following breakfast would be the last meal
+served to him. "Let it be good of its kind," Mountjoy had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe you care for nothing but eating and drinking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There's little else that you can do for me." And so they had parted.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy had taken the precaution of having his letters addressed to the
+house of the friendly bootmaker; and now, as he was slowly pouring out
+his first cup of coffee, and thinking how nearly it must be his last,
+his father's letter was brought to him. The letter had been delayed one
+day, as he himself had omitted to call for it. It was necessarily a sad
+time for him. He was a man who fought hard against melancholy, taking it
+as a primary rule of life that, for such a one as he had become, the
+pleasures of the immediate moment should suffice. If one day, or better
+still, one night of excitement was in store for him, the next day should
+be regarded as the unlimited future, for which no man can be
+responsible. But such philosophy will too frequently be insufficient for
+the stoutest hearts. Mountjoy's heart would occasionally almost give
+way, and then his thoughts would be dreary enough. Hunger, absolute
+hunger, without the assured expectation of food, had never yet come upon
+him; but in order to put a stop to its cravings, if he should find it
+troublesome to bear, he had already provided himself with pistol and
+bullets.
+</p>
+<p>
+And now, with his cup of coffee before him, aromatic, creamy, and hot,
+with a filleted sole rolled up before him on a little dish, three or
+four plover's eggs, on which to finish, lying by, and, on the distance
+of the table, a chasse of brandy, of which he already well knew the
+virtues, he got his father's letter. He did not at first open it,
+disliking all thoughts as to his father. Then gradually he tore the
+envelope, and was slow in understanding the full meaning of the last
+lines. He did not at once perceive the irony of "his brother's kindly
+interference," and of the "generosity" which had enabled him, Mountjoy,
+to be a recipient of property. But his father purposed to do something
+for his benefit. Gradually it dawned upon him that his father could only
+do that something effectually because of his brother's dealings with the
+creditors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the chairs and the tables, and the gem or two, and the odd
+volumes, one by one, made themselves intelligible. That a father should
+write so to one son, and should so write of another, was marvellous. But
+then his father was a marvellous man, whose character he was only
+beginning to understand. His father, he told himself, had, fortunately,
+taken it into his head to hate Augustus, and intended, in consequence,
+to strip Tretton and the property generally of all their outside
+personal belongings.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes; he thought that, with such an object before him, he would certainly
+go and see Mr. Grey. And if Mr. Grey should so advise him he would go
+down to Tretton. On such business as this he would consent to see his
+father. He did not think that just at present he need have recourse to
+his pistol for his devices. He could not on the very day go to Tretton,
+as it would be necessary that he should write to his father first. His
+brother would probably extend his hospitality for a couple of days when
+he should hear of the proposed journey, and, if not, would lend him
+money for his present purposes, or under existing circumstances he might
+probably be able to borrow it from Mr. Grey. With a heart elevated to
+almost absolute bliss he ate his breakfast, and drank his chasse, and
+smoked his cigar, and then rose slowly, that he might proceed to Mr.
+Grey's chambers. But at this moment Augustus came in. He had only
+breakfasted at his own club, much less comfortably than he would have
+done at home, in order that he might not sit at table with his brother.
+He had now returned so that he might see to Mountjoy's departure. "After
+all, Augustus, I am going down to Tretton," said the elder brother as he
+folded up his father's letter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What argument has the old man used now?" Mountjoy did not think it well
+to tell his brother the exact nature of the arguments used, and
+therefore put the letter into his pocket.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He wishes to say something to me about property," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then some idea of the old squire's scheme fell with a crushing weight of
+anticipated sorrow on Augustus. In a moment it all occurred to him what
+his father might do, what injuries he might inflict; and,&mdash;saddest of all
+feelings,&mdash;there came the immediate reflection that it had all been
+rendered possible by his own doings. With the conviction that so much
+might be left away from him, there came also a farther feeling that,
+after all, there was a chance that his father had invented the story of
+his brother's illegitimacy, that Mountjoy was now free from debt, and
+that Tretton, with all its belongings, might now go back to him. That
+his father would do it if it were possible he did not doubt. From week
+to week he had waited impatiently for his father's demise, and had
+expected little or none of that mental activity which his father had
+exercised. "What a fool he had been," he said to himself, sitting
+opposite to Mountjoy, who in the vacancy of the moment had lighted
+another cigar; "what an ass!" Had he played his cards better, had he
+comforted and flattered and cosseted the old man, Mountjoy might have
+gone his own way to the dogs. Now, at the best, Tretton would come to
+him stripped of everything; and,&mdash;at the worst,&mdash;no Tretton would come to
+him at all. "Well, what are you going to do?" he said, roughly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I shall, probably, go down and just see the governor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All your feelings about your mother, then, are blown to the winds?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My feelings about your mother are not blown to the winds at all; but to
+speak of her to you would be wasting breath."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing her," said Augustus. "And I am not
+aware that she did me any great kindness in bringing me into the world.
+Do you go to Tretton this afternoon?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Probably not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or to-morrow?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Possibly to-morrow," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I shall find it convenient to have your room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-day, of course, I cannot stir. To-morrow morning I should, at any
+rate, like to have my breakfast." Here he paused for a reply, but none
+came from his brother. "I must have some money to go down to Tretton
+with; I suppose you can lend it me just for the present?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a shilling," said Augustus, in thorough ill-humor.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall be able to pay you very shortly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a shilling. The return I have had from you for all that I have done
+is not of a nature to make me do more."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I had ever thought that you had expended a sovereign except for the
+object of furthering some plot of your own, I should have been grateful.
+As it is I do not know that we owe very much to each other." Then he
+left the room, and, getting into a cab, went away to Lincoln's Inn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry Annesley received Mr. Scarborough's letter down at Buston, and was
+much surprised by it. He had not spent the winter hitherto very
+pleasantly. His uncle he had never seen, though he had heard from day
+to day sundry stories of his wooing. He had soon given up his hunting,
+feeling himself ashamed, in his present nameless position, to ride
+Joshua Thoroughbung's horses. He had taken to hard reading, but the hard
+reading had failed, and he had been given up to the miseries of his
+position. The hard reading had been continued for a fortnight or three
+weeks, during which he had, at any rate, respected himself, but in an
+evil hour he had allowed it to escape from him, and now was again
+miserable. Then the invitation from Tretton had been received. "I have
+got a letter; 'tis from Mr. Scarborough of Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does Mr. Scarborough say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He wants me to go down there."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you know Mr. Scarborough? I believe you have altogether quarrelled
+with his son?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; I have quarrelled with Augustus, and have had an encounter with
+Mountjoy not on the most friendly terms. But the father and Mountjoy
+seem to be reconciled. You can see his letter. I, at any rate, shall go
+there." To this Mr. Annesley senior had no objection to make.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH40"><!-- CH40 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XL.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+VISITORS AT TRETTON.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It so happened that the three visitors who had been asked to Tretton all
+agreed to go on the same day. There was, indeed, no reason why Harry
+should delay his visit, and much why the other two should expedite
+theirs. Mr. Grey knew that the thing, if done at all, should be done at
+once; and Mountjoy, as he had agreed to accept his father's offer, could
+not put himself too quickly under the shelter of his father's roof. "You
+can have twenty pounds," Mr. Grey had said when the subject of the money
+was mooted. "Will that suffice?" Mountjoy had said that it would suffice
+amply, and then, returning to his brother's rooms, had waited there with
+what patience he possessed till he sallied forth to The Continental to
+get the best dinner which that restaurant could afford him. He was
+beginning to feel that his life was very sad in London, and to look
+forward to the glades of Tretton with some anticipation of rural
+delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+He went down by the same train with Mr. Grey,&mdash;"a great grind," as
+Mountjoy called it, when Mr. Grey proposed a departure at ten o'clock.
+Harry followed so as to reach Tretton only in time for dinner. "If I may
+venture to advise you," said Mr. Grey in the train, "I should do in this
+matter whatever my father asked me." Hereupon Mountjoy frowned. "He is
+anxious to make some provision for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not grateful to my father, if you mean that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is hard to say whether you should be grateful. But, from the first,
+he has done the best he could for you, according to his lights."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You believe all this about my mother?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't. That's the difference. And I don't think that Augustus
+believes it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The story is undoubtedly true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must excuse me if I will not accept it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, you had parted with your share in the property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My share was the whole."
+</p>
+<p>
+"After your father's death," said Mr. Grey; "and that was gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We needn't discuss the property. What is it that he expects me to do
+now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Simply to be kind in your manner to him, and to agree to what he says
+about the personal property. It is his intention, as far as I understand
+it, to leave you everything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only it would all have been mine if he had not cheated me of my
+birthright."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or Mr. Tyrrwhit's, and Mr. Hart's, and Mr. Spicer's."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit, and Mr. Hart, and Mr. Spicer could not have robbed me of
+my name. Let them have done what they would with their bonds, I should
+have been, at any rate, Scarborough of Tretton. My belief is that I need
+not blush for my mother. He has made it appear that I should do so. I
+can't forgive him because he gives me the chairs and tables."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They will be worth thirty thousand pounds," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't forgive him."
+</p>
+<p>
+The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough's face as he said
+this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him. If something
+could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his
+mother,&mdash;who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his
+mother,&mdash;it would be a good thing to do. Augustus had entertained no
+such feeling. He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his
+brother, that "he had not known the lady." When the facts as to the
+distribution of the property had been made known to him he had cared
+nothing for the injury done by the story to his mother's name. The story
+was too true. Mr. Grey knew that it was true; but he could not on that
+account do other than feel an intense desire to confer some benefit on
+Mountjoy Scarborough. He put his hand out affectionately and laid it on
+the other man's knee. "Your father has not long to live, Captain
+Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he is at present anxious to make what reparation is in his power.
+What he can leave you will produce, let us say, fifteen hundred a year.
+Without a will from him you would have to live on your brother's
+bounty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By Heaven, no!" said Mountjoy, thinking of the pistol and the bullets.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see nothing else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I see, but I cannot explain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you not think that fifteen hundred a year would be better than
+nothing,&mdash;with a wife, let us say?" said Mr. Grey, beginning to introduce
+the one argument on which he believed so much must depend.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With a wife?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; with a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"With what wife? A wife may be very well, but a wife must depend on who
+it is. Is there any one that you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not exactly any particular person," said the lawyer, lamely.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pshaw! What do I want with a wife? Do you mean to say that my father
+has told you that he intends to clog his legacy with the burden of a
+wife? I would not accept it with such a burden,&mdash;unless I could choose
+the wife myself. To tell the truth, there is a girl&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your cousin?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; my cousin. When I was well-to-do in the world I was taught to
+believe that I could have her. If she will be mine, Mr. Grey, I will
+renounce gambling altogether. If my father can manage that I will
+forgive him,&mdash;or will endeavor to do so. The property which he can leave
+me shall be settled altogether upon her. I will endeavor to reform
+myself, and so to live that no misfortune shall come upon her. If that
+is what you mean, say so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, not quite that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To no other marriage will I agree. That has been the dream of my life
+through all those moments of hot excitement and assured despair which I
+have endured. Her mother has always told me that it should be so, and
+she herself in former days did not deny it. Now you know it all. If my
+father wishes to see me married, Florence Mountjoy must be my wife."
+Then he sunk back on his seat, and nothing more was said between them
+till they had reached Tretton.
+</p>
+<p>
+The father and son had not met each other since the day on which the
+former had told the latter the story of his birth. Since then Mountjoy
+had disappeared from the world, and for a few days his father had
+thought that he had been murdered. But now they met as they might have
+done had they seen each other a week ago. "Well, Mountjoy, how are you?"
+And, "How are you, sir?" Such were the greetings between them. And no
+others were spoken. In a few minutes the son was allowed to go and look
+after the rural joys he had anticipated, and the lawyer was left
+closeted with the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey soon explained his proposition. Let the property be left to
+trustees who should realize from it what money it should fetch, and keep
+the money in their own hands, paying Mountjoy the income. "There could,"
+he said, "be nothing better done, unless Mountjoy would agree to marry.
+He is attached, it seems, to his cousin," said Mr. Grey, "and he is
+unwilling at present to marry any one else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He can't marry her," said the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know the circumstances."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He can't marry her. She is engaged to the young man who will be here
+just now. I told you,&mdash;did I not?&mdash;that Harry Annesley is coming here. My
+son knows that he will be here to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everybody knows the story of Mr. Annesley and the captain."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They are to sit down to dinner together, and I trust they may not
+quarrel. The lady of whom you are speaking is engaged to young Annesley,
+and Mountjoy's suit in that direction is hopeless."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hopeless, you think?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Utterly hopeless. Your plan of providing him with a wife would be very
+good if it were feasible. I should be very glad to see him settled. But
+if he will marry no one but Florence Mountjoy he must remain unmarried.
+Augustus has had his hand in that business, and don't let us dabble in
+it." Then the squire gave the lawyer full instructions as to the will
+which was to be made. Mr. Grey and Mr. Bullfist were to be named as
+trustees, with instructions to sell everything which it would be in the
+squire's legal power to bequeath. The books, the gems, the furniture,
+both at Tretton and in London, the plate, the stock, the farm-produce,
+the pictures on the walls, and the wine in the cellars, were all named.
+He endeavored to persuade Mr. Grey to consent to a cutting of the
+timber, so that the value of it might be taken out of the pocket of the
+younger brother and put into that of the elder. But to this Mr. Grey
+would not assent. "There would be an air of persecution about it," he
+said, "and it mustn't be done." But to the general stripping of Tretton
+for the benefit of Mountjoy he gave a cordial agreement.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not quite sure that I have done with Augustus as yet," said the
+squire. "I had made up my mind not to be put out by trifles; not to be
+vexed at a little. My treatment of my children has been such that,
+though I have ever intended to do them good, I must have seemed to each
+at different periods to have injured him. I have not, therefore,
+expected much from them. But I have received less than nothing from
+Augustus. It is possible that he may hear from me again." To this Mr.
+Grey said nothing, but he had taken his instructions about the drawing
+of the will.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry came down by the train in time for dinner. On the journey down he
+had been perplexed in his mind, thinking of various things. He did not
+quite understand why Mr. Scarborough had sent for him. His former
+intimacy had been with Augustus, and though there had been some
+cordiality of friendship shown by the old man to the son's companion, it
+had amounted to no more than might be expected from one who was notably
+good-natured. A great injury had been done to Harry, and he supposed
+that his visit must have some reference to that injury. He had been told
+in so many words that, come when he might, he would not find Augustus at
+Tretton. From this and from other signs he almost saw that there existed
+a quarrel between the squire and his son. Therefore he felt that
+something was to be said as to the state of his affairs at Buston.
+</p>
+<p>
+But if, as the train drew near to Tretton, he was anxious as to his
+meeting with the squire, he was much more so as to the captain. The
+reader will remember all the circumstances under which they two had last
+seen each other Harry had been furiously attacked by Mountjoy, and had
+then left him sprawling,&mdash;dead, as some folks had said on the following
+day,&mdash;under the rail. His only crime had been that he was drunk. If the
+disinherited one would give him his hand and let by-gones be by-gones,
+he would do the same. He felt no personal animosity. But there was a
+difficulty.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he was driven up to the door in a cab belonging to the squire there
+was Mountjoy, standing before the house. He too had thought of the
+difficulties, and had made up his mind that it would not do for him to
+meet his late foe without some few words intended for the making of
+peace. "I hope you are well, Mr. Annesley," he said, offering his hand
+as the other got out of the cab. "It may be as well that I should
+apologize at once for my conduct. I was at that moment considerably
+distressed, as you may have heard. I had been declared to be penniless,
+and to be nobody. The news had a little unmanned me, and I was beside
+myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I quite understand it; quite understand it," said Annesley, giving his
+hand. "I am very glad to see you back again, and in your father's
+house." Then Mountjoy turned on his heel, and went through the hall,
+leaving Harry to the care of the butler. The captain thought that he had
+done enough, and that the affair in the street might now be regarded as
+a dream. Harry was taken up to shake hands with the old man, and in due
+time came down to dinner, where he met Mr. Grey and the young doctor.
+They were all very civil to him, and upon the whole, he spent a pleasant
+evening. On the next day, about noon, the squire sent for him. He had
+been told at breakfast that it was the squire's intention to see him in
+the middle of the day, and he had been unable, therefore, to join
+Mountjoy's shooting-party.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sit down, Mr. Annesley," said the old man. "You were surprised, no
+doubt, when you got my invitation?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; perhaps so; but I thought it very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I meant to be kind; but still, it requires some explanation. You see, I
+am such an old cripple that I cannot give invitations like anybody else.
+Now you are here I must not eat and drink with you, and in order to say
+a few words to you I am obliged to keep you in the house till the doctor
+tells me I am strong enough to talk."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am glad to find you so much better than when I was here before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know much about that. There will never be a 'much better' in
+my case. The people about me talk with the utmost unconcern of whether I
+can live one month or possibly two. Anything beyond that is quite out of
+the question." The squire took a pride in making the worst of his case,
+so that the people to whom he talked should marvel the more at his
+vitality. "But we won't mind my health now. It is true, I fear, that you
+have quarrelled with your uncle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is quite true that he has quarrelled with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am afraid that that is more important. He means, if he can, to cut
+you out of the entail."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He does not mean that I shall have the property if he can prevent it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think very much of entails myself," said the squire. "If a man
+has a property he should be able to leave it as he pleases; or&mdash;or else
+he doesn't have it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is what the law intends, I suppose," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so; but the law is such an old woman that she never knows how to
+express herself to any purpose. I haven't allowed the law to bind me. I
+dare say you know the story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About your two sons,&mdash;and the property? I think all the world knows the
+story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose it has been talked about a little," said the squire, with a
+chuckle. "My object has been to prevent the law from handing over my
+property to the fraudulent claims which my son's creditors were enabled
+to make, and I have succeeded fairly well. On that head I have nothing
+to regret. Now your uncle is going to take other means."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; he is going to take means which, are, at any rate, lawful."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But which will be tedious, and may not, perhaps, succeed. He is
+intending to have an heir of his own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That I believe is his purpose," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no reason why he shouldn't;&mdash;but he mayn't, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not married yet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No;&mdash;he is not married yet. And then he has also stopped the allowance
+he used to make you." Harry nodded assent. "Now, all this is a great
+shame."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The poor gentleman has been awfully bamboozled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not so very old," said Harry, "I don't think he is more than
+fifty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he is an old goose. You'll excuse me, I know. Augustus Scarborough
+got him up to London, and filled him full of lies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am aware of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so am I aware of it. He has told him stories as to your conduct
+with Mountjoy which, added to some youthful indiscretions of your own&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was simply because I didn't like to hear him read sermons."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was an indiscretion, as he had the power in his hands to do you an
+injury. Most men have got some little bit of petty tyranny in their
+hearts. I have had none." To this Harry could only bow. "I let my two
+boys do as they pleased, only wishing that they should lead happy lives.
+I never made them listen to sermons, or even to lectures. Probably I was
+wrong. Had I tyrannized over them, they would not have tyrannized over
+me as they have done. Now I'll tell you what it is that I propose to do.
+I will write to your uncle, or will get Mr. Merton to write for me, and
+will explain to him, as well as I can, the depth, and the blackness, and
+the cruelty,&mdash;the unfathomable, heathen cruelty, together with the
+falsehoods, the premeditated lies, and the general rascality on all
+subjects,&mdash;of my son Augustus. I will explain to him that, of all men I
+know, he is the least trustworthy. I will explain to him that, if led in
+a matter of such importance by Augustus Scarborough, he will be surely
+led astray. And I think that between us,&mdash;between Merton and me, that
+is,&mdash;we can concoct a letter that shall be efficacious. But I will get
+Mountjoy also to go and see him, and explain to him out of his own mouth
+what in truth occurred that night when he and you fell out in the
+streets. Mr. Prosper must be a more vindictive man than I take him to be
+in regard to sermons if he will hold out after that." Then Mr.
+Scarborough allowed him to go out, and if possible find the shooters
+somewhere about the park.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH41"><!-- CH41 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH GOES TO BUSTON.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey returned to London after staying but one night, having received
+fresh instructions as to the will. The will was to be prepared at once,
+and Mr. Barry was to bring it down for execution. "Shall I not inform
+Augustus?" asked Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+But this did not suit with Mr. Scarborough's views of revenge. "I think
+not. I would do by him whatever honesty requires; but I have never told
+him that I mean to leave him anything. Of course he knows that he is to
+have the estate. He is revelling in the future poverty of poor Mountjoy.
+He turned him out of his house just now because Mountjoy would not obey
+him by going to&mdash;Brazil. He would turn him out of this house if he could
+because I won't at once go&mdash;to the devil. He is something overmasterful,
+is Master Augustus, and a rub or two will do him good. I'd rather you
+wouldn't tell him, if you please." Then Mr. Grey departed, without
+making any promise, but he determined that he would be guided by the
+squire's wishes. Augustus Scarborough was not of a nature to excite very
+warmly the charity of any man.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry remained for two or three days' shooting with Mountjoy, and once
+or twice he saw the squire again. "Merton and I have managed to concoct
+that letter," said the squire. "I'm afraid your uncle will find it
+rather long. Is he impatient of long letters?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He likes long sermons."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If anybody will listen to his reading. I think you have a deal to
+answer for yourself, when you could not make so small a sacrifice to the
+man to whom you were to owe everything. But he ought to look for a wife
+in consequence of that crime, and not falsely allege another. If, as I
+fear, he finds the wife-plan troublesome, our letter may perhaps move
+him, and Mountjoy is to go down and open his eyes. Mountjoy hasn't made
+any difficulty about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall be greatly distressed&mdash;" Harry begun.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all. He must go. I like to have my own way in these little
+matters. He owes you as much reparation as that, and we shall be able to
+see what members of the Scarborough family you would trust the most."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry, during the two days, shot some hares in company with Mountjoy,
+but not a word more was said about the adventure in London. Nor was the
+name of Florence Mountjoy ever mentioned between the two suitors. "I'm
+going to Buston, you know," Mountjoy said once.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So your father told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What sort of a fellow shall I find your uncle?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's a gentleman, but not very wise." No more was said between them on
+that head, but Mountjoy spoke at great length about his own brother and
+his father's will.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My father is the most singular man you ever came across."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not going to say a good word for him. I wouldn't let him think
+that I had said a good word for him. In order to save the property he
+has maligned my mother, and has cheated me and the creditors most
+horribly&mdash;most infernally. That's my conviction, though Grey thinks
+otherwise. I can't forgive him,&mdash;and won't; and he knows it. But after
+that he is going to do the best thing he can for me. And he has begun by
+making me a decent allowance again as his son. But I'm to have that only
+as long as I remain here at Tretton. Of course I have been fond of
+cards."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a doubt of it. But I haven't touched a card now for a month nearly.
+And then he is going to leave me what property he has to leave. And he
+and my brother have paid off those Jews among them. I'm not a bit
+obliged to my brother. He's got some game of his own which I don't quite
+clearly see, and my father is doing this for me simply to spite my
+brother. He'd cut down every tree upon the place if Grey would allow it.
+And yet, to give Augustus the property, my father has done this gross
+injustice."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose the money-lenders would have had the best of it had he not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true. They would have had it all. They had measured every yard
+of it, and had got my name down for the full value. Now they're paid."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a comfort."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing's a comfort. I know that they're right, and that if I got the
+money into my own hand it would be gone to-morrow. I should be off to
+Monte Carlo like a shot; and, of course it would go after the other.
+There is but one thing would redeem me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind. We won't talk of it." Then he was silent, but Harry
+Annesley knew very well that he had alluded to Florence Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry went, and Mountjoy was left to the companionship of Mr.
+Merton, and such pleasure as he could find in a daily visit to his
+father. He was, at any rate, courteous in his manner to the old man, and
+abstained from those irritating speeches which Augustus had always
+chosen to make. He had on one occasion during this visit told his father
+what he thought about him, but this the squire had taken quite as a
+compliment.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe, you know, that you've done a monstrous injustice to
+everybody concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I rather like doing what you call injustices."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have set the law at defiance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I think I have done that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"According to my belief, it's all untrue."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean about your mother. I like you for that; I do, indeed. I like
+you for sticking up for your poor mother. Well, now you shall have fifty
+pounds a month,&mdash;say twelve pounds ten a week,&mdash;as long as you remain at
+Tretton, and you may have whom you like here, as long as they bring no
+cards with them. And if you want to hunt there are horses, and if they
+ain't good enough you can get others. But if you go away from Tretton
+there's an end of it. It will all be stopped the next day."
+Nevertheless, he did make arrangements by which Mountjoy should proceed
+to Buston, stopping two nights as he went to London. "There isn't a club
+he can enter," said the squire, comforting himself, "nor a Jew that will
+lend him a five-pound note."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy had told the truth when he had said that nothing was a comfort.
+Though it seemed to his father and to the people around him at Tretton
+that he had everything that a man could want, he had, in fact,
+nothing,&mdash;nothing to satisfy him. In the first place, he was quite alive
+to the misery of that decision given by the world against him, which had
+been of such comfort to his father. Not a club in London would admit
+him. He had been proclaimed a defaulter after such a fashion that all
+his clubs had sent to him for some explanation; and as he had given
+none, and had not answered their letters, his name had been crossed out
+in the books of them all. He knew himself to be a man disgraced, and
+when he had fled from London he had gone under the conviction that he
+would certainly never return. There were the pistol and bullet as his
+last assured resource; but a certain amount of good-fortune had awaited
+him,&mdash;enough to save him from having recourse to their aid. His brother
+had supplied him with small sums of money, and from time to time a
+morsel of good luck had enabled him to gamble, not to his heart's
+content, but still in some manner so as to make his life bearable. But
+now he was back in his own country, and he could gamble not at all, and
+hardly even see those old companions with whom he had lived. It was not
+only for the card-tables that he sighed, but for the companions of the
+card-table. And though he knew that he had been scratched out from the
+lists of all clubs as a dishonest man, he knew also, or thought that he
+knew, that he had been as honest as the best of those companions. As
+long as he could by any possibility raise money he had paid it away,
+and by no false trick had he ever endeavored to get it back again.
+</p>
+<p>
+Had a little time been allowed him all would have been paid; and all had
+been paid. He knew that by the rules of such institutions time could not
+be granted; but still he did not feel himself to have been a dishonest
+man. Yet he had been so disgraced that he could hardly venture to walk
+about the streets of London in the daylight. And then there came upon
+him, when he found himself alone at Tretton, an irrepressible desire for
+gambling. It was as though his throat were parched with an implacable
+thirst. He walked about ever meditating certain fortunate turns of the
+cards; and when he had worked himself up to some realization of his old
+excitement he would remember that it was all a vain and empty bubble. He
+had money in his pocket, and could rush up to London if he would, and if
+he did so he could, no doubt, find some coarse hell at which he could
+stake it till it would be all gone; but the gates of the A&mdash;&mdash; and the
+B&mdash;&mdash; and the C&mdash;&mdash; would be closed against him; and he would then be
+driven to feel that he had indeed fallen into the nethermost pit. Were
+he once to play at such places as his mind painted to him he could never
+play at any other; and yet when the day drew nigh on which he was to go
+to London, on his way to Buston, he did bethink himself where these
+places were to be found. His throat was parched, and the thirst upon him
+was extreme. Cards were the weapons he had used. He had played ecarte,
+piquet, whist, and baccarat, with an occasional night of some foolish
+game such as cribbage or vingt-et-un. Though he had always lost, he had
+always played with men who had played honestly. There is much that is,
+in truth, dishonest even in honest play. A man who can keep himself
+sober after dinner plays with one who flusters himself with drink. The
+man with a trained memory plays with him who cannot remember a card. The
+cool man plays with the impetuous; the man who can hold his tongue with
+him who cannot but talk; the man whose practised face will tell no
+secrets with him who loses a point every rubber by his uncontrolled
+grimaces. And then there is the man who knows the game, and plays with
+him who knows it not at all. Of course, the cool, the collected, the
+thoughtful, the practised,&mdash;they who have given up their whole souls to
+the study of cards,&mdash;will play at a great advantage, which in their
+calculations they do not fail to recognize. See the man standing by and
+watching the table, and leaving all the bets he can on A and B as against
+C and D; and, however ignorant you may be, you will soon become sure
+that A and B know the game, whereas C and D are simply infants. That is
+all fair and acknowledged; but looking at it from a distance, as you lie
+under your apple-trees in your orchard, far from the shout of "Two by
+honors," you will come to doubt the honesty of making your income after
+such a fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Such as it is, Mountjoy sighed for it bitterly,&mdash;sighed for it, but could
+not see where it was to be found. He had a gentleman's horror of those
+resorts in gin-shops, or kept by the disciples of gin-shops, where he
+would surely be robbed,&mdash;which did not appal him,&mdash;but robbed in bad
+company. Thinking of all this, he went up to London late in the
+afternoon, and spent an uncomfortable evening in town. It was absolutely
+innocent as regarded the doings of the night itself, but was terrible to
+him. There was a slow drizzling rain; but not the less after dinner at
+his hotel he started off to wander through the streets. With his
+great-coat and his umbrella he was almost hidden; and as he passed
+through Pall Mall, up St. James's Street, and along Piccadilly, he could
+pause and look in at the accustomed door. He saw men entering whom he
+knew, and knew that within five minutes they could be seated at their
+tables. "I had an awfully heavy time of it last night," one said to
+another as he went up the steps; and Mountjoy, as he heard the words,
+envied the speaker. Then he passed back and went again a tour of all the
+clubs. What had he done that he, like a poor Peri, should be unable to
+enter the gates of all these paradises? He had now in his pocket fifty
+pounds. Could he have been made absolutely certain that he would have
+lost it, he would have gone into any paradise and have staked his money
+with that certainty.
+</p>
+<p>
+At last, having turned up Waterloo Place, he saw a man standing in the
+door-way of one of these palaces, and he was aware at once that the man
+had seen him. He was a man of such a nature that it would be impossible
+that he should have seen a worse. He was a small, dry, good-looking
+little fellow, with a carefully preserved mustache, and a head from the
+top of which age was beginning to move the hair. He lived by cards, and
+lived well. He was called Captain Vignolles, but it was only known of
+him that he was a professional gambler. He probably never cheated. Men
+who play at the clubs scarcely ever cheat,&mdash;there are so many with whom
+they play sharp enough to discover them; and with the discovered gambler
+all in this world is over. Captain Vignolles never cheated; but he found
+that an obedience to those little rules which I have named above stood
+him well in lieu of cheating. He was not known to have any particular
+income, but he was known to live on the best of everything as far as
+club life was concerned.
+</p>
+<p>
+He immediately followed Mountjoy down into the street and greeted him.
+"Captain Scarborough as I am a living man!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, Vignolles; how are you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so you have come back once more to the land of the living! I was
+awfully sorry for you, and think that they treated you uncommon harshly.
+As you've paid your money, of course they'll let you in again." In
+answer to this, Mountjoy had very little to say: but the interview ended
+by his accepting an invitation from Captain Vignolles to supper for the
+following evening. If Captain Scarborough would come at eleven o'clock
+Captain Vignolles would ask a few fellows to meet him, and they would
+have&mdash;just a little rubber of whist. Mountjoy knew well the nature of
+the man who asked him, and understood perfectly what would be the
+result; but there thrilled through his bosom, as he accepted the
+invitation, a sense of joy which he could himself hardly understand.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the following morning Mountjoy was up, for him, very early, and
+taking a return ticket went down to Buston. He had written to Mr.
+Prosper, sending his compliments, and saying that he would do himself
+the honor of calling at a certain hour.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the hour named he drew up at Buston Hall in a fly from Buntingford
+Station, and was told by Matthew, the old butler, that his master was at
+home. If Captain Mountjoy would step into the drawing-room Mr. Prosper
+should be informed. Mountjoy did as he was bidden, and after half an
+hour he was joined by Mr. Prosper. "You have received a letter from my
+father," he began by saying.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A very long letter," said the Squire of Buston.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say; I did not see it, and have in fact very little to say as to
+its contents. I do not know, indeed, what they were."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The letter refers to my nephew, Mr. Henry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so. What I have to say refers to Mr. Henry Annesley also."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are kind,&mdash;very kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know about that; but I have come altogether at my father's
+instance, and I think, indeed, that, in fairness, I ought to tell you
+the truth as to what took place between me and your nephew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are very good; but your father has already given me his
+account,&mdash;and I suppose yours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what my father may have done, but I think that you ought
+to desire to hear from my lips an account of the transaction. An untrue
+account has been told to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have heard it all from your own brother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"An untrue account has been told to you. I attacked your nephew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What made you do that?" asked the squire.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That has nothing to do with it; but I did."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I understood all that before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you didn't understand that Mr. Annesley behaved perfectly well in
+all that occurred."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did he tell a lie about it afterward?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My brother no doubt lured him on to make an untrue statement."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A lie!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may call it so if you will. If you think that Augustus was to have
+it all his own way, I disagree with you altogether. In point of fact,
+your nephew behaved through the whole of that matter as well as a man
+could do. Practically, he told no lie at all. He did just what a man
+ought to do, and anything that you have heard to the contrary is
+calumnious and false. As I am told that you have been led by my
+brother's statement to disinherit your nephew&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have done nothing of the kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am very glad to hear it. He has not, at any rate, deserved it; and I
+have felt it to be my duty to come and tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mountjoy retired, not without hospitality having been coldly
+offered by Mr. Prosper, and went back to Buntingford and to London. Now
+at last would come, he said to himself through the whole afternoon, now
+at last would come a repetition of those joys for which his very soul
+had sighed so eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH42"><!-- CH42 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy, when he reached Captain Vignolles's rooms, was received
+apparently with great indifference. "I didn't feel at all sure you
+would come. But there is a bit of supper, if you like to stay. I saw
+Moody this morning, and he said he would look in if he was passing this
+way. Now sit down and tell me what you have been doing since you
+disappeared in that remarkable manner." This was not at all what
+Mountjoy had expected, but he could only sit down and say that he had
+done nothing in particular. Of all club men, Captain Vignolles would be
+the worst with whom to play alone during the entire evening. And
+Mountjoy remembered now that he had never been inside four walls with
+Vignolles except at a club. Vignolles regarded him simply as a piece of
+prey whom chance had thrown up on the shore. And Moody, who would no
+doubt show himself before long, was another bird of the same covey,
+though less rapacious. Mountjoy put his hand up to his breast-pocket,
+and knew that the fifty pounds was there, but he knew also that it would
+soon be gone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even to him it seemed to be expedient to get up and at once to go. What
+delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face
+opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that
+of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance of the room, no
+pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality
+with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed
+his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent
+who would be as reckless as was he himself. He looked round. The room
+was gloomy and uncomfortable. Captain Vignolles watched him, and was
+afraid that his prey was about to escape. "Won't you light a cigar?"
+Mountjoy took the cigar, and then felt that he could not go quite at
+once. "I suppose you went to Monaco?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was there for a short time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Monaco isn't bad,&mdash;though there is, of course, the pull which the tables
+have against you. But it's a grand thing to think that skill can be of
+no avail. I often think that I ought to play nothing but rouge et noir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I. I don't deny that I'm the luckiest fellow going; but I never
+can remember cards. Of course I know my trade. Every fellow knows his
+trade, and I'm up pretty nearly in all that the books tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a great deal."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not when you come to play with men who know what play is. Look at
+Grossengrannel. I'd sooner bet on him than any man in London.
+Grossengrannel never forgets a card. I'll bet a hundred pounds that he
+knows the best card in every suit throughout the entire day's play.
+That's his secret. He gives his mind to it,&mdash;which I can't. Hang it! I'm
+always thinking of something quite different,&mdash;of what I'm going to eat,
+or that sort of thing. Grossengrannel is always looking at the cards,
+and he wins the odd rubber out of every eleven by his attention. Shall
+we have a game of piquet?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Now on the moment, in spite of all that he had felt during the entire
+day, in the teeth of all his longings, in opposition to all his thirst,
+Mountjoy for a minute or two did think that he could rise and go. His
+father was about to put him on his legs again,&mdash;if only he would abstain.
+But Vignolles had the card-table open, with clean packs, and chairs at
+the corners, before he could decide. "What is it to be? Twos on the game
+I suppose." But Mountjoy would not play piquet. He named ecarte, and
+asked that it might be only ten shillings a game. It was many months now
+since he had played a game of ecarte. "Oh, hang it!" said Vignolles,
+still holding the pack in his hands. When thus appealed to Mountjoy
+relented, and agreed that a pound should be staked on each game. When
+they had played seven games Vignolles had won but one pound, and
+expressed an opinion that that kind of thing wouldn't suit them at all.
+"School-girls would do better," he said. Then Mountjoy pushed back his
+chair as though to go, when the door opened and Major Moody entered the
+room. "Now we'll have a rubber at dummy," said Captain Vignolles.
+</p>
+<p>
+Major Moody was a gray-headed old man of about sixty, who played his
+cards with great attention, and never spoke a word,&mdash;either then or at
+any other period of his life. He was the most taciturn of men, and was
+known not at all to any of his companions. It was rumored of him that he
+had a wife at home, whom he kept in moderate comfort on his winnings. It
+seemed to be the sole desire of his heart to play with reckless, foolish
+young men, who up to a certain point did not care what they lost. He was
+popular, as being always ready to oblige every one, and, as was
+frequently said of him, was the very soul of honor. He certainly got no
+amusement from the play, working at it very hard,&mdash;and very constantly.
+No one ever saw him anywhere but at the club. At eight o'clock he went
+home to dinner, let us hope to the wife of his bosom, and at eleven he
+returned, and remained as long as there were men to play with. A tedious
+and unsatisfactory life he had, and it would have been well for him
+could his friends have procured on his behoof the comparative ease of a
+stool in a counting-house. But, as no such Elysium was opened to him,
+the major went on accepting the smaller profits and the harder work of
+club life. In what regiment he had been a major no one knew or cared to
+inquire. He had been received as Major Moody for twenty years or more,
+and twenty years is surely time enough to settle a man's claim to a
+majority without reference to the Army List.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How are you, Major Moody?" asked Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not much to boast of. I hope you're pretty well, Captain Scarborough."
+Beyond that there was no word of salutation, and no reference to
+Mountjoy's wonderful absence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What's it to be:&mdash;twos and tens?" said Captain Vignolles, arranging the
+cards and the chairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not for me," said Mountjoy, who seemed to have been enveloped by a most
+unusual prudence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What! are you afraid,&mdash;you who used to fear neither man nor devil?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is so much in not being accustomed to it," said Mountjoy. "I
+haven't played a game of whist since I don't knew when."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Twos and tens is heavy against dummy," said Major Moody.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll take dummy, if you like it," said Vignolles. Moody only looked at
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We'll each have our own dummy, of course," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just as you please," said Vignolles. "I'm host here, and of course will
+give way to anything you may propose. What's it to be, Scarborough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Pounds and fives. I shan't play higher than that." There came across
+Mountjoy's mind, as he stated the stakes for which he consented to play,
+a remembrance that in the old days he had always been called Captain
+Scarborough by this man who now left out the captain. Of course he had
+fallen since that,&mdash;fallen very low. He ought to feel obliged to any man,
+who had in the old days been a member of the same club with him, who
+would now greet him with the familiarity of his unadorned name. But the
+remembrance of the old sounds came back upon his ear; and the
+consciousness that, before his father's treatment of him, he had been
+known to the world at large as Captain Scarborough, of Tretton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, well; pounds and fives," said Vignolles. "It's better than
+pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game. Of course a man could win
+something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate
+so quickly it amounts to nothing. You've got the first dummy,
+Scarborough. Where will you sit? Which cards will you take? I do believe
+that at whist everything depends upon the cards,&mdash;or else on the hinges.
+I've known eleven rubbers running to follow the hinges. People laugh at
+me because I believe in luck. I speak as I find it; that's all. You've
+turned up an honor already. When a man begins with an honor he'll always
+go on with honors; that's my observation. I know you're pretty good at
+this game, Moody, so I'll leave it to you to arrange the play, and will
+follow up as well as I can. You lead up to the weak, of course." This
+was not said till the card was out of his partner's hand. "But when your
+adversary has got ace, king, queen in his own hand there is no weak.
+Well, we've saved that, and it's as much as we can expect. If I'd begun
+by leading a trump it would have been all over with us. Won't you light
+a cigar, Moody?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never smoke at cards."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's all very well for the club, but you might relax a little here.
+Scarborough will take another cigar." But even Mountjoy was too prudent.
+He did not take the cigar, but he did win the rubber. "You're in for a
+good thing to-night, I feel as certain of it as though the money were in
+your pocket."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy, though he would not smoke, did drink. What would they have,
+asked Vignolles. There was champagne, and whiskey, and brandy. He was
+afraid there was no other wine. He opened a bottle of champagne, and
+Mountjoy took the tumbler that was filled for him. He always drank
+whiskey-and-water himself,&mdash;so he said, and filled for himself a glass in
+which he poured a very small allowance of alcohol. Major Moody asked for
+barley-water. As there was none, he contented himself with sipping
+Apollinaris.
+</p>
+<p>
+A close record of the events of that evening would make but a tedious
+tale for readers. Mountjoy of course lost his fifty pounds. Alas! he
+lost much more than his fifty pounds. The old spirit soon came upon him,
+and the remembrance of what his father was to do for him passed away
+from him, and all thoughts of his adversaries,&mdash;who and what they were.
+The major pertinaciously refused to increase his stakes, and, worse
+again, refused to play for anything but ready money. "It's a kind of
+thing I never do. You may think me very odd, but it's a kind of thing I
+never do." It was the longest speech he made through the entire evening.
+Vignolles reminded him that he did in fact play on credit at the club.
+"The committee look to that," he murmured, and shook his head. Then
+Vignolles offered again to take the dummy, so that there should be no
+necessity for Moody and Scarborough to play against each other, and
+offered to give one point every other rubber as the price to be paid for
+the advantage. But Moody, whose success for the night was assured by the
+thirty pounds which he had in his pocket, would come to no terms. "You
+mean to say you're going to break us up," said Vignolles. "That'll be
+hard on Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll go on for money," said the immovable major.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose you won't have it out with me at double dummy?" said
+Vignolles to his victim. "But double dummy is a terrible grind at this
+time of night." And he pushed all the cards up together, so as to show
+that the amusement for the night was over. He too saw the difficulty
+which Moody so pertinaciously avoided. He had been told wondrous things
+of the old squire's intentions toward his eldest son, but he had been
+told them only by that eldest son himself. No doubt he could go on
+winning. Unless in the teeth of a most obstinate run of cards, he would
+be sure to win against Scarborough's apparent forgetfulness of all
+rules, and ignorance of the peculiarities of the game he was playing.
+But he would more probably obtain payment of the two hundred and thirty
+pounds now due to him,&mdash;that or nearly that,&mdash;than of a larger sum. He
+already had in his possession the other twenty pounds which poor
+Mountjoy had brought with him. So he let the victim go. Moody went
+first, and Vignolles then demanded the performance of a small ceremony.
+"Just put your name to that," said Vignolles. It was a written promise
+to pay to Captain Vignolles the exact sum of two hundred and
+twenty-seven pounds on or before that day week. "You'll be punctual,
+won't you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I'll be punctual," said Mountjoy, scowling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; no doubt. But there have been mistakes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I tell you you'll be paid. Why the devil did you win it of me if you
+doubt it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I saw you just roaming about, and I meant to be good-natured."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know as well as any man what chances you should run, and when to
+hold your hand. If you tell me about mistakes, I shall make it
+personal."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't say anything, Scarborough, that ought to be taken up in that
+way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hang your Scarborough! When one gentleman talks another about mistakes
+he means something." Then he smashed down his hat upon his head and left
+the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Vignolles emptied the bottle of champagne, in which one glass was left,
+and sat himself down with the document in his hand. "Just the same
+fellow," he said to himself; "overbearing, reckless, pig-headed, and a
+bully. He'd lose the Bank of England if he had it. But then he don't
+pay! He hasn't a scruple about that. If I lose I have to pay. By Jove,
+yes! Never didn't pay a shilling I lost in my life! It's deuced hard,
+when a fellow is on the square like that, to make two ends meet when he
+comes across defaulters. Those fellows should be hung. They're the very
+scum of the earth. Talk of welchers! They're worse than any welcher.
+Welcher is a thing you needn't have to do with if you're careful. But
+when a fellow turns round upon you as a defaulter at cards, there is no
+getting rid of him. Where the play is all straightforward and honorable,
+a defaulter when he shows himself ought to be well-nigh murdered."
+</p>
+<p>
+Such were Captain Vignolles's plaints to himself, as he sat there
+looking at the suspicious document which Mountjoy had left in his hands.
+To him it was a fact that he had been cruelly used in having such a bit
+of paper thrust upon him instead of being paid by a check which on the
+morning would be honored. And as he thought of his own career; his
+ready-money payments; his obedience to certain rules of the game,&mdash;rules,
+I mean, against cheating; as he thought of his hands, which in his own
+estimation were beautifully clean; his diligence in his profession,
+which to him was honorable; his hard work; his late hours; his devotion
+to a task which was often tedious; his many periods of heart-rending
+loss, which when they occurred would drive him nearly mad; his small
+customary gains; his inability to put by anything for old age; of the
+narrow edge by which he himself was occasionally divided from
+defalcation, he spoke to himself of himself as of an honest,
+hard-working professional man upon whom the world was peculiarly hard.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Major Moody went home to his wife quite content with the thirty
+pounds which he had won.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH43"><!-- CH43 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. PROSPER IS VISITED BY HIS LAWYERS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper had not been in good spirits at the time at which Mountjoy
+Scarborough had visited him. He had received some time previously a
+letter from Mr. Grey, as described in a previous chapter, and had also
+known exactly what proposal had been made by Mr. Grey to Messrs. Soames
+&amp; Simpson. An equal division of the lady's income, one half to go to the
+lady herself, and the other half to Mr. Prosper, with an annuity of two
+hundred and fifty pounds out of the estate for the lady if Mr. Prosper
+should die first: these were the terms which had been offered to Miss
+Thoroughbung with the object of inducing her to become the wife of Mr.
+Prosper. But to these terms Miss Thoroughbung had declined to accede,
+and had gone about the arrangement of her money-matters in a most
+precise and business-like manner. A third of her income she would give
+up, since Mr. Prosper desired it; but more than that she "would owe it
+to herself and her friends to decline to abandon." The payment for the
+fish and the champagne must be omitted from any agreement on her part.
+As to the ponies, and their harness, and the pony-carriage, she would
+supply them. The ponies and the carriage would be indispensable to her
+happiness. But the maintenance of the ponies must be left to Mr.
+Prosper. As for the dower, she could not consent to accept less than
+four hundred&mdash;or five hundred, if no house was to be provided. She
+thought that seven hundred and fifty would be little enough if there
+were no children, as in that case there was no heir for whom Mr. Prosper
+was especially anxious. But as there probably would be children, Miss
+Thoroughbung thought that this was a matter to which Mr. Prosper would
+not give much consideration. Throughout it all she maintained a
+beautiful equanimity, and made two or three efforts to induce Mr.
+Prosper to repeat his visit to Marmaduke Lodge. She herself wrote to him
+saying that she thought it odd that, considering their near alliance, he
+should not come and see her. Once she said that she had heard that he
+was ill, and offered to go to Buston Hall to visit him.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this was extremely distressing to a gentleman of Mr. Prosper's
+delicate feelings. As to the proposals in regard to money, the letters
+from Soames &amp; Simpson to Grey &amp; Barry, all of which came down to Buston
+Hall, seemed to be innumerable.
+</p>
+<p>
+With Soames &amp; Simpson Mr. Prosper declined to have any personal
+communication. But every letter from the Buntingford attorneys was
+accompanied by a farther letter from the London attorneys, till the
+correspondence became insupportable. Mr. Prosper was not strong enough
+to stick firmly to his guns as planted for him by Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry.
+He did give way in some matters, and hence arose renewed letters which
+nearly drove him mad. Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson's client was willing to
+accept four hundred pounds as the amount of the dower without reference
+to the house, and to this Mr. Prosper yielded. He did not much care
+about any heir as yet unborn, and felt by no means so certain in regard
+to children as did the lady. But he fought hard about the ponies. He
+could not undertake that his wife should have ponies. That must be left
+to him as master of the house. He thought that a pair of carriage-horses
+for her use would be sufficient. He had always kept a carriage, and
+intended to do so. She might bring her ponies if she pleased, but if he
+thought well to part with them he would sell them. He found himself
+getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire, till he began to doubt
+whether he should be able to extricate himself unmarried if he were
+anxious to do so. And all the while there came affectionate little notes
+from Miss Thoroughbung asking after his health, and recommending him
+what to take, till he entertained serious thoughts of going to Cairo for
+the winter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Barry came down to see him after Mountjoy had made his visit.
+It was now January, and the bargaining about the marriage had gone on
+for more than two months. The letter which he had received from the
+Squire of Tretton had moved him; but he had told himself that the
+property was his own, and that he had a right to enjoy it as he liked
+best.
+</p>
+<p>
+Whatever might have been Harry's faults in regard to that midnight
+affair, it had certainly been true that he had declined to hear the
+sermons. Mr. Prosper did not exactly mention the sermons to himself, but
+there was present to him a feeling that his heir had been wilfully
+disobedient, and the sermons no doubt had been the cause. When he had
+read the old squire's letter he did not as yet wish to forgive his
+nephew. He was becoming very tired of his courtship, but in his
+estimation the wife would be better than the nephew. Though he had been
+much put out by the precocity of that embrace, there was nevertheless a
+sweetness about it which lingered on his lips. Then Mountjoy had come
+down, and he had answered Mountjoy very stoutly: "A lie!" he had
+exclaimed. "Did he tell a lie?" he had asked, as though all must be over
+with a young man who had once allowed himself to depart from the rigid
+truth. Mountjoy had made what excuse he could, but Mr. Prosper had been
+very stern.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the very day after Mountjoy's coming Mr. Barry came. His visit had
+been arranged, and Mr. Prosper was, with great care, prepared to
+encounter him. He was wrapped in his best dressing-gown, and Matthew had
+shaved him with the greatest care. The girls over at the parsonage
+declared that their uncle had sent into Buntingford for a special pot of
+pomatum. The story was told to Joe Thoroughbung in order that it might
+be passed on to his aunt, and no doubt it did travel as it was intended.
+But Miss Thoroughbung cared nothing for the pomatum with which the
+lawyer from London was to be received. It would be very hard to laugh
+her out of her lover while the title-deeds to Buston held good. But Mr.
+Prosper had felt that it would be necessary to look his best, so that
+his marriage might be justified in the eyes of the lawyer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Barry was shown into the book-room at Buston, in which Mr. Prosper
+was seated ready to receive him. The two gentlemen had never before met
+each other, and Mr. Prosper did no doubt assume something of the manner
+of an aristocratic owner of land. He would not have done so had Mr. Grey
+come in his partner's place. But there was a humility about Mr. Barry on
+an occasion such as the present, which justified a little pride on the
+part of the client. "I am sorry to give you the trouble to come down,
+Mr. Barry," he said. "I hope the servant has shown you your room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall be back in London to-day, Mr. Prosper, thank you. I must see
+these lawyers here, and when I have received your final instructions I
+will return to Buntingford." Then Mr. Prosper pressed him much to stay.
+He had quite expected, he said, that Mr. Barry would have done him the
+pleasure of remaining at any rate one night at Buston. But Mr. Barry
+settled the question by saying that he had not brought a dress-coat. Mr.
+Prosper did not care to sit down to dinner with guests who did not bring
+their dress-coats. "And now," continued Mr. Barry, "what final
+instructions are we to give to Soames &amp; Simpson?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think much of Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe they have the name of being honest practitioners."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say; I do not in the least doubt it. But they are people to whom
+I am not at all desirous of intrusting my own private affairs. Messrs.
+Soames &amp; Simpson have not, I think, a large county business. I had no
+idea that Miss Thoroughbung would have put this affair into their
+hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so, Mr. Prosper. But I suppose it was necessary for her to employ
+somebody. There has been a good deal of correspondence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed there has, Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It has not been our fault, Mr. Prosper. Now what we have got to decide
+is this: What are the final terms which you mean to propose? I think,
+sir, the time has come when some final terms should be suggested."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so. Final terms&mdash;must be what you call&mdash;the very last. That is,
+when they have once been offered, you must&mdash;must&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just stick to them, Mr. Prosper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Exactly, Mr. Barry. That is what I intend. There is nothing I dislike
+so much as this haggling about money, especially with a lady. Miss
+Thoroughbung is a lady for whom I have the highest possible esteem."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For whom, I repeat, I have the highest possible esteem. But she has
+friends who have their own ideas as to money. The brewery in Buntingford
+belongs to them, and they are very worthy people. I should explain to
+you, Mr. Barry, as you are my confidential adviser, that were I about to
+form a matrimonial alliance in the heyday of my youth, I should probably
+not have thought of connecting myself with the Thoroughbungs. As I have
+said before, they are most respectable people; but they do not exactly
+belong to that class in which I should, under those circumstances, have
+looked for a wife. I might probably have ventured to ask for the hand of
+the daughter of some county family. But years have slipped by me, and
+now wishing in middle life to procure for myself the comfort of wedded
+happiness, I have looked about, and have found no one more likely to
+give it me, than Miss Thoroughbung. Her temper is excellent, and her
+person pleasing." Mr. Prosper, as he said this, thought of the kiss
+which had been bestowed upon him. "Her wit is vivacious, and I think
+that upon the whole she will be desirable as a companion. She will not
+come to this house empty-handed; but of her pecuniary affairs you
+already know so much that I need, perhaps, tell you nothing farther.
+But though I am exceedingly desirous to make this lady my wife, and am,
+I may say, warmly attached to her, there are certain points which I
+cannot sacrifice. Now about the ponies&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I understand about the ponies. She may bring them on trial."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not to be bound to keep any ponies at all. There are a pair of
+carriage-horses which must suffice. On second thoughts, she had better
+not bring the ponies." This decision had at last come from some little
+doubt on his mind as to whether he was treating Harry justly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And four hundred pounds is the sum fixed on for her jointure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She is to have her own money for her own life," said Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's a matter of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't you think that, under these circumstances, four hundred will be
+quite enough?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Quite enough, if you ask me. But we must decide."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Four hundred it shall be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she is to have two-thirds of her own money for her own expenses
+during your life?" asked Mr. Barry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see why she should want six hundred a year for herself; I don't
+indeed. I am afraid it will only lead to extravagance!" Barry assumed a
+look of despair. "Of course, as I have said so, I will not go back from
+my word. She shall have two-thirds. But about the ponies my mind is
+quite made up. There shall be no ponies at Buston. I hope you understand
+that, Mr. Barry?" Mr. Barry said that he did understand it well, and
+then, folding up his papers, prepared to go, congratulating himself that
+he would not have to pass a long evening at Buston Hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+But before he went, and when he had already put on his great-coat in the
+hall, Mr. Prosper called him back to ask him one farther question; and
+for that purpose he shut the door carefully, and uttered his words in a
+whisper. Did Mr. Barry know anything of the life and recent adventures
+of Mr. Henry Annesley? Mr. Barry knew nothing; but he thought that his
+partner, Mr. Grey, knew something. He had heard Mr. Grey mention the
+name of Mr. Henry Annesley. Then as he stood there, enveloped in his
+great-coat, with his horse standing in the cold, Mr. Prosper told him
+much of the story of Harry Annesley, and asked him to induce Mr. Grey to
+write and tell him what he thought of Harry's conduct.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH44"><!-- CH44 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. PROSPER'S TROUBLES.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+As Mr. Prosper sunk into his arm-chair after the fatigue of the
+interview with his lawyer, he reflected that, when all was considered,
+Harry Annesley was an ungrateful pig,&mdash;it was thus he called him,&mdash;and
+that Miss Thoroughbung had many attractions. Miss Thoroughbung had
+probably done well to kiss him, though the enterprise had not been
+without its peculiar dangers. He often thought of it when alone, and, as
+"distance lent enchantment to the view," he longed to have the
+experiment repeated. Perhaps she had been right. And it would be a good
+thing, certainly, to have dear little children of his own. Miss
+Thoroughbung felt very certain on the subject, and it would be foolish
+for him to doubt. Then he thought of the difference between a pretty
+fair haired little boy and that ungrateful pig, Harry Annesley. He told
+himself that he was very fond of children. The girls over at the
+parsonage would not have said so, but they probably did not know his
+character.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Harry had come back with his fellowship, his uncle had for a few
+weeks been very proud of him,&mdash;had declared that he should never be
+called upon to earn his bread, and had allowed him two hundred and fifty
+pounds a year to begin with: but no return had been made to this favor.
+Harry had walked in and out of the Hall as though it had already
+belonged to him,&mdash;as many a father delights to see his eldest son doing.
+But the uncle in this instance had not taken any delight in seeing it.
+An uncle is different from a father,&mdash;an uncle who has never had a child
+of his own. He wanted deference,&mdash;what he would have called respect;
+while Harry was at first prepared to give him a familiar affection based
+on equality,&mdash;on an equality in money matters and worldly
+interests,&mdash;though I fear that Harry allowed to be seen his own
+intellectual superiority. Mr. Prosper, though an ignorant man, and by no
+means clever, was not such a fool as not to see all this. Then had come
+the persistent refusal to hear the sermons, and Mr. Prosper had
+sorrowfully declared to himself that his heir was not the young man that
+he should have been.
+</p>
+<p>
+He did not then think of marrying, nor did he stop the allowance; but he
+did feel that his heir was not what he should have been. But then the
+terrible disgrace of that night in London had occurred, and his eyes
+had been altogether opened by that excellent young man, Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough; then he began to look about him. Then dim ideas of the
+charms and immediate wealth of Miss Thoroughbung flitted before his
+eyes, and he told himself again and again of the prospects and undoubted
+good birth of Miss Puffle. Miss Puffle had disgraced herself, and
+therefore he had thrown Buston Hall at the feet of Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+But now he had heard stories about that "excellent young man, Augustus
+Scarborough," which had shaken his faith. He had been able to exclaim
+indignantly that Harry Annesley had told a lie. "A lie!" He had been
+surprised to find that a young man who had lived so much in the
+fashionable world as Captain Scarborough had cared nothing for this. And
+as Miss Thoroughbung became more and more exacting in regard to money,
+he thought, himself, less and less of the lie. It might be well that
+Harry should ultimately have the property, though he should never again
+be taken into favor, and there should be no farther question of the
+allowance. As Miss Thoroughbung reiterated her demands for the ponies,
+he began to feel that the acres of Buston would not be disgraced forever
+by the telling of that lie. But the sermons remained, and he would never
+willingly again see his nephew. As he turned all this in his mind, the
+idea of spending what was left of the winter at Cairo returned to him.
+He would go to Cairo for the winter, and to the Italian lakes for the
+spring, and to Switzerland for the summer. Then he might return to
+Cairo. At the present moment Buston Hall and the neighborhood of
+Buntingford had few charms for him. He was afraid that Miss Thoroughbung
+would not give way about the ponies; and against the ponies he was
+resolved.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was sitting in this state with a map before him, and with the
+squire's letter upon the map, when Matthew, the butler, opened the door
+and announced a visitor. As soon as Mr. Barry had gone, he had supported
+nature by a mutton-chop and a glass of sherry, and the debris were now
+lying on the side-table. His first idea was to bid Matthew at once
+remove the glass and the bone, and the unfinished potato and the crust
+of bread. To be taken with such remnants by any visitor would be bad,
+but by this visitor would be dreadful. Lunch should be eaten in the
+dining-room, where chop bones and dirty glasses would be in their place.
+But here in his book-room they would be disgraceful. But then, as
+Matthew was hurriedly collecting the two plates and the salt-cellar, his
+master began to doubt whether this visitor should be received at all.
+It was no other than Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper, in order to excuse his slackness in calling on the lady,
+had let it be known that he was not quite well, and Miss Thoroughbung
+had responded to this move by offering her services as nurse to her
+lover. He had then written to herself that, though he had been a little
+unwell, "suffering from a cold in the chest, to which at this inclement
+season of the year it was peculiarly liable," he was not in need of
+anything beyond a little personal attention, and would not trouble her
+for those services, for the offer of which he was bound to be peculiarly
+grateful. Thus he had thought to keep Miss Thoroughbung at a distance;
+but here she was with those hated ponies at his very door. "Matthew," he
+said, making a confidant, in the distress of the moment of his butler,
+"I don't think I can see her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must, sir; indeed you must."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Must!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I'm afraid so. Considering all things,&mdash;the matrimonial
+prospects and the rest of it,&mdash;I think you must, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She hasn't a right to come here, you know,&mdash;as yet." It will be
+understood that Mr. Prosper was considerably discomposed when he spoke
+with such familiar confidence to his servant. "She needn't come in here,
+at any rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In the drawing-room, if I might be allowed to suggest, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Show Miss Thoroughbung into the drawing-room," said he with all his
+dignity. Then Matthew retired, and the Squire of Buston felt that five
+minutes might be allowed to collect himself, and the mutton-chop bone
+need not be removed.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the five minutes were over, with slow steps he walked across the
+intervening billiard-room, and slowly opened the drawing-room door.
+Would she rush into his arms, and kiss him again as he entered? He
+sincerely hoped that there would be no such attempt; but if there were,
+he was sternly resolved to repudiate it. There should be nothing of the
+kind till she had clearly declared, and had put it under writing by
+herself and her lawyers, that she would consent to come to Buston
+without the ponies. But there was no such attempt. "How do you do, Mr.
+Prosper?" she said, in a loud voice, standing up in the middle of the
+room. "Why don't you ever come and see me? I take it very ill of you;
+and so does Miss Tickle. There is no one more partial to you than Miss
+Tickle. We were talking of you only last night over a despatched crab
+that we had for supper." Did they have despatched crabs for supper every
+night? thought Mr. Prosper to himself. It was certainly a strong reason
+against his marriage. "I told her that you had a cold in your head."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In my chest," said Mr. Prosper, meekly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Bother colds!' said Miss Tickle. 'When people are keeping company
+together they ought to see each other.' Those were Miss Tickle's very
+words."
+</p>
+<p>
+That it should be said of him, Mr. Prosper, of Buston, that he was
+"keeping company" with any woman! He almost resolved, on the spur of the
+moment, that under no circumstances could he now marry Miss
+Thoroughbung. But unfortunately his offer had been made, and the terms
+of the settlement, as suggested by himself, placed in the hands of his
+lawyer. If Miss Thoroughbung chose to hold him to his offer, he must
+marry her. It was not that he feared an action for breach of promise,
+but that, as a gentleman, it would behoove him to be true to his word.
+He need not, however, marry Miss Tickle. He had offered no terms in
+respect to Miss Tickle. With great presence of mind he resolved at once
+that Miss Tickle should never find a permanent resting-place for her
+foot at Buston Hall. "I am extremely indebted to Miss Tickle," said he.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why haven't you come over just to have a little chat in a friendly way?
+It's all because of those stupid lawyers, I suppose. What need you and I
+care for the lawyers? They can do their work without troubling us,
+except that they will be sure to send in their bills fast enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have had Mr. Barry, from the firm of Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, with me this morning."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know you have. I saw the little man at Soames &amp; Simpson's, and drove
+out here immediately, after five minutes' conversation. Now, Mr.
+Prosper, you must let me have those ponies."
+</p>
+<p>
+That was the very thing which he was determined not to do. The ponies
+grew in imagination, and became enormous horses capable of consuming any
+amount of oats. Mr. Prosper was not of a stingy nature, but he had
+already perceived that his escape, if it were effected, must be made
+good by means of those ponies. A steady old pair of carriage-horses had
+been kept by him, and by his father before him, and he was not going to
+be driven out of the old family ways by a brewer's daughter. And he had,
+but that morning, instructed his lawyer to stand out against the ponies.
+He felt that this was the moment for firmness. Now, this instant, he
+must be staunch, or he would be saddled with this woman,&mdash;and with Miss
+Tickle,&mdash;for the whole of his life. She had left him no time for
+consideration, but had come upon him as soon almost as the words spoken
+to the lawyer had been out of his mouth. But he would be firm. Miss
+Thoroughbung opened out instantly about the ponies, and he at once
+resolved that he would be firm. But was it not very indelicate on her
+part to come to him and to press him in this manner? He began to hope
+that she also would be firm about the ponies, and that in this way the
+separation might be effected. At the present moment he stood dumb.
+Silence would not in this case be considered as giving consent. "Now,
+like a good man, do say that I shall have the ponies," she continued. "I
+can keep 'em out of my own money, you know, if that's all." He perceived
+at once that the offer amounted to a certain yielding on her part, but
+he was no longer anxious that she should give way. "Do'ee now say yes,
+like a dear old boy." She came closer to him, and took hold of his arm,
+as though she were going to perform that other ceremony. But he was
+fully aware of the danger. If there came to be kissing between them it
+would be impossible for him to go back afterward in such a manner but
+that the blame of the kiss should rest with him. When he should desire
+to be "off," he could not plead that the kissing had been all her doing.
+A man in Mr. Prosper's position has difficulties among which he must be
+very wary. And then the ridicule of the world is so strong a weapon, and
+is always used on the side of the women! He gave a little start, but he
+did not at once shake her off. "What's the objection to the ponies,
+dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Two pair of horses! It's more than we ought to keep." He should not
+have said "we." He felt, when it was too late, that he should not have
+said "we."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They aren't horses."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's the same, as far as the stables are concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there's room enough, Lord bless you! I've been in to look. I can
+assure you that Dr. Stubbs says they are required for my health. You ask
+him else. It's just what I'm up to&mdash;is driving. I've only taken to them
+lately, and I cannot bring myself to give 'em up. Do'ee love. You're not
+going to throw over your own Matilda for a couple of little beasts like
+that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Every word that came out of her mouth was an offence. But he could not
+tell her so; nor could he reject her on that score. He should have
+thought beforehand what kind of words might probably come out of her
+mouth. Was her name Matilda? Of course he knew the fact. Had any one
+asked him he could have said, with two minutes' consideration, that her
+name was Matilda. But it had never become familiar to his ears, and now
+she spoke of it as though he had called her Matilda since their earliest
+youth. And to be called "Love!" It might be very nice when he had first
+called her "Love" a dozen times; but now it sounded extravagant&mdash;and
+almost indelicate. And he was about to throw her over for a couple of
+little beasts. He felt that that was his intention, and he blushed
+because it was so. He was a true gentleman, who would not willingly
+depart from his word. If he must go on with the ponies he must. But he
+had never yet yielded about the ponies. He felt now that they were his
+only hope. But as the difficulties of his position pressed upon him the
+sweat stood out upon his brow. She saw it all and understood it all, and
+deliberately determined to take advantage of his weakness. "I don't
+think that there is anything else astray between us. We've settled about
+the jointure,&mdash;four hundred a year. It's too little, Soames &amp; Simpson
+say; but I'm soft, and in love, you know." Here she leered at him, and
+he began to hate her. "You oughtn't to want a third of my income, you
+know. But you're to be lord and master, and you must have your own way.
+All that's settled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is Miss Tickle," he said, in a voice that was almost cadaverous.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Tickle is of course to come. You said that from the very first
+moment when you made the offer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Peter, how can you say so!" He shrunk visibly from the sound of his
+own Christian name. But she determined to persevere. The time must come
+when she should call him Peter, and why not commence the practice now,
+at once? Lovers always do call each other Peter and Matilda. She wasn't
+going to stand any nonsense, and if he intended to marry her and use a
+large proportion of her fortune, Peter he should be to her. "You did,
+Peter. You know you told me how much attached you were to her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I didn't say anything about her coming with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Peter, how can you be so cruel? Do you mean to say that you will
+deprive me of the friend of my youth?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate, there shall never be a pony come into my yard!" He knew
+when he made this assertion that he was abandoning his objection to Miss
+Tickle. She had called him cruel, and his conscience told him that if he
+received Miss Thoroughbung and refused admission to Miss Tickle he
+would be cruel. Miss Tickle, for aught that he knew, might have been a
+friend of her youth. At any rate, they had been constant companions for
+many years. Therefore, as he had another solid ground on which to stand,
+he could afford to yield as to Miss Tickle. But as he did so, he
+remembered that Miss Tickle had accused him of "keeping company," and he
+declared to himself that it would be impossible to live in the same
+house with her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But Miss Tickle may come?" said Miss Thoroughbung. Was the solid
+ground&mdash;the rock, as he believed it to be, of the ponies, about to sink
+beneath his feet? "Say that Miss Tickle may come. I should be nothing
+without Miss Tickle. You cannot be so hard-hearted as that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see what is the good of talking about Miss Tickle till we have
+come to some settlement about the ponies. You say that you must have the
+ponies. To tell you the truth, Miss Thoroughbung, I don't like any such
+word as 'must.' And a good many things have occurred to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What kind of things, deary?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think you are inclined to be&mdash;gay&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me! gay!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"While I am sober, and perhaps a little grave in my manners of life. I
+am thinking only of domestic happiness, while your mind is intent upon
+social circles. I fear that you would look for your bliss abroad."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In France or Germany?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"When I say abroad, I mean out of your own house. There is perhaps some
+discrepancy of taste of which I ought earlier to have taken cognizance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing of the kind," said Miss Thoroughbung. "I am quite content to
+live at home and do not want to go abroad, either to France nor yet to
+any other English county. I should never ask for anything, unless it be
+for a single month in London."
+</p>
+<p>
+Here was a ground upon which he perhaps could make his stand. "Quite
+impossible!" said Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or for a fortnight," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never go up to London except on business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I might go alone, you know&mdash;with Miss Tickle. I shouldn't want to
+drag you away. I have always been in the habit of having a few weeks in
+London about the Exhibition time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shouldn't wish to be left by my wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course we could manage all that. We're not to settle every little
+thing beforehand, and put it into the deeds. A precious sum we should
+have to pay the lawyers!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's as well we should understand each other."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think it pretty nearly is all settled that has to go into the deeds.
+I thought I'd just run over, after seeing Mr. Barry, and give the final
+touch. If you'll give way, dear, about Miss Tickle and the ponies, I'll
+yield in everything else. Nothing, surely, can be fairer than that."
+</p>
+<p>
+He knew that he was playing the hypocrite, and he knew also that it did
+not become him as a gentleman to be false to a woman. He was aware that
+from minute to minute, and almost from word to word, he was becoming
+ever more and more averse to this match which he had proposed to
+himself. And he knew that in honesty he ought to tell her that it was
+so. It was not honest in him to endeavor to get rid of her by a
+side-blow, as it were. And yet this was the attempt which he had
+hitherto been making. But how was he to tell her the truth? Even Mr.
+Barry had not understood the state of his mind. Indeed, his mind had
+altered since he had seen Mr. Barry.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had heard within the last half hour many words spoken by Miss
+Thoroughbung which proved that she was altogether unfit to be his wife.
+It was a dreadful misfortune that he should have rushed into such peril;
+but was he not bound as a gentleman to tell her the truth? "Say that I
+shall have Jemima Tickle!" The added horrors of the Christian name
+operated upon him with additional force. Was he to be doomed to have the
+word Jemima hallooed about his rooms and staircases for the rest of his
+life? And she had given up the ponies, and was taking her stand upon
+Miss Tickle, as to whom at last he would be bound to give way. He could
+see now that he should have demanded her whole income, and have allowed
+her little or no jointure. That would have been grasping, monstrous,
+altogether impracticable, but it would not have been ungentleman-like.
+This chaffering about little things was altogether at variance with his
+tastes,&mdash;and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that
+he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this
+morning. Then,&mdash;for that morning,&mdash;some benign god preserved him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Matthew came into the room and whispered into his ear that a gentleman
+wished to see him. "What gentleman?" Matthew again whispered that it was
+his brother-in-law. "Show him in," said Mr. Prosper, with a sudden
+courage. He had not seen Mr. Annesley since the day of his actual
+quarrel with Harry. "I shall have the ponies?" said Miss Thoroughbung
+during the moment that was allowed to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We are interrupted now. I am afraid that the rest of this interview
+must be postponed." It should never be renewed, though he might have to
+leave the country forever. Of that he gave himself assurance. Then the
+parson was shown into the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+The constrained introduction was very painful to Mr. Prosper, but was
+not at all disagreeable to the lady. "Mr. Annesley knows me very well.
+We are quite old friends. Joe is going to marry his eldest girl. I hope
+Molly is quite well." The rector said that Molly was quite well. When he
+had come away from home just now he had left Joe at the parsonage.
+"You'll find him there a deal oftener than at the brewery," said Miss
+Thoroughbung. "You know what we're going to do, Mr. Annesley. There are
+no fools like old fools." A thunder-black cloud came across Mr.
+Prosper's face. That this woman should dare to call him an old fool! "We
+were discussing a few of our future arrangements. We've arranged
+everything about money in the most amicable manner, and now there is
+merely a question of a pair of ponies."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We need not trouble Mr. Annesley about that, I think."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Miss Tickle! I'm sure the rector will agree with me that old
+friends like me and Miss Tickle ought not to be separated. And it isn't
+as though there was any dislike between them, because he has already
+said that he finds Miss Tickle charming."
+</p>
+<p>
+"D&#8211;&#8211;&#8211;&#8211; Miss Tickle!" he said; whereupon
+the rector looked astonished, and
+Miss Thoroughbung jumped a foot from off the ground. "I beg the lady's
+pardon," said Mr. Prosper, piteously, "and yours, Miss Thoroughbung,&mdash;and
+yours, Mr. Annesley." It was as though a new revelation of character had
+been given. No one except Matthew had ever heard the Squire of Buston
+swear. And with Matthew the cursings had been by no means frequent, and
+had been addressed generally to some article of his clothing, or to some
+morsel of food prepared with less than the usual care. But now the oath
+had been directed against a female, and the chosen friend of his
+betrothed. And it had been uttered in the presence of a clergyman, his
+brother-in-law, and the rector of his parish. Mr. Prosper felt that he
+was disgraced forever. Could he have overheard them laughing over his
+ebullition in the drawing-room half an hour afterward, and almost
+praising his violence, some part of the pain might have been removed.
+As it was he felt at the time that he was disgraced forever.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We will return to the subject when next we meet," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am very sorry that I should so far have forgotten myself," said Mr.
+Prosper, "but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It does not signify,&mdash;not as far as I am concerned;" and she made a
+little motion to the clergyman, half bow and half courtesy. Mr. Annesley
+bowed in return, as though declaring that neither did it signify very
+much as far as he was concerned. Then she left the room, and Matthew
+handed her into the carriage, when she took the ponies in hand with
+quite as much composure as though her friend had not been sworn at.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word, sir," said Prosper, as soon as the door was shut, "I beg
+your pardon. But I was so moved by certain things which have occurred
+that I was carried much beyond my usual habits."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't mention it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is peculiarly distressing to me that I should have been induced to
+forget myself in the presence of a clergyman of the parish and my
+brother-in-law. But I must beg you to forget it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, certainly. I will tell you now why I have come over."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can assure you that such is not my habit," continued Mr. Prosper, who
+was thinking much more of the unaccustomed oath which he had sworn than
+of his brother-in-law's visit, strange as it was. "No one, as a rule, is
+more guarded in his expressions than I am. How it should have come to
+pass that I was so stirred I can hardly tell. But Miss Thoroughbung had
+said certain words which had moved me very much." She had called him
+"Peter" and "deary," and had spoken of him as "keeping company" with
+her. All these disgusting terms of endearment he could not repeat to his
+brother-in-law, but felt it necessary to allude to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I trust that you may be happy with her when she is your wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't say. I really don't know. It's a very important step to take at
+my age, and I'm not quite sure that I should be doing wisely."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's not too late," said Mr. Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know. I can't quite say." Then Mr. Prosper drew himself up,
+remembering that it would not become him to discuss the matter of his
+marriage with the father of his heir.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have come over here," said Mr. Annesley, "to say a few words about
+Harry." Mr. Prosper again drew himself up. "Of course you're aware that
+Harry is at present living with us." Here Mr. Prosper bowed. "Of course,
+in his altered circumstances, it will not do that he shall be idle, and
+yet he does not like to take a final step without letting you know what
+it is." Here Mr. Prosper bowed twice. "There is a gentleman of fortune
+going out to the United States on a mission which will probably occupy
+him for three or four years. I am not exactly warranted in mentioning
+his name, but he has taken in hand a political project of much
+importance." Again Mr. Prosper bowed. "Now he has offered Harry the
+place of private secretary, on condition that Harry will undertake to
+stay the entire term. He is to have a salary of three hundred a year,
+and his travelling expenses will of course be paid for him. If he goes,
+poor boy! he will in all probability remain in his new home and become a
+citizen of the United States. Under these circumstances I have thought
+it best to step up and tell you in a friendly manner what his plans
+are." Then he had told his tale, and Mr. Prosper again bowed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The rector had been very crafty. There was no doubt about the wealthy
+gentleman with the American project, and the salary had been offered.
+But in other respects there had been some exaggeration. It was well
+known to the rector that Mr. Prosper regarded America and all her
+institutions with a religious hatred. An American was to him an
+ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature, to have any
+acquaintance with whom was a disgrace. Could he have had his way, he
+would have reconstituted the United States as British Colonies at a
+moment's notice. Were he to die without having begotten another heir,
+Buston must become the property of Harry Annesley; and it would be
+dreadful to him to think that Buston should be owned by an American
+citizen. "The salary offered is too good to be abandoned," said Mr.
+Annesley, when he saw the effect which his story had produced.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everything is going against me!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well: I will not talk about that. I did not come here to discuss Harry
+or his sins,&mdash;nor, for the matter of that, his virtues. But I felt it
+would be improper to let him go upon his journey without communicating
+with you." So saying, he took his departure and walked back to the
+rectory.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH45"><!-- CH45 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+A DETERMINED YOUNG LADY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When this offer had been made to Harry Annesley he found it to be
+absolutely necessary that he should write a farther letter to Florence.
+He was quite aware that he had been forbidden to write. He had written
+one letter since that order had been given to him, and no reply had come
+to him. He had not expected a reply; but still her silence had been
+grievous to him. It might be that she was angry with him, really angry.
+But let that be as it might, he could not go to America, and be absent
+for so long a period, without telling her. She and her mother were still
+at Brussels when January came. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there, as he had
+understood, for a month, and was still at the embassy when three months
+had passed. "I think I shall stay here the winter," Mrs. Mountjoy had
+said to Sir Magnus, "but we will take lodgings. I see that very nice
+sets of apartments are to be let." But Sir Magnus would not hear of
+this. He said, and said truly, that the ministerial house was large; and
+at last he declared the honest truth. His sister-in-law had been very
+kind to him about money, and had said not a word on that troubled
+subject since her arrival. Mrs. Mountjoy, with that delicacy which still
+belongs to some English ladies, would have suffered extreme poverty
+rather than have spoken on such a matter. In truth she suffered nothing,
+and hardly thought about it. But Sir Magnus was grateful, and told her
+that if she went to look for lodgings he should go to the lodgings and
+say that they were not wanted. Therefore Mrs. Mountjoy remained where
+she was, entertaining a feeling of increased good-will toward Sir
+Magnus.
+</p>
+<p>
+Life went on rather sadly with Florence. Anderson was as good as his
+word. He pleaded his own cause no farther, telling both Sir Magnus and
+Lady Mountjoy of the pledge he had made. He did in fact tell two or
+three other persons, regarding himself as a martyr to chivalry. All this
+time he went about his business looking very wretched. But though he did
+not speak for himself, he could not hinder others from speaking for him.
+Sir Magnus took occasion to say a word on the subject once daily to his
+niece. Her mother was constant in her attacks. But Lady Mountjoy was the
+severest of the three, and was accounted by Florence as her bitterest
+enemy. The words which passed between them were not the most
+affectionate in the world. Lady Mountjoy would call her 'miss,' to which
+Florence would reply by addressing her aunt as 'my lady.' "Why do you
+call me 'my lady?' It isn't usual in common conversation." "Why do you
+call me 'miss?' If you cease to call me 'miss,' I'll cease to call you
+'my lady.'" But no reverence was paid by the girl to the wife of the
+British Minister. It was this that Lady Mountjoy specially felt,&mdash;as she
+complained to her companion, Miss Abbott. Then another cause for trouble
+sprang up during the winter, of which mention must be made farther on.
+The result was that Florence was instant with her mother to take her
+back to England.
+</p>
+<p>
+We will return, however, to Harry Annesley, and give the letter,
+verbatim, which he wrote to Florence:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAR FLORENCE,&mdash;I wonder whether you ever think of me or ever remember
+that I exist? I know you do. I cannot have been forgotten like that. And
+you yourself are the truest girl that ever owned to loving a man. But
+there comes a chill across my heart when I think how long it is since I
+wrote to you, and that I have not had a line even to acknowledge my
+letter. You bade me not to write, and you have not even forgiven me for
+disobeying your order. I cannot but get stupid ideas into my mind, which
+one word from you would dissipate.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, however, I must write again, order or no order. Between a man and
+a woman circumstanced as you and I, things will arise which make it
+incumbent on one or the other to write. It is absolutely necessary that
+you should now know what are my intentions, and understand the reasons
+which have actuated me. I have found myself left in a most unfortunate
+condition by my uncle's folly. He is going on with a stupid marriage for
+the purpose of disinheriting me, and has in the mean time stopped the
+allowance which he had made me since I left college. Of course I have no
+absolute claim on him. But I cannot understand how he can reconcile
+himself to do so, when he himself prevented my going to the Bar, saying
+that it would be unnecessary.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But so it is, I am driven to look about for myself. It is very hard at
+my time of life to find an opening in any profession. I think I told you
+before that I had ideas of going to Cambridge and endeavoring to get
+pupils, trusting to my fellowship rather than to my acquirements. But
+this I have always looked upon with great dislike, and would only have
+taken to it if nothing else was to be had. Now there has come forward
+an old college acquaintance, a man who is three or four years my senior,
+who has offered to take me to America as his private secretary. He
+proposes to remain there for three years. I of course shall not bind
+myself to stay as long; but I may not improbably do so. He is to pay my
+expenses and to give me a salary of three hundred a year. This will,
+perhaps, lead to nothing else, but will for the present be better than
+nothing. I am to start in just a month from the present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now you know it all except that the man's name is Sir William Crook. He
+is a decent sort of a fellow, and has got a wife who is to go with him.
+He is the hardest working man I know, but, between you and me, will
+never set the Thames on fire. If the Thames is to be illumined at all, I
+rather think that I shall be expected to do it.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, my own one, what am I to say about you, and of myself, as your
+husband that is to be? Will you wait, at any rate, for three years with
+the conviction that the three years will too probably end in your having
+to wait again?
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do feel that in my altered position I ought to give you back your
+troth, and tell you that things shall be as they used to be before that
+happy night at Mrs. Armitage's party. I do not know but that it is
+clearly my duty. I almost think that it is. But I am sure of this,&mdash;that
+it is the one thing in the world that I cannot do. I don't think that a
+man ought to be asked to tear himself altogether in pieces because some
+one has ill-treated him. At any rate I cannot. If you say that it must
+be so, you shall say it. I don't suppose it will kill me, but it will go
+a long way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In writing so far I have not said a word of love, because, as far as I
+understand you, that is a subject on which you expect me to be silent.
+When you order me not to write, I suppose you intend that I am to write
+no love-letters. This, therefore, you will take simply as a matter of
+business, and as such, I suppose, you will acknowledge it. In this way I
+shall at any rate see your handwriting.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours affectionately,
+</p>
+<center>
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+</center>
+<p>
+Harry, when he had written this letter, considered that it had been
+cold, calm, and philosophical. He could not go to America for three
+years without telling her of his purpose; nor could he mention that
+purpose, as he thought, in any language less glowing. But Florence, when
+she received it, did not regard it in the same light.
+</p>
+<p>
+To her thinking the letter was full of love, and of love expressed in
+the warmest possible language. "Sir William Crook!" she said to herself.
+"What can he want of Harry in America for three years? I am sure he is a
+stupid man. Will I wait? Of course I will wait. What are three years?
+And why should I not wait? But, for the matter of that&mdash;" Then thoughts
+came into her mind which even to herself she could not express in words.
+Sir William Crook had got a wife, and why should not Harry take a wife
+also? She did not see why a private secretary should not be a married
+man; and as for money, there would be plenty for such a style of life as
+they would live. She could not exactly propose this, but she thought
+that if she were to see Harry just for one short interview before he
+started, that he might probably then propose it himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Things be as they used to be!" she exclaimed to herself. "Never! Things
+cannot be as they used to be. I know what is his duty. It is his duty
+not to think of anything of the kind. Remember that he exists," she
+said, turning back to the earlier words of the letter. "That of course
+is his joke. I wonder whether he knows that every moment of my life is
+devoted to him. Of course I bade him not to write. But I can tell him
+now that I have never gone to bed without his letter beneath my pillow."
+This and much more of the same kind was uttered in soliloquies, but need
+not be repeated at length to the reader.
+</p>
+<p>
+But she had to think what steps she must first take. She must tell her
+mother of Harry's intention. She had never for an instant allowed her
+mother to think that her affection had dwindled, or her purpose failed
+her. She was engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and marry him some day she
+would. That her mother should be sure of that was the immediate purpose
+of her life. And in carrying out that purpose she must acquaint her
+mother with the news which this letter had brought to her. "Mamma, I
+have got something to tell you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, my dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Harry Annesley is going to America!" There was something pleasing to
+Mrs. Mountjoy in the sound of these words. If Harry Annesley went to
+America he might be drowned, or it might more probably be that he would
+never come back. America was, to her imagination, a long way off. Lovers
+did not go to America except with the intention of deserting their
+ladyloves. Such were her ideas. She felt at the moment that Florence
+would be more easily approached in reference either to her cousin
+Mountjoy or to Mr. Anderson. Another lover had sprung up, too, in
+Brussels, of whom a word shall be said by-and-by. If her Harry, the
+pernicious Harry, should have taken himself to America, the chances of
+all these three gentlemen would be improved. Any one of them would now
+be accepted by Mrs. Mountjoy as a bar fatal to Harry Annesley. Mountjoy
+was again the favorite with her. She had heard that he had returned to
+Tretton, and was living amicably with his father. She knew, even, of the
+income allotted to him for the present,&mdash;of the six hundred pounds a
+year.&mdash;and had told Florence that as a preliminary income it was more
+than double that two hundred and fifty pounds which had been taken away
+from Harry,&mdash;taken away never to be restored. There was not much in this
+argument, but still she thought well to use it. The captain was living
+with his father, and she did not believe a word about the entail having
+been done away with. It was certain that Harry's uncle had quarrelled
+with him, and she did understand that a baby at Buston would altogether
+rob Harry of his chance. And then look at the difference in the
+properties! It was thus that she argued the matter. But in truth her
+word had been pledged to Mountjoy Scarborough, and Mountjoy Scarborough
+had ever been a favorite with her. Though she could talk about the
+money, it was not the money that touched her feelings. "Well;&mdash;he may go
+to America. It is a dreadful destiny for a young man, but in his case it
+may be the best thing that he can do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he intends to come back again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is as it may be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not understand what you mean by a dreadful destiny, mamma. I don't
+see that it is a destiny at all. He is getting a very good offer for a
+year or two, and thinks it best to take it. I might go with him, for
+that matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+A thunder-bolt had fallen at Mrs. Mountjoy's feet! Florence go with him
+to America! Among all the trials which had come upon her with reference
+to this young man there had been nothing so bad as this proposal. Go
+with him! The young man was to start in a month! Then she began to think
+whether it would be within her power to stop her daughter. What would
+all the world be to her with one daughter, and she in America, married
+to Harry Annesley? Her quarrel with Florence was not at all as was the
+quarrel of Lady Mountjoy. Lady Mountjoy would be glad to get rid of the
+girl, whom she thought to be impertinent and believed to be false. But
+to her mother Florence was the very apple of her eye. It was because she
+thought that Mountjoy Scarborough was a grand fellow, and because she
+thought all manner of evil of Harry Annesley, that she wished Florence
+to marry her cousin, and to separate herself forever from the other.
+When she had heard that Harry was to go to America she had rejoiced, as
+though he was to be transported to Botany Bay. Her ideas were
+old-fashioned. But when it was hinted that Florence was to go with him
+she nearly fell to the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence certainly had behaved badly in making the suggestion. She had
+not intended to make it,&mdash;had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her
+mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come
+upon him,&mdash;as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be
+hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,&mdash;then her spirit rose
+within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never
+asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to
+share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her
+only child in the hands of those American savages. She threw herself on
+to a sofa, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't say that I am going, mamma."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My darling&mdash;my dearest&mdash;my child!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only that there is no reason why I shouldn't, except that it would not
+suit him. At least I suppose it would not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Has he said so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has said nothing about it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank Heaven for that! He does not intend to rob me of my child."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, mamma, I am to be his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, no, no!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is that that I want to make you understand. You know nothing of his
+character;&mdash;nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do know that he told a base falsehood."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing of the kind! I will not admit it. It is of no use going into
+that again, but there was nothing base about it. He has got an
+appointment in the United States, and is going out to do the work. He
+has not asked me to go with him. The two things would probably not be
+compatible." Here Mrs. Mountjoy rose from the sofa and embraced her
+child, as though liberated from her deepest grief. "But, mamma, you must
+remember this:&mdash;that I have given him my word, and will never be induced
+to abandon it." Here her mother threw up her hands and again began to
+weep. "Either to-day or to-morrow, or ten years hence,&mdash;if he will wait
+as long, I will,&mdash;we shall be married. As far as I can see we need not
+wait ten years, or perhaps more than one or two. My money will suffice
+for us."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He proposes to live upon you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He proposes nothing of the kind. He is going to America because he will
+not propose it. Nor am I proposing it,&mdash;just at present."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate I am glad of that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And now, mamma, you must take me back home as soon as possible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he has started."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, mamma. I must be there before he starts. I cannot let him go
+without seeing him. If I am to remain here, here he must come."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your uncle would never receive him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should receive him."
+</p>
+<p>
+This was dreadful&mdash;this flying into actual disobedience. Whatever did
+she mean? Where was she to receive him? "How could you receive a young
+man in opposition to the wishes, and indeed to the commands, of all your
+friends?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not going to be at all shamefaced about it, mamma. I am the woman
+he has selected to be his wife, and he is the man I have selected to be
+my husband. If he were coming I should go to my uncle and ask to have
+him received."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think of your aunt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I do think of her. My aunt would make herself very disagreeable.
+Upon the whole, mamma, I think it would be best that you should take me
+back to England. There is this M. Grascour here, who is a great trouble,
+and you may be sure of this, that I intend to see Harry Annesley before
+he starts for America."
+</p>
+<p>
+So the interview was ended; but Mrs. Mountjoy was left greatly in doubt
+as to what she might best do. She felt sure that were Annesley to come
+to Brussels, Florence would see him,&mdash;would see him in spite of all that
+her uncle and aunt, and Mr. Anderson, and M. Grascour could do to
+prevent it. That reprobate young man would force his way into the
+embassy, or Florence would force her way out. In either case there would
+be a terrible scene. But if she were to take Florence back to
+Cheltenham, interviews to any extent would be arranged for her at the
+house of Mrs. Armitage. As she thought of all this, the idea came across
+her that when a young girl is determined to be married nothing can
+prevent it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence in the mean time wrote an immediate answer to her lover, as
+follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAR HARRY,&mdash;Of course you were entitled to write when there was
+something to be said which it was necessary that I should know. When you
+have simply to say that you love me, I know that well enough without any
+farther telling.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go to America for three years! It is very, very serious. But of course
+you must know best, and I shall not attempt to interfere. What are three
+years to you and me? If we were rich people, of course we should not
+wait; but as we are poor, of course we must act as do other people who
+are poor. I have about four hundred a year; and it is for you to say how
+far that may be sufficient. If you think so, you will not find that I
+shall want more.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there is one thing necessary before you start. I must see you.
+There is no reason on earth for our remaining here, except that mamma
+has not made up her mind. If she will consent to go back before you
+start, it will be best so. Otherwise, you must take the trouble to come
+here,&mdash;where, I am afraid, you will not be received as a welcome guest. I
+have told mamma that if I cannot see you here in a manner that is
+becoming, I shall go out and meet you in the streets, in a manner that
+is unbecoming.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your affectionate&mdash;wife that is to be,
+</p>
+<center>
+"FLORENCE MOUNTJOY."
+</center>
+<p>
+This letter she took to her mother, and read aloud to her in her own
+room. Mrs. Mountjoy could only implore that it might not be sent, but
+prevailed not at all. "There is not a word in it about love," said
+Florence. "It is simply a matter of business, and as such I must send
+it. I do not suppose my uncle will go to the length of attempting to
+lock me up. He would, I think, find it difficult to do so." There was a
+look in Florence's face as she said this which altogether silenced her
+mother. She did not think that Sir Magnus would consent to lock Florence
+up, and she did think that were he to attempt to do so he would find the
+task very difficult.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH46"><!-- CH46 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLVI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+M. GRASCOUR.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+M. Grascour was a Belgian, about forty years old, who looked as though
+he were no more than thirty, except that his hair was in patches
+beginning to be a little gray. He was in the government service of his
+country, well educated, and thoroughly a gentleman. As is the case with
+many Belgians, he would have been taken to be an Englishman were his
+country not known. He had dressed himself in English mirrors, living
+mostly with the English. He spoke English so well that he would only be
+known to be a foreigner by the correctness of his language. He was a man
+of singularly good temper, and there was running through all that he did
+somewhat of a chivalric spirit, which came from study rather than
+nature. He had looked into things and seen whether they were good, or at
+any rate popular, and endeavored to grasp and to make his own whatever
+he found to be so. He was hitherto unmarried, and was regarded generally
+by his friends as a non-marrying man. But Florence Mountjoy was powerful
+over him, and he set to work to make her his wife. He was intimate at
+the house of Sir Magnus, and saw, no doubt, that Anderson was doing the
+same thing. But he saw also that Anderson did not succeed. He had told
+himself from the first that if Anderson did succeed he would not wish to
+do so. The girl who would be satisfied with Anderson would hardly
+content him. He remained therefore quiet till he saw that Anderson had
+failed. The young man at once took to an altered mode of life which was
+sufficiently marked. He went, like Sir Proteus, ungartered. Everything
+about him had of late "demonstrated a careless desolation." All this M.
+Grascour observed, and when he saw it he felt that his own time had
+come.
+</p>
+<p>
+He took occasion at first to wait upon Lady Mountjoy. He believed that
+to be the proper way of going to work. He was very intimate with the
+Mountjoys, and was aware that his circumstances were known to them.
+There was no reason, on the score of money, why he should not marry the
+niece of Sir Magnus. He had already shown some attention to Florence,
+which, though it had excited no suspicion in her mind, had been seen and
+understood by her aunt; and it had been understood also by Mr. Anderson.
+"That accursed Belgian! If, after all, she should take up with him! I
+shall tell her a bit of my mind if anything of that kind should occur."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My niece, M. Grascour!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, my lady." M. Grascour had not quite got over the way of calling
+Lady Mountjoy "my lady." "It is presumption, I know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have not spoken to her. Nor would I do so till I had first addressed
+myself to you or to her mother. May I speak to Mrs. Mountjoy?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, certainly. I do not in the least know what the young lady's ideas
+are. She has been much admired here and elsewhere, and that may have
+turned her head."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may be the better judge, M. Grascour."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think that Miss Mountjoy's head has not been turned by any
+admiration. She does not appear to be a young lady whose head would
+easily be turned. It is her heart of which I am thinking." The interview
+ended by Lady Mountjoy passing the Belgian lover on to Mrs. Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Florence!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Mrs. Mountjoy;&mdash;I have the great honor of asking your permission. I
+am well known to Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and they can tell what
+are my circumstances. I am forty years of age."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; everything is, I am sure, quite as it should be. But my
+daughter thinks about these things for herself." Then there was a pause,
+and M. Grascour was about to leave the room, having obtained the
+permission he desired, when Mrs. Mountjoy thought it well to acquaint
+him with something of her daughter's condition. "I ought to tell you
+that my daughter has been engaged."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; and I hardly know how to explain the circumstances. I should say
+that she had been promised to her cousin, Captain Scarborough; but to
+this she will not give her assent. She has since met a gentleman, Mr.
+Annesley, for whom she professes an attachment. Neither can I, nor can
+her uncle and aunt, hear of Mr. Annesley as a husband for Florence. She
+is therefore at present disengaged. If you can gain her affections, you
+have my leave." With this permission M. Grascour departed, professing
+himself to be contented.
+</p>
+<p>
+He did not see Florence for two or three days, no doubt leaving the
+matter to be discussed with her by her mother and her aunt. To him it
+was quite indifferent what might be the fate of Captain Scarborough, or
+of Mr. Annesley, or indeed of Mr. Anderson. And, to tell the truth, he
+was not under any violent fear or hope as to his own fate. He admired
+Miss Mountjoy, and thought it would be well to secure for a wife such a
+girl, with such a fortune as would belong to her. But he did not intend
+to go "ungartered," nor yet to assume an air of "desolation." If she
+would come to him, it would be well; if she would not, why, it would
+still be well. The only outward difference made by his love was that he
+brushed his clothes and his hair a little more carefully, and had his
+boots brought to a higher state of polish than was usual.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her mother spoke to her first. "My dear, M. Grascour is a most excellent
+man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure he is, mamma."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he is a great friend to your uncle and Lady Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you say this, mamma? What can it matter to me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear, M. Grascour wishes you to&mdash;to&mdash;to become his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, why didn't you tell him that it is impossible?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"How was I to know, my dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, I am engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and no word shall ever
+turn me from that purpose, unless it be spoken by himself. The crier may
+say that all round the town if he wishes. You must know that it is so.
+What can be the use of sending M. Grascour or any other gentleman to me?
+It is only giving me pain and him too. I wish, mamma, you could be got
+to understand this." But Mrs. Mountjoy could not altogether be got as
+yet to understand the obstinacy of her daughter's character.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was one point on which Florence received information from these
+two suitors who had come to her at Brussels. They were both favored, one
+after the other, by her mother; and would not have been so favored had
+her mother absolutely believed in Captain Mountjoy. It seemed to her as
+though her mother would be willing that she should marry any one, so
+long as it was not Harry Annesley. "It is a pity that there should be
+such a difference," she said to herself. "But we will see what firmness
+can do."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Lady Mountjoy spoke to her. "You have heard of M. Grascour, my
+dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; I have heard of him, aunt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He intends to do you the honor of asking you to be his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So mamma tells me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have only to say that he is a man most highly esteemed here. He is
+well known at the court, and is at the royal parties. Should you become
+his wife, you would have all the society of Brussels at your feet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"All the society of Brussels would do no good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor the court and the royal parties."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you choose to be impertinent when I tell you what are his advantages
+and condition in life, I cannot help it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not mean to be impertinent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What you say about the royal parties and the court is intended for
+impertinence, knowing as you do know your uncle's position."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all. You know my position. I am engaged to marry another man,
+and cannot therefore marry M. Grascour. Why should he be sent to me,
+except that you won't believe me when I tell you that I am engaged?"
+Then she marched out of the room, and considered within her own bosom
+what answer she would give to this new Belgian suitor.
+</p>
+<p>
+She was made perfectly aware when the Belgian suitor was about to
+arrive. On the day but one after the interview with her aunt she was
+left alone when the other ladies went out, and suspected that even the
+footmen knew what was to happen, when M. Grascour was shown into the
+drawing-room. There was a simple mode of dealing with the matter on his
+part,&mdash;very different from that state of agitation into which Harry had
+been thrown when he had made his proposition. She was quite prepared to
+admit that M. Grascour's plan might be the wisest; but Harry's manner
+had been full of real love, and had charmed her. M. Grascour was not in
+the least flustered, whereas poor Harry had been hardly able to speak
+his mind. But it had not mattered much whether Harry spoke his mind or
+not, whereas all the eloquence in the world could have done no good for
+M. Grascour. Florence had known that Harry did love her, whereas of M.
+Grascour she only knew that he wanted to make her his wife.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I am charmed to find you here. Allow me to
+add that I am charmed to find you alone." Florence, who knew all about
+it, only bowed. She had to go through it, and thought that she would be
+able to do so with equanimity. "I do not know whether your aunt or your
+mother have done me the honor of mentioning my name to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They have both spoken to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought it best that they should have the opportunity of doing so. In
+our country these things are arranged chiefly by the lady's friends.
+With your people I know it is different. Perhaps it is much better that
+it should be so in a matter in which the heart has to be concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It would come to the same thing with me. I must decide for myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure of it. May I venture to feel a hope that ultimately that
+decision may not go against me?" M. Grascour, as he said this, did throw
+some look of passion into his face. "But I have spoken nothing as yet of
+my own feelings."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is unnecessary."
+</p>
+<p>
+This might be taken in either one of two senses; but the gentleman was
+not sufficiently vain to think that the lady had intended to signify to
+him that she would accept his love as a thing of which she could have no
+doubt. "Ah, Miss Mountjoy," he continued, "if you would allow me to say
+that since you have been at Brussels not a day has passed in which
+mingled love and respect have not grown within my bosom. I have sat by
+and watched while my excellent young friend Mr. Anderson has endeavored
+to express his feelings. I have said to myself that I would bide my
+time. If you could give yourself to him, why then the aspiration should
+be quenched within my own breast. But you have not done so, though, as I
+am aware, he has been assisted by my friend Sir Magnus. I have seen, and
+have heard, and have said to myself at last, 'Now, too, my turn may
+come.' I have loved much, but I have been very patient. Can it be that
+my turn should have come at last?" Though he had spoken of Mr. Anderson,
+he had not thought it expedient to say a word either of Captain
+Scarborough or of Mr. Annesley. He knew quite as much of them as he did
+of Mr. Anderson. He was clever, and had put together with absolute
+correctness what Mrs. Mountjoy had told him, with other little facts
+which had reached his ears.
+</p>
+<p>
+"M. Grascour, I suppose I am very much obliged to you. I ought to be."
+Here he bowed his head. "But my only way of being grateful is to tell
+you the truth." Again he bowed his head. "I am in love with another man.
+That's the truth." Here he shook his head with the smallest possible
+shake, as though deprecating her love, but not doing so with any
+harshness. "I engaged to marry him, too." There was another shake of the
+head, somewhat more powerful. "And I intend to marry him." This she said
+with much bold assurance. "All my old friends know that it is so, and
+ought not to have sent you to me. I have given a promise to Harry
+Annesley, and Harry Annesley alone can make me depart from it." This she
+said in a low voice, but almost with violence, because there had come
+another shake of the head in reply to her assurance that she meant to
+marry Annesley. "And though he were to make me depart from it,&mdash;which he
+will never do,&mdash;I should be just the same as regards anybody else. Can't
+you understand that when a girl has given herself, heart and soul, to a
+man, she won't change?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Girls do change&mdash;sometimes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You may know them; I don't,&mdash;not girls that are worth anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But when all your friends are hostile?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can they do? They can't make me marry another person. They may
+hinder my happiness; but they can't hand me over, like a parcel of
+goods, to any one else. Do you mean to say that you would accept such a
+parcel?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes&mdash;such a parcel!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would accept a girl who would come to you telling you that she
+loved another man? I don't believe it of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should know that my tenderness would beget tenderness in you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It wouldn't do anything of the kind. It would be all horror,&mdash;horror. I
+should kill myself, or else you, or perhaps both."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is your aversion so strong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not at all;&mdash;not at present. I like you very much. I do indeed. I'd
+do anything for you&mdash;in the way of friendship. I believe you to be a
+real gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you would kill me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You make me talk of a condition of things which is quite, quite
+impossible. When I say that I like you, I am talking of the present
+condition of things. I have not the least desire to kill you, or myself,
+or anybody. I want to be taken back to England, and there to be allowed
+to marry Mr. Henry Annesley. That's what I want. But I intend to remain
+engaged to him. That's my purpose, and no man and no woman shall stir me
+from it." He smiled, and again shook his head, and she began to doubt
+whether she did like him so much. "Now I've told you all about myself,"
+she said, rising to her feet. "You may believe me or not, as you please;
+but, as I have believed you, I have told you all." Then she walked out
+of the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+M. Grascour, as soon as he was alone, left the room and the house, and,
+making his way into the park, walked round it twice, turning in his mind
+his success and his want of success. For, in truth, he was not at all
+dispirited by what had occurred. With her other Belgian lover,&mdash;that is,
+with Mr. Anderson,&mdash;Florence had at any rate succeeded in making the
+truth appear to be the truth. He did believe that she had taken such a
+fancy to that "fellow Harry Annesley" that there would be no overcoming
+it. He had got a glimpse into the firmness of her character which was
+denied to M. Grascour. M. Grascour, as he walked up and down the shady
+paths of the park, told himself that such events as this so-called love
+on the part of Florence were very common in the lives of English young
+ladies. "They are the best in the world," he said to himself, "and they
+make the most charming wives; but their education is such that there is
+no preventing these accidents." The passion displayed in the young
+lady's words he attributed solely to her power of expression. One girl
+would use language such as had been hers, and such a girl would be
+clever, eloquent, and brave; another girl would hum and haw, with half a
+"yes" and a quarter of a "no," and would mean just the same thing. He
+did not doubt but that she had engaged herself to Harry Annesley; nor
+did he doubt that she had been brought to Brussels to break off that
+engagement; and he thought it most probable that her friends would
+prevail. Under these circumstances, why should he despair?&mdash;or why,
+rather, as he was a man not given to despair, should he not think that
+there was for him a reasonable chance of success? He must show himself
+to be devoted, true, and not easily repressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+She had used, he did not doubt, the same sort of language in silencing
+Anderson. Mr. Anderson had accepted her words, but he knew too well the
+value of words coming from a young lady's mouth to take them at their
+true meaning. He had at this interview affected a certain amount of
+intimacy with Florence of which he thought that he appreciated the
+value. She had told him that she would kill him,&mdash;of course in joke; and
+a joke from a girl on such an occasion was worth much. No Belgian girl
+would have joked. But then he was anxious to marry Florence because
+Florence was English. Therefore, when he went back to his own home he
+directed that the system of the high polish should be continued with his
+boots.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't suppose he will come again," Florence had said to her mother,
+misunderstanding the character of her latest lover quite as widely as he
+misunderstood hers. But M. Grascour, though he did not absolutely renew
+his offer at once, gave it to be understood that he did not at all
+withdraw from the contest. He obtained permission from Lady Mountjoy to
+be constantly at the Embassy, and succeeded even in obtaining a promise
+of support from Sir Magnus. "You're quite up a tree," Sir Magnus had
+said to his Secretary of Legation. "It's clear she won't look at you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have pledged myself to abstain," said poor Anderson, in a tone which
+seemed to confess that all chance was over with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose she must marry some one, and I don't see why Grascour should
+not have as good a chance as another." Anderson had stalked away,
+brooding over the injustice of his position, and declaring to himself
+that this Belgian should never be allowed to marry Florence Mountjoy in
+peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+But M. Grascour continued his attentions; and this it was which had
+induced Florence to tell her mother that the Belgian was "a great
+trouble," which ought to be avoided by a return to England.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH47"><!-- CH47 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLVII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+FLORENCE BIDS FAREWELL TO HER LOVERS.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, had you not better take me back to Cheltenham at once?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Has that unfortunate young man written to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes. The young man whom you call unfortunate has written. Of course I
+cannot agree to have him so called. And, to tell the truth, I don't
+think he is so very unfortunate. He has got a girl who really loves him,
+and that, I think, is a step to happiness."
+</p>
+<p>
+Every word of this was said by Florence as though with the purpose of
+provoking her mother; and so did Mrs. Mountjoy feel it. But behind this
+purpose there was that other fixed resolution to get Harry at last
+accepted as her husband, and perhaps the means taken were the best. Mrs
+Mountjoy was already beginning to feel that there would be nothing for
+her but to give up the battle, and to open her motherly arms to Harry
+Annesley. Sir Magnus had told her that M. Grascour would probably
+prevail. M. Grascour was said to be exactly the man likely to be
+effective with such a girl as Florence. That had been the last opinion
+expressed by Sir Magnus. But Mrs. Mountjoy had found no comfort in it.
+Florence was going to have her own way. Her mother knew that it was so,
+and was very unhappy. But she was still anxious to continue a weak,
+ineffective battle. "It was very impertinent of him writing," she said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"When he was going to America for years! Dear mamma, do put yourself in
+my place. How was it possible that he should not write?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A young man has no business to come and insinuate himself into a family
+in that way; and then, when he knows he is not welcome, to open a
+correspondence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But, mamma, he knows that he is welcome. If he had gone to America
+without writing to me&mdash;Oh, it would have been impossible! I should have
+gone after him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No,&mdash;no;&mdash;never!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am quite in earnest, mamma. But it is no good talking about what
+could not have taken place."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We ought to have prevented you from receiving or sending letters." Here
+Mrs. Mountjoy touched on a subject on which the practice of the English
+world has been much altered during the last thirty or forty
+years;&mdash;perhaps we may say fifty or sixty years. Fifty years ago young
+ladies were certainly not allowed to receive letters as they chose, and
+to write them, and to demand that this practice should be carried on
+without any supervision from their elder friends. It is now usually the
+case that they do so. A young lady, before she falls into a
+correspondence with a young man, is expected to let it be understood
+that she does so. But she does not expect that his letters, either
+coming or going, shall be subject to any espial, and she generally feels
+that the option of obeying or disobeying the instructions given to her
+rests with herself. Practically the use of the post-office is in her own
+hands. And, as this spirit of self-conduct has grown up, the morals and
+habits of our young ladies have certainly not deteriorated. In America
+they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young
+gentlemen walk about with each other. In America the young ladies are as
+well-behaved as with us,&mdash;as well-behaved as they are in some Continental
+countries in which they are still watched close till they are given up
+as brides to husbands with whom they have had no means of becoming
+acquainted. Whether the latch-key system, or that of free
+correspondence, may not rob the flowers of some of that delicate aroma
+which we used to appreciate, may be a question; but then it is also a
+question whether there does not come something in place of it which in
+the long-run is found to be more valuable. Florence, when this remark
+was made as to her own power of sending and receiving letters, remained
+silent, but looked very firm. She thought that it would have been
+difficult to silence her after this fashion. "Sir Magnus could have done
+it, at any rate, if I had not been able."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir Magnus could have done nothing, I think, which would not have been
+within your power. But it is useless talking of this. Will you not take
+me back to England, so as to prevent the necessity of Harry coming
+here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should he come?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because, mamma, I intend to see my future husband before he goes from
+me for so great a distance, and for so long a time. Don't you feel any
+pity for me, mamma?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you feel pity for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because one day you wish me to marry my cousin Scarborough, and the
+next Mr. Anderson, and then the next M. Grascour? How can I pity you for
+that? It is all done because you have taken it in your head to think ill
+of one whom I believe to be especially worthy. You began by disliking
+him, because he interfered with your plans about Mountjoy. I never would
+have married my cousin Mountjoy. He is not to my taste, and he is a
+gambler. But you have thought that you could do what you liked with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It has always been for your own happiness."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I must be the judge of that. How could I be happy with any of these
+men, seeing that I do not care for them in the least? It would be
+utterly impossible for me to have myself married to either of them. To
+Harry Annesley I have given myself altogether; but you, because you are
+my mother, are able to keep us apart. Do you not pity me for the sorrow
+and trouble which I must suffer?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose a mother always pities the sufferings of a child."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And removes them when she can do so. But now, mamma, is he to come
+here, or will you take me back to England?"
+</p>
+<p>
+This was a question which Mrs. Mountjoy found it very difficult to
+answer. On the spur of the moment she could not answer it, as it would
+be necessary that she should first consult Sir Magnus. Could Sir Magnus
+undertake to confine her daughter within the precincts of the Embassy,
+and to exclude the lover during such time as Harry Annesley night remain
+in Brussels?
+</p>
+<p>
+As she thought of the matter in her own room she conceived that there
+would be a great difficulty. All the world of Brussels would become
+aware of what was going on. The young lady would endeavor to get out,
+and could only be constrained by the co-operation of the servants; and
+the young gentleman, in his endeavors to get in, could only be prevented
+by the assistance of the police. Dim ideas presented themselves to her
+mind of farther travel. But wherever she went there would be a
+post-office, and she was aware that the young man could pursue her much
+quicker than she could fly. How good it would be that in such an
+emergency she might have the privilege of locking her daughter up in
+some convent! And yet it must be a Protestant convent, as all things
+savoring of the Roman Catholic religion were abhorrent to her.
+Altogether, as she thought of her own condition and that of her
+daughter, she felt that the world was sadly out of joint.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Coming here, is he?" said Sir Magnus. "Then he will just have to go
+back again as wise as he came."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But can you shut your doors against him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Shut my doors! Of course I can. He'll never be able to get his nose in
+here if once an order has been given for his exclusion. Who's Mr.
+Annesley? I don't suppose he knows an Englishman in Brussels."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But she will go out to meet him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What! in the streets?" said Sir Magnus, in horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fear she would."
+</p>
+<p>
+"By George! she must be a stiff-necked one if she'll do that." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy, with tears in her eyes, began to explain with very many
+epithets that her daughter was the best girl in all the world. She was
+entirely worthy of confidence. Those who knew her were aware that no
+better behaved young woman could exist. She was conscientious,
+religious, and high-principled. "But she'll go out in the streets and
+walk with a young man when all her friends tell her not. Is that her
+idea of religion?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with some touch of anger in the
+tone of her voice, said that she would return to England, and carry her
+daughter with her. "What the deuce can I do, Sarah, when the young lady
+is so unruly? I can give orders to have him shut out, and can take care
+that they are obeyed; but I cannot give orders to have her shut in. I
+should be making her a prisoner, and everybody would talk about it. In
+that matter you must give her the orders;&mdash;only you say that she would
+not comply with them."
+</p>
+<p>
+On the following day Mrs. Mountjoy informed her daughter that they would
+go back to Cheltenham. She did not name an immediate day, because it
+would be well, she thought, to stave off the evil hour. Nor did she name
+a distant day, because, were she to do so, the terrible evil of Harry
+Annesley's arrival in Brussels would not be prevented. At first she
+wished to name no day, thinking that it would be a good thing to cross
+Harry on the road. But here Florence was too strong for her, and at last
+a day was fixed. In a week's time they would take their departure and go
+home by slow stages. With this arrangement Florence expressed herself
+well pleased, and of course made Harry acquainted with the probable time
+of their arrival.
+</p>
+<p>
+M. Grascour, when he heard that the day had been suddenly fixed for the
+departure of Mrs. Mountjoy and her daughter, not unnaturally conceived
+that he himself was the cause of the ladies' departure. Nor did he on
+that account resign all hope. The young lady's mother was certainly on
+his side, and he thought it quite possible that were he to appear in
+England he might be successful. But when he had heard of her coming
+departure of course it was necessary that he should say some special
+farewell. He dined one evening at the British Embassy, and took an
+opportunity during the evening of finding himself alone with Florence.
+"And so, Miss Florence," he said, "you and your estimable mamma are
+about to return to England?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"We have been here a very long time, and are going home at last."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems to me but the other day when you came." said M. Grascour, with
+all a lover's eagerness.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was in autumn, and the weather was quite mild and soft. Now we are
+in the middle of January."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so. But still the time has gone only too rapidly. The heart
+can hardly take account of days and weeks." As this was decidedly
+lover's talk, and was made in terms which even a young lady cannot
+pretend to misunderstand, Florence was obliged to answer it in some
+manner equally direct. And now she was angry with him. She had informed
+him that she was in love with another man. In doing so she had done much
+more than the necessity of the case demanded, and had told him, as the
+best way of silencing him, that which she might have been expected to
+keep as her own secret. And yet here he was talking to her about his
+heart! She made him no immediate answer, but frowned at him and looked
+stern. It was clear to her intelligence that he had no right to talk to
+her about his heart after the information she had given him. "I hope,
+Miss Mountjoy, that I may look forward to the pleasure of seeing you
+when I go over to England."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we don't live in London, or near it. We live down in the
+country&mdash;at Cheltenham."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Distance would be nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+This was very bad, and must be stopped, thought Florence. "I suppose I
+shall be married by that time. I don't know where we may live, but I
+shall be happy to see you if you call."
+</p>
+<p>
+She had here made a bold assertion, and one which M. Grascour did not at
+all believe. He was speaking of a visit which he might make, perhaps, in
+a month or six weeks, and the young lady told him that he would find her
+married! And yet, as he knew very well, her mother and her uncle and her
+aunt were all opposed to this marriage. And she spoke of it without a
+blush,&mdash;without any reticence! Young ladies were much emancipated, but he
+did not think that they generally carried their emancipation so far as
+this. "I hope not that," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know why you should be so ill-natured as to hope it. The fact
+is, M. Grascour, you don't believe what I told you the other day.
+Perhaps as a young lady I ought not to have alluded to it, but I did so
+in order to set the matter at rest altogether. Of course I can't tell
+when you may come. If you come quite at once I shall not be married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No;&mdash;not married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I shall be as much engaged as is possible for a girl to be. I have
+given my word, and nothing will make me false to it. I don't suppose you
+will come on my account."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Solely on your account."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then stay at home. I am quite in earnest. And now I must say good-bye."
+</p>
+<p>
+She departed, and left him seated alone on the sofa. He at first told
+himself that she was unfeminine. There was a hard way with her of
+talking about herself which he almost pronounced to be unladylike. An
+unmarried girl should, he thought, under no circumstances speak of the
+gentleman to whom her affections had been given as Miss Mountjoy spoke
+of Mr. Annesley. But nevertheless he would sooner possess her as his own
+wife than any other girl he had ever met. Something of the real passion
+of unsatisfied love made him feel chill at his heart. Who was this Harry
+Annesley, for whom she professed so warm a feeling? Her mother declared
+Harry Annesley to be a scapegrace, and something of the story of a
+discreditable midnight street quarrel between him and the young lady's
+cousin had reached his ears. He did not suppose it to be possible that
+the young lady could actually get married without her mother's
+co-operation, and therefore he thought that he still would go to
+England. In one respect he was altogether untouched. If he could
+ultimately succeed in marrying the young lady, she would not be a bit
+the worse as his wife because she had been attached to Harry Annesley.
+That was a kind of folly which a girl could very quickly get over when
+she had not been allowed to have her own way. Therefore, upon the whole,
+he thought that he would go to England.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the parting with Anderson had also to be endured, and must
+necessarily be more difficult. She owed him a debt for having abstained,
+and she could not go without paying the debt by some expression of
+gratitude. That she would have done so had he kept aloof was a matter of
+course; but equally a matter of course was it that he would not keep
+aloof. "I shall want to see you for just five minutes to-morrow morning
+before you take your departure," he said, in a lugubrious voice, during
+her last evening.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had kept his promise to the very letter, mooning about in his
+desolate manner very conspicuously. The desolation had been notorious,
+and very painful to Florence,&mdash;but the promise had been kept, and she was
+grateful. "Oh, certainly, if you wish it," she said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do wish it." Then he made an appointment and she promised to keep it.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was in the ball-room, a huge chamber, very convenient for its
+intended purpose, and always handsome at night-time, but looking as
+desolate in the morning as did poor Anderson himself. He was stalking up
+and down the long room when she entered it, and being at the farther
+end, stalked up to her and addressed her with words which he had chosen
+for the purpose. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "you found me here a happy,
+light-hearted young man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope I leave you soon to be the same, in spite of this little
+accident."
+</p>
+<p>
+He did not say that he was a blighted being, because the word had, he
+thought, become ridiculous; but he would have used it had he dared, as
+expressing most accurately his condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A cloud has passed over me, and its darkness will never be effaced. It
+has certainly been your doing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! what can I say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have loved before,&mdash;but never like this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And so you will again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never! When I declare that, I expect my word to be respected," He
+paused for an answer, but what could she say? She did not at all respect
+his word on such a subject, but she did respect his conduct. "Yes; I
+call upon you to believe me when I say that for me all that is over. But
+it can be nothing to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be very much to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall go on in the same disconsolate, miserable way, I suppose I
+shall stay here, because I shall be as well here as anywhere else. I
+might move to Lisbon,&mdash;but what good would that do me? Your image would
+follow me to whatever capital I might direct my steps. But there is one
+thing you can do." Here he brightened up, putting on quite an altered
+face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will do anything, Mr. Anderson&mdash;in my power."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If&mdash;if&mdash;if you should change&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall never change!" she said, with an angry look.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you should change, I think you should remember the promise you
+exacted and the fidelity with which it has been kept."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do remember it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then I should be allowed to come again and have my chance. Wherever
+I may be, at the court of the Shah of Persia or at the Chinese capital,
+I will instantly come. I promised you when you asked me. Will you not
+now promise me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot promise anything&mdash;so impossible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will bind you to nothing but to let me know that Mr. Annesley has
+gone his way." But she had to explain to him that it was impossible she
+should make any promise founded on the idea that Mr. Henry Annesley
+should ever go any way in which she would not accompany him. With that
+he had to be as well satisfied as the circumstances of the case would
+admit, and he left her with an assurance, not intended to be quite
+audible, that he was and ever should be a blighted individual.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the carriage was at the door Sir Magnus came down into the hall,
+full of smiles and good-humor; but at that moment Lady Mountjoy was
+saying a last word of farewell to her relatives in her own chamber.
+"Good-bye, my dear; I hope you will get well through all your troubles."
+This was addressed to Mrs. Mountjoy. "And as for you, my dear," she
+said, turning to Florence, "if you would only contrive to be a little
+less stiff-necked, I think the world would go easier with you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think my stiff neck, aunt, as you call it, is what I have chiefly to
+depend upon,&mdash;I mean in reference to other advice than mamma's. Good-bye,
+aunt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, Florence." And the two parted, hating each other as only
+female enemies can hate. But Florence, when she was in the carriage,
+threw herself on to her mother's neck and kissed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH48"><!-- CH48 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLVIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. PROSPER CHANGES HIS MIND.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When Florence with her mother reached Cheltenham she found a letter
+lying for her, which surprised her much. The the letter was from Harry,
+and seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had lately
+displayed. But it was very short:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAREST FLORENCE,&mdash;When can I come down? It is absolutely necessary
+that I should see you. All my plans are likely to be changed in the most
+extraordinary manner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody can say that this is a love-letter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours affectionately, H. A."
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence, of course, showed the letter to her mother, who was much
+frightened by its contents. "What am I to say to him when he comes?" she
+exclaimed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you will be so very, very good as to see him you must not say
+anything unkind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Unkind! How can I say anything else than what you would call unkind? I
+disapprove of him altogether. And he is coming here with the express
+object of taking you away from me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no;&mdash;not at once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But at some day,&mdash;which I trust may be very distant. How can I speak to
+him kindly when I feel that he is my enemy?" But the matter was at last
+set at rest by a promise from Florence that she would not marry her
+lover in less than three years without her mother's express consent.
+Three years is a long time, was Mrs. Mountjoy's thought, and many things
+might occur within that term. Harry, of whom she thought all manner of
+unnatural things, might probably in that time have proved himself to be
+utterly unworthy. And Mountjoy Scarborough might again have come forward
+in the light of the world. She had heard of late that Mountjoy had been
+received once more into his father's full favor. And the old man had
+become so enormously rich through the building of mills which had been
+going on at Tretton, that, as Mrs. Mountjoy thought, he would be able to
+make any number of elder sons. On the subject of entail her ideas were
+misty; but she felt sure that Mountjoy Scarborough would even yet become
+a rich man. That Florence should be made to change on that account she
+did not expect. But she did think that when she should have learned that
+Harry was a murderer, or a midnight thief, or a wicked conspirator, she
+would give him up. Therefore she agreed to receive him with not actually
+expressed hostility when he should call at Montpelier Place.
+</p>
+<p>
+But now, in the proper telling of our story, we must go back to Harry
+Annesley himself. It will be remembered that his father had called upon
+Mr. Prosper, to inform him of Harry's projected journey to America; that
+Mountjoy Scarborough had also called at Buston Hall; and that previous
+to these two visits old Mr. Scarborough had himself written a long
+letter giving a detailed account of the conflict which had taken place
+in the London streets. These three events had operated strongly on Mr.
+Prosper's mind; but not so strongly as the conduct of Miss Thoroughbung
+and Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson. It had been made evident to him, from the
+joint usage which he had received from these persons, that he was simply
+"made use of," with the object of obtaining from him the best possible
+establishment for the lady in question.
+</p>
+<p>
+After that interview, at which the lady, having obtained in way of
+jointure much more than was due to her, demanded also for Miss Tickle a
+life-long home, and for herself a pair of ponies, he received a farther
+letter from the lawyers. This offended him greatly. Nothing on earth
+should induce him to write a line to Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson. Nor did
+he see his way to writing again to Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry about such
+trifles as those contained in the letter from the Buntingford lawyers.
+Trifles to him they were not; but trifles they must become, if put into
+a letter addressed to a London firm. "Our client is anxious to know
+specifically that she is to be allowed to bring Miss Tickle with her,
+when she removes to Buston Hall. Her happiness depends greatly on the
+company of Miss Tickle, to which she had been used now for many years.
+Our client wishes to be assured also that she shall be allowed to keep a
+pair of ponies in addition to the carriage-horses, which will be
+maintained, no doubt, chiefly for your own purposes." These were the
+demands as made by Messrs. Soames &amp; Simpson, and felt by Mr. Prosper to
+be altogether impossible. He recollected the passionate explosion of
+wrath to which the name of Miss Tickle had already brought him in
+presence of the clergyman of his parish. He would endure no farther
+disgrace on behalf of Miss Tickle. Miss Tickle should never be an inmate
+of his house, and as for the ponies, no pony should ever be stabled in
+his stalls. A pony was an animal which of its very nature was
+objectionable to him. There was a want of dignity in a pony to which
+Buston Hall should never be subjected. "And also," he said to himself at
+last, "there is a lack of dignity about Miss Thoroughbung herself which
+would do me an irreparable injury."
+</p>
+<p>
+But how should he make known his decision to the lady herself? and how
+should he escape from the marriage in such a manner as to leave no stain
+on his character as a gentleman? If he could have offered her a sum of
+money, he would have done so at once; but that he thought would not be
+gentleman-like,&mdash;and would be a confession on his own part that he had
+behaved wrongly.
+</p>
+<p>
+At last he determined to take no notice of the lawyers' letter, and
+himself to write to Miss Thoroughbung, telling her that the objects
+which they proposed to themselves by marriage were not compatible, and
+that therefore their matrimonial intentions must be allowed to subside.
+He thought it well over, and felt assured that very much of the success
+of such a measure must depend upon the wording of the letter. There need
+be no immediate haste. Miss Thoroughbung would not come to Buston again
+quite at once to disturb him by a farther visit. Before she would come
+he would have flown to Italy. The letter must be courteous, and somewhat
+tender, but it must be absolutely decisive. There must be no loop-hole
+left by which she could again entangle him, no crevice by which she
+could creep into Buston. The letter should be a work of time. He would
+give himself a week or ten days for composing it. And then, when it
+should have been sent, he would be off to Italy.
+</p>
+<p>
+But before he could allow himself to go upon his travels he must settle
+the question about his nephew, which now lay heavy upon his conscience.
+He did feel that he had ill treated the young man. He had been so told
+in very strong language by Mr. Scarborough of Tretton, and Mr.
+Scarborough of Tretton was a man of very large property, and much talked
+about in the world. Very wonderful things were said about Mr.
+Scarborough, but they all tended to make Mr. Prosper believe that he was
+a man of distinction. And he had also heard lately about Mr.
+Scarborough's younger son,&mdash;or, indeed, his only son, according to the
+new way of speaking of him,&mdash;tidings which were not much in that young
+man's favor. It was from Augustus Scarborough that he had heard those
+evil stories about his own nephew. Therefore his belief was shaken; and
+it was by no means clear to him that there could be any other heir for
+their property.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Thoroughbung had proved herself to be altogether unfit for the high
+honor he had intended her. Miss Puffle had gone off with Farmer
+Tazlehurst's son. Mr. Prosper did not think that he had energy enough to
+look for a third lady who might be fit at all points to become his wife.
+And now another evil had been added to all these. His nephew had
+declared his purpose of emigrating to the United States and becoming an
+American. It might be true that he should be driven to do so by absolute
+want. He, Mr. Prosper, had stopped his allowance, and had done so after
+deterring him from following any profession by which he might have
+earned his bread. He had looked into the law, and, as far as he could
+understand it, Buston must become the property of his nephew, even
+though his nephew should become an American citizen. His conscience
+pricked him sorely as he thought of the evil which might thus accrue,
+and of the disgrace which would be attached to his own name. He
+therefore wrote the following letter to his nephew, and sent it across
+to the parsonage, done up in a large envelope, and sealed carefully with
+the Buston arms. And on the corner of the envelope "Peter Prosper" was
+written very legibly:
+</p>
+<p>
+"MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"Under existing circumstances you will, I think, be surprised at a
+letter written in my handwriting; but facts have arisen which make it
+expedient that I should address you.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are about, I am informed, to proceed to the United States, a
+country against which I acknowledge I entertain a serious antipathy.
+They are not a gentlemanlike people, and I am given to understand that
+they are generally dishonest in all their dealings. Their President is a
+low person, and all their ideas of government are pettifogging. Their
+ladies, I am told, are very vulgar, though I have never had the pleasure
+of knowing one of them. They are an irreligious nation, and have no
+respect for the Established Church of England and her bishops. I should
+be very sorry that my heir should go among them.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With reference to my stopping the income which I have hitherto allowed
+you, it was a step I took upon the best advice, nor can I allow it to be
+thought that there is any legal claim upon me for a continuance of the
+payment. But I am willing for the present to continue it, on the full
+understanding that you at once give up your American project.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there is a subject on which it is essentially necessary that I
+should receive from you, as my heir, a full and complete explanation.
+Under what circumstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets
+late on the night of the 3d of June last? And how did it come to pass
+that you left him bleeding, speechless, and motionless on that occasion?
+</p>
+<p>
+"As I am about to continue the payment of the sum hitherto allowed, I
+think it only fitting that I should receive this explanation under your
+own hand.&mdash;I am your affectionate uncle,
+</p>
+<center>
+"PETER PROSPER.
+</center>
+<p>
+"P.S.&mdash;A rumor may probably have reached you of a projected alliance
+between me and a young lady belonging to a family with which your sister
+is about to connect herself. It is right that I should tell you that
+there is no truth in this report."
+</p>
+<p>
+This letter, which was much easier to write than the one intended for
+Miss Thoroughbung, was unfortunately sent off a little before the
+completion of the other. A day's interval had been intended. But the
+missive to Miss Thoroughbung was, under the press of difficulties,
+delayed longer than was intended.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was, we grieve to say, much of joy but more of laughter at the
+rectory when this letter was received. As usual, Joe Thoroughbung was
+there, and it was found impossible to keep the letter from him. The
+postscript burst upon them all as a surprise, and was welcomed by no one
+with more vociferous joy than by the lady's nephew. "So there is an end
+forever to the hope that a child of the Buntingford Brewery should sit
+upon the throne of the Prospers." It was thus that Joe expressed
+himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't he have sat there?" said Polly. "A Thoroughbung is as
+good as a Prosper any day." But this was not said in the presence of
+Mrs. Annesley, who on that subject entertained views very different from
+her daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wonder what his idea is of the Church of England?" said Mr.
+Annesley. "Does he think that the Archbishop of Canterbury is supreme in
+all religious matters in America?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"How on earth he knows that the women are all vulgar, when he has never
+seen one of them, is a mystery," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that they are dishonest in all their dealings," said Joe. "I
+suppose he got that out of some of the radical news papers." For Joe,
+after the manner of brewers, was a staunch Tory.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And their President, too, is vulgar as well as the ladies," said Mr.
+Annesley. "And this is the opinion of an educated Englishman, who is not
+ashamed to own that he entertains serious antipathies against a whole
+nation!"
+</p>
+<p>
+But at the parsonage they soon returned to a more serious consideration
+of the matter. Did Uncle Prosper intend to forgive the sinner
+altogether? And was he coerced into doing so by a conviction that he had
+been told lies, or by the uncommon difficulties which presented
+themselves to him in reference to another heir? At any rate, it was
+agreed by them all that Harry must meet his uncle half-way, and write
+the "full and complete explanation," as desired. "'Bleeding, speechless,
+and motionless!'" said Harry. "I can't deny that he was bleeding; he
+certainly was speechless, and for a few moments may have been
+motionless. What am I to say?" But the letter was not a difficult one to
+write, and was sent across on the same day to the Hall. There Mr.
+Prosper gave up a day to its consideration,&mdash;a day which would have been
+much better devoted to applying the final touch to his own letter to
+Miss Thoroughbung. And he found at last that his nephew's letter
+required no rejoinder.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Harry had much to do. It was first necessary that he should see his
+friend, and explain to him that causes over which he had no control
+forbade him to go to America. "Of course, you know, I can't fly in my
+uncle's face. I was going because he intended to disinherit me; but he
+finds that more troublesome than letting me alone, and therefore I must
+remain. You see what he says about the Americans." The gentleman, whose
+opinion about our friends on the other side of the Atlantic was very
+different from Mr. Prosper's, fell into a long argument on the subject.
+But he was obliged at last to give up his companion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then came the necessity of explaining the change in all his plans to
+Florence Mountjoy, and with this view he wrote the short letter given at
+the beginning of the chapter, following it down in person to
+Cheltenham. "Mamma, Harry is here," said Florence to her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, my dear? I did not bring him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what am I to say to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"How can I tell? Why do you ask me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he must come and see me," said Florence. "He has sent a note
+to say that he will be here in ten minutes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean to be present, mamma? That is what I want to know." But
+that was the question which at the moment Mrs. Mountjoy could not
+answer. She had pledged herself not to be unkind, on condition that no
+marriage should take place for three years. But she could not begin by
+being kind, as otherwise she would immediately have been pressed to
+abandon that very condition. "Perhaps, mamma, it would be less painful
+if you would not see him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he is not to make repeated visits."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not at present; I think not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He must come only once," said Mrs. Mountjoy, firmly. "He was to have
+come because he was going to America. But now he has changed all his
+plans. It isn't fair, Florence."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can I do? I cannot send him to America because you thought he was
+to go there. I thought so too; and so did he. I don't know what has
+changed him; but it wasn't likely that he'd write and say he wouldn't
+come because he had altered his plans. Of course he wants to see me; and
+so do I want to see him&mdash;very much. Here he is!"
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Mountjoy was driven to resolve
+what she would do at the moment. "You mustn't be above a quarter of an
+hour. I won't have you together for above a quarter of an hour,&mdash;or
+twenty minutes at the farthest." So saying, Mrs. Mountjoy escaped from
+the room, and within a minute or two Florence found herself in Harry
+Annesley's arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+The twenty minutes had become forty before Harry had thought of
+stirring, although he had been admonished fully a dozen times that he
+must at that moment take his departure. Then the maid knocked at the
+door, and brought word "that missus wanted to see Miss Florence in her
+bedroom."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Harry, you must go. You really shall go,&mdash;or I will. I am very,
+very happy to hear what you have told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But three years!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Unless mamma will agree."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is quite out of the question. I never heard of anything so absurd."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you must get mamma to consent. I have promised her for three
+years, and you ought to know that I will keep my word. Harry, I always
+keep my word; do I not? If she will consent, I will. Now, sir, I really
+must go." Then there was a little form of farewell which need not be
+especially explained, and Florence went up stairs to her mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH49"><!-- CH49 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER XLIX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES GETS HIS MONEY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When we last left Captain Scarborough, he had just lost an additional
+sum of two hundred and twenty-seven pounds to Captain Vignolles, which
+he was not able to pay, besides the sum of fifty pounds which he had
+received the day before, as the first instalment of his new allowance.
+This was but a bad beginning of the new life he was expected to lead
+under the renewed fortunes which his father was preparing for him. He
+had given his promissory note for the money at a week's date, and had
+been extremely angry with Captain Vignolles because that gentleman had,
+under the circumstances, been a little anxious about it. It certainly
+was not singular that he should have been so, as Captain Scarborough had
+been turned out of more than one club in consequence of his inability to
+pay his card debts. As he went home to his lodgings, with Captain
+Vignolles's champagne in his head, he felt very much as he had done that
+night when he attacked Harry Annesley. But he met no one whom he could
+consider as an enemy, and therefore got himself to bed, and slept off
+the fumes of the drink.
+</p>
+<p>
+On that day he was to return to Tretton; but, when he awoke, he felt
+that before he did so he must endeavor to make some arrangements for
+paying the amount due at the end of the week. He had already borrowed
+twenty pounds from Mr. Grey, and had intended to repay him out of the
+sum which his father had given him; but that sum now was gone, and he
+was again nearly penniless. In this emergency there was nothing left to
+him but again to go to Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he was shown up the stairs to the lawyer's room he did feel
+thoroughly ashamed of himself. Mr. Grey knew all the circumstances of
+his career, and it would be necessary now to tell him of this last
+adventure. He did tell himself, as he dragged himself up the stairs,
+that for such a one as he was there could be no redemption. "It would be
+better that I should go back," he said, "and throw myself from the
+Monument." But yet he felt that if Florence Mountjoy could still be his,
+there might yet be a hope that things would go well with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey began by expressing surprise at seeing Captain Scarborough in
+town. "Oh yes, I have come up. It does not matter why, because, as
+usual, I have put my foot in it. It was at my father's bidding; but that
+does not matter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How have you put your foot in it?" said the attorney. There was one way
+in which the captain was always "putting" both his "feet in it;" but,
+since he had been turned out of his clubs, Mr. Grey did not think that
+that way was open to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old story."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that you have been gambling again?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes;&mdash;I met a friend last night and he asked me to his rooms."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he had the cards ready?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he had. What else would any one have ready for me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he won that remnant of the twenty pounds which you borrowed from
+me, and therefore you want another?" Hereupon the captain shook his
+head. "What is it, then, that you do want?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Such a man as I met," said the captain, "would not be content with the
+remnant of twenty pounds. I had received fifty from my father, and had
+intended to call here and pay you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That has all gone too?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed. And in addition to that I have given him a note for two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I must take up in a week's time.
+Otherwise I must disappear again,&mdash;and this time forever."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a bottomless gulf," said the attorney. Captain Scarborough sat
+silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but
+his heart within him certainly was not smiling. "A bottomless gulf,"
+repeated the attorney. Upon this the captain frowned. "What is it that
+you wish me to do for you? I have no money of your father's in my hands,
+nor could I give it you if I had it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose not. I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so."
+Then it was the lawyer's turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of
+it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go.
+"I won't trouble you any more Mr. Grey," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sit down," said Mr. Grey. But the captain still remained standing. "Sit
+down. Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this
+sum of money;&mdash;nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in
+explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would
+repay me. And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy
+about my money, whether he did so or not. But would it be wise? On your
+own account would it be wise?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,&mdash;unless you could
+cut my throat."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father,
+the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall never believe all this about my mother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind that now. We will pass that by for the present. He has
+disinherited you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will be a question some day for the lawyers&mdash;should I live."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you
+another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I
+sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for
+your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all
+things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months
+longer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges
+him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make
+you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the
+captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all
+the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going
+to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk
+will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for
+life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or
+in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you
+have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"This man who had your money last;&mdash;does he not live on it as a
+profession? Why should he win always, and you lose?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is my luck."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Luck! There is no such thing as luck. Toss up, right hand against left
+for an hour together, and the result will be the same. If not for an
+hour, then do it for six hours. Take the average, and your cards will be
+the same as another man's."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Another man has his skill," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And uses it against the unskillful to earn his daily bread. That is the
+same as cheating. But what is the use of all this? You must have thought
+of it all before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And thinking of it, you are determined to persevere. You are impetuous,
+not thoughtless, with your brain clouded with drink, and for the mere
+excitement of the thing, you are determined to risk all in a contest for
+which there is no chance for you,&mdash;and by which you acknowledge you will
+be driven to self-destruction, as the only natural end."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fear it is so," said the captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How much shall I draw it for?" said the attorney, taking out his
+check-book,&mdash;"and to whom shall I make it payable? I suppose I may date
+it to-day, so that the swindler who gets it may think that there is
+plenty more behind for him to get."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that you are going to lend it me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And how do you mean to get it again?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must wait, I suppose, till you have won it back among your friends.
+If you will tell me that you do not intend to look for it in that
+fashion, then I shall have no doubt as to your making me a legitimate
+payment in a very short time. Two hundred and twenty pounds won't ruin
+you, unless you are determined to ruin yourself." Mr. Grey the meanwhile
+went on writing the check. "Here is provided for you a large sum of
+money," and he laid his hand upon the will, "out of which you will be
+able to pay me without the slightest difficulty. It is for you to say
+whether you will or not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need not say it in that fashion;&mdash;that's easy. You must say it at
+some moment when the itch of play is on you; when there shall be no one
+by to hear: when the resolution if held, shall have some meaning in it.
+Then say, 'there's that money which I had from old Grey. I am bound to
+pay it. But if I go in there I know what will be the result. The very
+coin that should go into his coffers will become a part of the prey on
+which those harpies will feed.' There's the check for the two hundred
+and twenty-seven pounds. I have drawn it exact, so that you may send the
+identical bit of paper to your friend. He will suppose that I am some
+money-lender who has engaged to supply your needs while your recovered
+fortune lasts. Tell your father he shall have the will to-morrow. I
+don't suppose I can send Smith with it to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then it became necessary that Scarborough should go; but it would be
+becoming that he should first utter some words of thanks. "I think you
+will get it back, Mr. Grey."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for
+a while from the gambling-table."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't look for more than that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure
+me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some woman?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well;&mdash;it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her
+comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember
+what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to
+Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:
+</p>
+<p>
+"DEAR SIR,&mdash;I send you your money. Send back the note.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the
+check,&mdash;"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That
+Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be
+a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over
+in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an
+industrious professional worker.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for
+a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave
+him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be
+comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening
+Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the
+Carrolls,&mdash;how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother
+because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly,
+whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be
+kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had
+told her in confidence that Carroll <i>pere</i> had come home the night
+before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey
+had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with
+the secret of the money which he had lent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Therefore Dolly did not put out her candle, and arrayed herself for bed
+in the costume with which she was wont to make her nocturnal visits. She
+had perceived that her father had something on his mind which it would
+be necessary that he should tell. She was soon summoned, and having
+seated herself on the bed, began the conversation: "I knew you would
+want me to-night."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because you've got something to tell. It's about Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No indeed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's well. Just at this moment I seem to care about Mr. Barry more
+than any other trouble. But I fear that he has forgotten me
+altogether,&mdash;which is not complimentary."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Barry will turn up all in proper time," said her father. "I have
+got nothing to say about Mr. Barry just at present, so if you are
+love-lorn you had better go to bed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well. When I am love-lorn I will. Now, what have you got to tell
+me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have lent a man a large sum of money,&mdash;two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are always lending people large sums of money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I generally get it back again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"From Mr. Carroll, for instance,&mdash;when he borrows it for a pair of
+breeches and spends it in gin-and-water."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never lent him a shilling. He is a burr, and has to be pacified, not
+by loans but gifts. It is too late now for me to prevent the
+brother-in-lawship of poor Carroll."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who has got this money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A professed gambler, who never wins anything, and constantly loses more
+than he is able to pay. Yet I do think this man will pay me some day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is Captain Scarborough," said Dolly. "Seeing that his father is a
+very rich man indeed, and as far as I can understand gives you a great
+deal more trouble than he is worth, I don't see why you should lend a
+large sum of money to his son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Simply because he wanted it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear! oh dear!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He wanted it very much. He had gone away a ruined man because of his
+gambling; and now, when he had come back and was to be put upon his legs
+again, I could not see him again ruined for the need of such a sum. It
+was very foolish."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps a little rash, papa."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But now I have told you; and so there may be an end of it. But I'll
+tell you what, Dolly: I'll bet you a new straw hat he pays me within a
+month of his father's death." Then Dolly was allowed to escape and
+betake herself to her bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+On that same day Mountjoy Scarborough went down to Tretton, and was at
+once closeted with his father. Mr. Scarborough had questions to ask
+about Mr. Prosper, and was anxious to know how his son had succeeded in
+his mission. But the conversation was soon turned from Mr. Prosper to
+Captain Vignolles and Mr. Grey. Mountjoy had determined, as soon as he
+had got the check from Mr. Grey, to say nothing about it to his father.
+He had told Mr. Grey in order that he need not tell his father,&mdash;if the
+money were forthcoming. But he had not been five minutes in his father's
+room before he rushed to the subject. "You got among those birds of prey
+again?" said his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was only one bird,&mdash;or at least two. A big bird and a small one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you lost how much?" Then the captain told the precise sum. "And
+Grey has lent it you?" The captain nodded his head. "Then you must ride
+into Tretton and catch the mail to-night with a check to repay him. That
+you should have been able in so short a time to have found a man willing
+to fleece you! I suppose it's hopeless?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot tell."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Altogether hopeless."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What am I to say, sir? If I make a promise it will go for nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For absolutely nothing."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then what would be the use of my promising?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are quite logical, and look upon the matter in altogether a proper
+light. As you have ruined yourself so often, and done your best to ruin
+those that belong to you, what hope can there be? About this money that
+I have left you, I do not know that anything farther can be said,&mdash;unless
+I leave it all to an hospital. It is better that you should have it and
+throw it away among the gamblers, than that it should fall into the
+hands of Augustus. Besides, the demand is moderate. No doubt it is only
+a beginning, but we will see."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he got out his check-book, and made Mountjoy himself write the
+check, including the two sums which had been borrowed. And he dictated
+the letter to Mr. Grey:
+</p>
+<p>
+"MY DEAR GREY,&mdash;I return the money which Mountjoy has had from you,&mdash;two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and twenty. That, I think, is right.
+You are the most foolish man I know with your money. To have given it to
+such a scapegrace as my son Mountjoy! But you are the sweetest and
+finest gentleman I ever came across. You have got your money now, which
+is a great deal more than you can have expected or ought to have
+obtained. However, on this occasion you have been in great luck.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yours faithfully,
+</p>
+<center>
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+</center>
+<p>
+This letter his son himself was forced to write, though it dealt
+altogether with his own delinquencies; and yet, as he told himself, he
+was not sorry to write it, as it would declare to Mr. Grey that he had
+himself acknowledged at once his own sin. The only farther punishment
+which his father exacted was that his son should himself ride into
+Tretton and post the letter before he ate his dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got my money," said Mr. Grey, waving the check as he went into his
+dressing-room, with Dolly at his heels.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who has paid it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Old Scarborough; and he made Mountjoy write the letter himself, calling
+me an old fool for lending it. I don't think I was such a fool at all.
+However, I've got my money, and you may pay the bet and not say anything
+more about it."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH50"><!-- CH50 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER L.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE LAST OF MISS THOROUGHBUNG.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper, with that kind of energy which was distinctively his own,
+had sent off his letter to Harry Annesley, with his postscript in it
+about his blighted matrimonial prospects,&mdash;a letter easy to be
+written,&mdash;before he had completed his grand epistle to Miss Thoroughbung.
+The epistle to Miss Thoroughbung was one requiring great consideration.
+It had to be studied in every word, and re-written again and again with
+the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an
+epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop
+expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for
+the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop.
+The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had
+heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its
+legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident,
+and, in writing it, had forgotten the intercourse between his
+brother-in-law's house and the Buntingford people. He had known well of
+the proposed marriage; but he was a man who could not think of two
+things at the same time, and thus had committed the blunder.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps it was better for him as it was; and the blow came to him with a
+rapidity which created less of suffering than might have followed the
+slower mode of proceeding which he had intended. He was actually making
+the fifth copy of the letter, rendered necessary by that violent full
+stop, when Matthew came to him and announced that Miss Thoroughbung was
+in the drawing-room. "In the house!" ejaculated Mr. Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She would come into the hall; and then where was I to put her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Matthew Pike, you will not do for my service." This had been said about
+once every three months throughout the long course of years in which
+Matthew had lived with his master.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, sir. I am to take it for a month's warning, of course."
+Matthew understood well enough that this was merely an expression of his
+master's displeasure, and, being anxious for his master's welfare, knew
+that it was decorous that some decision should be come to at once as to
+Miss Thoroughbung, and that time should not be lost in his own little
+personal quarrel. "She is waiting, you know, sir, and she looks uncommon
+irascible. There is the other lady left outside in the carriage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Tickle! Don't let her in, whatever you do. She is the worst. Oh
+dear! oh dear! Where are my coat and waistcoat, and my braces? And I
+haven't brushed my hair. And these slippers won't do. What business has
+she to come at this time of day, without saying a word to anybody?" Then
+Matthew went to work, and got his master into decent apparel, with as
+little delay as possible. "After all," said Mr. Prosper, "I don't think
+I'll see her. Why should I see her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She knows you are at home, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why does she know I'm at home? That's your fault. She oughtn't to know
+anything about it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!" These last ejaculations
+arose from his having just then remembered the nature of his postscript
+to Harry Annesley, and the engagement of Joe Thoroughbung to his niece.
+He made up his mind at the moment,&mdash;or thought that he had made up his
+mind,&mdash;that Harry Annesley should not have a shilling as long as he
+lived. "I am quite out of breath. I cannot see her yet. Go and offer the
+lady cake and wine, and tell her that you had found me very much
+indisposed. I think you will have to tell her that I am not well enough
+to receive her to-day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Get it over, sir, and have done with it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's all very well to say have done with it. I shall never have done
+with it. Because you have let her in to-day she'll think that she can
+come always. Good Lord! There she is on the stairs! Pick up my
+slippers." Then the door was opened, and Miss Thoroughbung herself
+entered the room. It was an up-stairs chamber, known as Mr. Prosper's
+own: and from it was the door into his bedroom. How Miss Thoroughbung
+had learned her way to it he never could guess. But she had come up the
+stairs as though she had been acquainted with all the intricacies of the
+house from her childhood.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Prosper," she said, "I hope I see you quite well this morning, and
+that I have not disturbed you at your toilet." That she had done so was
+evident, from the fact that Matthew, with the dressing-gown and
+slippers, was seen disappearing into the bedroom.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am not very well, thank you," said Mr. Prosper, rising from his
+chair, and offering her his hand with the coldest possible salutation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sorry for that,&mdash;very. I hope it is not your indisposition which
+has prevented you from coming to see me. I have been expecting you every
+day since Soames wrote his last letter. But it's no use pretending any
+longer. Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him
+absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should,
+first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling
+him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening
+for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to
+say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me
+into ridicule glibly enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have never done so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up
+all thoughts of having me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther,
+at the moment, than this utterance of the young man's Christian name.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, Joe,&mdash;Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you
+not write and tell him that everything was over?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have
+dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn't write to Joe himself, you
+wrote to somebody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I may have written to somebody, certainly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And told them that you didn't mean to have anything farther to say to
+me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a
+man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding,
+speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;&mdash;worse
+even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle. Harry had
+committed such a sin that no shilling of allowance should evermore be
+paid to him. Even at this moment there went through Mr. Prosper's brain
+an idea that there might be some unmarried female in England besides
+Miss Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung. "Peter Prosper, why don't you answer
+like a man, and tell me the honest truth?" He had never before been
+called Peter Prosper in his whole life.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps you had better let me make a communication by letter," he said.
+At that very moment the all but completed epistle was lying on the table
+before him, where even her eyes might reach it. In the flurry of the
+moment he covered it up.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps that is the letter which has taken you so long to write?" she
+said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is the letter."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then hand it me over, and save yourself the penny stamp." In his
+confusion he gave her the letter, and threw himself down on the sofa
+while she read it. "You have been very careful in choosing your
+language, Mr. Prosper: 'It will be expedient that I should make known to
+you the entire truth.' Certainly, Mr. Prosper, certainly. The entire
+truth is the best thing,&mdash;next to entire beer, my brother would say."
+"The horrid vulgar woman!" Mr. Prosper ejaculated to himself. "'There
+seems to have been a complete misunderstanding with regard to that
+amiable lady, Miss Tickle.' No misunderstanding at all. You said you
+liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty
+years with a female companion, who hasn't sixpence in the world to buy a
+rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should
+turn her out for any man?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"An annuity might have been arranged, Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother an annuity! That's all you think about feelings! Was she to go
+and live alone and desolate because you wanted some one to nurse you?
+And then those wretched ponies. I tell you, Peter Prosper, that let me
+marry whom I will, I mean to drive a pair of ponies, and am able to do
+so out of my own money. Ponies, indeed! It's an excuse. Your heart has
+failed you. You've come to know a woman of spirit, and now you are
+afraid that she'll be too much for you. I shall keep this letter, though
+it has not been sent."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can do as you please about that, Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; of course I shall keep it, and shall give it to Messrs. Soames
+&amp; Simpson. They are most gentlemanlike men, and will be shocked at such
+conduct as this from the Squire of Buston. The letter will be published
+in the newspapers, of course. It will be very painful to me, no doubt,
+but I shall owe it to my sex to punish you. When all the county are
+talking of your conduct to a lady, and saying that no man could have
+done it, let alone no gentleman, then you will feel it. Miss Tickle,&mdash;and
+a pair of ponies! You expected to get my money and nothing to give for
+it. Oh, you mean man!"
+</p>
+<p>
+She must have been aware that every word she spoke was a dagger. There
+was a careful analysis of his peculiar character displayed in every word
+of reproach which she uttered. Nothing could have wounded him more than
+the comparison between himself and Soames &amp; Simpson. They were
+gentlemen! "The vulgarest men in all Buntingford!" he declared to
+himself, and always ready for any sharp practice. Whereas he was no man,
+Miss Thoroughbung said,&mdash;a mean creature, altogether unworthy to be
+regarded as a gentleman. He knew himself to be Mr. Prosper of Buston
+Hall, with centuries of Prospers for his ancestors; whereas Soames was
+the son of a tax-gatherer, and Simpson had come down from London as a
+clerk from a solicitor's office in the City. And yet it was true that
+people would talk of him as did Miss Thoroughbung! His cruelty would be
+in every lady's mouth. And then his stinginess about the ponies would be
+the gossip of the county for twelve months. And, as he found out what
+Miss Thoroughbung was, the disgrace of even having wished to marry her
+loomed terribly large before him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was a twinkle of jest in the lady's eyes all the while which
+he did not perceive, and which, had he perceived it, he could not have
+understood. Her anger was but simulated wrath. She, too, had thought
+that it might be well, under circumstances, if she were to marry Mr.
+Prosper, but had quite understood that those circumstances might not be
+forthcoming. "I don't think it will do at all, my dear," she had said to
+Miss Tickle. "Of course an old bachelor like that won't want to have
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I beg you won't think of me for a moment," Miss Tickle had answered,
+with solemnity.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Bother! why can't you tell the truth? I'm not going to throw you over,
+and of course you'd be just nowhere if I did. I shan't break my heart
+for Mr. Prosper. I know I should be an old fool if I were to marry him;
+and he is more of an old fool for wanting to marry me. But I did think
+he wouldn't cut up so rough about the ponies." And then, when no answer
+came to the last letter from Soames &amp; Simpson, and the tidings reached
+her, round from the brewery, that Mr. Prosper intended to be off, she
+was not in the least surprised. But the information, she thought, had
+come to her in an unworthy manner. So she determined to punish the
+gentleman, and went out to Buston Hall and called him Peter Prosper. We
+may doubt, however, whether she had ever realized how terribly her
+scourges would wale him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And to think that you would let it come round to me in that way,
+through the young people,&mdash;writing about it just as a joke!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never wrote about it like a joke," said Mr. Prosper, almost crying.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I remember now. It was to your nephew; and of course everybody at the
+rectory saw it. Of course they were all laughing at you." There was one
+thing now written in the book of fate, and sealed as certainly as the
+crack of doom: no shilling of allowance should ever be paid to Harry
+Annesley. He would go abroad. He said so to himself as he thought of
+this, and said also that, if he could find a healthy young woman
+anywhere, he would marry her, sacrificing every idea of his own
+happiness to his desire of revenge upon his nephew. This, however, was
+only the passionate feeling of the moment. Matrimony had become
+altogether so distasteful to him, since he had become intimately
+acquainted with Miss Thoroughbung, as to make any release in that manner
+quite impossible to him. "Do you propose to make me any amends?" asked
+Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Money?" said he.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; money. Why shouldn't you pay me money? I should like to keep three
+ponies, and to have Miss Tickle's sister to come and live with me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not know whether you are in earnest, Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Quite in earnest, Peter Prosper. But perhaps I had better leave that
+matter in the hands of Soames &amp; Simpson,&mdash;very gentleman-like men,&mdash;and
+they'll be sure to let you know how much you ought to pay. Ten thousand
+pounds wouldn't be too much, considering the distress to my wounded
+feelings." Here Miss Thoroughbung put her handkerchief up to her eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was nothing that he could say. Whether she were laughing at him,
+as he thought to be most probable, or whether there was some grain of
+truth in the demand which she made, he found it equally impossible to
+make any reply. There was nothing that he could say; nor could he
+absolutely turn her out of the room. But after ten minutes' farther
+continuation of these amenities, during which it did at last come home
+to his brain that she was merely laughing at him, he began to think that
+he might possibly escape, and leave her there in possession of his
+chamber.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you will excuse me, Miss Thoroughbung, I will retire," he said,
+rising from the sofa.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Regularly chaffed out of your own den!" she said, laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not like this interchange of wit on subjects that are so serious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Interchange! There is very little interchange, according to my idea.
+You haven't said anything witty. What an idea of interchange the man
+has!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate I will escape from your rudeness."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now, Peter Prosper, before you go let me ask you one question. Which of
+the two has been the rudest to the other? You have come and asked me to
+marry you, and have evidently wished to back out of it from the moment
+in which you found that I had ideas of my own about money. And now you
+call me rude, because I have my little revenge. I have called you Peter
+Prosper, and you can't stand it. You haven't spirit enough to call me
+Matty Thoroughbung in reply. But good-bye, Mr. Prosper,&mdash;for I never will
+call you Peter again. As to what I said to you about money, that, of
+course, is all bosh. I'll pay Soames's bill, and will never trouble you.
+There's your letter, which, however, would be of no use, because it is
+not signed. A very stupid letter it is. If you want to write naturally
+you should never copy a letter. Good-bye, Mr. Prosper&mdash;Peter that never
+shall be." Then she got up and walked out of the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper, when he was left alone, remained for a while nearly
+paralyzed. That he should have ever entertained the idea of making that
+woman his wife! Such was his first thought. Then he reflected that he
+had, in truth, escaped from her more easily than he had hoped, and that
+she had certainly displayed some good qualities in spite of her
+vulgarity and impudence. She did not, at any rate, intend to trouble him
+any farther. He would never again hear himself called Peter by that
+terribly loud voice. But his anger became very fierce against the whole
+family at the rectory. They had ventured to laugh at him, and he could
+understand that, in their eyes, he had become very ridiculous.
+</p>
+<p>
+He could see it all,&mdash;the manner in which they had made fun of him, and
+had been jocose over his intended marriage. He certainly had not
+intended to be funny in their eyes. But, while he had been exercising
+the duty of a stern master over them, and had been aware of his own
+extreme generosity in his efforts to forgive his nephew, that very
+nephew had been laughing at him, in conjunction with the nephew of her
+whom he had intended to make his wife! Not a shilling, again, should
+ever be allowed to Harry Annesley. If it could be so arranged, by any
+change of circumstances, he might even yet become the father of a family
+of his own.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH51"><!-- CH51 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. PROSPER IS TAKEN ILL.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When Harry Annesley returned from Cheltenham, which he did about the
+beginning of February, he was a very happy man. It may be said, indeed,
+that within his own heart he was more exalted than is fitting for a man
+mortal,&mdash;for a human creature who may be cut off from his joys to-morrow,
+or may have the very source of his joy turned into sorrow. He walked
+like a god, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it
+was so by any assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing
+within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all
+but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had
+it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly
+bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it
+must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of
+himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting
+himself kissed by a young woman.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether
+believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved
+him,&mdash;not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to
+be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving
+himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply
+because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that
+half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own
+pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all
+that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May God do so to
+me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all
+affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that
+he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.
+Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.
+</p>
+<p>
+From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with
+all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much
+about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and
+he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or
+two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his
+Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you will have to know her&mdash;well."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able
+to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that
+they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.
+</p>
+<p>
+There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken
+place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe
+who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars
+leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very
+discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first
+place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew
+was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow."
+That had been Matthew's assurance, made with much sorrow to the
+house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared
+that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had
+been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but
+be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of
+ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either
+directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem
+that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly,
+and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of
+Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and
+has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind
+leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant
+hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her
+money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.
+</p>
+<p>
+"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would
+be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the
+whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at
+the appellation.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should not dream of calling him Uncle Peter," said Molly. "Do you
+mean to say that Miss Thoroughbung called him Peter? Where could she
+have got the courage?" To this Joe replied that he believed his aunt had
+courage for anything under the sun. "I don't think that she ought to
+have called him Peter," continued Molly. "Of course after that there
+couldn't be a marriage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't quite see why not," said Joe. "I call you Molly, and I expect
+you to marry me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I call you Joe, and I expect you to marry me; but we ain't quite
+the same."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The Squire of Buston," said Joe, "considers himself Squire of Buston. I
+suppose that the old Queen of Heaven didn't call Jupiter Jove till
+they'd been married at any rate some centuries."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well done, Joe," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll become fellow of a college yet," said Molly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you'll let me alone I will," said Joe. "But only conceive the kind
+of scene there must have been at the house up there when Aunt Matty had
+forced her way in among your uncle's slippers and dressing-gowns. I'd
+have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter
+which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had
+assured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give
+me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me
+again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns
+spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old
+aunt had remained at Buntingford."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston
+when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly,
+who on the occasion thought it incumbent upon her to take the
+Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.
+</p>
+<p>
+But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was
+likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For
+his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir
+presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being
+withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to
+all the world,&mdash;which was known to all the world before the affair in the
+streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,&mdash;that Harry was his uncle's heir. His
+position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a
+man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this
+might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his
+pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by
+his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been
+stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day,
+telling him that he was not to expect any repetition of the payment.
+Under these circumstances, what should he do?
+</p>
+<p>
+Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the
+check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle
+when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have passed by, offering
+to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was
+not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act
+without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was
+hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle
+with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have
+been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die
+away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon
+the poor man's mind. Such was the state of things upon which Harry
+resolved to wait for a few weeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+But in the mean time tidings came across from the Hall that Mr. Prosper
+was ill. He had remained in the house for two or three days after Miss
+Thoroughbung's visit. This had given rise to no special remarks, because
+it was well known that Mr. Prosper was a man whose feelings were often
+too many for him. When he was annoyed it would be long before he would
+get the better of the annoyance; and during such periods he would remain
+silent and alone. There could be no question that Miss Thoroughbung had
+annoyed him most excessively. And Matthew had been aware that it would
+be better that he should abstain from all questions. He would take the
+daily newspaper in to his master, and ask for orders as to the daily
+dinner, and that would be all. Mr. Prosper, when in a fairly good humor,
+would see the cook every morning, and would discuss with her the
+propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency
+either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known,
+and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary
+to that which she wanted,&mdash;because it was a point of honor with Mr.
+Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply
+said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day
+or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on
+beyond a day or two it was surmised that Mr. Prosper was ill.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the end of a week he had not been seen outside the house, and then
+alarm began to be felt. The rumor had got abroad that he intended to go
+to Italy, and it was expected that he would start, but no sign came of
+his intended movements; not a word more had been said to Matthew on the
+subject. He had been ordered to admit no visitor into the house at all,
+unless it were some one from the firm of Grey &amp; Barry. From the moment
+in which he had got rid of Miss Thoroughbung he had been subject to some
+dread lest she should return. Or if not she herself, she might, he
+thought, send Soames &amp; Simpson, or some denizen from the brewery. And he
+was conscious that not only all Buston, but all Buntingford was aware of
+what he had attempted to do. Every one whom he chanced to meet would, as
+he thought, be talking of him, and therefore he feared to be seen by the
+eye of man, woman, or child. There was a self-consciousness about him
+which altogether overpowered him. That cook with whom he used to have
+the arguments about the boiled chicken was now an enemy, a domestic
+enemy, because he was sure that she talked about his projected marriage
+in the kitchen. He would not see his coachman or his groom, because some
+tidings would have reached them about that pair of ponies. Consequently
+he shut himself up altogether, and the disease became worse with him
+because of his seclusion.
+</p>
+<p>
+And now from day to day, or, it may be more properly said, from hour to
+hour, news came across to the rectory of the poor squire's health.
+Matthew, to whom alone was given free intercourse with his master,
+became very gloomy. Mr. Prosper was no doubt gloomy, and the feeling was
+contagious. "I think he's going off his head; that's what I do think,"
+he said, in confidential intercourse with the cook.
+</p>
+<p>
+That conversation resulted in Matthew's walking across to the rectory,
+and asking advice from the rector; and in the rector paying a visit to
+the Hall. He had again consulted with his wife, and she had recommended
+him to endeavor to see her brother. "Of course, what we hear about his
+anger only comes from Joe, or through the servants. If he is angry, what
+will it matter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least to me," said the rector; "only I would not willingly
+trouble him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would go," said the rector's wife, "only I know he would require me
+to agree with him about Harry. That, of course, I cannot do."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew
+that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper
+were disengaged. But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour,
+came back with merely a note: "I am not very well, and an interview at
+the present moment would only be depressing. But I would be glad to see
+my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think
+it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the
+nearest.&mdash;P.P." Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to
+what this note indicated. "She is now the nearest!" He might have so
+written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was
+imminent. Of course she was the nearest. What did the "now" mean? Was it
+not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the
+nearest; but that now he had been repudiated? But it was of course
+resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated
+on the morrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; I'm up here; where else should I be,&mdash;unless you expected to
+find me in my bed?" It was thus that he answered his sister's first
+inquiry as to his condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+"In bed? Oh no! Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never call me by that name again!" he said, rising up from his chair,
+and standing erect, with one arm stretched out. She called him Peter,
+simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of
+nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother
+and sister. She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic
+humor, as he stood there before her. "Though of course it is madness on
+my part to object to it! My godfather and godmother christened me Peter,
+and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter
+Prosper. But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,&mdash;nay, up in this
+very room,&mdash;that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not mind what she said. They all know that she is a little
+flighty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nobody told me so. Why couldn't you let me know that she was flighty
+beforehand? I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to
+marry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you will only think of it, Peter&mdash;" Here he shuddered visibly. "I
+beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to
+blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course it is. I am unreasonable, I know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let us hope that it is all over now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Cart-ropes wouldn't drag me up to the hymeneal altar,&mdash;at least not with
+that woman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have sent for me, Peter&mdash;I beg pardon. I was so glad when you sent.
+I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed.
+Is there anything that we can do for you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing at all that you can do, I fear."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Somebody told us that you were thinking of going abroad." Here he shook
+his head. "I think it was Harry." Here he shook his head and frowned.
+"Had you not some idea of going abroad?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is all gone," he said, solemnly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It would have enabled you to get over this disappointment without
+feeling it so acutely."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do feel it; but not exactly the disappointment. There I think I have
+been saved from a misfortune which would certainly have driven me mad.
+That woman's voice daily in my ear could have had no other effect. I
+have at any rate been saved from that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, then, that troubles you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everybody knows that I intended it. All the country has heard of it.
+But yet was not my purpose a good one? Why should not a gentleman marry
+if he wants to leave his estate to his own son?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course he must marry before he can do that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where was I to get a young lady&mdash;just outside of my own class? There
+was Miss Puffle. I did think of her. But just at the moment she went off
+with young Tazlehurst. That was another misfortune. Why should Miss
+Puffle have descended so low just before I had thought of her? And I
+couldn't marry quite a young girl. How could I expect such a one to live
+here with me at Buston, where it is rather dull? When I looked about
+there was nobody except that horrid Miss Thoroughbung. You just look
+about and tell me if there was any one else. Of course my circle is
+circumscribed. I have been very careful whom I have admitted to my
+intimacy, and the result is that I know almost nobody. I may say that I
+was driven to ask Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why marry at all unless you're fond of somebody to be attached to?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why marry at all? I say. I ask the question knowing very well why you
+intended to do it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then why do you ask?" he said, angrily.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it is so difficult to talk of Harry to you. Of course I cannot
+help feeling that you have injured him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is he that has injured me. It is he that has brought me to this
+condition. Don't you know that you've all been laughing at me down at
+the rectory since this affair of that terrible woman?" While he paused
+for an answer to his question Mrs. Annesley sat silent. "You know it is
+true. He and that man whom Molly means to marry, and the other girls,
+and their father and you, have all been laughing at me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have never laughed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the others?" And again he waited for a reply. But the no reply
+which came did as well as any other answer. There was the fact that he
+had been ridiculed by the very young man whom it was intended that he
+should support by his liberality. It was impossible to tell him that a
+man who had made himself so absurd must expect to be laughed at by his
+juniors. There was running through his mind an idea that very much was
+due to him from Harry; but there was also an idea that something too was
+due from him. There was present, even to him, a noble feeling that he
+should bear all the ignominy with which he was treated, and still be
+generous. But he had sworn to himself, and had sworn to Matthew, that he
+would never forgive his nephew. "Of course you all wish me to be out of
+the way?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you say that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because it is true. How happy you would all be if I were dead, and
+Harry were living here in my place."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think so?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do. Of course you would all go into mourning, and there would be
+some grimace of sorrow among you for a few weeks, but the sorrow would
+soon be turned into joy. I shall not last long, and then his time will
+come. There! you may tell him that his allowance shall be continued, in
+spite of all his laughing. It was for that purpose that I sent for you.
+And, now you know it, you can go and leave me." Then Mrs. Annesley did
+go, and rejoiced them all up at the rectory by these latest tidings from
+the Hall. But now the feeling was, how could they show their gratitude
+and kindness to poor Uncle Prosper?
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH52"><!-- CH52 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. BARRY AGAIN.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Barry has given me to understand that he means to come down
+to-morrow." This was said by Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does he want to come here for?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose you know why he wants to come here?" Then the father was
+silent, and for some time Dolly remained silent also. "He is coming to
+ask you to consent to be his wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you let him come, papa?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot hinder him. That, in the first place. And then I don't want to
+prevent his coming."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not want to prevent his coming. And I do not wish you now at this
+instant to pledge yourself to anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot but pledge myself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can at any rate remain silent while I speak to you." There was a
+solemnity in his manner which almost awed her, so that she could only
+come nearer to him and sit close to him, holding his hand in hers. "I
+wish you to hear what I have got to say to you, and to make no answer
+till you shall make it to-morrow to him, after having fully considered
+the whole matter. In the first place, he is an honest and good man, and
+certainly will not ill-treat you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is that so much?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a great deal, as men go. It would be a great deal to me to be
+sure that I had left you in the hands of one who is, of his nature,
+tender and affectionate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is something; but not enough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And then he is a careful man, who will certainly screen you from all
+want; and he is prudent, walking about the world with his eyes
+open,&mdash;much wider than your father has ever done." Here she only pressed
+his hand. "There is nothing to be said against him, except that
+something which you spotted at once when you said that he was not a
+gentleman. According to your ideas, and to mine, he is not quite a
+gentleman; but we are both fastidious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We must pay the penalty of our tastes in that respect."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You are paying the penalty now by your present doubts. But it is not
+yet too late for you to get the better of it. Though I have acknowledged
+that he is not quite a gentleman, he is by no means the reverse. You are
+quite a lady."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you are not particularly good-looking."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa, you are not complimentary."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear, I do not intend to be so. To me your face, such as it is, is
+the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa;&mdash;dear papa!" and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But having lived so long with me you have acquired my habits and
+thoughts, and have learned to disregard utterly your outward
+appearance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would be decent and clean and womanly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is not enough to attract the eyes of men in general. But he has
+seen deeper than most men do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Into the value of the business, you mean?" said she.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Dolly; I will not have that! that is ill-natured, and, as I
+believe, altogether untrue. I think of Mr. Barry that he would not marry
+any girl for the sake of the business, unless he loved her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is nonsense, papa. How can Mr. Barry love me? Did he and I ever
+have five minutes of free conversation together?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Unless he meant to love, would be nearer the mark; and knew that he
+could do so. You will be quite safe in his hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Safe, papa!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"So much for yourself; and now I must say a few words as to myself. You
+are not bound to marry him, or any one else, to do me a good turn; but I
+think you are bound to remember what my feelings would be if on my
+death-bed I were leaving you quite alone in the world. As far as money
+is concerned, you would have enough for all your wants; but that is all
+that you would have. You have become so thoroughly my friend, that you
+have hardly another real friend in the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is my disposition."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; but I must guard against the ill-effects of that disposition. I
+know that if some man came the way, whom you could in truth love, you
+would make the sweetest wife that ever a man possessed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa, how you talk! No such man will come the way, and there's an
+end of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Barry has come the way,&mdash;and, as things go, is deserving of your
+regard. My advice to you is to accept him. Now you will have twenty-four
+hours to think of that advice, and to think of your own future
+condition. How will life go with you if you should be left living in
+this house all alone?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why do you speak as though we were to be parted to-morrow?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To-morrow or next day," he said very solemnly. "The day will surely
+come before long. Mr. Barry may not be all that your fancy has
+imagined."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Decidedly not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he has those good qualities which your reason should appreciate.
+Think it over, my darling. And now we will say nothing more about Mr.
+Barry till he shall have been here and pleaded his own cause."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there was not another word said on the subject between them, and on
+the next morning Mr. Grey went away to his chambers as usual.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though she had strenuously opposed her father through the whole of the
+conversation above given, still, as it had gone on, she had resolved to
+do as he would her; not indeed, that is, to marry this suitor, but to
+turn him over in her mind yet once again, and find out whether it would
+be possible that she should do so. She had dismissed him on that former
+occasion, and had not since given a thought to him, except as to a
+nuisance of which she had so far ridded herself. Now the nuisance had
+come again, and she was to endeavor to ascertain how far she could
+accustom herself to its perpetual presence without incurring perpetual
+misery. But it has to be acknowledged that she did not begin the inquiry
+in a fair frame of mind. She declared to herself that she would think
+about it all the night and all the morning without a prejudice, so that
+she might be able to accept him if she found it possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+But at the same time there was present to her a high, black stone wall,
+at one side of which stood she herself while Mr. Barry was on the other.
+That there should be any clambering over that wall by either of them she
+felt to be quite impossible, though at the same time she acknowledged
+that a miracle might occur by which the wall would be removed,
+</p>
+<p>
+So she began her thinking, and used all her father's arguments. Mr.
+Barry was honest and good, and would not ill-treat her. She knew nothing
+about him, but would take all that for granted as though it were
+gospel,&mdash;because her father had said so. And then it was to her a fact
+that she was by no means good-looking,&mdash;the meaning of which was that no
+other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's
+words,&mdash;"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why
+should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the
+world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had
+ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she
+told herself,&mdash;as she had told him,&mdash;that she had never had five minutes
+free conversation with Mr. Barry in her life. That certainly was no
+reason why free conversation should not be commenced. But then she did
+not believe that free conversation was within the capacity of Mr. Barry.
+It would never come, though she might be married to him for twenty
+years. He too might, perhaps, talk about his business; but there would
+be none of those considerations as to radical good or evil which made
+the nucleus of all such conversations with her father. There would be a
+flatness about it all which would make any such interchange of words
+impossible. It would be as though she had been married to a log of wood,
+or rather a beast of the field, as regarded all sentiment. How much
+money would be coming to him? Now her father had never told her how much
+money was coming to him. There had been no allusion to that branch of
+the subject.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then there came other thoughts as to that interior life which it
+would be her destiny to lead with Mr. Barry. Then came a black cloud
+upon her face as she sat thinking of it. "Never," at last she said,
+"never, never! He is very foolish not to know that it is impossible."
+The "he" of whom she then spoke was her father, and not Mr. Barry. "If I
+have to be left alone, I shall not be the first. Others have been left
+alone before me. I shall at any rate be left alone." Then the wall
+became higher and more black than ever, and there was no coming of that
+miracle by which it was to be removed. It was clearer to her than ever
+that neither of them could climb it. "And, after all," she said to
+herself, "to know that your husband is not a gentleman! Ought that not
+to be enough? Of course a woman has to pay for her fastidiousness. Like
+other luxuries, it is costly; but then, like other luxuries, it cannot
+be laid aside." So, before that morning was gone, she made up her mind
+steadily that Mr. Barry should never be her lord and master.
+</p>
+<p>
+How could she best make him understand that it was so, so that she might
+be quickly rid of him? When the first hour of thinking was done after
+breakfast, it was that which filled her mind. She was sure that he would
+not take an answer easily and go. He would have been prepared by her
+father to persevere,&mdash;not by his absolute words, but by his mode of
+speaking. Her father would have given him to understand that she was
+still in doubt, and therefore might possibly be talked over. She must
+teach him at once, as well as she could, that such was not her
+character, and that she had come to a resolution which left him no
+chance. And she was guilty of one weakness which was almost unworthy of
+her. When the time came she changed her dress, and put on an old shabby
+frock, in which she was wont to call upon the Carrolls. Her best dresses
+were all kept for her father,&mdash;and, perhaps, accounted for that opinion
+that to his eyes her face was the sweetest thing on earth to look upon.
+As she sat there waiting for Mr. Barry, she certainly did look ten years
+older than her age.
+</p>
+<p>
+In truth both Mr. Grey and Dolly had been somewhat mistaken in their
+reading of Mr. Barry's character. There was more of intellect and merit
+in him than he had obtained credit for from either of them. He did care
+very much for the income of the business, and perhaps his first idea in
+looking for Dolly's hand had been the probability that he would thus
+obtain the whole of that income for himself. But, while wanting money,
+he wanted also some of the good things which ought to accompany it. A
+superior intellect,&mdash;an intellect slightly superior to his own, of which
+he did not think meanly, a power of conversation which he might imitate,
+and that fineness of thought which, he flattered himself, he might be
+able to achieve while living with the daughter of a gentleman,&mdash;these
+were the treasures which Mr. Barry hoped to gain by his marriage with
+Dorothy Grey. And there had been something in her personal appearance
+which, to his eyes, had not been distasteful. He did not think her face
+the sweetest thing in the world to look at, as her father had done, but
+he saw in it the index of that intellect which he had desired to obtain
+for himself. As for her dress, that, of course, should all be altered.
+He imagined that he could easily become so far master of his wife as to
+make her wear fine clothes without difficulty. But then he did not know
+Dolly Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had studied deeply his manner of attacking her. He would be very
+humble at first, but after a while his humility should be discontinued,
+whether she accepted or rejected him. He knew well that it did not
+become a husband to be humble; and as regarded a lover, he thought that
+humility was merely the outside gloss of love-making. He had been
+humble enough on the former occasion, and would begin now in the same
+strain. But after a while he would stir himself, and assume the manner
+of a man. "Miss Grey," he said, as soon as they were alone, "you see
+that I have been as good as my word, and have come again." He had
+already observed her old frock and her mode of dressing up her hair, and
+had guessed the truth.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I knew that you were to come, Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your father has told you so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he has spoken a good word in my favor?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, he has."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Which I trust will be effective."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not at all. He knows that it is the only subject on which I cannot take
+his advice. I would burn my hand off for my father, but I cannot afford
+to give it to any one at his instance. It must be exclusively my
+own,&mdash;unless some one should come very different from those who are
+likely to ask for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something, Mr. Barry thought, of offence in this, but he could
+not altogether throw off his humility as yet. "I quite admit the value
+of the treasure," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There need not be any nonsense between us, Mr. Barry. It has no special
+value to any one,&mdash;except to myself; but to myself I mean to keep it. At
+my father's instance I had thought over the proposition you have made me
+much more seriously than I had thought it possible that I should do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is not flattering," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no need for flattery, either on the one side or on the other.
+You had better take that as established. You have done me the honor of
+wishing, for certain reasons, that I should be your wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The common reason:&mdash;that I love you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I am not able to return the feeling, and do not therefore wish that
+you should be my husband. That sounds to be uncivil."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rather."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I say it in order to make you understand the exact truth. A woman
+cannot love a man because she feels for him even the most profound
+respect. She will often do so when there is neither respect nor esteem.
+My father has so spoken of you to me that I do esteem you; but that has
+no effect in touching my heart, therefore I cannot become your wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+Now, as Mr. Barry thought, had come the time in which he must assert
+himself. "Miss Grey," he said, "you have probably a long life before
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Long or short, it can make no difference."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If I understood you aright, you are one who lives very much to
+yourself."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To myself and my father."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is growing in years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So am I, for the matter of that. We are all growing in years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you looked out for yourself, and thought what manner of home yours
+will be when he shall have been dead and buried?" He paused, but she
+remained silent, and assumed a special cast of countenance, as though
+she might say a word, if he pressed her, which it would be disagreeable
+for him to hear. "When he has gone will you not be very solitary without
+a husband?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt I shall."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Had you not better accept one when one comes your way who is not, as he
+tells you, quite unworthy of you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"In spite of such worth solitude would be preferable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You certainly have a knack, Miss Grey, of making the most unpalatable
+assertions."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will make another more unpalatable. Solitude I could bear,&mdash;and
+death,&mdash;but not such a marriage. You force me to tell you the whole truth
+because half a truth will not suffice."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have endeavored to be at any rate civil to you," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And I have endeavored to save you what trouble I could by being
+straightforward." Still he paused, sitting in his chair uneasily, but
+looking as though he had no intention of going. "If you will only take
+me at my word and have done with it!" Still he did not move. "I suppose
+there are young ladies who like this kind of thing, but I have become
+old enough to hate it. I have had very little experience of it, but it
+is odious to me. I can conceive nothing more disagreeable than to have
+to sit still and hear a gentleman declare that he wants to make me his
+wife, when I am quite sure that I do not intend to make him my husband."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, Miss Grey," he said, rising from his chair suddenly, "I shall bid
+you adieu."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Good-bye, Miss Grey. Farewell!" And so he went.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa, we have had such a scene!" she said, the moment she felt
+herself alone with her father.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have not accepted him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Accepted him! Oh dear no! I am sure at this moment he is only thinking
+how he would cut my throat if he could get hold of me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must have offended him then very greatly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mortally! I said everything I possibly could to offend him. But
+then he would have been here still had I not done so. There was no other
+way to get rid of him,&mdash;or indeed to make him believe that I was in
+earnest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sorry that you should have been so ungracious."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I am ungracious. But how can you stand bandying compliments
+with a man when it is your object to make him know the very truth that
+is in you? It was your fault, papa. You ought to have understood how
+very impossible it is that I should marry Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH53"><!-- CH53 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST PLOT.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When Mr. Scarborough had written the check and sent it to Mr. Grey, he
+did not utter another word on the subject of gambling. "Let us make
+another beginning," he said, as he told his son to make out another
+check for sixty pounds as his first instalment of the allowance.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not like to take it," said the son.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think you need be scrupulous now with me." That was early in
+the morning, at their first interview, about ten o'clock. Later on in
+the day Mr. Scarborough saw his son again, and on this occasion kept him
+in the room some time. "I don't suppose I shall last much longer now,"
+he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your voice is as strong as I ever heard it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But unfortunately my body does not keep pace with my voice. From what
+Merton says, I don't suppose there is above a month left."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see why Merton is to know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Merton is a good fellow; and if you can do anything for him, do it for
+my sake."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will." Then he added, after a pause, "If things go as we expect,
+Augustus can do more for him than I. Why don't you leave him a sum of
+money?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Miss Scarborough came into the room, and hovered about her brother,
+and fed him, and entreated him to be silent; but when she had gone he
+went back to the subject. "I will tell you why, Mountjoy. I have not
+wished to load my will with other considerations,&mdash;so that it might be
+seen that solicitude for you has been in my last moments my only
+thought. Of course I have done you a deep injury."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think you have."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And because you tell me so I like you all the better. As for
+Augustus&mdash;But I will not burden my spirit now, at the last, with
+uttering curses against my own son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not worth it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, he is not worth it. What a fool he has been not to have understood
+me better! Now, you are not half as clever a fellow as he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I dare say not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You never read a book, I suppose?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't pretend to read them, which he does."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know anything about that;&mdash;but he has been utterly unable to
+read me. I have poured out my money with open hands for both of you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is true, sir, certainly, as regards me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And have thought nothing of it. Till it was quite hopeless with you I
+went on, and would have gone on. As things were then, I was bound to do
+something to save the property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"These poor devils have put themselves out of the running now," said
+Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; Augustus with his suspicions has enabled us to do that. After all,
+he was quite right with his suspicions."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean by that, sir?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, it was natural enough that he should not trust me. I think, too,
+that perhaps he saw a screw loose where old Grey did not; but he was
+such an ass that he could not bring himself to keep on good terms with
+me for the few months that were left. And then he brought that brute
+Jones down here, without saying a word to me as to asking my leave. And
+here he used to remain, hardly ever coming to see me, but waiting for my
+death from day to day. He is a cold-blooded, selfish brute. He certainly
+takes after neither his father nor his mother. But he will find yet,
+perhaps, that I am even with him before all is over."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall try it on with him, sir. I have told you so from the beginning;
+and now if I have this money it will give me the means of doing so. You
+ought to know for what purpose I shall use it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is all settled," said the father. "The document, properly
+completed, has gone back with the clerk. Were I to die this minute you
+would find that everything inside the house is your own,&mdash;and everything
+outside except the bare acres. There is a lot of plate with the banker
+which I have not wanted of late years. And there are a lot of trinkets
+too,&mdash;things which I used to fancy, though I have not cared so much about
+them lately. And there are a few pictures which are worth money. But the
+books are the most valuable; only you do not care for them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall not have a house to put them in."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no saying. What an idiot, what a fool, what a blind,
+unthinking ass Augustus has been!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you regret it, sir,&mdash;that he should not have them and the house too?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I regret that my son should have been such a fool! I did not expect
+that he should love me. I did not even want him to be kind to me. Had he
+remained away and been silent, that would have been sufficient. But he
+came here to enjoy himself, as he looked about the park which he thought
+to be his own, and insulted me because I would not die at once and leave
+him in possession. And then he was fool enough to make way for you
+again, and did not perceive that by getting rid of your creditors he
+once again put you into a position to be his rival. I don't know whether
+I hate him most for the hardness of his heart, or despise him for the
+slowness of his intellect."
+</p>
+<p>
+During the time that these words had been spoken Miss Scarborough had
+once or twice come into the room, and besought her brother to take some
+refreshment which she offered him, and then give himself up to rest. But
+he had refused to be guided by her till he had come to a point in the
+conversation at which he had found himself thoroughly exhausted. Now she
+came for the third time, and that period had arrived, so that Mountjoy
+was told to go about his business, and shoot birds or hunt foxes, in
+accordance with his natural proclivities. It was then three o'clock on a
+gloomy December afternoon, and was too late for the shooting of birds;
+and as for the hunting of foxes, the hounds were not in the
+neighborhood. So he resolved to go through the house, and look at all
+those properties which were so soon to become his own. And he at once
+strolled into the library. This was a long, gloomy room, which contained
+perhaps ten thousand volumes, the greater number of which had, in the
+days of Mountjoy's early youth, been brought together by his own father;
+and they had been bound in the bindings of modern times, so that the
+shelves were bright, although the room itself was gloomy. He took out
+book after book, and told himself, with something of sadness in his
+heart, that they were all "caviare" to him. Then he reminded himself
+that he was not yet thirty years of age, and that there was surely time
+enough left for him to make them his companions.
+</p>
+<p>
+He took one at random, and found it to be a volume of Clarendon's
+"History of the Rebellion." He pitched upon a sentence in which he
+counted that there were sixteen lines, and when he began to read it, it
+became to him utterly confused and unintelligible. So he put it back,
+and went to another portion of the room and took down Wittier's
+"Hallelujah;" and of this he could make neither head nor tail. He was
+informed, by a heading in the book itself, that a piece of poetry was to
+be sung "as the ten commandments." He could not do that, and put the
+book back again, and declared to himself that farther search would be
+useless. He looked round the room and tried to price the books, and told
+himself that three or four days at the club might see an end of it all.
+Then he wandered on into the state drawing-room,&mdash;an apartment which he
+had not entered for years,&mdash;and found that all the furniture was
+carefully covered. Of what use could it all be to him,&mdash;unless that it,
+too, might be sent to the melting-pot and brought into some short-lived
+use at the club?
+</p>
+<p>
+But as he was about to leave the room he stood for a moment on the rug
+before the fireplace and looked into the huge mirror which stood there.
+If the walls might be his, as well as the garnishing of them, and if
+Florence Mountjoy could come and reign there, then he fancied that they
+all might be put to a better purpose than that of which he had thought.
+In earlier days, two or three years ago, at a time which now seemed to
+him to be very distant, he had regarded Florence as his own, and as such
+had demanded her hand. In the pride of his birth, and position, and
+fashion, he had had no thought of her feelings, and had been imperious.
+He told himself that it had been so with much self-condemnation. At any
+rate, he had learned, during those months of solitary wandering, the
+power of condemning himself. And now he told him that if she would yet
+come he might still learn to sing that song of the old-fashioned poet
+"as to the ten commandments." At any rate, he would endeavor to sing it,
+as she bade him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He went on through all the bedrooms, remembering, but hardly more than
+remembering, them as he entered them. "Oh, Florence,&mdash;my Florence!" he
+said, as he passed on. He had done it all for himself,&mdash;brought down
+upon his own head this infinite ruin,&mdash;and for what? He had scarcely ever
+won, and Tretton was gone from him forever. But still there might yet be
+a chance if he could abstain from gambling.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then, when it was dusk within the house, he went out, and passed
+through the stables and roamed about the gardens till the evening had
+altogether set in, and black night had come upon him. Two years ago he
+had known that he was the heir to it all, though even then that habit
+was so strong upon him he had felt that his tenure of it would be but
+slight. But he had then always to tell himself that when his marriage
+had taken place a great change would be effected. His marriage had not
+taken place, and the next fatal year had fallen upon him. As long as the
+inheritance of the estate was certainly his, he could assuredly raise
+money,&mdash;at a certain cost. It was well known that the property was rising
+in value, and the money had always been forthcoming,&mdash;at a tremendous
+sacrifice. He had excused to himself his recklessness on the ground of
+his delayed marriage, but still always treating her, on the few
+occasions on which they had met, with an imperiousness which had been
+natural to him. Then the final crash had come, and the estate was as
+good as gone. But the crash, which had been in truth final, had come
+afterward, almost as soon as his father had learned what was to be the
+fate of Tretton; and he had found himself to be a bastard with a
+dishonored mother,&mdash;just a nobody in the eyes of the world. And he
+learned at the same time that Harry Annesley was the lover whom Florence
+Mountjoy really loved. What had followed has been told already,&mdash;perhaps
+too often.
+</p>
+<p>
+But at this moment, as he stood in the gloom of the night, below the
+porch in the front of the house, swinging his stick at the top of the
+big steps, an acknowledgment of contrition was very heavy upon him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though he was prepared to go to law the moment that Augustus put himself
+forward as the eldest son, he did recognize how long-suffering his
+father had been, and how much had been done for him in order, if
+possible, to preserve him. And he knew, whatever might be the result of
+his lawsuit, that his father's only purpose had been to save the
+property for one of them. As it was, legacies which might be valued at
+perhaps thirty thousand pounds would be his. He would expend it all on
+the lawsuit, if he could find lawyers to undertake his suit. His anger,
+too, against his brother was quite as hot as was that of his father.
+When he had been obliterated and obliged to vanish, from the joint
+effects of his violence in the streets and his inability to pay his
+gambling debts at the club, he had, in an evil moment, submitted himself
+to Augustus; and from that hour Augustus had become to him the most
+cruel of tyrants. And this tyranny had come to an end with his absolute
+banishment from his brother's house. Though he had been subdued to
+obedience in the lowest moment of his fall, he was not the man who could
+bear such tyranny well. "I can forgive my father," he said, "but
+Augustus I will never forgive." Then he went into the house, and in a
+short time was sitting at dinner with Merton, the young doctor and
+secretary. Miss Scarborough seldom came to table at that hour, but
+remained in a room up-stairs, close to her brother, so that she might be
+within call should she be wanted. "Upon the whole, Merton," he said,
+"what do you think of my father?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+"Will he live or will he die?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will die, certainly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do not joke with me. But I know you would not joke on such a subject.
+And my question did not merely go to the state of his health. What do
+you think of him as a man generally? Do you call him an honest man?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"How am I to answer you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just the truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you will have an answer, I do not consider him an honest man. All
+this story about your brother is true or is not true. In neither case
+can one look upon him as honest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I think that he has within him a capacity for love, and an
+unselfishness, which almost atones for his dishonesty; and there is
+about him a strange dislike to conventionality and to law which is so
+interesting as to make up the balance. I have always regarded your
+father as a most excellent man, but thoroughly dishonest. He would rob
+any one,&mdash;but always to eke out his own gifts to other people. He has,
+therefore, to my eyes been most romantic."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And as to his health?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, as to that I cannot answer so decidedly. He will do nothing because
+I tell him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that you could prolong his life?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly I think that I could. He has exerted himself this morning,
+whereas I have advised him not to exert himself. He could have given
+himself the same counsel, and would certainly live longer by obeying it
+than the reverse. As there is no difficulty in the matter, there need
+be no conceit on my part in saying that so far my advice might be of
+service to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How long will he live?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who can say? Sir William Brodrick, when that fearful operation was
+performed in London, thought that a month would see the end of it. That
+is eight months ago, and he has more vitality now than he had then. For
+myself, I do not think that he can live another month."
+</p>
+<p>
+Later on in the evening Mountjoy Scarborough began again. "The governor
+thinks that you have behaved uncommonly well to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am paid for it all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he has not left you anything by his will."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have certainly expected nothing, and there could be no reason why he
+should."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has entertained an idea of late that he wishes to make what
+reparation may be possible to me; and therefore, as he says, he does not
+choose to burden his will with legacies. There is some provision made
+for my aunt, who, however, has her own fortune. He has told me to look
+after you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be quite unnecessary," said Mr. Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you choose to cut up rough you can do so. I would propose that we
+should fix upon some sum which shall be yours at his death,&mdash;just as
+though he had left it to you. Indeed, he shall fix the sum himself."
+</p>
+<p>
+Merton, of course, said that nothing of the kind would be necessary; but
+with this understanding Mountjoy Scarborough went that night to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Early on the following morning his father again sent for him.
+"Mountjoy," he said, "I have thought much about it, and I have changed
+my mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"About your will?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, not about my will at all. That shall remain as it is. I do not
+think I should have strength to make another will, nor do I wish to do
+so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You mean about Merton?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mean about Merton at all. Give him five hundred pounds, and he
+ought to be satisfied. This is a matter of more importance than Mr.
+Merton&mdash;or even than my will."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it?" said Mountjoy, in a tone of much surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think I can tell you now. But it is right that you should know
+that Merton wrote, by my instructions, to Mr. Grey early this morning,
+and has implored him to come to Tretton once again. There! I cannot say
+more than that now." Then he turned round on his couch, as was his
+custom, and was unassailable.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH54"><!-- CH54 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+RUMMELSBURG.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough again sent for Mr. Grey, but a couple of weeks passed
+before he came. At first he refused to come, saying that he would send
+his clerk down if any work were wanted such as the clerk might do. And
+the clerk did come and was very useful. But Mr. Scarborough persevered,
+using arguments which Mr. Grey found himself unable at last to resist.
+He was dying, and there would soon be an end of it. That was his
+strongest argument. Then it was alleged that a lawyer of experience was
+certainly needed, and that Mr. Scarborough could not very well put his
+affairs into the hands of a stranger. And old friendship was brought up.
+And, then, at last, the squire alleged that there were other secrets to
+be divulged respecting his family, of which Mr. Scarborough thought that
+Mr. Grey would approve. What could be the "other secrets?" But it ended
+in Mr. Grey assenting to go, in opposition to his daughter's advice. "I
+would have nothing more to do with him or his secrets," Dolly had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You do not know him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know as much about him as a woman can know of a man she doesn't
+know,&mdash;and all from yourself. You have said over and over again that he
+is a 'rascal!'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a rascal. I don't think I said he was a rascal."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe you used that very word."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I unsay it. A rascal has something mean about him. Juniper's a
+rascal!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He cares nothing for his word."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing at all,&mdash;when the law is concerned."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he has defamed his own wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That was done many years ago."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For a fixed purpose, and not from passion," Dolly continued. "He is a
+thoroughly bad man. You have made his will for him, and now I would
+leave him." After that Mr. Grey declined for a second time to go. But at
+last he was persuaded.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the evening of his arrival he dined with Mountjoy and Merton, and on
+that occasion Miss Scarborough joined them. Of course there was much
+surmise as to the cause of this farther visit. Merton declared that, as
+he had acted as the sick man's private secretary, he was bound to keep
+his secret as far as he knew it. He only surmised what he believed to be
+the truth, but of that he could say nothing. Miss Scarborough was
+altogether in the dark. She, and she alone, spoke of her brother with
+respect, but in that she knew nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot tell what it is," said Mountjoy; "but I suspect it to be
+something intended for my benefit and for the utter ruin of Augustus."
+Miss Scarborough had now retired. "If it could be possible, I should
+think that he intended to declare that all he had said before was
+false." To this, however, Mr. Grey would not listen. He was very stout
+in denying the possibility of any reversion of the decision to which
+they had all come. Augustus was, undoubtedly, by law his father's eldest
+son. He had seen with his own eyes copies of the registry of the
+marriage, which Mr. Barry had gone across the Continent to make. And in
+that book his wife had signed her maiden name, according to the custom
+of the country. This had been done in the presence of the clergyman and
+of a gentleman,&mdash;a German, then residing on the spot, who had himself
+been examined, and had stated that the wedding, as a wedding, had been
+regular in all respects. He was since dead, but the clergyman who had
+married them was still alive. Within twelve months of that time Mr.
+Scarborough and his bride had arrived in England, and Augustus had been
+born. "Nothing but the most indisputable evidence would have sufficed to
+prove a fact by which you were so cruelly wronged," he said, addressing
+himself to Mountjoy. "And when your father told me that no wrong could
+be done to you, as the property was hopelessly in the hands of the Jews,
+I told him that, for all purposes of the law, the Jews were as dear to
+me as you were. I do say that nothing but the most certain facts would
+have convinced me. Such facts, when made certain, are immovable. If your
+father has any plot for robbing Augustus, he will find me as staunch a
+friend to Augustus as ever I have been to you." When he had so spoken
+they separated for the night, and his words had been so strong that they
+had altogether affected Mountjoy. If such were his father's intentions,
+it must be by some farther plot that he endeavored to carry it out: and
+in his father's plots he would put no trust whatever.
+</p>
+<p>
+And yet he declared his own purpose as he discussed the matter, late
+into the night, with Merton. "I cannot trust Grey at all, nor my father
+either, because I do not believe, as Grey believes, this story of the
+marriage. My father is so clever, and so resolute in his purpose to set
+aside all control over the property as arranged by law, that to my mind
+it has all been contrived by himself. Either Mr. Barry has been squared,
+or the German parson, or the foreign gentleman, or more probably all of
+them. Mr. Grey himself may have been squared, for all I know, though he
+is the kindest-hearted gentleman I ever came across. Anything shall be
+more probable to me than that I am not my father's eldest son." To all
+this Mr. Merton said very little, though no doubt he had his own ideas.
+</p>
+<p>
+The next morning the three gentlemen, with Mr. Grey's clerk, sat down to
+breakfast, solemn and silent. The clerk had been especially entreated to
+say nothing of what he had learned, and was therefore not questioned by
+his master. But in truth he had learned but little, having spent his
+time in the sorting and copying of letters which, though they all bore
+upon the subject in hand, told nothing of the real tale. Farther
+surmises were useless now, as at eleven o'clock Mr. Grey and Mr. Merton
+were to go up together to the squire's room. The clerk was to remain
+within call, but there would be no need of Mountjoy. "I suppose I may as
+well go to bed," said he, "or up to London, or anywhere." Mr. Grey very
+sententiously advised him at any rate not to go up to London.
+</p>
+<p>
+The hour came, and Mr. Grey, with Merton and the clerk, disappeared
+up-stairs. They were summoned by Miss Scarborough, who seemed to feel
+heavily the awful solemnity of the occasion. "I am sure he is going to
+do something very dreadful this time," she whispered to Mr. Grey, who
+seemed himself to be a little awe-struck, and did not answer her.
+</p>
+<p>
+At two o'clock they all met again at lunch and Mr. Grey was silent, and
+in truth very unhappy. Merton and the clerk were also silent, as was
+Miss Scarborough,&mdash;silent as death. She, indeed, knew nothing, but the
+other three knew as much as Mr. Scarborough could or would tell them.
+Mountjoy was there also, and in the middle of the meal broke out
+violently: "Why the mischief don't you tell me what it is that my father
+has said to you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Because I do not believe a word of his story," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr Grey!" ejaculated Miss Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not believe a word of his story," repeated Mr. Grey. "Your
+father's intelligence is so high, and his principles so low, that there
+is no scheme which he does not think that he cannot carry out against
+the established laws of his country. His present tale is a made-up
+fable."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you say, Merton?" asked Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It looks to me to be true," said Merton. "But I am no lawyer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why don't you tell me what it is?" said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot tell you," said Grey, "though he commissioned me to do so.
+Greenwood there will tell you." Greenwood was the name of the clerk.
+"But I advise you to take him with you to your own room. And Mr. Merton
+would, I am sure, go with you. As for me, it would be impossible that I
+should do credit in the telling of it to a story of which I do not
+believe a single word."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Am I not to know?" asked Miss Scarborough, plaintively.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your nephew will tell you," said Mr. Grey,&mdash;"or Mr. Merton; or Mr.
+Greenwood can do so, if he has permission from Mr. Scarborough. I would
+rather tell no one. It is to me incredible." With that he got up and
+walked away.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now then, Merton," said Mountjoy, rising from his chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Upon my word I hardly know what to do," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must come and tell me this wonderful tale. I suppose that in some
+way it does affect my interests?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It affects your interests very much."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I think I may say that I certainly shall believe it. My father at
+present would not wish to do me an injury. It must be told, so come
+along. Mr. Greenwood had better come also." Then he left the room, and
+the two men followed him. They went away to the smoking-room, leaving
+Mr. Grey with Miss Scarborough. "Am I to know nothing about it?" said
+Miss Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not from me, Miss Scarborough. You can understand, that I cannot tell
+you a story which will require at every word that I should explain my
+thorough disbelief in your brother. I have been very angry with him, and
+he has been more energetic than can have been good for him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah me! you will have killed him among you!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It has been his own doing. You, however, had better go to him. I must
+return to town this evening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will stay for dinner?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No. I cannot stay for dinner. I cannot sit down with Mountjoy,&mdash;who has
+done nothing in the least wrong,&mdash;because I feel myself to be altogether
+opposed to his interests. I would rather be out of the house." So
+saying he did leave the house, and went back to London by train that
+afternoon.
+</p>
+<p>
+The meeting that morning, which had been very stormy, cannot be given
+word by word. From the moment in which the squire had declared his
+purpose, the lawyer had expressed his disbelief in all that was said to
+him. This Mr. Scarborough had at first taken very kindly; but Mr. Grey
+clung to his purpose with a pertinacity which had at last beaten down
+the squire's good-humor, and had called for the interference of Mr.
+Merton. "How can I be quiet?" the squire had said, "when he tells me
+everything I say is a lie?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a lie!" said Mr. Grey, who had lost all control of himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You should not say that, Mr. Grey," said Merton.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He should spare a man on his death-bed, who is endeavoring to do his
+duty by his children," said the man who thus declared himself to be
+dying.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will go away," said Mr. Grey, rising. "He has forced me to come here
+against my will, and has known,&mdash;must have known,&mdash;that I should tell him
+what I thought. Even though a man be dying, a man cannot accept what he
+says on a matter of business such as this unless he believe him. I must
+tell him that I believe him or that I do not. I disbelieve the whole
+story, and will not act upon it as though I believed it." But even after
+this the meeting was continued, Mr. Grey consenting to sit there and to
+hear what was said to the end.
+</p>
+<p>
+The purport of Mr. Scarborough's story will probably have been
+understood by our readers. It was Mr. Scarborough's present intention to
+make it understood that the scheme intended for the disinheritance of
+Mountjoy had been false from the beginning to the end, and had been
+arranged, not for the injury of Mountjoy, but for the salvation of the
+estate from the hands of the Jews. Mountjoy would have lost nothing, as
+the property would have gone entirely to the Jews had Mr. Scarborough
+then died, and Mountjoy been taken as his legitimate heir. He was not
+anxious, he had declared, to say anything on the present occasion in
+defence of his conduct in that respect. He would soon be gone, and he
+would leave men to judge him who might do so the more honestly when they
+should have found that he had succeeded in paying even the Jews in full
+the moneys which they had actually advanced. But now things were again
+changed, and he was bound to go back to the correct order of things.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No!" shouted Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"To the correct order of things," he went on. Mountjoy Scarborough was,
+he declared, undoubtedly legitimate. And then he made Merton and the
+clerk bring forth all the papers, as though he had never brought forth
+any papers to prove the other statement to Mr. Grey. And he did expect
+Mr. Grey to believe them. Mr. Grey simply put them all back,
+metaphorically, with his hand. There had been two marriages, absolutely
+prepared with the intent of enabling him at some future time to upset
+the law altogether, if it should seem good to him to do so.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And your wife?" shouted Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear woman! She would have done anything that I told her,&mdash;unless I had
+told her to do what was absolutely wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not wrong!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, you know what I mean. She was the purest and best of women." Then
+he went on with his tale. There had been two marriages, and he now
+brought forth all the evidence of the former marriage. It had taken
+place in a remote town, a village in the northern part of Prussia,
+whither she had been taken by her mother to join him. The two ladies had
+both been since long dead. He had been laid up at the little Prussian
+town under the plea of a bad leg. He did not scruple to say now that the
+bad leg had been pretence, and a portion of his scheme. The law, he
+thought, in endeavoring to make arrangements for his property,&mdash;the
+property which should have been his own,&mdash;had sinned so greatly as to
+drive a wise man to much scheming. He had begun scheming early in the
+business. But for his bad leg the old lady would not have brought her
+daughter to be married at so out-of-the-way a place as Rummelsburg, in
+Pomerania. He had travelled about and found Rummelsburg peculiarly
+fitted for his enterprise. There was a most civil old Lutheran clergyman
+there, to whom he had made himself peculiarly acceptable. He had now
+certified copies of the registry at Rummelsburg, which left no loop-hole
+for doubt. But he had felt that probably no inquiry would have been made
+about what had been done thirty years ago at Rummelsburg, had he himself
+desired to be silent on the subject. "There will be no difficulty," he
+said, "in making the Rummelsburg marriage known to all the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think there will;&mdash;very great difficulty," Mr. Grey had said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not the least. But when I had to be married in the light of day, after
+Mountjoy's birth, at Nice, in Italy, then there was the difficulty. It
+had to be done in the light of day; and that little traveller with his
+nurse were with us. Nice was in Italy then, and some contrivance was, I
+assure you, necessary. But it was done, and I have always had with me
+the double sets of certificates. As things have turned up, I have had to
+keep Mr. Grey altogether in the dark as regards Rummelsburg. It was very
+difficult; but I have succeeded."
+</p>
+<p>
+That Mr. Grey should have been almost driven to madness by such an
+outrage as this was a matter of course. But he preferred to believe that
+Rummelsburg, and not Nice, was the myth. "How did your wife travel with
+you during the whole of that year?" he had asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Mrs. Scarborough, no doubt. But we had been very little in society,
+and the world at large seemed willing to believe almost anything of me
+that was wrong. However, there's the Rummelsburg marriage, and if you
+send to Rummelsburg you'll find that it's all right,&mdash;a little white
+church up a corner, with a crooked spire. The old clergyman is, no
+doubt, dead, but I should imagine that they would keep their registers."
+Then he explained how he had travelled about the world with the two sets
+of certificates, and had made the second public when his object had been
+to convert Augustus into his eldest son. Many people then had been found
+who had remembered something of the marriage at Nice, and remembered to
+have remembered something at the time of having been in possession of
+some secret as to the lady. But Rummelsburg had been kept quite in the
+dark. Now it was necessary that a strong light should be thrown on the
+absolute legality of the Rummelsburg marriage.
+</p>
+<p>
+He declared that he had more than once made up his mind to destroy those
+Rummelsburg documents, but had always been deterred by the reflection
+that, when they were once gone, they could not be brought back again. "I
+had always intended," he had said, "to burn the papers the last thing
+before my death. But as I learned Augustus's character, I made quite
+certain by causing them to be sealed up in a parcel addressed to him, so
+that if I had died by accident they might have fallen into proper hands.
+But I see now the wickedness of my project, and, therefore, I give them
+over to Mr. Grey." So saying he tendered the parcel to the attorney.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey, of course, refused to take, or even to touch, the Rummelsburg
+parcel. He then prepared to leave the room, declaring it would be his
+duty to act on the part of Augustus, should Augustus be pleased to
+accept his services. But Mr. Scarborough, almost with tears, implored
+him to change his purpose. "Why should you set two brothers by the
+ears?" At this Mr. Grey only shook his head incredulously. "And why ruin
+the property without an object?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The property will come to ruin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not if you will take the matter up in the proper spirit. But if you
+determine to drive one brother to hostility against the other, and
+promote unnecessary litigation, of course the lawyers will get it all."
+Then Mr. Grey left the room, boiling with anger in that he, with his
+legal knowledge and determination to do right, had been so utterly
+thrown aside; while Mr. Scarborough sank exhausted by the effort he had
+gone through.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH55"><!-- CH55 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. GREY'S REMORSE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey's feeling, as he returned home, was chiefly one of
+self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story
+which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed,
+at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the
+property should go hither and thither according to his will, without
+reference to the established laws of the land, and had carried, and
+would carry his purpose. His object had been to save his estate from the
+hands of those harpies, the money-lenders; and as far as he was
+concerned he would have saved it.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had, in fact, forced the money-lenders to lend their money without
+interest and without security, and then to consent to accept their
+principal when it was offered to them. No one could say but that the
+deed when done was a good deed. But this man in doing it had driven his
+coach and horses through all the laws, which were to Mr. Grey as Holy
+Writ; and, in thus driving his coach and horses, he had forced Mr. Grey
+to sit upon the box and hold the reins. Mr. Grey had thought himself to
+be a clever man,&mdash;at least a well-instructed man; but Mr. Scarborough had
+turned him round his finger, this way and that way, just as he had
+pleased.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey when, in his rage, he had given the lie to Mr. Scarborough had,
+no doubt, spoken as he had believed at that moment. To him the new
+story must have sounded like a lie, as he had been driven to accept the
+veritable lie as real truth. He had looked into all the circumstances of
+the marriage at Nice, and had accepted it. He had sent his partner over,
+and had picked up many incidental confirmations. That there had been a
+marriage at Nice between Mr. Scarborough and the mother of Augustus was
+certain. He had traced back Mr. Scarborough's movements before the
+marriage, and could not learn where the lady had joined him who
+afterward became his wife; but it had become manifest to him that she
+had travelled with him, bearing his name. But in Vienna Mr. Barry had
+learned that Mr. Scarborough had called the lady by her maiden name. He
+might have learned that he had done so very often at other places; but
+it had all been done in preparation for the plot in hand,&mdash;as had scores
+of other little tricks which have not cropped up to the surface in this
+narrative.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Scarborough's whole life had been passed in arranging tricks for the
+defeat of the law; and it had been his great glory so to arrange them as
+to make it impossible that the law should touch him. Mountjoy had
+declared that he had been defrauded. The creditors swore, with many
+oaths, that they had been horribly cheated by this man. Augustus, no
+doubt, would so swear very loudly. No man could swear more loudly than
+did Mr. Grey as he left the squire's chamber after this last revelation.
+But there was no one who could punish him. The money-lenders had no
+writing under his hand. Had Mountjoy been born without a
+marriage-ceremony it would have been very wicked, but the vengeance of
+the law would not have reached him. If you deceive your attorney with
+false facts he cannot bring you before the magistrates. Augustus had
+been the most injured of all; but a son, though he may bring an action
+against his father for bigamy, cannot summon him before any tribunal
+because he has married his mother twice over. These were Mr.
+Scarborough's death-bed triumphs; but they were very sore upon Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+On his journey back to town, as he turned the facts over more coolly in
+his mind, he began to fear that he saw a glimmer of the truth. Before he
+reached London he almost thought that Mountjoy would be the heir. He had
+not brought a scrap of paper away with him, having absolutely refused to
+touch the documents offered to him. He certainly would not be employed
+again either by Mr. Scarborough or on behalf of his estate or his
+executors. He had threatened that he would take up the cudgels on
+behalf of Augustus, and had felt at the moment that he was bound to do
+so, because, as he had then thought, Augustus had the right cause. But
+as that idea crumbled away from him, Augustus and his affairs became
+more and more distasteful to him. After all, it ought to be wished that
+Mountjoy should become the elder son,&mdash;even Mountjoy, the incurable
+gambler. It was terrible to Mr. Grey that the old, fixed arrangement
+should be unfixed, and certainly there was nothing in the character of
+Augustus to reconcile him to such a change.
+</p>
+<p>
+But he was a very unhappy man when he put himself into a cab to be
+carried down to Fulham. How much better would it have been for him had
+he taken his daughter's advice, and persistently refused to make this
+last journey to Tretton! He would have to acknowledge to his daughter
+that Mr. Scarborough had altogether got the better of him, and his
+unhappiness would consist in the bitterness of that acknowledgment.
+</p>
+<p>
+But when he reached the Manor House his daughter met him with news of
+her own which for the moment kept his news in abeyance. "Oh, papa," she
+said, "I am so glad you've come!" He had sent her a telegram to say that
+he was coming. "Just when I got your message I was frightened out of my
+life. Who do you think was here with me?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"How am I to think, my dear?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Juniper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who on earth is Mr. Juniper?" he asked. "Oh, I remember;&mdash;Amelia's
+lover."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean to say you forgot Mr. Juniper? I never shall forget him.
+What a horrid man he is!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never saw Mr. Juniper in my life. What did he want of you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He says you have ruined him utterly. He came here about two o'clock,
+and found me at work in the garden. He made his way in through the open
+gate, and would not be sent back though one of the girls told him that
+there was nobody at home. He had seen me, and I could not turn him out,
+of course."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What did he say to you? Was he impudent?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He did not insult me, if you mean that; but he was impudent in not
+going away, and I could not get rid of him for an hour. He says that you
+have doubly ruined him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As how?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would not let Amelia have the fortune that you promised her; and I
+think his object now was to get the fortune without the girl. And he
+said, also, that he had lent five hundred pounds to your Captain
+Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is not my Captain Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And that when you were settling the captain's debts his was the only
+one you would not pay in full."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is a rogue,&mdash;an arrant rogue!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he says that he's got the captain's name to the five hundred
+pounds; and he means to get it some of these days, now that the captain
+and his father are friends again. The long and the short of it is, that
+he wants five hundred pounds by hook or by crook, and that he thinks you
+ought to let him have it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'll get it, or the greater part of it. There's no doubt he'll get it
+if he has got the captain's name. If I remember right, the captain did
+sign a note for him to that amount,&mdash;and he'll get the money if he has
+stuck to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you mean that Captain Scarborough would pay all his debts?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will have to pay that one, because it was not included in the
+schedule. What do you think has turned up now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Some other scheme?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is all scheming,&mdash;base, false scheming,&mdash;to have been concerned with
+which will be a disgrace to my name forever!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, papa!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; forever! He has told me, now, that Mountjoy is his true,
+legitimate, eldest son. He declares that that story which I have
+believed for the last eight months has been altogether false, and made
+out of his own brain to suit his own purposes. In order to enable him to
+defraud these money-lenders he used a plot which he had concocted long
+since, and boldly declared Augustus to be his heir. He made me believe
+it; and because I believed it, even those greedy, grasping men, who
+would not have given up a tithe of their prey to save the whole family,
+even they believed it too. Now, at the very point of death, he comes
+forward with perfect coolness, and tells me that the whole story was a
+plot made out of his own head."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you believe him now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I became very wroth, and said that it was a lie! I did think that it
+was a lie. I did flatter myself that in a matter concerning my own
+business, and in which I was bound to look after the welfare of others,
+he could not have so deceived me; but I find myself as a child&mdash;as a
+baby&mdash;in his hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you do believe him now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am afraid so. I will never see him again, if it be possible for me to
+avoid him. He has treated me as no one should have treated his enemy,
+let alone a faithful friend. He must have scoffed and scorned at me
+merely because I had faith in his word. Who could have thought of a man
+laying his plots so deeply,&mdash;arranging for twenty years past the frauds
+which he has now executed? For thirty years, or nearly, his mind has
+been busy on these schemes, and on others, no doubt, which he has not
+thought it necessary to execute, and has used me in them simply as a
+machine. It is impossible that I should forgive him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what will be the end of it?" she asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who can say? But this is clear. He has utterly destroyed my character
+as a lawyer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No. Nothing of the kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And it will be well if he have not done so as a man. Do you think that
+when people hear that these changes have been made with my assistance
+they will stop to unravel it all, and to see that I have been only a
+fool and not a knave? Can I explain under what stress of entreaty I went
+down there on this last occasion?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa, you were quite right to go. He was your old friend, and he was
+dying."
+</p>
+<p>
+Even for this he was grateful. "Who will judge me as you do,&mdash;you who
+persuaded me that I should not have gone? See how the world will use my
+name! He has made me a party to each of his frauds. He disinherited
+Mountjoy, and he forced me to believe the evidence he brought. Then,
+when Mountjoy was nobody, he half paid the creditors by means of my
+assistance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They got all they were entitled to get."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; till the law had decided against them, they were entitled to their
+bonds. But they, ruffians though they are, had advanced so much hard
+money, and I was anxious that they should get their hard money back
+again. But unless Mountjoy had been illegitimate,&mdash;so as to be capable of
+inheriting nothing,&mdash;they would have been cheated; and they have been
+cheated. Will it be possible that I should make them or make others
+think that I have had nothing to do with it? And Augustus, who will be
+open-mouthed,&mdash;what will he say against me? In every turn and double of
+the man's crafty mind I shall be supposed to have turned and doubled
+with him. I do not mind telling the truth about myself to you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should hope not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The light that has guided me through my professional life has been a
+love of the law. As far as my small powers have gone, I have wished to
+preserve it intact. I am sure that the Law and Justice may be made to
+run on all-fours. I have been so proud of my country as to make that the
+rule of my life. The chance has brought me into the position of having
+for a client a man the passion of whose life has been the very reverse.
+Who would not say that for an attorney to have such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough, of Tretton, for his client, was not a feather in his cap?
+But I have found him to be not only fraudulent, but too clever for me.
+In opposition to myself he has carried me into his paths."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has never induced you to do anything that was wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it
+is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act
+as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You
+know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of
+whom just the other thing is known; but then they look for work of the
+other kind. I have never put up a shop-board for sharp practice. After
+this the sharpest kind of practice will be all that I shall seem to be
+fit for. It isn't the money. I can retire with enough for your wants and
+for mine. If I could retire amid the good words of men I should be
+happy. But, even if I retire, men will say that I have filled my pockets
+with plunder from Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That will never be said."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Were I to publish an account of the whole affair,&mdash;which I am bound in
+honor not to do,&mdash;explaining it all from beginning to end, people would
+only say that I was endeavoring to lay the whole weight of the guilt
+upon my confederate who was dead. Why did he pick me out for such
+usage,&mdash;me who have been so true to him?"
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something almost weak, almost feminine in the tone of Mr.
+Grey's complaints. But to Dolly they were neither feminine nor weak. To
+her her father's grief was true and well-founded; but for herself in her
+own heart there was some joy to be drawn from it. How would it have been
+with her if the sharp practice had been his, and the success? What would
+have been her state of mind had she known her father to have conceived
+these base tricks? Or what would have been her condition had her father
+been of such a kind as to have taught her that the doing of such tricks
+should be indifferent to her? To have been high above them all,&mdash;for him
+and for her,&mdash;was not that everything? And was she not sure that the
+truth would come to light at last? And if not here, would not the truth
+come to light elsewhere where light would be of more avail than here?
+Such was the consolation with which Dolly consoled herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next two days Mr. Grey went to his chambers and returned, without
+any new word as to Mr. Scarborough and his affairs. One day he did bring
+back some tidings as to Juniper. "Juniper has got into some row about a
+horse," he said, "and is, I fear, in prison. All the same, he'll get his
+five hundred pounds; and if he knew that fact it would help him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't tell him, papa. I don't know where he lives."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps Carroll could do so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never speak to Mr. Carroll. And I would not willingly mention
+Juniper's name to my aunt or to either of the girls. It will be better
+to let Juniper go on in his row."
+</p>
+<p>
+"With all my heart," said Mr. Grey. And then there was an end of that.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next morning, the fourth after his return from Tretton, Mr. Grey
+received a letter from Mountjoy Scarborough. "He was sure," he said,
+"that Mr. Grey would be sorry to hear that his father had been very weak
+since Mr. Grey had gone, and unable even to see him, Mountjoy, for more
+than two or three minutes at a time. He was afraid that all would soon
+be over; but he and everybody around the squire had been surprised to
+find how cheerful and high-spirited he was. It seems," wrote Mountjoy,
+"as though he had nothing to regret, either as regards this world or the
+next. He has no remorse, and certainly no fear. Nothing, I think, could
+make him angry, unless the word repentance were mentioned to him. To me
+and to his sister he is unwontedly affectionate; but Augustus's name has
+not crossed his lips since you left the house." Then he went on to the
+matter as to which his letter had been written. "What am I to do when
+all is over with him? It is natural that I should come to you for
+advice. I will promise nothing about myself, but I trust that I may not
+return to the gambling-table. If I have this property to manage, I may
+be able to remain down here without going up to London. But shall I have
+the property to manage? and what steps am I to take with the view of
+getting it? Of course I shall have to encounter opposition, but I do
+not think that you will be one of those to oppose me. I presume that I
+shall be left here in possession, and that, they say, is nine points of
+the law. In the usual way I ought, I presume, simply to do nothing, but
+merely to take possession. The double story about the two marriages
+ought to count for nothing,&mdash;and I should be as though no such plots had
+ever been hatched. But they have been hatched, and other people know of
+them. The creditors, I presume, can do nothing. You have all the bonds
+in your possession. They may curse and swear, but will, I imagine, have
+no power. I doubt whether they have a morsel of ground on which to raise
+a lawsuit; for whether I or Augustus be the eldest son, their claims
+have been satisfied in full. But I presume that Augustus will not sit
+quiet. What ought I to do in regard to him? As matters stand at present
+he will not get a shilling. I fear my father is too ill to make another
+will. But at any rate he will make none in favor of Augustus. Pray tell
+me what I ought to do; and tell me whether you can send any one down to
+assist me when my father shall have gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I will meddle no farther with anything in which the name of Scarborough
+is concerned." Such had been Mr. Grey's first assertion when he received
+Mountjoy's letter. He would write to him and tell him that, after what
+had passed, there could be nothing of business transacted between him
+and his father's estate. Nor was he in the position to give any advice
+on the subjects mooted. He would wash his hands of it altogether. But,
+as he went home, he thought over the matter and told himself that it
+would be impossible for him thus to repudiate the name. He would
+undertake no lawsuit either on behalf of Augustus or of Mountjoy. But he
+must answer Mountjoy's letter, and tender him some advice.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the long hours of the subsequent night he discussed the whole
+matter with his daughter, and the upshot of his discussion was
+this:&mdash;that he would withdraw his name from the business, and leave Mr.
+Barry to manage it. Mr. Barry might then act for either party as he
+pleased.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH56"><!-- CH56 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LVI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+SCARBOROUGH'S REVENGE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus
+Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first
+perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to
+the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so
+that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him,
+his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now
+intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the
+house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon
+it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence,
+and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and
+therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been
+right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the
+possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible
+impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right
+then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long.
+However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make
+up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would
+have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would
+take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he
+consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
+</p>
+<p>
+How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were
+probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire
+was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some
+confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The
+tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His
+belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been
+unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief
+as the creditors had taken their money,&mdash;less than a third of what would
+have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their
+full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a
+people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation.
+But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own
+father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out
+to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
+</p>
+<p>
+But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such
+event he would be altogether ruined,&mdash;a penniless adventurer with his
+profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got
+together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,&mdash;a sprat thrown out to
+catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left
+to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against
+him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected
+that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been
+capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so
+inveterate as his father's for him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He received news also from Tretton that his father was not now expected
+by any one to live long.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It may be a week, the doctors say, and it is hardly possible that he
+should remain alive for another month." Such was the news which reached
+him from his own emissary at Tretton. What had he better do in the
+emergency of the moment?
+</p>
+<p>
+There was only one possibly effective step that he could take. He might,
+of course, remain tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when
+his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and
+demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his
+father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's
+pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own
+pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton
+and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day,
+and at once sent his name up to his father. Miss Scarborough was sitting
+by her brother's bedside, and from time to time was reading to him a few
+words. "Augustus!" he said, as soon as the servant had left the room.
+"What does Augustus want with me? The last time he saw me he bade me die
+out of hand if I wished to retrieve the injury I had done him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do not think of that now, John," his sister said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"As God is my judge, I will think of it to the last moment. Words such
+as those spoken, by a son to his father, demand a little thought. Were I
+to tell you that I did not think of them, would you not know that I was
+a hypocrite?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You need not speak of them, John."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not unless he came here to harass my last moments. I strove to do very
+much for him;&mdash;you know with what return. Mountjoy has been, at any rate,
+honest and straightforward; and, considering all things, not lacking in
+respect. I shall, at any rate, have some pleasure in letting Augustus
+know the state of my mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What shall I say to him?" his sister asked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tell him that he had better go back to London. I have tried them both,
+as few sons can be tried by their father, and I know them now. Tell him,
+with my compliments, that it will be better for him not to see me. There
+can be nothing pleasant said between us. I have no communication to make
+to him which could in the least interest him."
+</p>
+<p>
+But before night came the squire had been talked over, and had agreed to
+see his son. "The interview will be easy enough for me," he had said,
+"but I cannot imagine what he will get from me. But let him come as he
+will."
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus spent much of the intervening time in discussing the matter
+with his aunt. But not a word on the subject was spoken by him to
+Mountjoy, whom he met at dinner, and with whom he spent the evening in
+company with Mr. Merton. The two hours after dinner were melancholy
+enough. The three adjourned to the smoking-room, and sat there almost
+without conversation. A few words were said about the hunting, but
+Mountjoy had not hunted this winter. There were a few also of greater
+interest about the shooting. The shooting was of course still the
+property of the old man, and in the early months had, without many words
+spoken, become, as it were, an appanage of the condition of life to
+which Augustus aspired; but of late Mountjoy had assumed the command.
+"You found plenty of pheasants here, I suppose," Augustus remarked.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; not too many. I didn't trouble myself much about it. When I
+saw a pheasant I shot it. I've been a little troubled in spirit, you
+know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Gambling again, I heard."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That didn't trouble me much. Merton can tell you that we've had a
+sick-house."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed," said Merton. "It hasn't seemed to be a time in which a
+man would think very much of his pheasants."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know why," said Augustus, who was determined not to put up with
+the rebuke implied in the doctor's words. After that there was nothing
+more said between them till they all went to their separate apartments.
+"Don't contradict him," his aunt said to him the next morning, "and if
+he reprimands you, acknowledge that you have been wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's hard, when I haven't been wrong."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But so much depends upon it; and he is so stern. Of course, I wish well
+for both of you. There is plenty enough,&mdash;plenty; if only you could agree
+together."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But the injustice of his treatment. Is it true that he now declares
+Mountjoy to be the eldest son?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I believe so. I do not know, but I believe it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Think of what his conduct has been to me. And then you tell me that I
+am to own that I have been wrong! In what have I been wrong?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is your father, and I suppose you have said hard words to him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Did I rebuke him because he had fraudulently kept me for so many years
+in the position of a younger son? Did I not forgive him that iniquity?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he says you are a younger son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"This last move," he said, with great passion, "has only been made in an
+attempt to punish me, because I would not tell him that I was under a
+world of obligations to him for simply declaring the truth as to my
+birth. We cannot both be his eldest son."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, certainly, not both."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At last he declared that I was his heir. If I did say hard words to
+him, were they not justified?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not to your father," said Miss Scarborough, shaking her head.
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is your idea? How was I to abstain? Think what had been done to
+me. Through my whole life he had deceived me, and had attempted to rob
+me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he says that he had intended to get the property for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had
+robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in
+order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish
+behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the
+better of Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and
+his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the
+past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was
+aware that he had behaved,&mdash;not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,&mdash;but
+most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he
+had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the
+instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have
+pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him
+with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath
+his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded.
+And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He
+had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the
+more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had
+struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which
+he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never
+occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be
+within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power,
+or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After
+what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once
+said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at
+once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as
+coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep
+animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus
+had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and
+was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at
+his power.
+</p>
+<p>
+But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side,
+and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,&mdash;all
+the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the
+world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter
+another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent,
+or should he hold up his head and justify himself?
+</p>
+<p>
+One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he
+might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at
+any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to
+be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any
+vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been
+pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and
+the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately
+expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his
+father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a
+distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had
+been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be,
+unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's
+room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and
+putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand,
+but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me
+that you have not been quite so strong of late."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with
+affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very
+words which Augustus had spoken.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been,
+unfortunately, unpleasant."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have
+thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with
+you."
+</p>
+<p>
+Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his
+father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
+depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
+it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
+the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
+spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
+truer insight to his father's character.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
+much."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Circumstances?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
+</p>
+<p>
+"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
+feeling, I regret it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
+hypocrisy, at any rate."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
+driven to say what I did not feel."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly not to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite
+know of what I am accused."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of nothing. There is no accusation at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to
+Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, poor boy!&mdash;when I found that you had turned him out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never turned him out,&mdash;not till your house was open to receive him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one
+else to give him a shilling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have
+done him good."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He
+was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place.
+As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the
+sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his
+son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of
+victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You
+wouldn't have them separated, would you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr.
+Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere
+with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil. Mountjoy is the
+eldest son, you know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know nothing of the kind."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear, no! there is no question at all as to the date of my marriage
+with your mother. We were married in quite a straightforward way at
+Rummelsburg. When I wanted to save the property from those harpies, I
+was surprised to find how easily I managed it. Grey was a little soft
+there: an excellent man, but too credulous for a lawyer."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not believe a word of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You'll find it all go as naturally as possible when I have ceased to
+stay and be troublesome. But one thing I must say in your favor."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you mean?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never could have managed it all unless you had consented to that
+payment of the creditors. Indeed, I must say, that was chiefly your own
+doing. When you first suggested it, I saw what a fine thing you were
+contriving for your brother. I should think, after that, of leaving it
+all so that you need not find out the truth when I am dead. I do think
+I had so managed it that you would have had the property. Mountjoy, who
+has some foolish feeling about his mother, and who is obstinate as a
+pig, would have fought it out; but I had so contrived that you would
+have had it. I had sealed up every document referring to the Rummelsburg
+marriage, and had addressed them all to you. I couldn't have made it
+safer, could I?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know what you mean."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You would have been enabled to destroy every scrap of the evidence
+which will be wanted to prove your brother's legitimacy. Had I burned
+the papers I could not have put them more beyond poor Mountjoy's reach.
+Now they are quite safe in Mr. Grey's office; his clerk took them away
+with him. I would not leave them here with Mountjoy because,&mdash;well,&mdash;you
+might come, and he might be murdered!" Now Mr. Scarborough had had his
+revenge.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You think you have done your duty," said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do not care two straws about doing my duty, young man." Here Mr.
+Scarborough raised himself in part, and spoke in that strong voice which
+was supposed to be so deleterious to him. "Or rather, in seeking my
+duty, I look beyond the conventionalities of the world. I think that you
+have behaved damnably, and that I have punished you. Because of
+Mountjoy's weakness, because he had been knocked off his legs, I
+endeavored to put you upon yours. You at once turned upon me, when you
+thought the deed was done, and bade me go&mdash;and bury myself. You were a
+little too quick in your desire to become the owner of Tretton Park at
+once. I have stayed long enough to give some farther trouble. You will
+not say, after this, that I am <i>non compos</i>, and unable to make a will.
+You will find that, under mine, not one penny-piece, not one scrap of
+property, will become yours. Mountjoy will take care of you, I do not
+doubt. He must hate you, but will recognize you as his brother. I am not
+so soft-hearted and will not recognize you as my son. Now you may go
+away." So saying, he turned himself round to the wall, and refused to be
+induced to utter another word. Augustus began to speak, but when he had
+commenced his second sentence the old man rung his bell. "Mary," said he
+to his sister, "will you have the goodness to get Augustus to go away? I
+am very weak, and if he remains he will be the death of me. He can't get
+anything by killing me at once; it is too late for that."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Augustus did leave the room, and before the night came had left
+Tretton also. He presumed there was nothing for him to do there. One
+word he did say to Mountjoy,&mdash;"You will understand, Mountjoy, that when
+our father is dead Tretton will not become your property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall understand nothing of the kind," said Mountjoy "but I suppose
+Mr. Grey will tell me what I am to do."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH57"><!-- CH57 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LVII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. PROSPER SHOWS HIS GOOD-NATURE.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+While these things were going on at Tretton, and while Mr. Scarborough
+was making all arrangements for the adequate disposition of his
+property,&mdash;in doing which he had happily come to the conclusion that
+there was no necessity for interfering with what the law had
+settled,&mdash;Mr. Prosper was lying very ill at Buston, and was endeavoring
+on his sick-bed to reconcile himself to what the entail had done for
+him. There could be no other heir to him but Harry Annesley. As he
+thought of the unmarried ladies of his acquaintance, he found that there
+was no one who would have done for him but Miss Puffle and Matilda
+Thoroughbung. All others were too young or too old, or chiefly
+penniless. Miss Puffle would have been the exact thing&mdash;only for that
+intruding farmer's son.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he lay there alone in his bedroom his mind used to wander a little,
+and he would send for Matthew, his butler, and hold confidential
+discussions with him. "I never did think, sir, that Miss Thoroughbung
+was exactly the lady," said Matthew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, sir, there is a saying&mdash;But you'll excuse me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on, Matthew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a saying as how 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's
+ear.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've heard that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Just so, sir. Now, Miss Thoroughbung is a very nice lady."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think she's a nice lady at all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But&mdash;Of course it's not becoming in me to speak against my betters, and
+as a menial servant I never would."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on, Matthew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Thoroughbung is&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on, Matthew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well;&mdash;she is a sow's ear. Ain't she, now? The servants here never
+would have looked upon her as a silk purse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Wouldn't they?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never! She has a way with her just as though she didn't care for silk
+purses. And it's my mind, sir, that she don't. She wishes, however, to
+be uppermost, and if she had come here she'd have said so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That can never be. Thank God, that can never be!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, no! Brewers is brewers, and must be. There's Mr. Joe&mdash;He's very
+well, no doubt."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I haven't the pleasure of his acquaintance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Him as is to marry Miss Molly. But Miss Molly ain't the head of the
+family; is she, sir?" Here the squire shook his head. "You're the head
+of the family, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And is&mdash;I might make so bold as to speak?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go on, Matthew."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Thoroughbung would be a little out of place at Buston Hall. Now,
+as to Miss Puffle&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Puffle is a lady,&mdash;or was."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt, sir. The Puffles is not quite equal to the Prospers, as I can
+hear. But the Puffles is ladies&mdash;and gentlemen. The servants below all
+give it up to them that they're real gentlefolk. But&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She demeaned herself terribly with young Tazlehurst. They all said as
+there were more where that came from."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What should they mean by that?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"She'd indulge in low 'abits,&mdash;such as never would have been put up with
+at Buston Hall,&mdash;a-cursing and a-swearing&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Miss Puffle!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not herself,&mdash;I don't say that; but it's like enough if you 'ad heard
+all. But them as lets others do it almost does it themselves. And them
+as lets others drink sperrrits o' mornings come nigh to having a dram
+down their own throats."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh laws!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper, thinking of the escape he had had.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You wouldn't have liked it, sir, if there had been a bottle of gin in
+the bedroom!" Here Mr. Prosper hid his face among the bedclothes. "It
+ain't all that comes silk out of the skein that does to make a purse
+of."
+</p>
+<p>
+There were difficulties in the pursuit of matrimony of which Mr. Prosper
+had not thought. His imagination at once pictured to himself a bride
+with a bottle of gin under her pillow, and he went on shivering till
+Matthew almost thought that he had been attacked by an ague-fit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall give it up, at any rate," he said, after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course you're a young man, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I'm not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is, not exactly young,"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You're an old fool to tell such lies!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I'm an old fool; but I endeavor to be veracious. I never
+didn't take a shilling as were yours, nor a shilling's worth, all the
+years I have known you, Mr. Prosper."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What has that to do with it? I'm not a young man."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What am I to say, sir? Shall I say as you are middle-aged?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"The truth is, Matthew, I'm worn out."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I wouldn't think of taking a wife."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear. I don't think I was
+intended to bear trouble."
+</p>
+<p>
+"'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,'" said Matthew.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose so. But one man's luck is harder than another's. They've been
+too many for me, and I feel that I'm sinking under them. It's no good my
+thinking of marrying now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool. Of course
+I am an old fool."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do have done with it! Mr. Harry hasn't been exactly what he ought to
+have been to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's a very comely young gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What has comely to do with it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet.
+You couldn't expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear
+sermons."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at
+midnight."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It ain't that, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I say it is that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Very well, sir. Only we've all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn't
+him as struck the first blow. It was all about a young lady."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know what it was about."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A young lady as is a young lady."&mdash;This was felt to the quick by Mr.
+Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred
+Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the
+continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage
+which Harry might make, he passed over the slur upon himself for the
+sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.&mdash;"And
+when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he's not going
+to be braggydoshoed out of it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Scarborough knew her first."
+</p>
+<p>
+"First come first served isn't always the way with lovers. Mr. Harry was
+the conquering hero. 'Weni, widi, wici.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Halloo, Matthew!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Them's the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he's
+got the better of a young lady's affections; and I dare say they're the
+very words as put the captain into such a towering passion. I can
+understand how it happened, just as if I saw it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He'd knocked his <i>weni, widi, wici</i> out of him, I guess! I think, Mr.
+Prosper, you should forgive him." Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but
+had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger.
+But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one
+near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler,
+Matthew. "Suppose you was to send for him, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He wouldn't come."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Let him alone for coming! They tell me, sir&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Who tells you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why, sir, the servants now at the rectory. Of course, sir, where two
+families is so near connected, the servants are just as near: it's no
+more than natural. They tell me now that since you were so kind about
+the allowance, their talk of you is all changed." Then the squire's
+anger was heated hot again. Their talk had all been against him till he
+had opened his hand in regard to the allowance. And now when there was
+something again to be got they could be civil. There was none of that
+love of him for himself for which an old man is always hankering,&mdash;for
+which the sick man breaks his heart,&mdash;but which the old and sick find it
+so difficult to get from the young and healthy. It is in nature that the
+old man should keep the purse in his own pocket, or otherwise he will
+have so little to attract. He is weak, querulous, ugly to look at, apt
+to be greedy, cross, and untidy. Though he himself can love, what is his
+love to any one? Duty demands that one shall smooth his pillow, and some
+one does smooth it,&mdash;as a duty. But the old man feels the difference, and
+remembers the time when there was one who was anxious to share it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Prosper was not in years an old man, and had not as yet passed that
+time of life at which many a man is regarded by his children as the best
+of their playfellows. But he was weak in body, self-conscious, and
+jealous in spirit. He had the heart to lay out for himself a generous
+line of conduct, but not the purpose to stick to it steadily. His nephew
+had ever been a trouble to him, because he had expected from his nephew
+a kind of worship to which he had felt that he was entitled as the head
+of the family. All good things were to come from him, and therefore good
+things should be given to him. Harry had told himself that his uncle was
+not his father, and that it had not been his fault that he was his
+uncle's heir. He had not asked his uncle for an allowance. He had grown
+up with the feeling that Buston Hall was to be his own, and had not
+regarded his uncle as the donor. His father, with his large family, had
+never exacted much,&mdash;had wanted no special attention from him. And if not
+his father, then why his uncle? But his inattention, his absence of
+gratitude for peculiar gifts, had sunk deep into Mr. Prosper's bosom.
+Hence had come Miss Thoroughbung as his last resource, and Miss
+Thoroughbung had&mdash;called him Peter. Hence his mind had wandered to Miss
+Puffle, and Miss Puffle had gone off with the farmer's son, and, as he
+was now informed, had taken to drinking gin. Therefore he turned his
+face to the wall and prepared himself to die.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the next day he sent for Matthew again. Matthew first came to him
+always in the morning, but on that occasion very little conversation
+ever took place. In the middle of the day he had a bowl of soup brought
+to him, and by that time had managed to drag himself out of bed, and to
+clothe himself in his dressing-gown, and to seat himself in his
+arm-chair. Then when the soup had been slowly eaten, he would ring his
+bell, and the conversation would begin. "I have been thinking over what
+I was saying yesterday, Matthew." Matthew simply assented, but he knew
+in his heart that his master had been thinking over what he himself had
+said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is Mr. Harry at the rectory?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; he's there now. He wouldn't stir from the rectory till he hears
+that you are better."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't he stir? Does he mean to say that I'm going to die?
+Perhaps I am. I'm very weak, but he doesn't know it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Matthew felt that he had made a blunder, and that he must get out of it
+as well as he could. "It isn't that he is thinking anything of that, but
+you are confined to your room, sir. Of course he knows that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I never told him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's most particular in his inquiries from day to day."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Does he come here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He don't venture on that, because he knows as how you wouldn't wish
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why shouldn't I wish it? It'd be the most natural thing in the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there has been&mdash;a little&mdash;I'm quite sure Mr. Harry don't wish to
+intrude. If you'd let me give it to be understood that you'd like him to
+call, he'd be over here in a jiffy." Then, very slowly, Mr. Prosper did
+give it to be understood that he would take it as a compliment if his
+nephew would walk across the park and ask after him. He was most
+particular as to the mode in which this embassy should be conducted.
+Harry was not to be made to think that he was to come rushing into the
+house after his old fashion,&mdash;"Halloo, uncle, aren't you well? Hope
+you'll be better when I come back. Have got to be off by the next
+train." Then he used to fly away and not be heard of again for a week.
+And yet the message was to be conveyed with an alluring courtesy that
+might be attractive, and might indicate that no hostility was intended.
+But it was not to be a positive message, but one which would signify
+what might possibly take place. If it should happen that Mr. Harry was
+walking in this direction, it might also happen that his uncle would be
+pleased to see him. There was no better ambassador at hand than Matthew,
+and therefore Matthew was commissioned to arrange matters. "If you can
+get at Mrs. Weeks, and do it through his mother," suggested Mr. Prosper.
+Then Matthew winked and departed on his errand.
+</p>
+<p>
+In about two hours there was a ring at the back-door, of which Mr.
+Prosper knew well the sound. Miss Thoroughbung had not been there very
+often, but he had learned to distinguish her ring or her servant's. In
+old days, not so very far removed, Harry had never been accustomed to
+ring at all. But yet his uncle knew that it was he, and not the doctor,
+who might probably come,&mdash;or Mr. Soames, of whose coming he lived in
+hourly dread. "You can show him up," he said to Matthew, opening the
+door with great exertion, and attempting to speak to the servant down
+the stairs. Harry, at any rate, was shown up, and in two minutes' time
+was standing over his uncle's sick-chair. "I have not been quite well
+just lately," he said, in answer to the inquiries made.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We are very sorry to hear that, sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose you've heard it before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We did hear that you were a little out of sorts."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Out of sorts! I don't know what you call out of sorts. I have not been
+out of this room for well-nigh a month. My sister came to see me one
+day, and that's the last Christian I've seen."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My mother would be over daily if she fancied you'd like it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"She has her own duties, and I don't want to be troublesome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The truth is, Uncle Prosper, that we have all felt that we have been in
+your black books; and as we have not thought that we deserved it, there
+has been a little coolness."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told your mother that I was willing to forgive you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Forgive me what? A fellow does not care to be forgiven when he has done
+nothing. But if you'll only say that by-gones shall be by-gones quite
+past I'll take it so." He could not give up his position as head of the
+family so easily,&mdash;an injured head of the family. And yet he was anxious
+that by-gones should be by-gones, if only the young man would not be so
+jaunty, as he stood there by his arm-chair. "Just say the word, and the
+girls shall come up and see you as they used to do." Mr. Prosper thought
+at the moment that one of the girls was going to marry Joe Thoroughbung,
+and that he would not wish to see her. "As for myself, if I've been in
+any way negligent, I can only say that I did not intend it. I do not
+like to say more, because it would seem as though I were asking you for
+money."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know why you shouldn't ask me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man doesn't like to do that. But I'd tell you of everything if you'd
+only let me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is there to tell?" said Uncle Prosper, knowing well that the
+love-story would be communicated to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I've got myself engaged to marry a young woman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"A young woman!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes;&mdash;she's a young woman, of course; but she's a young lady as well.
+You know her name: it is Florence Mountjoy."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is the young lady that I've heard of. Was there not some other
+gentleman attached to her?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There was;&mdash;her cousin, Mountjoy Scarborough."
+</p>
+<p>
+"His father wrote to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"His father is the meanest fellow I ever met."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he himself came to me,&mdash;down here. They were fighting your battle
+for you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm much obliged to them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"For even I have interfered with him about the lady."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Harry had to repeat his <i>veni, vidi, vici</i> after his own fashion.
+"Of course I interfered with him. How is a fellow to help himself? We
+both of us were spooning on the same girl, and of course she had to
+decide it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And she decided for you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I fancy she did. At any rate I decided for her, and I mean to have
+her."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Mr. Prosper was, for him, very gracious in his congratulations,
+saying all manner of good things of Miss Mountjoy. "I think you'd like
+her, Uncle Prosper." Mr. Prosper did not doubt but that he would
+"appease the solicitor." He also had heard of Miss Mountjoy, and what he
+had heard had been much to the "young lady's credit." Then he asked a
+few questions as to the time fixed for the marriage. Here Harry was
+obliged to own that there were difficulties. Miss Mountjoy had promised
+not to marry for three years without her mother's consent. "Three
+years!" said Mr. Prosper. "Then I shall be dead and buried." Harry did
+not tell his uncle that in that case the difficulty might probably
+vanish, as the same degree of fate which had robbed him of his poor
+uncle would have made him owner of Buston. In such a case as that Mrs.
+Mountjoy might probably give way.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But why is the young lady to be kept from marriage for three years?
+Does she wish it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry said that he did not exactly think that Miss Mountjoy, on her own
+behalf, did wish for so prolonged a separation. "The fact is, sir, that
+Mrs. Mountjoy is not my best friend. This nephew of hers, Mountjoy
+Scarborough, has always been her favorite."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But he's a man that always loses his money at cards."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's to have all Tretton now, it seems."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And what does the young lady say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"All Tretton won't move her. I'm not a bit afraid. I've got her word,
+and that's enough for me. How it is that her mother should think it
+possible;&mdash;that's what I do not know."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The three years are quite fixed?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't quite say that altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But a young lady who will be true to you will be true to her mother
+also." Harry shook his head. He was quite willing to guarantee
+Florence's truth as to her promise to him, but he did not think that her
+promise to her mother need be put on the same footing. "I shall be very
+glad if you can arrange it any other way. Three years is a long time."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Quite absurd, you know," said Harry, with energy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What made her fix on three years?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know how they did it between them. Mrs. Mountjoy, perhaps,
+thought that it might give time to her nephew. Ten years would be the
+same as far as he is concerned. Florence is a girl who, when she says
+that she loves a man, means it. For you don't suppose I intend to remain
+three years?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What do you intend to do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"One has to wait a little and see." Then there was a long pause, during
+which Harry stood twiddling his fingers. He had nothing farther to
+suggest, but he thought that his uncle might say something. "Shall I
+come again to-morrow, Uncle Prosper?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have got a plan," said Uncle Prosper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What is it, uncle?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know that it can lead to anything. It's of no use, of course,
+if the young lady will wait the three years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't think she's at all anxious," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You might marry almost at once."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's what I should like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And come and live here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"In this house?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why not? I'm nobody. You'd soon find that I'm nobody."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's nonsense, Uncle Prosper. Of course you're everybody in your own
+house."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You might endure it for six months in the year."
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry thought of the sermons, but resolved at once to face them boldly.
+"I am only thinking how generous you are."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's what I mean. I don't know the young lady, and perhaps she mightn't
+like living with an old gentleman. In regard to the other six months,
+I'll raise the two hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds. If
+she thinks well of it, she should come here first and let me see her.
+She and her mother might both come." Then there was a pause. "I should
+not know how to bear it,&mdash;I should not, indeed. But let them both come."
+</p>
+<p>
+After some farther delay this was at last decided on. Harry went away
+supremely happy and very grateful, and Mr. Prosper was left to meditate
+on the terrible step he had taken.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH58"><!-- CH58 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LVIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S DEATH.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Barry, when he heard the last story
+from Tretton, began to think that his partner was not so wide-awake as
+he had hitherto always regarded him. As time runs on, such a result
+generally takes place in all close connections between the old and the
+young. Ten years ago Mr. Barry had looked up to Mr. Grey with a trustful
+respect. Words which fell from Mr. Grey were certainly words of truth,
+but they were, in Mr. Barry's then estimation, words of wisdom also.
+Gradually an altered feeling had grown up; and Mr. Barry, though he did
+not doubt the truth, thought less about it. But he did doubt the wisdom
+constantly. The wisdom practised under Mr. Barry's vice-management was
+not quite the same as Mr. Grey's. And Mr. Barry had come to understand
+that though it might be well to tell the truth on occasions, it was
+folly to suppose that any one else would do so. He had always thought
+that Mr. Grey had gone a little too fast in believing Squire
+Scarborough's first story. "But you've been to Nice, yourself, and
+discovered that it is true," Mr. Grey would say. Mr. Barry would shake
+his head, and declare that in having to deal with a man of such varied
+intellect as Mr. Scarborough there was no coming at the bottom of a
+story.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there had been no question of any alterations in the mode of
+conducting the business of the firm. Mr. Grey had been, of course, the
+partner by whose judgment any question of importance must ultimately be
+decided; and, though Mr. Barry had been sent to Nice, the Scarborough
+property was especially in Mr. Grey's branch. He had been loud in
+declaring the iniquity of his client, but had altogether made up his
+mind that the iniquity had been practised; and all the clerks in the
+office had gone with him, trusting to his great character for sober
+sagacity. And Mr. Grey was not a man who would easily be put out of his
+high position.
+</p>
+<p>
+The respect generally felt for him was too high; and he carried himself
+before his partner and clerks too powerfully to lose at once his
+prestige. But Mr. Barry, when he heard the new story, looked at his own
+favorite clerk and almost winked an eye; and when he came to discuss the
+matter with Mr. Grey, he declined even to pretend to be led at once by
+Mr. Grey's opinion. "A gentleman who has been so very clever on one
+occasion may be very clever on another." That had been his argument. Mr.
+Grey's reply had simply been to the effect that you cannot twice catch
+an old bird with chaff. Mr. Barry seemed, however, to think, in
+discussing the matter with the favorite clerk, that the older the bird
+became, the more often he could be caught with chaff.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey in these days was very unhappy,&mdash;not made so simply by the
+iniquity of his client, but by the insight which he got into his
+partner's aptitude for business. He began to have his doubts about Mr.
+Barry. Mr. Barry was tending toward sharp practice. Mr. Barry was
+beginning to love his clients,&mdash;not with a proper attorney's affection,
+as his children, but as sheep to be shorn. With Mr. Grey the bills had
+gone out and had been paid, no doubt, and the money had in some shape
+found its way into Mr. Grey's pockets. But he had never looked at the
+two things together. Mr. Barry seemed to be thinking of the wool as
+every client came or was dismissed. Mr. Grey, as he thought of these
+things, began to fancy that his own style of business was becoming
+antiquated. He had said good words of Mr. Barry to his daughter, but
+just at this period his faith both in himself and in his partner began
+to fail. His partner was becoming too strong for him, and he felt that
+he was failing. Things were changed; and he did not love his business as
+he used to do. He had fancies, and he knew that he had fancies, and that
+fancies were not good for an attorney. When he saw what was in Mr.
+Barry's mind as to this new story from Tretton, he became convinced that
+Dolly was right. Dolly was not fit, he thought, to be Mr. Barry's wife.
+She might have been the wife of such another as himself, had the partner
+been such another. But it was not probable that any partner should have
+been such as he was. "Old times are changed," he said to himself; "old
+manners gone." Then he determined that he would put his house in order,
+and leave the firm. A man cannot leave his work forever without some
+touch of melancholy.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it was necessary that some one should go to Rummelsburg and find
+what could be learned there. Mr. Grey had sworn that he would have
+nothing to do with the new story, as soon as the new story had been told
+to him; but it soon became apparent to him that he must have to do with
+it. As soon as the breath should be out of the old squire's body, some
+one must take possession of Tretton, and Mountjoy would be left in the
+house. In accordance with Mr. Grey's theory, Augustus would be the
+proper possessor. Augustus, no doubt, would go down and claim the
+ownership, unless the matter could be decided to the satisfaction of
+them both beforehand. Mr. Grey thought that there was little hope of
+such satisfaction; but it would of course be for him or his firm to see
+what could be done. "That I should ever have got such a piece of
+business!" he said to himself. But it was at last settled among them
+that Mr. Barry should go to Rummelsburg. He had made the inquiry at
+Nice, and he would go on with it at Rummelsburg. Mr. Barry started, with
+Mr. Quaverdale, of St. John's, the gentleman whom Harry Annesley had
+consulted as to the practicability of his earning money by writing for
+the Press. Mr. Quaverdale was supposed to be a German scholar, and
+therefore had his expenses paid for him, with some bonus for his time.
+</p>
+<p>
+A conversation between Mr. Barry and Mr. Quaverdale, which took place on
+their way home, shall be given, as it will best describe the result of
+their inquiry. This inquiry had been conducted by Mr. Barry's
+intelligence, but had owed so much to Mr. Quaverdale's extensive
+knowledge of languages, that the two gentlemen may be said, as they came
+home, to be equally well instructed in the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's
+property.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has been too many for the governor," said Barry. Mr. Barry's
+governor was Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems to me that Scarborough is a gentleman who is apt to be too
+many for most men."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The sharpest fellow I ever came across, either in the way of a cheat or
+in any other walk of life. If he wanted any one else to have the
+property, he'd come out with something to show that the entail itself
+was all moonshine."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But when he married again at Nice, he couldn't have quarrelled with his
+eldest son already. The child was not above four or five months old."
+This came from Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's my impression," said Barry, "that it was then his intention to
+divide the property, and that this was done as a kind of protest against
+primogeniture. Then he found that that would fail,&mdash;that if he came to
+explain the whole matter to his sons, they would not consent to be
+guided by him, and to accept a division. From what I have seen of both
+of them, they are bad to guide after that fashion. Then Mountjoy got
+frightfully into the hands of the money-lenders, and in order to do them
+it became necessary that the whole property should go to Augustus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They must look upon him as a nice sort of old man!" said Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rather! But they have never got at him to speak a bit of their mind to
+him. And then how clever he was in getting round his own younger son.
+The property got into such a condition that there was money enough to
+pay the Jews the money they had really lent. Augustus, who was never
+quite sure of his father, thought it would be best to disarm them; and
+he consented to pay them, getting back all their bonds. But he was very
+uncivil to the squire,&mdash;told him that the sooner he died the better, or
+something of that sort; and then the squire immediately turned round and
+sprung this Rummelsburg marriage upon us, and has left every stick about
+the place to Mountjoy. It must all go to Mountjoy,&mdash;every acre, every
+horse, every bed, and every book."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And these, in twelve months' time, will have been divided among the
+card-players of the metropolis," said Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"We've got nothing to do with that. If ever a man did have a lesson he
+has had it. If he chose to take it, no man would ever have been saved in
+so miraculous a manner. But there can be no doubt that John Scarborough
+and Ada Sneyd were married at Rummelsburg, and that it will be found to
+be impossible to unmarry them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Old Mrs. Sneyd, the lady's mother, was then present?" said Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a doubt about it, and that Fritz Deutchmann was present at the
+marriage. I almost think that we ought to have brought him away with us.
+It would have cost a couple of hundred pounds, but the estate can bear
+that. We can have him by sending for him, if we should want it." Then,
+after many more words on the same subject and to the same effect, Mr.
+Barry went on to give his own private opinions: "In fact, the only
+blemish in old Scarborough's plans was this,&mdash;that the Rummelsburg
+marriage was sure to come out sooner or later."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you think so? Fritz Deutchmann is the only one of the party alive,
+and it's not probable that he would ever have heard of Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"These things always do come out. But it does not signify now. And the
+world will know how godless and reprobate old Scarborough has been; but
+that will not interfere with Mountjoy's legitimacy. And the world has
+pretty well understood already that the old man has cared nothing for
+God or man. It was bad enough, according to the other story, that he
+should have kept Augustus so long in the dark, and determined to give it
+all to a bastard by means of a plot and a fraud. The world has got used
+to that. The world will simply be amused by this other turn. And as the
+world generally is not very fond of Augustus Scarborough, and entertains
+a sort of a good-natured pity for Mountjoy, the first marriage will be
+easily accepted."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There'll be a lawsuit, I suppose?" said Quaverdale.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't see that they'll have a leg to stand on. When the old man dies
+the property will be exactly as it would have been. This latter intended
+fraud in favor of Augustus will be understood as having been old
+Scarborough's farce. The Jews are the party who have really suffered."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And Augustus?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will have lost nothing to which he was by law entitled. His father
+might of course make what will he pleased. If Augustus was uncivil to
+his father, his father could of course alter his will. The world would
+see all that. But the world will be inclined to say that these poor
+money-lenders have been awfully swindled."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The world won't pity them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not so sure. It's a hard case to get hold of a lot of men and force
+them to lend you a hundred pounds without security and without interest.
+That's what has been done in this case."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They'll have no means of recovering anything."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not a shilling. The wonder is that they should have got three hundred
+thousand pounds. They never would have had it unless the squire had
+wished to pave the way back for Mountjoy. And then he made Augustus do
+it for him! In my mind he has been so clever that he ought to be
+forgiven all his rascality. There has been, too, no punishment for him,
+and no probability of punishment. He has done nothing for which the law
+can touch him. He has proposed to cheat people, but before he would have
+cheated them he might be dead. The money-lenders will have been swindled
+awfully, but they have never had any ground of tangible complaint
+against him. 'Who are you?' he has said. 'I don't know you.' They
+alleged that they had lent their money to his eldest son. 'That's as you
+thought,' he replied. 'I ain't bound to come and tell you all the family
+arrangements about my marriage.' If you look at it all round it was
+uncommonly well done."
+</p>
+<p>
+When Mr. Barry got back he found that it was generally admitted at the
+Chambers that the business had been well done. Everybody was prepared
+to allow that Mr. Scarborough had not left a screw loose in the
+arrangement,&mdash;though he was this moment on his death-bed, and had been
+under surgical tortures and operations, and, in fact, slowly dying,
+during the whole period that he had been thus busy. Every one concerned
+in the matter seemed to admire Mr. Scarborough except Mr. Grey, whose
+anger, either with himself or his client, became the stronger the louder
+grew the admiration of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+A couple of barristers very learned in the law were consulted, and they
+gave it as their opinion that from the evidence as shown to them there
+could be no doubt but that Mountjoy was legitimate. There was no reason
+in the least for doubting it, but for that strange episode which had
+occurred when, in order to get the better of the law, Mr. Scarborough
+had declared that at the time of Mountjoy's birth he had not been
+married. They went on to declare that on the squire's death the
+Rummelsburg marriage must of course have been discovered, and had given
+it as their opinion that the squire had never dreamed of doing so great
+an injustice either to his elder or his younger son. He had simply
+desired, as they thought, to cheat the money-lenders, and had cheated
+them beautifully. That Mr. Tyrrwhit should have been so very soft was a
+marvel to them; but it only showed how very foolish a sharp man of the
+world might be when he encountered one sharper.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Augustus, through an attorney acting on his own behalf, consulted
+two other barristers, whose joint opinion was not forthcoming quite at
+once, but may have to be stated. Augustus was declared by them to have
+received at his father's hands a most irreparable injury to such an
+extent that an action for damages would, in their opinion, lie.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had, by accepting his father's first story, altered the whole course
+of his life, abandoned his profession, and even paid large sums of money
+out of his own pocket for the maintenance of his elder brother. A jury
+would probably award him some very considerable sum,&mdash;if a jury could get
+hold of his father while still living. No doubt the furniture and other
+property would remain, and might be held to be liable for the present
+owner's laches. But these two learned lawyers did not think that an
+action could be taken with any probability of success against the eldest
+son, with reference to his tables and chairs, when the Tretton estates
+should have become his. As these learned lawyers had learned that old
+Mr. Scarborough was at this moment almost <i>in articulo mortis</i>, would
+it not be better that Augustus should apply to his elder brother to make
+him such compensation as the peculiarities of the case would demand? But
+as this opinion did not reach Augustus till his father was dead, the
+first alternative proposed was of no use.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I suppose, sir, we had better communicate with Mr. Scarborough?" Mr.
+Barry said to his partner, on his return.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in my name," Mr. Grey replied. "I've put Mr. Scarborough in such a
+state that he is not allowed to see any business letter. Sir William
+Brodrick is there now." But communications were made both to Mountjoy
+and to Augustus. There was nothing for Mountjoy to do; his case was in
+Mr. Barry's hands; nor could he take any steps till something should be
+done to oust him from Tretton. Augustus, however, immediately went to
+work and employed his counsel, learned in the law.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will do something, I suppose, for poor Gus?" the old man said to
+his son one morning. It was the last morning on which he was destined to
+awake in the world, and he had been told by Sir William and by Mr.
+Merton that it would probably be so. But death to him had no terror.
+Life to him, for many weeks past, had been so laden with pain as to make
+him look forward to a release from it with hope. But the business of
+life had pressed so hard upon him as to make him feel that he could not
+tell what had been accomplished.
+</p>
+<p>
+The adjustment of such a property as Tretton required, he thought, his
+presence, and, till it had been adjusted, he clung to life with a
+pertinacity which had seemed to be oppressive. Now Mountjoy's debts had
+been paid, and Mountjoy could be left a bit happier. Having achieved so
+much, he was delighted to think that he might. But there had come
+latterly a claim upon him equally strong,&mdash;that he should wreak his
+vengeance upon Augustus. Had Augustus abused him for keeping him in the
+dark so long, he would have borne it patiently. He had expected as much.
+But his son had ridiculed him, laughed at him, made nothing of him, and
+had at last told him to die out of the way. He would, at any rate, do
+something before he died.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had had his revenge, very bitter of its kind. Augustus should be made
+to feel that he had not been ridiculous,&mdash;not to be laughed at in his
+last days. He had ruined his son, inevitably ruined him, and was about to
+leave him penniless upon the earth. But now in his last moments, in his
+very last, there came upon him some feeling of pity, and in speaking of
+his son he once more called him "Gus."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know how it will all be, sir; but if the property is to be
+mine&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be yours; it must be yours."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I will do anything for him that he will accept."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do not let him starve, or have to earn his bread."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Say what you wish, sir, and it shall be done, as far as I can do it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Make an offer to him of some income, and settle it on him. Do it at
+once." The old man, as he said this, was thinking probably of the great
+danger that all Tretton might, before long, have been made to vanish.
+"And, Mountjoy&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sir."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have gambled surely enough for amusement. With such a property as
+this in your hands gambling becomes very serious."
+</p>
+<p>
+They were the last words,&mdash;the last intelligible words,&mdash;which the old man
+spoke. He died with his left hand on his son's neck, and took Merton and
+his sister by his side. It was a death-bed not without its lesson,&mdash;not
+without a certain charm in the eyes of some fancied beholder. Those who
+were there seemed to love him well, and should do so.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had contrived, in spite of his great faults, to create a respect in
+the minds of those around him, which is itself a great element of love.
+But there was something in his manner which told of love for others. He
+was one who could hate to distraction, and on whom no bonds of blood
+would operate to mitigate his hatred. He would persevere to injure with
+a terrible persistency; but yet in every phase of his life he had been
+actuated by love for others. He had never been selfish, thinking always
+of others rather than of himself. Supremely indifferent he had been to
+the opinion of the world around him, but he had never run counter to his
+own conscience. For the conventionalities of the law he entertained a
+supreme contempt, but he did wish so to arrange matters with which he
+was himself concerned as to do what justice demanded. Whether he
+succeeded in the last year of his life the reader may judge. But
+certainly the three persons who were assembled around his death-bed did
+respect him, and had been made to love him by what he had done.
+</p>
+<p>
+Merton wrote the next morning to his friend Henry Annesley respecting
+the scene. "The poor old boy has gone at last, and, in spite of all his
+faults, I feel as though I had lost an old friend. To me he has been
+most kind, and did I not know of all his sins I should say that he had
+been always loyal and always charitable. Mr. Grey condemns him, and all
+the world must condemn him. One cannot make an apology for him without
+being ready to throw all truth and all morality to the dogs. But if you
+can imagine for yourself a state of things in which neither truth nor
+morality shall be thought essential, then old Mr. Scarborough would be
+your hero. He was the bravest man I ever knew. He was ready to look all
+opposition in the face, and prepared to bear it down. And whatever he
+did, he did with the view of accomplishing what he thought to be right
+for other people. Between him and his God I cannot judge, but he
+believed in an Almighty One, and certainly went forth to meet him
+without a fear in his heart."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH59"><!-- CH59 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LIX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+JOE THOROUGHBUNG'S WEDDING.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+While some men die others are marrying. While the funeral dirge was
+pealing sadly at Tretton, the joyful marriage-bells were ringing both at
+Buntingford and Buston. Joe Thoroughbung, dressed all in his best, was
+about to carry off Molly Annesley to Rome previous to settling down to a
+comfortable life of hunting and brewing in his native town. Miss
+Thoroughbung sent her compliments to Mrs. Annesley. Would her brother be
+there? She thought it probable that Mr. Prosper would not be glad to see
+her. She longed to substitute "Peter" for Mr. Prosper, but abstained. In
+such case she would deny herself the pleasure of "seeing Joe turned
+off." Then there was an embassy sent to the Hall. The two younger girls
+went with the object of inviting Uncle Prosper, but with a desire at
+their hearts that Uncle Prosper might not come. "I presume the family at
+Buntingford will be represented?" Uncle Prosper had asked. "Somebody
+will come, I suppose," said Fanny. Then Uncle Prosper had sent down a
+pretty jewelled ring, and said that he would remain in his room. His
+health hardly permitted of his being present with advantage. So it was
+decided that Miss Thoroughbung should come, and every one felt that she
+would be the howling spirit,&mdash;if not at the ceremony, at the banquet
+which would be given afterward.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Thoroughbung was not the only obstacle, had the whole been known.
+Young Soames, the son of the attorney with whom Mr. Prosper had found it
+so evil a thing to have to deal, was to act as Joe's best man. Mr.
+Prosper learned this, probably, from Matthew, but he never spoke of it
+to the family.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a sad disgrace in his eyes that any Soames should have been so
+far mixed up with the Prosper blood. Young Algy Soames was in himself a
+very nice sort of young fellow, who liked a day's hunting when he could
+be spared out of his father's office, and whose worst fault was that he
+wore loud cravats. But he was an abomination to Mr. Prosper, who had
+never seen him. As it was, he carried himself very mildly on this
+occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It's a pity we're not to have two marriages at the same time," said Mr.
+Crabtree, a clerical wag from the next parish. "Don't you think so, Mrs.
+Annesley?" Mrs. Annesley was standing close by, as was also Miss
+Thoroughbung, but she made no answer to the appeal. People who
+understood anything knew that Mrs. Annesley would not be gratified by
+such an allusion. But Mr. Crabtree was a man who understood nothing.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The old birds never pair so readily as the young ones," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Old! Who talks of being old?" said Mr. Crabtree. "My friend Prosper is
+quite a boy. There's a good time coming, and I hope you'll give way yet,
+Miss Thoroughbung."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then they were all marshalled on their way to church. It is quite out of
+my power to describe the bride's dress, or that of the bride's maids.
+They were the bride's sisters and two of Joe's sisters. An attempt had
+been made to induce Florence Mountjoy to come down, but it had been
+unsuccessful. Things had gone so far now at Cheltenham that Mrs.
+Mountjoy had been driven to acknowledge that if Florence held to her
+project for three years she should be allowed to marry Harry Annesley.
+But she had accompanied this permission by many absurd restrictions.
+Florence was not to see him, at any rate, during the first year; but she
+was to see Mountjoy Scarborough if he came to Cheltenham. Florence
+declared this to be impossible; but, as the Buston marriage took place
+just at this moment, she could not have her way in everything. Joe drove
+up to the church with Algy Soames, it not having been thought discreet
+that he should enter the parsonage on that morning, though he had been
+there nearly every day through the winter. "I declare, here he is!"
+said Miss Thoroughbung, very loudly. "I never thought he'd have the
+courage at the last moment."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wonder how a certain gentleman would have felt when it came to his
+last moment," said Mr. Crabtree.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Annesley took to weeping bitterly, which seemed to be unnecessary,
+as she had done nothing but congratulate herself since the match had
+first been made, and had rejoiced greatly that one of her numerous brood
+should have "put into such a haven of rest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My dear Mrs. Annesley," said Mrs. Crabtree, consoling her in that she
+would not be far removed from her child, "you can almost see the brewery
+chimneys from the church tower." Those who knew the two ladies well were
+aware that there was some little slur intended by the allusion to
+brewery chimneys. Mrs. Crabtree's girl had married the third son of Sir
+Reginald Rattlepate. The Rattlepates were not rich, and the third son
+was not inclined to earn his bread.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Thank God, yes!" said Mrs. Annesley, through her tears. "Whenever I
+shall see them I shall know that there's an income coming out with the
+smoke."
+</p>
+<p>
+The boys were home from school for the occasion. "Molly, there's Joe
+coming after you," said the elder.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If he gives you a kiss now you needn't pretend to mind," said the
+other.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My darling, my own one, that so soon will be my own no longer!" said
+the father, as he made his way into the vestry to put on his surplice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear papa!" It was the only word the bride said as she walked in at the
+church-door, and prepared to make her way up the nave at the head of her
+little bevy. They were all very bright, as they stood there before the
+altar, but the brightest spot among them was Algy Soames's blue necktie.
+Joe for the moment was much depressed, and thought nothing of the last
+run in which he had distinguished himself; but nevertheless he held up
+his head well as a man and a brewer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dont'ee take on so," Miss Thoroughbung said to Mrs. Annesley at the
+last moment. "He'll give her plenty to eat and to drink, and will never
+do her a morsel of harm." Joe overheard this, and wished that his aunt
+was back in her bed at Marmaduke Lodge.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then the marriage was over, and they all trooped into the vestry to sign
+the book. "You can't get out of that now," said Mrs. Crabtree to Joe.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't want to. I have got the fairest girl in these parts for my
+wife, and, as I believe, the best young woman." This he said with a
+spirit for which Mrs. Crabtree had not given him credit, and Algy Soames
+heard him and admired his friend beneath his blue necktie. And one of
+the girls heard it, and cried tears of joy as she told her sister
+afterward in the bedroom. "Oh, what a darling he is!" Molly had said,
+amid her own sobbing. Joe stood an inch higher among them all because of
+that word.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then came the breakfast,&mdash;that dullest, saddest hour of all. To feed
+heavily about twelve in the morning is always a nuisance,&mdash;a nuisance so
+abominable that it should be avoided under any other circumstances than
+a wedding in your own family. But that wedding-breakfast, when it does
+come, is the worst of all feeding. The smart dresses and bare shoulders
+seen there by daylight, the handing people in and out among the seats,
+the very nature of the food, made up of chicken and sweets and flummery,
+the profusion of champagne, not sometimes of the very best on such an
+occasion; and then the speeches! They fall generally to the lot of some
+middle-aged gentlemen, who seem always to have been selected for their
+incapacity. But there is a worse trouble yet remaining&mdash;in the unnatural
+repletion which the sight even of so much food produces, and the fact
+that your dinner for that day is destroyed utterly and forever.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Crabtree and the two fathers made the speeches, over and beyond that
+which was made by Joe himself. Joe's father was not eloquent. He brewed,
+no doubt, good beer, without a taste in it beyond malt and hops;&mdash;no man
+in the county brewed better beer; but he couldn't make a speech. He got
+up, dressed in a big white waistcoat, and a face as red as his son's
+hunting-coat, and said that he hoped his boy would make a good husband.
+All he could say was, that being a lover had not helped to make him a
+good brewer. Perhaps when Molly Annesley was brought nearer to
+Buntingford, Joe mightn't spend so much of his time in going to and fro.
+Perhaps Mr. Joe might not demand so much of her attention. This was the
+great point he made, and it was received well by all but the bride, who
+whispered to Joe that if he thought that he was to be among the brewing
+tubs from morning till night he'd find he was mistaken. Mr. Annesley
+threw a word or two of feeling into his speech, as is usual with the
+father of the young lady, but nobody seemed to care much for that. Mr.
+Crabtree was facetious with the ordinary wedding jests,&mdash;as might have
+been expected, seeing that he had been present at every wedding in the
+county for the last twenty years. The elderly ladies laughed
+good-humoredly, and Mrs. Crabtree was heard to say that the whole
+affair would have been very tame but that Mr. Crabtree had "carried it
+all off." But, in truth, when Joe got up the fun of the day had
+commenced, for Miss Thoroughbung, though she kept her chair, was able to
+utter as many words as her nephew: "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to
+you for what you've all been saying."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So you ought, sir, for you have heard more good of yourself than you'll
+ever hear again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then I'm the more obliged to you. What my people have said about my
+being so long upon the road&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's only just what you have told them at the brewery. Nobody knows
+where you have been."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Molly can tell you all about that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can't tell them anything," Molly said in a whisper.
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it comes only once in a man's lifetime," continued Joe; "and I dare
+say, if we knew all about the governor when he was of my age, which I
+don't remember, he was as spooney as any one."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I only saw him once for six months before he was married," said Mrs.
+Thoroughbung in a funereal voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's made up for it since," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure I'm very proud to have got such a young lady to have come and
+joined her lot with mine," continued Joe; "and nobody can think more
+about his wife's family than I do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And all Buston," said the aunt.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, and all Buston."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure we're all sorry that the bride's uncle, from Buston Hall, has
+not been able to come here to-day. You ought to say that, Joe."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do say it. I'm very sorry that Mr. Prosper isn't able to be
+here."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps Miss Thoroughbung can tell us something about him?" said Mr.
+Crabtree.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me! I know nothing special. When I saw him last he was in good health.
+I did nothing to him to make him keep his bed. Mrs. Crabtree seems to
+think that I have got your uncle in my keeping. Molly, I beg to say that
+I'm not responsible."
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be allowed that amid such free conversation it was difficult for
+Joe to shine as an orator. But as he had no such ambition, perhaps the
+interruptions only served him. But Miss Thoroughbung's witticism did
+throw a certain damp over the wedding-breakfast. It was perhaps to have
+been expected that the lady should take her revenge for the injury done
+to her. It was the only revenge that she did take. She had been
+ill-used, she thought, and yet she had not put Mr. Prosper to a shilling
+of expense. And there was present to her a feeling that the uncle had at
+the last moment been debarred from complying with her small requests in
+favor of Miss Tickle and the ponies on behalf of the young man who was
+now sitting opposite to her, and that the good things coming from Buston
+Hall were to be made to flow in the way of the Annesleys generally
+rather than in her way. She did not regret them very much, and it was
+not in her nature to be bitter; but still all those little touches about
+Mr. Prosper were pleasant to her, and were, of course, unpleasant to the
+Annesleys. Then, it will be said, she should not have come to partake of
+a breakfast in Mr. Annesley's dining-room. That is a matter of taste,
+and perhaps Miss Thoroughbung's taste was not altogether refined.
+</p>
+<p>
+Joe's speech came to an end, and with it his aunt's remarks. But as she
+left the room she said a few words to Mr. Annesley. "Don't suppose that
+I am angry,&mdash;not in the least; certainly not with you or Harry. I'd do
+him a good turn to-morrow if I could; and so, for the matter of that, I
+would to his uncle. But you can't expect but what a woman should have
+her feelings and express them." Mr. Annesley, on the other hand, thought
+it strange that a woman in such a position should express her feelings.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then at last came the departure. Molly was taken up into her mother's
+room and cried over for the last time. "I know that I'm an old fool!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma! now, dearest mamma!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A good husband is the greatest blessing that God can send a girl, and I
+do think that he is good and sterling."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is, mamma,&mdash;he is. I know he is."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And when that woman talks about brewery chimneys, I know what a comfort
+it is that there should be chimneys, and that they should be near.
+Brewery chimneys are better than a do-nothing scamp that can't earn a
+meal for himself or his children. And when I see Joe with his pink coat
+on going to the meet, I thank God that my Molly has got a lad that can
+work hard, and ride his own horses, and go out hunting with the best of
+them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma, I do like to see him then. He is handsome."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I would not have anything altered. But&mdash;but&mdash;Oh, my child, you are
+going away!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"As Mrs. Crabtree says, I sha'n't be far."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, no! But you won't be all mine. The time will come when you'll
+think of your girls in the same way. You haven't done a thing that I
+haven't seen and known and pondered over; you haven't worn a skirt but
+what it has been dear to me; you haven't uttered a prayer but what I
+have heard it as it went up to God's throne. I hope he says his
+prayers."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm sure he does," said Molly, with confidence more or less well
+founded.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Now go, and leave me here. I'm such an old stupid that I can't help
+crying; and if that woman was to say anything more to me about the
+chimneys I should give her a bit of my mind."
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Molly went down with her travelling-hat on, looking twice prettier
+than she had done during the whole of the morning ceremonies. It is, I
+suppose, on the bridegroom's behalf that the bride is put forth in all
+her best looks just as she is about to become, for the first time,
+exclusively his own. Molly, on the present occasion, was very pretty,
+and Joe was very proud. It was not the least of his pride that he,
+feeling himself to be not quite as yet removed from the "Bung" to the
+"Thorough," had married into a family by which his ascent might be
+matured.
+</p>
+<p>
+And then, as they went, came the normal shower of rice, to be picked up
+in the course of the next hour by the vicarage fowls, and not by the
+London beggars, and the air was darkened by a storm of old shoes. In
+London, white satin slippers are the fashion. But Buston and Buntingford
+combined could not afford enough of such missiles; and from the hands of
+the boys black shoes, and boots too, were thrown freely. "There go my
+best pair," said one of the boys, as the chariot was driven off, "and I
+don't mean to let them lie there." Then the boots were recovered and
+taken up to the bedroom.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now that Molly was gone, Harry's affairs became paramount at Buston.
+After all, Harry was of superior importance to Molly, though those
+chimneys at Buntingford could probably give a better income than the
+acres belonging to the park. But Harry was to be the future Prosper of
+the county; to assume at some future time the family name; and there was
+undoubtedly present to them all at the parsonage a feeling that Harry
+Annesley Prosper would loom in future years a bigger squire than the
+parish had ever known before. He had got a fellowship, which no Prosper
+had ever done; and he had the look and tone of a man who had lived in
+London, which had never belonged to the Prospers generally. And he was
+to bring a wife, with a good fortune, and one of whom a reputation for
+many charms had preceded her. And Harry, having been somewhat under a
+cloud for the last six months, was now emerging from it brighter than
+ever. Even Uncle Prosper could not do without him. That terrible Miss
+Thoroughbung had thrown a gloom over Buston Hall which could only be
+removed, as the squire himself had felt, by the coming of the natural
+heir. Harry was indispensable, and was no longer felt by any one to be a
+burden.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was now the end of March. Old Mr. Scarborough was dead and buried,
+and Mountjoy was living at Tretton. Nothing had been heard of his coming
+up to London. No rushing to the card-tables had been announced. That
+there were to be some terrible internecine law contests between him and
+Augustus had been declared in many circles, but of this nothing was
+known at the Buston Rectory. Harry had been one day at Cheltenham, and
+had been allowed to spend the best part of an hour with his sweetheart;
+but this permission had been given on the understanding that he was not
+to come again, and now for a month he had abstained. Then had come his
+uncle's offer, that generous offer under which Harry was to bring his
+wife to Buston Hall, and live there during half the year, and to receive
+an increased allowance for his maintenance during the other half. As he
+thought of his ways and means he fancied that they would be almost rich.
+She would have four hundred a year, and he as much; and an established
+home would be provided for them. Of all these good things he had written
+to Florence, but had not yet seen her since the offer had been made. Her
+answer had not been as propitious as it might be, and it was absolutely
+necessary that he should go down to Cheltenham and settle things.
+</p>
+<p>
+The three years had in his imagination been easily reduced to one, which
+was still, as he thought, an impossible time for waiting. By degrees it
+came down to six months in his imagination, and now to three, resulting
+in an idea that they might be easily married early in June, so as to
+have the whole of the summer before them for their wedding-tour.
+"Mother," he said, "I shall be off to-morrow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"To Cheltenham?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, to Cheltenham. What is the good of waiting. I think a girl may be
+too obedient to her mother."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a fine feeling, which you will be glad to remember that she
+possessed."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Supposing that you had declared that Molly shouldn't have married Joe
+Thoroughbung?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Molly has got a father," said Mrs. Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Suppose she had none?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot suppose anything so horrible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As if you and he had joined together to forbid Molly."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But we didn't."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think a girl may carry it too far," said Harry. "Mrs. Mountjoy has
+committed herself to Mountjoy Scarborough, and will not go back from her
+word. He has again come back to the fore, and out of a ruined man has
+appeared as the rich proprietor of the town of Tretton. Of course the
+mother hangs on to him still."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't think Florence will change?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not in the least. I'm not a bit afraid of Mountjoy Scarborough and all
+his property; but I can see that she may be subjected to much annoyance
+from which I ought to extricate her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What can you do, Harry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Go and tell her so. Make her understand that she should put herself
+into my hands at once, and that I could protect her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Take her away from her mother by force?" said Mrs. Annesley, with
+horror.
+</p>
+<p>
+"If she were once married her mother would think no more about it. I
+don't believe that Mrs. Mountjoy has any special dislike to me. She
+thinks of her own nephew, and as long as Florence is Florence Mountjoy
+there will be for her the chance. I know that he has no chance; and I
+don't think that I ought to leave her there to be bullied for some
+endless period of time. Think of three years,&mdash;of dooming a girl to live
+three years without ever seeing her lover! There is an absurdity about
+it which is revolting. I shall go down to-morrow and see if I cannot put
+a stop to it." To this the mother could make no objection, though she
+could express no approval of a project under which Florence was to be
+made to marry without her mother's consent.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH60"><!-- CH60 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LX.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+MR. SCARBOROUGH IS BURIED.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When Mr. Scarborough died, and when he had been buried, his son Mountjoy
+was left alone at Tretton, living in a very desolate manner. Till the
+day of the funeral, Merton, the doctor, had remained with him and his
+aunt, Miss Scarborough; but when the old squire had been laid in his
+grave they both departed. Miss Scarborough was afraid of her nephew, and
+could not look forward to living comfortably at the big house; and Dr.
+Merton had the general work of his life to call him away. "You might as
+well stay for another week," Mountjoy had said to him. But Merton had
+felt that he could not remain at Tretton without some especial duty, and
+he too went his way.
+</p>
+<p>
+The funeral had been very strange. Augustus had refused to come and
+stand at his father's grave. "Considering all things, I had rather
+decline," he had written to Mountjoy. Other guests&mdash;none were invited,
+except the tenants. They came in a body, for the squire had been noted
+among them as a liberal landlord.
+</p>
+<p>
+But a crowd of tenants does not in any way make up that look of family
+sorrow which is expected at the funeral of such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough. Mountjoy was there, and stood through the ceremony
+speechless, and almost sullen. He went down to the church behind the
+body with Merton, and then walked away from the ground without having
+uttered a syllable. But during the ceremony he had seen that which
+caused him to be sullen. Mr. Samuel Hart had been there, and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. And there was a man whom he called to his mind as connected
+with the names of Evans &amp; Crooke, and Mr. Spicer, and Mr. Richard
+Juniper. He knew them all as they stood there round the grave, not in
+decorous funeral array, but as strangers who had strayed into the
+cemetery. He could not but feel, as he looked at them and they at him,
+that they had come to look after their interest,&mdash;their heavy interest on
+the money which had been fraudulently repaid to them. He knew that they
+had parted with their bonds. But he knew also that almost all that was
+now his would have been theirs, had they not been cheated into believing
+that he, Mountjoy Scarborough, was not, and never would be, Scarborough
+of Tretton Park. They said nothing as they stood there, and did not in
+any way interrupt the ceremony; but they looked at Mountjoy as they
+were standing, and their looks disconcerted him terribly.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had declared that he would walk back to the house which was not above
+two miles distant from the graveyard, and therefore, when the funeral
+was over, there was no carriage to take him. But he knew that the men
+would dog his steps as he walked. He had only just got within the
+precincts of the park when he saw them all. But Mr. Tyrrwhit was by
+himself, and came up to him. "What are you going to do, Captain
+Scarborough," he said, "as to our claims?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You have no claims of which I am aware," he said roughly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes, Captain Scarborough; we have claims, certainly. You've come up
+to the front lately with a deal of luck; I don't begrudge it, for one;
+but I have claims,&mdash;I and those other gentlemen; we have claims. You'll
+have to admit that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Send in the documents. Mr. Barry is acting as my lawyer; he is Mr.
+Grey's partner, and is now taking the leading share in the business."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I know Mr. Barry well; a very sharp gentleman is Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I cannot enter into conversation with yourself at such a time as this."
+</p>
+<p>
+"We are sorry to trouble you; but then our interests are so pressing.
+What do you mean to do, Captain Scarborough? That's the question."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes; with the estate," said Mr. Samuel Hart, coming up and joining
+them. Of the lot of men, Mr. Samuel Hart was the most distasteful to
+Mountjoy. He had last seen his Jew persecutor at Monte Carlo, and had then,
+as he thought, been grossly insulted by him. "What are you hafter,
+captain?" To this Mountjoy made no answer, but Hart, walking a step or
+two in advance, turned upon his heels and looked at the park around him.
+"Tidy sort of place, ain't it, Tyrrwhit, for a gentleman to hang his 'at
+up, when we were told he was a bastard, not worth a shilling?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have nothing to do with all that," said Mountjoy; "you and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit held my acceptances for certain sums of money. They have, I
+believe, been paid in full."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, they ain't; they ain't been paid in full at all; you knows they
+ain't." As he said this, Mr. Hart walked on in front, and stood in the
+pathway, facing Mountjoy. "How can you 'ave the cheek to say we've been
+paid in full? You know it ain't true."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Evans &amp; Crooke haven't been paid, so far," said a voice from behind.
+</p>
+<p>
+"More ain't Spicer," said another voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Scarborough, I haven't been paid in full," said Mr. Juniper,
+advancing to the front. "You don't mean to tell me that my five hundred
+pounds have been paid in full? You've ruined me, Captain Scarborough. I
+was to have been married to a young lady with a large fortune,&mdash;your Mr.
+Grey's niece,&mdash;and it has been broken off altogether because of your bad
+treatment. Do you mean to assert that I have been paid in full?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"If you have got any document, take it to Mr. Barry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I won't; I won't take it to any lawyer. I'll take it right in
+before the Court, and expose you. My name is Juniper, and I've never
+parted with a morsel of paper that has your name to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then, no doubt, you'll get your money," said the captain.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I thought, gentlemen, you were to allow me to be the spokesman on this
+occasion," said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "We certainly cannot do any good if we
+attack the captain all at once. Now, Captain Scarborough, we don't want
+to be uncivil."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Uncivil be blowed!" said Mr. Hart; "I want to get my money, and mean to
+'ave it. I agreed as you was to speak, Mr. Tyrrwhit; but I means to be
+spoken up for; and if no one else can do it, I can do it myself. Is we
+to have any settlement made to us, or is we to go to law?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy, walking on very
+rapidly. He thought that when he reached the house he might be able to
+enter in and leave them out, and he thought also that if he kept them on
+the trot he would thus prevent them from attacking him with many words.
+Evans &amp; Crooke were already lagging behind, and Mr. Spicer was giving
+signs of being hard pressed. Even Hart, who was younger than the others,
+was fat and short, and already showed that he would have to halt if he
+made many speeches.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Barry be d&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;d!" exclaimed Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You see how it is, Captain Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit; "Your father,
+as has just been laid to rest in hopes of a a happy resurrection, was a
+very peculiar gentleman."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The most hinfernal swindler I ever 'eard tell of!" said Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't wish to say a word disrespectful," continued Tyrrwhit, "but he
+had his own notions. He said as you was illegitimate,&mdash;didn't he, now?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"And he said that Mr. Augustus was to have it all; and he proved his
+words,&mdash;didn't he, now? And then he made out that, if so, our deeds
+weren't worth the paper they were written on. Isn't it all true what I'm
+saying? And then when we'd taken what small sums of money he chose to
+offer us, just to save ourselves from ruin, then he comes up and says
+you are the heir, as legitimate as anybody else, and are to have all the
+property. And he proves that too! What are we to think about it?"
+</p>
+<p>
+There was nothing left for Mountjoy Scarborough but to make the pace as
+good as possible. Mr. Hart tried once and again to stop their progress
+by standing in the captain's path, but could only do this sufficiently
+at each stoppage to enable him to express his horror with various
+interjections. "Oh laws! that such a liar as 'e should ever be buried!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can't do anything by being disrespectful, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What&mdash;is it&mdash;he means&mdash;to do?" ejaculated Spicer.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Spicer," said Mountjoy, "I mean to leave it all in the hands of Mr.
+Barry; and, if you will believe me, no good can be done by any of you by
+hunting me across the park."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Hare you a bastard, or haren't you?" ejaculated Hart.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, Mr. Hart, I am not."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then pay us what you h'owes us. You h'ain't h'agoing to say as you don't
+h'owe us?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit," said the captain, "it is of no use my answering Mr.
+Hart, because he is angry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"H'angry! By George, I h'am angry! I'd like to pull that h'old sinner's
+bones h'out of the ground!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"But to you I can say that Mr. Barry will be better able to tell you
+than I am what can be done by me to defend my property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Captain Scarborough," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, mildly, "we had your name, you
+know. We did have your name."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And my father bought the bonds back."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh laws! And he calls himself a shentleman!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have nothing farther to say to you now, gentlemen, and can only refer
+you to Mr. Barry." The path on which they were walking had then brought
+them to the corner of a garden wall, through which a door opened into
+the garden. Luckily, at the moment, it occurred to Mountjoy that there
+was a bolt on the other side of the gate, and he entered it quickly and
+bolted the door. Mr. Tyrrwhit was left on the other side, and was joined
+by his companions as quickly as their failing breath enabled them to do
+so. "'Ere's a go!" said Mr. Hart, striking the door violently with the
+handle of his stick.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He had nothing for it but to leave us when we attacked him altogether,"
+said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "If you had left it to me he would have told us what
+he intended to do. You, Mr. Hart, had not so much cause to be angry, as
+you had received a considerable sum for interest." Then Mr. Hart turned
+upon Mr. Tyrrwhit, and abused him all the way back to their inn. But it
+was pleasant to see how these commercial gentlemen, all engaged in the
+natural course of trade, expressed their violent indignation, not so
+much as to their personal losses, but at the commercial dishonesty
+generally of which the Scarboroughs, father and son, had been and were
+about to be guilty.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy, when he reached the house of which he was now the only
+occupant besides the servants, stood for an hour in the dining-room with
+his back toward the fire, thinking of his position. He had many things
+of which to think. In the first place, there were these pseudo-creditors
+who had just attacked him in his own park with much acrimony. He
+endeavored to comfort himself by telling himself that they were
+certainly pseudo-creditors, to whom he did not in fact owe a penny. Mr.
+Barry could deal with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+But then his conscience reminded him that they had, in truth, been
+cheated,&mdash;cheated by his father for his benefit. For every pound which
+they had received they would have claimed three or four. They would no
+doubt have cheated him. But how was he now to measure the extent of his
+father's fraud against that of his creditors? And though it would have
+been right in him to resist the villany of these Jews, he felt that it
+was not fit that he should escape from their fangs altogether by his
+father's deceit. He had not become so dead to honor but that <i>noblesse
+oblige</i> did still live within his bosom. And yet there was nothing that
+he could do to absolve his bosom. The income of the estate was nearly
+clear, the money brought in by the late sales having all but sufficed to
+give these gentlemen that which his father had chosen to pay them. But
+was he sure of that income? He had just now asserted boldly that he was
+the legitimate heir to the property; but did he know that he was so?
+Could he believe his father? Had not Mr. Grey asserted that he would not
+accept this later evidence? Was he not sure that Augustus intended to
+proceed against him? and was he not aware that nothing could be called
+his own till that lawsuit should have been decided? If that should be
+given against him, then these harpies would have been treated only too
+well; then there would be no question, at any rate by him, as to what
+<i>noblesse oblige</i> might require of him. He could take no immediate step
+in regard to them, and therefore, for the moment, drove that trouble
+from his mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+But what should he do with himself as to his future life? To be
+persecuted and abused by these wretched men, as had this morning been
+his fate, would be intolerable. Could he shut himself up from Mr. Samuel
+Hart and still live in England? And then could he face the clubs,&mdash;if the
+clubs would be kind enough to re-elect him? And then there came a dark
+frown across his brow, as he bethought himself that even at this moment
+his heart was longing to be once more among the cards. Could he not
+escape to Monaco, and there be happy among the gambling-tables? Mr. Hart
+would surely not follow him there, and he would be free from the
+surveillance of that double blackguard, his brother's servant and his
+father's spy.
+</p>
+<p>
+But, after all, as he declared to himself, did it not altogether turn on
+the final answer which he might get from Florence Mountjoy? Could
+Florence be brought to accede to his wishes, he thought that he might
+still live happily, respectably, and in such a manner that his name
+might go down to posterity not altogether blasted. If Florence would
+consent to live at Tretton, then could he remain there. He thought it
+over as he stood there with his back to the fire, and he told himself
+that with Florence the first year would be possible, and that after the
+first year the struggle would cease to be a struggle. He knew himself,
+he declared, and he made all manner of excuses for his former vicious
+life, basing them all on the hardness of her treatment of him. He did
+not know himself, and such assurances were vain. But buoyed up by such
+assurances, he resolved that his future fate must be in her hands, and
+that her word alone should suffice either to destroy him or to save him.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thinking thus of his future life, he resolved that he would go at once
+to Cheltenham, and throw himself, and what of Tretton belonged to him,
+at the girl's feet. Nor could he endure himself to rest another night at
+Tretton till he had done so. He started at once, and got late to
+Gloucester, where he slept, and on the next morning at eleven o'clock
+was at Cheltenham, out on his way to Montpellier Terrace. He at once
+asked for Florence, but circumstances so arranged themselves that he
+first found himself closeted with her mother. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+delighted, and yet shocked, to see him. "My poor brother!" she said;
+"and he was buried only yesterday!" Such explanation as Mountjoy could
+give was given. He soon made the whole tenor of his thoughts
+intelligible to her. "Yes; Tretton was his,&mdash;at least he supposed so. As
+to his future life he could say nothing. It must depend on Florence. He
+thought that if she would promise to become at once his wife, there
+would be no more gambling. He had felt it to be incumbent on him to come
+and tell her so."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Mountjoy, frightened by the thorough blackness of his apparel and
+by the sternness of his manner, had not a word to say to him in
+opposition. "Be gentle with her," she said, as she led the way to the
+room in which Florence was found. "Your cousin has come to see you," she
+said; "has come immediately after the funeral. I hope you will be
+gracious to him." Then she closed the door, and the two were alone
+together.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Florence!" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mountjoy! We hardly expected you here so soon."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Where the heart strays the body is apt to follow. I could speak to no
+one, I could do nothing, I could hope and pray for nothing till I had
+seen you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You cannot depend on me like that," she answered.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do depend on you most entirely. No human being can depend more
+thoroughly on another. It is not my fortune that I have come to offer
+you, or simply my love, but in very truth my soul."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mountjoy, that is wicked!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then wicked let it be. It is true. Tretton, by singular circumstances,
+is all my own, free of debt. At any rate, I and others believe it to be
+so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Tretton being all your own can make no difference."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I told you that I had not come to offer you my fortune." And he almost
+scowled at her as he spoke. "You know what my career has hitherto been,
+though you do not perhaps know what has driven me to it. Shall I go
+back, and live after the same fashion, and let Tretton go to the dogs?
+It will be so unless you take me and Tretton into your hands."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It cannot be."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Florence! think of it before you pronounce my doom."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It cannot be. I love you well as my cousin, and for your sake I love
+Tretton also. I would suffer much to save you, if any suffering on my
+part would be of avail. But it cannot be in that fashion." Then he
+scowled again at her. "Mountjoy, you frighten me by your hard looks;&mdash;but
+though you were to kill me you cannot change me. I am the promised wife
+of Harry Annesley; and for his honor I must bid you plead this cause no
+more." Then, just at this moment there was a ring at the bell and a
+knock at the door, each of them somewhat impetuous, and Florence
+Mountjoy, jumping up with a start, knew that Harry Annesley was there.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH61"><!-- CH61 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LXI.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS ACCEPTED.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+She knew that Harry Annesley was at the door. He had written to say that
+he must come again, though he had fixed no day for his coming. She had
+been delighted to think that he should come, though she had after her
+fashion, scolded him for the promised visit. But, though his comings had
+not been frequent, she recognized already the sounds of his advent. When
+a girl really loves her lover, the very atmosphere tells of his
+whereabouts. She was expecting him with almost breathless expectation
+when her cousin Mountjoy was brought to her; and so was her mother, who
+had been told that Harry Annesley had business on which he intended to
+call. But now the two foes must meet in her presence. That was the idea
+which first came upon her. She was sure that Harry would behave well.
+Why should not a favored lover on such occasions always behave well? But
+how would Mountjoy conduct himself when brought face to face with his
+rival? As Florence thought of it, she remembered that when last they met
+the quarrel between them had been outrageous. And Mountjoy had been the
+sinner, while Harry had been made to bear the punishment of the sin.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry, when he was told that Miss Mountjoy was at home, had at once
+walked in and opened for himself the door of the front room downstairs.
+There he found Florence and Mountjoy Scarborough. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+still up-stairs in her bedroom, and was palpitating with fear as she
+thought of the anger of the two combative lovers. To her belief, Harry
+was, of the two, the most like to a roaring lion, because she had heard
+of him that he had roared so dreadfully on that former occasion. But she
+did not instantly go down, detained in her bedroom by the eagerness of
+her fear, and by the necessity of resolving how she would behave when
+she got there.
+</p>
+<p>
+Harry, when he entered, stood a moment at the door, and then, hurrying
+across the room, offered Scarborough his hand. "I have been so sorry,"
+he said, "to hear of your loss; but your father's health was such that
+you could not have expected that his life should be prolonged." Mountjoy
+muttered something, but his mutterings, as Florence had observed, were
+made in courtesy. And the two men had taken each other by the hand;
+after that they could hardly fly at each other's throats in her
+presence. Then Harry crossed to Florence and took her hand. "I never get
+a line from you," he said, laughing, "but what you scold me. I think I
+escape better when I am present; so here I am."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You always make wicked propositions, and of course I scold you. A girl
+has to go on scolding till she's married, and then it's her turn to get
+it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No wonder, then, that you talk of three years so glibly. I want to be
+able to scold you."
+</p>
+<p>
+All this was going on in Mountjoy's presence, while he stood by, silent,
+black, and scowling. His position was very difficult,&mdash;that of hearing
+the billing and cooing of these lovers. But theirs also was not too
+easy, which made the billing and cooing necessary in his presence. Each
+had to seem to be natural, but the billing and cooing were in truth
+affected. Had he not been there, would they not have been in each
+other's arms? and would not she have made him the proudest man in
+England by a loving kiss? "I was asking Miss Mountjoy, when you came in,
+to be my wife." This Scarborough said with a loud voice, looking Harry
+full in the face.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It cannot be," said Florence; "I told you that, for his honor,"&mdash;and she
+laid her hand on Harry's arm,&mdash;"I could listen to no such request."
+</p>
+<p>
+"The request has to be made again," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It will be made in vain," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"So, no doubt, you think," said Captain Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can ask herself," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course it will be made in vain," said Florence. "Does he think that
+a girl, in such a matter as that of loving a man, can be turned here and
+there at a moment's notice,&mdash;that she can say yes and no alternately to
+two men? It is impossible. Harry Annesley has chosen me, and I am
+infinitely happy in his choice." Here Harry made an attempt to get his
+arm round her waist, in which, however, she prevented him, seeing the
+angry passion rising in her cousin's eyes. "He is to be my husband, I
+hope. I have told him that I love him, and I tell you so also. He has my
+promise, and I cannot take it back without perjury to him, and ruin,
+absolute ruin, to myself. All my happiness in this world depends on him.
+He is to me my own one absolute master, to whom I have given myself
+altogether, as far as this world goes. Even were he to reject me I could
+not give myself to another."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My Florence! my darling!" Harry exclaimed.
+</p>
+<p>
+"After having told you so much, can you ask your cousin to be untrue to
+her word and to her heart, and to become your wife when her heart is
+utterly within his keeping? Mountjoy, it is impossible."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What of me, then?" he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Rouse yourself and love some other girl and marry her, and so do well
+with yourself and with your property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You talk of your heart," he said, "and you bid me use my own after such
+fashion as that!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man's heart can be changed, but not a woman's. His love is but one
+thing among many."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is the one thing," said Harry. Then the door opened, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy entered the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" she said, "you, both of you, here together?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes: we are both here together," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was an unfortunate smile on his face as he said so, which made
+Mountjoy Scarborough very angry. The two men were both handsome, two as
+handsome men as you shall see on a summer's day. Mountjoy was
+dark-visaged, with coal-black whiskers and mustaches, with sparkling,
+angry eyes, and every feature of his face well cut and finely formed;
+but there was absent from him all look of contentment or satisfaction.
+Harry was light-haired, with long, silken beard, and bright eyes; but
+there was usually present to his face a look of infinite joy, which was
+comfortable to all beholders. If not strong, as was the other man's, it
+was happy and eloquent of good temper. But in one thing they were
+alike:&mdash;neither of them counted aught on his good looks. Mountjoy had
+attempted to domineer by his bad temper, and had failed; but Harry,
+without any attempt at domineering, always doubting of himself till he
+had been assured of success by her lips, had succeeded. Now he was very
+proud of his success; but he was proud of her, and not of himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You come in here and boast of what you have done in my presence," said
+Mountjoy Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+"How can I not seem to boast when she tells me that she loves me?" said
+Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"For God's sake, do not quarrel here!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"They shall not quarrel at all," said Florence, "There is no cause for
+quarrelling. When a girl has given herself away there should be an end
+of it. No man who knows that she has done so should speak to her again
+in the way of love. I will leave you now; but, Harry, you must come
+again, in order that I may tell you that you must not have it all your
+own way, just as you please, sir." Then she gave him her hand, and
+passing on at once to Mountjoy, tendered her hand to him also. "You are
+my cousin, and the head now of my mother's family. I would fain know
+that you would say a kind word to me, and bid me 'God speed.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+He looked at her, but did not take her hand. "I cannot do it," he said.
+"I cannot bid you 'God speed.' You have ruined me, trampled upon me,
+destroyed me. I am not angry with him," and he pointed across the room
+to Harry Annesley; "nor with you; but only with myself." Then, without
+speaking a word to his aunt, he marched out of the room and left the
+house, closing the front-door after him with a loud noise, which
+testified to his anger.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has gone!" said Mrs. Mountjoy, with a tone of deep tragedy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is better so," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," said Harry. "There
+is something about Mountjoy Scarborough that, after all, I like. I do
+not love Augustus, but, with certain faults, Mountjoy is a good fellow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is the head of our family," said Mrs. Mountjoy, "and is the owner of
+Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That is nothing to do with it," said Florence.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It has much to do with it," said her mother, "though you would never
+listen to me. I had set my heart upon it, but you have determined to
+thwart me. And yet there was a time when you preferred him to every one
+else."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never!" said Florence, with energy.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, you did,&mdash;before Mr. Annesley here came in the way."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It was before I came, at any rate," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I was young, and I did not wish to be disobedient. But I never loved
+him, and I never told him so. Now it is out of the question."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will never come back again," said Mrs. Mountjoy, mournfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should be very glad to see him back when I and Florence are man and
+wife. I don't care how soon we should see him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No; he will never come back," said Florence,&mdash;"not as he came to-day.
+That trouble is at last over, mamma."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And my trouble is going to begin."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should there be any trouble? Harry will not give you trouble;&mdash;will
+you, Harry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never, I trust," said Harry.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He cannot understand," said Mrs. Mountjoy; "he knows nothing of the
+desire and ambition of my life. I had promised him my child, and my word
+to him is now broken."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He will have known, mamma, that you could not promise for me. Now go,
+Harry, because we are flurried. May I not ask him to come here to-night
+and to drink tea with us?" This she said, addressing her mother in a
+tone of sweetest entreaty. To this Mrs. Mountjoy unwillingly yielded,
+and then Harry also took his departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence was aware that she had gained much by the interview of the
+morning. Even to her it began to appear unnecessary that she should keep
+Harry waiting three years. She had spoken of postponing the time of her
+servitude and of preserving for herself the masterdom of her own
+condition. But in that respect the truth of her own desires was well
+understood by them all. She was anxious enough to submit to her new
+master, and she felt that the time was coming. Her mother had yielded so
+much, and Mountjoy had yielded. Harry was saying to himself at this very
+moment that Mountjoy had thrown up the sponge. She, too, was declaring
+the same thing for her own comfort in less sporting phraseology, and,
+what was much more to her, her mother had nearly thrown up the sponge
+also. In the worse days of her troubles any suitor had made himself
+welcome to her mother who would rescue her child from the fangs of that
+roaring lion, Harry Annesley. Mr. Anderson had been received with open
+arms, and even M. Grascour. Mrs. Mountjoy had then got it into her head
+that of all lions which were about in those days Harry roared the
+loudest. His sins in regard to leaving poor Mountjoy speechless and
+motionless on the pavement had filled her with horror. But Florence now
+felt that all that had come to an end. Not only had Mountjoy gone away,
+but no mention would probably be ever again made of Anderson or
+Grascour. When Florence was preparing herself for tea that evening she
+sang a little song to herself as to the coming of the conquering hero.
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," she said,
+repeating to herself her lover's words.
+</p>
+<p>
+"You can't expect me to be very bright," her mother said to her before
+Harry came.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a sign of yielding in this also; but Florence in her happiness
+did not wish to make her mother miserable, "Why not be bright, mamma?
+Don't you know that Harry is good?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"No. How am I to know anything about him? He may be utterly penniless."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But his uncle has offered to let us live in the house and to give us an
+income. Mr. Prosper has abandoned all idea of getting married."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He can be married any day. And why do you want to live in another man's
+house when you may live in your own? Tretton is ready for you,&mdash;the
+finest mansion in the whole county." Here Mrs. Mountjoy exaggerated a
+little, but some exaggeration may be allowed to a lady in her
+circumstances.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mamma, you know that I cannot live at Tretton."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is the house in which I was born."
+</p>
+<p>
+"How can that signify? When such things happen they are used as
+additional grounds for satisfaction. But I cannot marry your nephew
+because you were born in a certain house. And all that is over now: you
+know that Mountjoy will not come back again."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He would," exclaimed the mother, as though with new hopes.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, mamma! how can you talk like that? I mean to marry Harry
+Annesley;&mdash;you know that I do. Why not make your own girl happy by
+accepting him?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy left the room and went to her own
+chamber and cried there, not bitterly, I think, but copiously. Her girl
+would be the wife of the squire of Buston, who, after all, was not a bad
+sort of fellow. At any rate he would not gamble. There had always been
+that terrible drawback. And he was a fellow of his college, in which she
+would look for, and probably would find, some compensation as to
+Tretton. When, therefore, she came down to tea, she was able to receive
+Harry not with joy but at least without rebuke.
+</p>
+<p>
+Conversation was at first somewhat flat between the two. If the old
+lady could have been induced to remain up-stairs, Harry felt that the
+evening would have been much more satisfactory. But, as it was, he found
+himself enabled to make some progress. He at once began to address
+Florence as his undoubted future spouse, very slyly using words adapted
+for that purpose: and she, without any outburst of her intention,&mdash;as she
+had made when discussing the matter with her cousin,&mdash;answered him in the
+same spirit, and by degrees came so to talk as though the matter were
+entirely settled. And then, at last, that future day was absolutely
+brought on the tapis as though now to be named.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Three years!" ejaculated Mrs. Mountjoy, as though not even yet
+surrendering her last hope.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence, from the nature of the circumstances, received this in
+silence. Had it been ten years she might have expostulated. But a young
+lady's bashfulness was bound to appear satisfied with an assurance of
+marriage within three years. But it was otherwise with Harry. "Good God,
+Mrs. Mountjoy, we shall all be dead!" he cried out.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Mountjoy showed by her countenance that she was extremely shocked.
+"Oh, Harry!" said Florence, "none of us, I hope, will be dead in three
+years."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall be a great deal too old to be married if I am left alive. Three
+months, you mean. It will be just the proper time of year, which does go
+for something. And three months is always supposed to be long enough to
+allow a girl to get her new frocks."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know nothing about it, Harry," said Florence. And so the matter was
+discussed&mdash;in such a manner that when Harry took his departure that
+evening he was half inclined to sing a song of himself about the
+conquering hero. "Dear mamma!" said Florence, kissing her mother with
+all the warm, clinging affection of former years. It was very
+pleasant,&mdash;but still Mrs. Mountjoy went to her room with a sad heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+When there she sat for a while over the fire, and then drew out her
+desk. She had been beaten,&mdash;absolutely beaten,&mdash;and it was necessary that
+she should own so much in writing to one person. So she wrote her
+letter, which was as follows:
+</p>
+<p>
+"Dear Mountjoy,&mdash;After all it cannot be as I would have had it. As they
+say, 'Man proposes, but God disposes.' I would have given her to you
+now, and would even yet have trusted that you would have treated her
+well, had it not been that Mr. Annesley has gained such a hold upon her
+affections. She is wilful, as you are, and I cannot bend her. It has
+been the longing of my heart that you two should live together at
+Tretton. But such longings are, I think, wicked, and are seldom
+realized.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I write now just this one line to tell you that it is all settled. I
+have not been strong enough to prevent such settling. He talks of three
+months! But what does it matter? Three months or three years will be the
+same to you, and nearly the same to me.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Your affectionate aunt,
+</p>
+<center>
+"SARAH MOUNTJOY.
+</center>
+<p>
+"P.S.&mdash;May I as your loving aunt add one word of passionate entreaty?
+All Tretton is yours now, and the honor of Tretton is within your
+keeping. Do not go back to those wretched tables!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Mountjoy Scarborough when he received this letter cannot be said to have
+been made unhappy by it, because he had already known all his
+unhappiness. But he turned it in his mind as though to think what would
+now be the best course of life open to him. And he did think that he had
+better go back to those tables against which his aunt had warned him,
+and there remain till he had made the acres of Tretton utterly
+disappear. There was nothing for him which seemed to be better. And here
+at home in England even that would at present be impossible to him. He
+could not enter the clubs, and elsewhere Samuel Hart would be ever at
+his heels. And there was his brother with his lawsuit, though on that
+matter a compromise had already been offered to him. Augustus had
+proposed to him by his lawyer to share Tretton. He would never share
+Tretton. His brother should have an income secured to him, but he would
+keep Tretton in his own hands,&mdash;as long as the gambling-tables would
+allow him.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was, in truth, a wretched man, as on that night he did make up his
+mind, and ringing his bell called his servant out of his bed to bid him
+prepare everything for a sudden start. He would leave Tretton on the
+following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad.
+"He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the
+gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the
+valet who declared his master's intentions.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shouldn't wonder, Mr. Stokes," said the valet. "I'm told it's a
+beauteous country and I should like to see a little of that sort of
+life myself." Alas, alas! Within a week from that time Captain
+Scarborough might have been seen seated in the Monte Carlo room, without
+any friendly Samuel Hart to stand over him and guard him.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH62"><!-- CH62 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LXII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE LAST OF MR. GREY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+"I have put in my last appearance at the old chamber in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields," said Mr. Grey, on arriving home one day early in June.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Papa, you don't mean it!" said Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I do. Why not one day as well as another? I have made up my mind that
+it is to be so. I have been thinking of it for the last six weeks. It is
+done now."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you have not told me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; I have told you all that was necessary. It has come now a
+little sudden, that is all."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You will never go back again?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, I may look in. Mr. Barry will be lord and master."
+</p>
+<p>
+"At any rate he won't be my lord and master!" said Dolly, showing by the
+tone of her voice that the matter had been again discussed by them since
+the last conversation which was recorded, and had been settled to her
+father's satisfaction.
+</p>
+<p>
+"No;&mdash;you at least will be left to me. But the fact is, I cannot have any
+farther dealings with the affairs of Mr. Scarborough. The old man who is
+dead was too many for me. Though I call him old, he was ever so much
+younger than I am. Barry says he was the best lawyer he ever knew. As
+things go now a man has to be accounted a fool if he attempts to run
+straight. Barry does not tell me that I have been a fool, but he clearly
+thinks so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do you care what Mr. Barry thinks or says?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, I do,&mdash;in regard to the professional position which I hold. He is
+confident that Mountjoy Scarborough is his father's eldest legitimate
+son, and he believes that the old squire simply was anxious to supersede
+him to get some cheap arrangement made as to his debts."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I supposed that was the case before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what am I to think of such a man? Mr. Barry speaks of him almost
+with affection. How am I to get on with such a man as Mr. Barry?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"He himself is honest."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well;&mdash;yes, I believe so. But he does not hate the absolute utter
+roguery of our own client. And that is not quite all. When the story of
+the Rummelsburg marriage was told I did not believe one word of it, and
+I said so most strongly. I did not at first believe the story that there
+had been no such marriage, and I swore to Mr. Scarborough that I would
+protect Mountjoy and Mountjoy's creditors against any such scheme as
+that which was intended. Then I was convinced. All the details of the
+Nice marriage were laid before me. It was manifest that the lady had
+submitted to be married in a public manner and with all regular forms,
+while she had a baby, as it were, in her arms. And I got all the dates.
+Taking that marriage for granted, Mountjoy was clearly illegitimate, and
+I was driven so to confess. Then I took up arms on behalf of Augustus.
+Augustus was a thoroughly bad fellow,&mdash;a bully and a tyrant; but he was
+the eldest son. Then came the question of paying the debts. I thought it
+a very good thing that the debts should be payed in the proposed
+fashion. The men were all to get the money they had actually lent, and
+no better arrangement seemed to be probable. I helped in that, feeling
+that it was all right. But it was a swindle that I was made to assist in.
+Of course it was a swindle, if the Rummelsburg marriage be true, and all
+these creditors think that I have been a party to it. Then I swore that
+I wouldn't believe the Rummelsburg marriage. But Barry and the rest of
+them only shake their heads and laugh, and I am told that Mr.
+Scarborough was the best lawyer among us!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What does it matter? How can that hurt you?" asked Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"It does hurt me;&mdash;that is the truth. I have been at my business long
+enough. Another system has grown up which does not suit me. I feel that
+they all can put their fingers in my eyes. It may be that I am a fool,
+and that my idea of honesty is a mistake."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No!" shouted Dolly.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I heard of a rich American the other day who had been poor, and was
+asked how he had suddenly become so well off. 'I found a partner,' said
+the American, 'and we went into business together. He had the capital
+and I had the experience. We just made a change. He has the experience
+now and I have the capital.' When I knew that story I went to strip his
+coat off the wretch's back; but Mr. Barry would give him a fine fur
+cloak as a mark of respect. When I find that clever rascals are
+respectable, I think it is time that I should give up work altogether."
+</p>
+<p>
+Thus it was that Mr. Grey left the house of Grey &amp; Barry, driven to
+premature retirement by the vices, or rather frauds, of old Mr.
+Scarborough. When Augustus went to work, which he did immediately on his
+father's death, to wrest the property from the hands of his brother,&mdash;or
+what part of the property might be possible,&mdash;Mr. Grey absolutely
+declined to have anything to do with the case. Mr. Barry explained how
+impossible it was that the house, even for its own sake, should
+absolutely secede from all consideration of the question. Mountjoy had
+been left in possession, and, according to all the evidence now before
+them, was the true owner. Of course he would want a lawyer, and, as Mr.
+Barry said, would be very well able to pay for what he wanted. It was
+necessary that the firm should protect themselves against the
+vindictiveness of Mr. Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart. Should the firm fail to
+do so, it would leave itself open to all manner of evil calumnies. The
+firm had been so long employed on behalf of the Scarboroughs that now,
+when the old squire was dead, it could not afford to relinquish the
+business till this final great question had been settled. It was
+necessary, as Mr. Barry said, that they should see it out, Mr. Barry
+taking a much more leading part in these discussions than had been his
+wont. Consequently Mr. Grey had told him that he might do it himself,
+and Mr. Barry had been quite contented. Mr. Barry, in talking the matter
+over with one of the clerks, whom he afterward took into partnership,
+expressed his opinion that "poor old Grey was altogether off the hooks."
+"Old Grey" had always been Mr. Grey when spoken of by Mr. Barry till
+that day, and the clerk remarking this, left Mr. Grey's bell unanswered
+for three or four minutes. Mr. Grey, though he was quite willing to
+shelf himself, understood it all, and knocked them about in the chambers
+that afternoon with unwonted severity. He said nothing about it when he
+came home that evening: but the next day was the last on which he took
+his accustomed chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+"What will you do with yourself, papa?" Dolly said to him the next
+morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Do with myself?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"What employment will you take in hand? One has to think of that, and to
+live accordingly. If you would like to turn farmer, we must live in the
+country."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Certainly I shall not do that. I need not absolutely throw away what
+money I have saved."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Or if you were fond of shooting or hunting?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You know very well I never shot a bird, and hardly ever crossed a horse
+in my life."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But you are fond of gardening."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Haven't I got garden enough here?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Quite enough, if you think so; but will there be occupation sufficient
+in that to find you employment for all your life?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I shall read."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It seems to me," she said, "that reading becomes wearisome as an only
+pursuit, unless you've made yourself accustomed to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Sha'n't I have as much employment as you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A woman is so different! Darning will get through an unlimited number
+of hours. A new set of underclothing will occupy me for a fortnight.
+Turning the big girl's dresses over there into frocks for the little
+girls is sufficient to keep my mind in employment for a month. Then I
+have the maid-servants to look after, and to guard against their lovers.
+I have the dinners to provide, and to see that the cook does not give
+the fragments to the policeman. I have been brought up to do these
+things, and habit has made them usual occupations to me. I never envied
+you when you had to encounter all Mr. Scarborough's vagaries; but I knew
+that they sufficed to give you something to do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"They have sufficed," said he, "to leave me without anything that I can
+do."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You must not allow yourself to be so left. You must find out some
+employment." Then they sat silent for a time, while Mr. Grey occupied
+himself with some of the numerous papers which it would be necessary
+that he should hand over to Mr. Barry. "And now," said Dolly, "Mr.
+Carroll will have gone out, and I will go over to the Terrace. I have to
+see them every day, and Mr. Carroll has the decency to take himself off
+to some billiard-table so as to make room for me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What are they doing about that man?" said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"About the lover? Mr. Juniper has, I fancy, made himself extremely
+disagreeable, not satisfying himself with abusing you and me, but poor
+aunt as well, and all the girls. He has, I fancy, got some money of his
+own."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He has had money paid to him by Captain Scarborough; but that I should
+fancy would rather make him in a good humor than the reverse."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is only in a good humor, I take it, when he has something to get.
+However, I must be off now, or the legitimate period of Uncle Carroll's
+absence will be over."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Grey, when he was left alone, at once gave up the manipulation of
+his papers, and, throwing himself back into his chair, began to think of
+that future life of which he had talked so easily to his daughter. What
+should he do with himself? He believed that he could manage with his
+books for two hours a day; but even of that he was not sure. He much
+doubted whether for many years past the time devoted to reading in his
+own house had amounted to one hour a day. He thought that he could
+employ himself in the garden for two hours; but that would fail him when
+there should be hail, or fierce sunshine, or frost, or snow, or rain.
+Eating and drinking would be much to him; but he could not but look
+forward to self-reproach if eating and drinking were to be the joy of
+his life. Then he thought of Dolly's life,&mdash;how much purer and better and
+nobler it had been than his own. She talked in a slighting, careless
+tone of her usual day's work, but how much of her time had been occupied
+in doing the tasks of others? He knew well that she disliked the
+Carrolls. She would speak of her own dislike of them as of her great
+sin, of which it was necessary that she should repent in sackcloth and
+ashes.
+</p>
+<p>
+But yet how she worked for the family! turning old dresses into new
+frocks, as though the girls who had worn them, and the children who were
+to wear them, had been to her her dearest friends. Every day she went
+across to the house intent upon doing good offices; and this was the
+repentance in sackcloth and ashes which she exacted from herself. Could
+not he do as she did? He could not darn Minnie's and Brenda's stockings,
+but he might do something to make those children more worthy of their
+cousin's care. He could not associate with his brother-in-law, because
+he was sure that Mr. Carroll would not endure his society; but he might
+labor to do something for the reform even of this abominable man. Before
+Dolly had come back to him he had resolved that he could only redeem his
+life from the stagnation with which it was threatened by working for
+others, now that the work of his own life had come to a close. "Well,
+Dolly," he said, as soon as she had entered the room, "have you heard
+any thing more about Mr. Juniper?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Have you been here ever since, papa?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed; I used to sit at chambers for six or seven hours at a
+stretch, almost without getting out of my chair."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And are you still employed about those awful papers?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I have not looked at them since you left the room."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then you must have been asleep."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, indeed; I have not been asleep. You left me too much to think of to
+enable me to sleep. What am I to do with myself besides eating and
+drinking, so that I shall not sleep always on this side of the grave?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are twenty things, papa,&mdash;thirty, fifty, for a man so minded as
+you are." This she said trying to comfort him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I must endeavor to find one or two of the fifty." Then he went back to
+his papers, and really worked hard on that day.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the following morning, early, he went across to Bolsover Terrace, to
+begin his task of reproving the Carroll family, without saying a word to
+Dolly indicative of his purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+He found that the task would be difficult, and as he went he considered
+within his mind how best it might be accomplished. He had put a
+prayer-book in his pocket, without giving it much thought; but before he
+knocked at the door he had assured himself that the prayer-book would
+not be of avail. He would not know how to begin to use it, and felt that
+it would be ridiculed. He must leave that to Dolly or to the clergyman.
+He could talk to the girls; but they would not care about the affairs of
+the firm; and, in truth, he did not know what they would care about.
+With Dolly he could hold sweet converse as long as she would remain with
+him. But he had been present at the bringing up of Dolly, and did think
+that gifts had been given to Dolly which had not fallen to the lot of
+the Carroll girls. "They all want to be married," he said to himself,
+"and that at any rate is a legitimate desire."
+</p>
+<p>
+With this he knocked at the door, and when it was opened by Sophia, he
+found an old gentleman with black cotton gloves and a doubtful white
+cravat just preparing for his departure. There was Amelia, then giving
+him his hat, and looking as pure and proper as though she had never been
+winked at by Prince Chitakov. Then the mother came through from the
+parlor into the passage. "Oh, John! how very kind of you to come. Mr.
+Matterson, pray let me introduce you to my brother, Mr. Grey. John, this
+is the Rev. Mr. Matterson, a clergyman who is a very intimate friend of
+Amelia."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Me, ma! Why me in particular?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, my dear, because it is so. I suppose it is so because Mr.
+Matterson likes you the best."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Laws, ma; what nonsense!" Mr. Matterson appeared to be a very shy
+gentleman, and only anxious to escape from the hall-door. But Mr. Grey
+remembered that in former days, before the coming of Mr. Juniper upon
+the scene, he had heard of a clerical admirer. He had been told that the
+gentleman's name was Matterson, that he was not very young nor very
+rich, that he had five or six children, and that he could afford to
+marry if the wife could bring with her about one hundred pounds a year.
+He had not then thought much of Mr. Matterson, and no direct appeal had
+been made to him. After that Mr. Juniper had come forward, and then Mr.
+Juniper had been altogether abolished. But it occurred to Mr. Grey that
+Mr. Matterson was at any rate better than Mr. Juniper; that he was by
+profession a gentleman, and that there might be a beginning of those
+good deeds by which he was anxious to make the evening of his days
+bearable to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am delighted to make Mr. Matterson's acquaintance," he said, as that
+old gentleman scrambled out of the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then his sister took him by the arm and led him at once into the parlor.
+"You might as well come and hear what I have to say, Amelia." So the
+daughter followed them in. "He is the most praiseworthy gentleman you
+ever knew, John," began Mrs. Carroll.
+</p>
+<p>
+"A clergyman, I think?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes; he is in orders,&mdash;in priest's orders," said Mrs. Carroll,
+meaning to make the most of Mr. Matterson. "He has a church over at
+Putney."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am glad of that," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed; though it isn't very good, because it's only a curate's
+one hundred and fifty pounds. Yes; he does have one hundred and fifty
+pounds, and something out of the surplice fees."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Another one hundred pounds I believe it is," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not quite so much as that, my dear, but it is something."
+</p>
+<p>
+"He is a widower with children, I believe?" said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"There are children&mdash;five of them; the prettiest little dears one ever
+saw. The eldest is just about thirteen." This was a fib, because Mrs.
+Carroll knew that the eldest boy was sixteen; but what did it signify?
+"Amelia is so warmly attached to them."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is a settled thing, then?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"We hope so. It cannot be said to be quite settled, because there are
+always money difficulties. Poor Mr. Matterson must have some increase to
+his income before he can afford it."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Ah, yes!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"You did say something, uncle, about five hundred pounds," said Amelia.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Four hundred and fifty, my dear," said Mr. Grey.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, I had forgotten. I did say that I hoped there would be five
+hundred."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There shall be five hundred," said Mr. Grey, remembering that now had
+come the time for doing to one of the Carroll family the good things of
+which he had thought to himself. "As Mr. Matterson is a clergyman of
+whom I have heard nothing but good, it shall be five hundred." He had in
+truth heard nothing either good or bad respecting Mr. Matterson.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then he asked Amelia to take a walk with him as he went home, reflecting
+that now had come the time in which a little wholesome conversation
+might have its effect. And an idea entered his head that in his old age
+an acquaintance with a neighboring clergyman might be salutary to
+himself. So Amelia got her bonnet and walked home with him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Is he an eloquent preacher, my dear?" But Amelia had never heard him
+preach. "I suppose there will be plenty for you to do in your new home."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't mean to be put upon, if you mean that, uncle."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But five children!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is a servant who looks after them. Of course I shall have to see
+to Mr. Matterson's own things, but I have told him I cannot slave for
+them all. The three eldest have to be sent somewhere; that has been
+agreed upon. He has got an unmarried sister who can quite afford to do
+as much as that." Then she explained her reasons for the marriage. "Papa
+is getting quite unbearable, and Sophy spoils him in everything."
+</p>
+<p>
+Poor Mr. Grey, when his niece turned and went back home, thought that,
+as far as the girl was concerned, or her future household, there would
+be very little room for employment for him. Mr. Matterson wanted an
+upper servant who instead of demanding wages, would bring a little money
+with her, and he could not but feel that the poor clergyman would find
+that he had taken into his house a bad and expensive upper servant.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never mind, papa," said Dolly, "we will go on and persevere, and if we
+intend to do good, good will come of it."
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH63"><!-- CH63 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LXIII.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE LAST OF AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+When old Mr. Scarborough was dead, and had been for a while buried,
+Augustus made his application in form to Messrs. Grey &amp; Barry. He made
+it through his own attorney, and had now received Mr. Barry's answer
+through the same attorney. The nature of the application had been in
+this wise: that Mr. Augustus Scarborough had been put in to the position
+of the eldest son; that he did not himself in the least doubt that such
+was his true position; that close inquiry had been made at the time, and
+that the lawyers, including Mr. Grey and Mr. Barry had assented to the
+statements as then made by old Mr. Scarborough; that he himself had then
+gone to work to pay his brother's debts, for the honor of the family,
+and had paid them partly out of his own immediate pocket, and partly out
+of the estate, which was the same as his own property; that during his
+brother's "abeyance" he had assisted in his maintenance, and, on his
+brother's return, had taken him to his own home; that then his father
+had died, and that this incredible new story had been told. Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough was in no way desirous of animadverting on his father's
+memory, but was forced to repeat his belief that he was his father's
+eldest son, and was, in fact, at that moment the legitimate owner of
+Tretton, in accordance with the existing contract. He did not wish to
+dispute his father's will, though his father's mental and bodily
+condition at the time of the making of the will might, perhaps, enable
+him to do so with success. The will might be allowed to pass valid, but
+the rights of primogeniture must be held sacred.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nevertheless, having his mother's memory in great honor, he felt himself
+ill inclined to drag the family history before the public. For his
+mother's sake he was open to a compromise. He would advise that the
+whole property,&mdash;that which would pass under the entail, and that which
+was intended to be left by will,&mdash;should be valued, and that the total
+should then be divided between them. If his brother chose to take the
+family mansion, it should be so. Augustus Scarborough had no desire to
+set himself over his brother. But if this offer were not accepted, he
+must at once go to law, and prove that their Nice marriage had been, in
+fact, the one marriage by which his father and mother had been joined
+together. There was another proviso added to this offer: as the
+valuation and division of the property must take time, an income at the
+rate of two hundred pounds a month should be allowed to Augustus till
+such time as it should be completed. Such was the offer which Augustus
+had authorized his attorney to make.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was some delay in getting Mountjoy to consent to a reply. Before
+the offer had reached Mr. Barry he was already at Monte Carlo, with that
+ready money his father had left behind him. At every venture that he
+made,&mdash;at least at every loss which he incurred,&mdash;he told himself that it
+was altogether the doings of Florence Mountjoy. But he returned to
+England, and consented to a reply. He was the eldest son, and meant to
+support that position, both on his mother's behalf and on his own. As to
+his father's will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother
+would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man's bodily sufferings
+were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had
+never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by
+his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred.
+As to what his brother had done for himself, it was hardly worth his
+while to answer such an allegation. His memory carried him but little
+farther back than the day on which his brother turned him out of his
+rooms.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were, however, many reasons,&mdash;and this was put in at the suggestion
+of Mr. Barry,&mdash;why he would not wish that his brother should be left
+penniless. If his brother would be willing to withdraw altogether from
+any lawsuit, and would lend his co-operation to a speedy arrangement of
+the family matters, a thousand a year,&mdash;or twenty-five thousand
+pounds,&mdash;should be made over to him as a younger brother's portion. To
+this offer it would be necessary that a speedy reply should be given,
+and, under such circumstances, no temporary income need be supplied.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was early in June when Augustus was sitting in his luxurious lodgings
+in Victoria Street, contemplating this reply. His own lawyer had advised
+him to accept the offer, but he had declared to himself a dozen times
+since his father's death that, in this matter of the property, he would
+"either make a spoon or spoil a horn." And the lawyer was no friend of
+his own,&mdash;was not a man who knew nothing of the facts of the case beyond
+what were told him, and nothing of the working of his client's mind.
+Augustus had looked to him only for the law in the matter, and the
+lawyer had declared the law to be against his client. "All that your
+father said about the Nice marriage will go for nothing. It will be
+shown that he had an object."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But there certainly was such a marriage."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No doubt there was some ceremony&mdash;performed with an object. A second
+marriage cannot invalidate the first, though it may itself be altogether
+invalidated. The Rummelsburg marriage is, and will be, an established
+fact, and of the Rummelsburg marriage your brother was no doubt the
+issue. Accept the offer of an income. Of course we can come to terms as
+to the amount; and from your brother's character it is probable enough
+that he may increase it." Such had been his lawyer's advice, and
+Augustus was sitting there in his lodging thinking of it.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was not a happy man as he sat there. In the first place he owed
+a little money, and the debt had come upon him chiefly from his lavish
+expenditure in maintaining Mountjoy and Mountjoy's servant upon their
+travels. At that time he had thought that by lavish expenditure he might
+make Tretton certainly his own. He had not known his brother's
+character, and had thought that by such means he could keep him down,
+with his head well under water. His brother might drink,&mdash;take to
+drinking regularly at Monte Carlo or some other place,&mdash;and might so die.
+Or he would surely gamble himself into farther and utter ruin. At any
+rate he would be well out of the way, and Augustus in his pride had been
+glad to feel that he had his brother well under his thumb. Then the debt
+had been paid with the object of saving the estate from litigation on
+the part of the creditors. That had been his one great mistake. And he
+had not known his father, or his father's guile, or his father's
+strength. Why had not his father died at once?&mdash;as all the world had
+assured him would be the case. Looking back he could remember that the
+idea of paying the creditors had at first come from his father, simply
+as a vague idea! Oh, what a crafty rascal his father had been! And then
+he had allowed himself, in his pride, to insult his father, and had
+spoken of his father's coming death as a thing that was desirable! From
+that moment his father had plotted his ruin. He could see it all now.
+</p>
+<p>
+He was still minded to make the spoon; but he found that he should spoil
+the horn. Had there been any one to assist him he would still have
+persevered. He thought that he could have persevered with a lawyer who
+would really have taken up his case with interest. If Mountjoy could be
+made to drink&mdash;so as to die! He was still next in the entail; and he was
+his brother's heir should his brother die without a will. But so he
+would be if he took the twenty-five thousand pounds. But to accept so
+poor a modicum would go frightfully against the grain with him. He
+seemed to think that by taking the allowance he would bring back his
+brother to all the long-lived decencies of life. He would have to
+surrender altogether that feeling of conscious superiority which had
+been so much to him. "D&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;n the fellow!" he
+exclaimed to himself. "I should not wonder if he were in that fellow's
+pay." The first "fellow" here was the lawyer, and the second was his
+brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+When he had sat there alone for half an hour he could not make up his
+mind. When all his debts were paid he would not have much above
+twenty-five thousand pounds. His father had absolutely extracted five
+thousand pounds from him toward paying his brother's debts! The money
+had been wanted immediately. Together with the sum coming from the new
+purchasers, father and son must each subscribe five thousand pounds to
+pay those Jews. So it had been represented to him, and he had borrowed
+the money to carry out his object. Had ever any one been so swindled, so
+cruelly treated! This might probably be explained, and the five thousand
+pounds might be added to the twenty-five thousand pounds. But the
+explanation would be necessary, and all his pride would rebel against
+it. On that night when by chance he had come across his brother,
+bleeding and still half drunk, as he was about to enter his lodging, how
+completely under his thumb he had been! And now he was offering him of
+his bounty this wretched pittance! Then with half-muttered curses he
+execrated the names of his father, his brother, of Grey, and of Barry,
+and of his own lawyer.
+</p>
+<p>
+At that moment the door was opened and his bosom friend, Septimus Jones,
+entered the room. At any rate this friend was the nearest he had to his
+bosom. He was a man without friends in the true sense. There was no one
+who knew the innermost wishes of his heart, the secret desires of his
+soul. There are thus so many who can divulge to none those secret
+wishes! And how can such a one have a friend who can advise him as to
+what he shall do? Scarcely can the honest man have such a friend,
+because it is so difficult for him to find a man who will believe in
+him. Augustus had no desire for such a friend, but he did desire some
+one who would do his bidding as though he were such a friend. He wanted
+a friend who would listen to his words, and act as though they were the
+truth. Mr. Septimus Jones was the man he had chosen, but he did not in
+the least believe in Mr. Septimus Jones himself. "What does that man
+say?" asked Septimus Jones. The man was the lawyer of whom Augustus was
+now thinking, at this very moment, all manner of evil.
+</p>
+<p>
+"D&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;&ndash;n him!" said Augustus.
+</p>
+<p>
+"With all my heart. But what does he say? As you are to pay him for what
+he says, it is worth while listening to it."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a tone in the voice of Septimus Jones which declared at once
+some diminution of his usual respect. So it sounded, at least, to
+Augustus. He was no longer the assured heir of Tretton, and in this way
+he was to be told of the failure of his golden hopes. It would be odd,
+he thought, if he could not still hold his dominion over Septimus Jones.
+"I am not at all sure that I shall listen to him or to you either."
+</p>
+<p>
+"As for that, you can do as you like."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I can do as I like." Then he remembered that he must still
+use the man as a messenger, if in no other capacity. "Of course he wants
+to compromise it. A lawyer always proposes a compromise. He cannot be
+beat that way, and it is safe for him."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You had agreed to that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what are the terms to be?&mdash;that is the question. I made my
+offer:&mdash;half and half. Nothing fairer can be imagined,&mdash;unless, indeed, I
+choose to stand out for the whole property."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But what does your brother say?"
+</p>
+<p>
+He could not use his friend even as a messenger without telling him
+something of the truth. "When I think of it, of this injustice, I can
+hardly hold myself. He proposes to give me twenty-five thousand pounds."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Twenty-five thousand pounds!&mdash;for everything?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Everything; yes. What the devil do you suppose I mean? Now just listen
+to me." Then he told his tale as he thought that it ought to be told. He
+recapitulated all the money he had spent on his brother's behalf, and
+all that he chose to say that he had spent. He painted in glowing colors
+the position in which he would have been put by the Nice marriage. He
+was both angry and pathetic about the creditors. And he tore his hair
+almost with vexation at the treatment to which he was subjected.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I think I'd take the twenty-five thousand pounds," said Jones.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Never! I'd rather starve first!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's about what you'll have to do if all that you tell me is true."
+There was again that tone of disappearing subjection. "I'll be shot if I
+wouldn't take the money." Then there was a pause. "Couldn't you do that
+and go to law with him afterward? That was what your father would have
+done." Yes; but Augustus had to acknowledge that he was not as clever as
+his father.
+</p>
+<p>
+At last he gave Jones a commission. Jones was to see his brother and to
+explain to him that, before any question could be raised as to the
+amount to be paid under the compromise, a sum of ten thousand pounds
+must be handed to Augustus to reimburse him for money out of pocket.
+Then Jones was to say, as out of his own head, that he thought that
+Augustus might probably accept fifty thousand pounds in lieu of
+twenty-five thousand pounds. That would still leave the bulk of the
+property to Mountjoy, although Mountjoy must be aware of the great
+difficulties which would be thrown in his way by his father's conduct.
+But Jones had to come back the next day with an intimation that Mountjoy
+had again gone abroad, leaving full authority with Mr. Barry.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jones was sent to Mr. Barry, but without effect. Mr. Barry would discuss
+the matter with the lawyer, or, if Augustus was so pleased, with
+himself; but he was sure that no good would be done by any conversation
+with Mr. Jones. A month went on&mdash;two months went by&mdash;and nothing came of
+it. "It is no use your coming here, Mr. Scarborough," at last Mr. Barry
+said to him with but scant courtesy. "We are perfectly sure of our
+ground. There is not a penny due you;&mdash;not a penny. If you will sign
+certain documents, which I would advise you to do in the presence of
+your own lawyer, there will be twenty-five thousand pounds for you. You
+must excuse me if I say that I cannot see you again on the
+subject,&mdash;unless you accept your brother's liberality."
+</p>
+<p>
+At this time, Augustus was very short of money and, as is always the
+case, those to whom he owed aught became pressing as his readiness to
+pay them gradually receded. But to be so spoken to by a lawyer,&mdash;he,
+Scarborough of Tretton, as he had all but been,&mdash;to be so addressed by a
+man whom he had regarded as old Grey's clerk, was bitter indeed. He had
+been so exalted by that Nice marriage, had been so lifted high in the
+world, that he was now absolutely prostrate. He quarrelled with his
+lawyer, and he quarrelled also with Septimus Jones. There was no one
+with whom he could discuss the matter, or rather no one who would
+discuss it with him on his terms. So at last he accepted the money, and
+went daily into the City in order that he might turn it into more. What
+became of him in the City it is hardly the province of this chronicle to
+tell.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<a name="CH64"><!-- CH64 --></a>
+<h2>
+	CHAPTER LXIV.
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+THE LAST OF FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+</h3><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>
+Now at last in this chapter has to be told the fate of Florence
+Mountjoy, as far as it can be told in these pages. It was, at any rate,
+her peculiarity to attach to herself, by bonds which could not easily be
+severed, those who had once thought that they might be able to win her
+love. An attempt has been made to show how firm and determined were the
+affections of Harry Annesley, and how absolutely he trusted in her word
+when once it had been given to him. He had seemed to think that when she
+had even nodded to him, in answer to his assertion that he desired her
+to be his wife, all his trouble as regarded her heart had been off his
+mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+There might be infinite trouble as to time,&mdash;as to ten years, three
+years, or even one year; trouble in inducing her to promise that she
+would become his wife in opposition to her mother; but he had felt sure
+that she never would be the wife of any one else. How he had at last
+succeeded in mitigating the opposition of her mother, so as to make the
+three years, or even the one year, appear to himself an altogether
+impossible delay, the reader knows. How he at last contrived to have his
+own way altogether, so that, as Florence told him, she was merely a ball
+in his hand, the reader will have to know very shortly. But not a shade
+of doubt had ever clouded Harry's mind as to his eventual success since
+she had nodded to him at Mrs. Armitage's ball. Though this girl's love
+had been so grand a thing to have achieved, he was quite sure from that
+moment that it would be his forever.
+</p>
+<p>
+With Mountjoy Scarborough there had never come such a moment, and never
+could; yet he had been very confident, so that he had lived on the
+assurance that such a moment would come. And the self-deportment natural
+to her had been such that he had shown his assurance. He never would
+have succeeded; but he should not the less love her sincerely. And when
+the time came for him to think what he should do with himself, those few
+days after his father's death, he turned to her as his one prospect of
+salvation. If his cousin Florence would be good to him all might yet be
+well. He had come by that time to lose his assurance. He had recognized
+Harry Annesley as his enemy, as has been told often enough in these
+pages. Harry was to him a hateful stumbling-block. And he had not been
+quite as sure of her fidelity to another as Harry had been sure of it to
+himself. Tretton might prevail. Trettons do so often prevail. And the
+girl's mother was all on his side. So he had gone to Cheltenham, true as
+the needle to the pole, to try his luck yet once again. He had gone to
+Cheltenham, and there he found Harry Annesley. All hopes for him were
+then over and he started at once for Monaco; or, as he himself told
+himself, for the devil.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among the lovers of Florence some memory may attach itself to poor Hugh
+Anderson. He too had been absolutely true to Florence. From the hour in
+which he had first conceived the idea that she would make him happy as
+his wife, it had gone on growing upon him with all the weight of love,
+He did not quite understand why he should have loved her so dearly, but
+thus it was. Such a Mrs. Hugh Anderson, with a pair of horses on the
+boulevards, was to his imagination the most lovely sight which could be
+painted. Then Florence took the mode of disabusing him which has been
+told, and Hugh Anderson gave the required promise. Alas, in what an
+unfortunate moment had he done so! Such was his own thought. For though
+he was sure of his own attachment to her, he could not mount high enough
+to be as sure of her to somebody else. It was a "sort of thing a man
+oughtn't to have been asked to promise," he said to the third secretary.
+And having so determined, he made up his mind to follow her to England
+and to try his fortune once again.
+</p>
+<p>
+Florence had just wished Harry good-bye for the day, or rather for the
+week. She cared for nothing now in the way of protestations of
+affection. "Come Harry&mdash;there now&mdash;don't be so unreasonable. Am not I
+just as impatient as you are? This day fortnight you will be back, and
+then&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Then there will be some peace, won't there? But mind you write every
+day." And so Harry was whisked away, as triumphant a man as ever left
+Cheltenham by the London train. On the following morning Hugh Anderson
+reached Cheltenham and appeared in Montpellier Place.
+</p>
+<p>
+"My daughter is at home, certainly," said Mrs. Mountjoy. There was
+something in the tone which made the young man at once assure himself
+that he had better go back to Brussels. He had even been a favorite with
+Mrs. Mountjoy. In his days of love-making poor Mountjoy had been absent,
+declared no longer to have a chance of Tretton, and Harry had been&mdash;the
+very evil one himself. Mrs. Mountjoy had been assured by the Brussels
+Mountjoy that, with the view of getting well rid of the evil one, she
+had better take poor Anderson to her bosom. She had opened her bosom
+accordingly, but with very poor results. And now he had come to look
+after what result there might be. Mrs. Mountjoy felt that he had better
+go back to Brussels.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Could I not see her?" asked Anderson.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; you could see her."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mrs. Mountjoy, I'll tell you everything, just as though you were my own
+mother. I have loved your daughter;&mdash;oh, I don't know how it is! If she'd
+be my wife for two years, I don't think I'd mind dying afterward."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wouldn't. I never heard of a case where a girl had got such a hold of
+a man as she has of me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You don't mean to say that she has behaved badly?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh no! She couldn't behave badly;&mdash;it isn't in her. But she can bowl a
+fellow over in the most&mdash;well, most desperate manner. As for me, I'm not
+worth my salt since I first saw her. When I go to ride with the governor
+I haven't a word to say to him," But this ended in Mrs. Mountjoy going
+and promising that she would send Florence down in her place. She knew
+that it would be in vain; but to a young man who had behaved so well as
+Mr. Anderson so much could not be refused. "Here I am again," he said,
+very much like Punch in the pantomime.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! how do you do?"
+</p>
+<p>
+A lover who is anxious to prevail with a lady should always hold up his
+head. Where is the writer of novels, or of human nature, who does not
+know as much as that? And yet the man who is in love, truly in love,
+never does hold up his head very high. It is the man who is not in love
+who does so. Nevertheless it does sometimes happen that the true lover
+obtains his reward. In this case it was not observed to be so. But now
+Mr. Anderson was sure of his fate, so that there was no encouragement to
+him to make any attempt at holding up his head. "I have come once more
+to see you," he said.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure it gives mamma so much pleasure."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Mrs. Mountjoy is very kind. But it hasn't been for her. The truth is, I
+couldn't settle down in this world without having another interview."
+</p>
+<p>
+"What am I to say, Mr. Anderson?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'll just tell you how it all is. You know what my prospects are." She
+did not quite remember, but she bowed to him. "You must know, because I
+told you. There is nothing I kept concealed." Again she bowed. "There
+can be no possible family reason for my going to Kamtchatka."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Kamtchatka!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes, indeed;&mdash;the F.O." (The F.O. always meant the Foreign Office.) "The
+F.O. wants a young man on whom it can thoroughly depend to go to
+Kamtchatka. The allowances are handsome enough, but the allowances are
+nothing to me."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Why should you go?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"It is for you to decide. Yes, you can detain me. If I go to that bleak
+and barren desert, it will merely be to court exile from that quarter of
+the globe in which you and I would have to live together and not
+separate. That I cannot stand. In Kamtchatka&mdash;Well, there is no knowing
+what may happen to me then."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You told me something of that before."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But it's all fixed. Mamma will tell you. It's to be this day fortnight.
+If you'd only stay and come as one of my friends."
+</p>
+<p>
+Surely such a proposition as this is the unkindest that any young lady
+can make; but we believe that it is made not unfrequently. In the
+present case it received no reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Anderson took up his hat and rushed to the door. Then he returned
+for a moment. "God bless you, Miss Mountjoy!" he said. "In spite of the
+cruelty of that suggestion, I must bid God bless you." And then he was
+gone. About a week afterward M. Grascour appeared upon the scene with
+precisely the same intention. He, too, retained in his memory a most
+vivid recollection of the young lady and her charms. He had heard that
+Captain Scarborough had inherited Tretton, and had been informed that it
+was not probable that Miss Florence Mountjoy would marry her cousin. He
+was somewhat confused in his ideas, and thought, that were he now to
+re-appear on the scene there might still be a chance for him. There was
+no lover more unlike Mr. Anderson than M. Grascour. Not even for
+Florence Mountjoy, not even to own her, would he go to Kamtchatka; and
+were he not to see her he would simply go back to Brussels. And yet he
+loved her as well as he knew how to love any one, and, would she have
+become his wife, would have treated her admirably. He had looked at it
+all round, and could see no reason why he should not marry her. Like a
+persevering man, he persevered; but as he did so, no glimmering of an
+idea of Kamtchatka disturbed him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But from this farther trouble Mrs. Mountjoy was able to save her
+daughter. M. Grascour made his way into Mrs. Mountjoy's presence, and
+there declared his purpose. He had been sent over on some question
+connected with the literature of commerce, and had ventured to take the
+opportunity of coming down to Cheltenham. He hoped that the truth of his
+affection would be evinced by the journey. Mrs. Mountjoy had observed,
+while he was making his little speech, how extremely well brushed was
+his hat. She had observed, also, that poor Mr. Anderson's hat was in
+such a condition as almost to make her try to smooth it down for him.
+"If you make objection to my hat, you should brush it yourself," she had
+heard Harry say to Florence, and Florence had taken the hat, and had
+brushed it with fond, lingering touches.
+</p>
+<p>
+"M. Grascour, I can assure you that she is really engaged," Mrs.
+Mountjoy had said. M. Grascour bowed and sighed. "She is to be married
+this day week."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"To Mr. Harry Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh-h-h! I remember the gentleman's name. I had thought&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, yes; there were objections, but they have luckily disappeared."
+Though Mrs. Mountjoy was only as yet happy in a melancholy manner,
+rejoicing with but bated joy at her girl's joys, she was too loyal to
+say a word now against Harry Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+"I should not have troubled you, but&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure of that, M. Grascour; and we are both of us grateful to you
+for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you
+are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the
+thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to
+be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new
+pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief
+merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in
+looking at them than she would have had in listening to the
+congratulations of M. Grascour.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than
+Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry
+all the good men."
+</p>
+<p>
+There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's
+marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at
+Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's
+maid, were to go down to assist upon the occasion. His father was to
+marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of
+seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride
+three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at
+Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since
+the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for
+Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those
+of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own
+courtship the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a
+work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good
+her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise
+his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing
+had passed by him.
+</p>
+<p>
+But it had passed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch
+of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had
+heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as
+hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which
+troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the
+drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to
+sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last
+made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood
+how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said,
+with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told
+her that, on farther considerations, he had determined to add in the
+dressing-room.
+</p>
+<p>
+The whole parish felt the effect. It was not so much that the parish was
+struck by the expenditure proposed,&mdash;because the squire was known to be a
+man who had not for years spent all his income,&mdash;but that he had given
+way so far on behalf of a nephew whom he had lately been so anxious to
+disinherit. Rumor had already reached Buntingford of what the squire had
+intended to do on the receipt of his own wife,&mdash;rumors which had of
+course since faded away into nothing. It had been positively notified to
+Buntingford that there should be really a new carpet and new curtains in
+the drawing-room. Miss Thoroughbung had been known to have declared at
+the brewery that the whole thing should be done before she had been
+there twelve months.
+</p>
+<p>
+"He shall go the whole hog," she had said. And there had been a little
+bet about it between her and her brother, who entertained an idea that
+Mr. Prosper was an obstinate man. And Joe had brought tidings of the bet
+to the parsonage, so that there had been much commotion on the subject.
+When the best room had been included, and then the dressing-room, even
+Matthew had been alarmed. "It'll come to as much as five hundred
+pounds!" he had whispered to Mrs. Annesley. Matthew seemed to think that
+it was quite time that there should be somebody to control his master.
+"Why, ma'am, it's only the other day, because I can remember it myself,
+when that loo-table came into the house new!" Matthew had been in the
+place over twenty years. When Mrs. Annesley reminded him that fashions
+were changed, and that other kinds of table were required, he only shook
+his head.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was a question more vital than that of expense. How was the
+new furniture to be chosen? The first idea was that Florence should be
+invited to spend a week at her future home, and go up and down to London
+with either Mrs. Annesley or her brother, and select the furniture
+herself. But there were reasons against this. Mr. Prosper would like to
+surprise her by the munificence of what he did. And the suggestion of
+one day was sure to wane before the stronger lights of the next. Mr.
+Prosper, though he intended to be munificent, was still a little afraid
+that it should be thrown away as a thing of course, or that it should
+appear to have been Harry's work. That would be manifestly unjust. "I
+think I had better do it myself," he said to his sister.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Perhaps I could help you, Peter." He shuddered; but it was at the
+memory of the sound of the word "Peter," as it had been blurted out for
+his express annoyance by Miss Thoroughbung. "I wouldn't mind going up to
+London with you." He shook his head, demanding still more time for
+deliberation. Were he to accept his sister's offer he would be bound by
+his acceptance. "It's the last drawing-room carpet I shall ever buy," he
+said to himself, with true melancholy, as he walked back home across the
+park.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then there had been the other grand question of the journey, or not,
+down to Cheltenham. In a good-natured way Harry had told him that the
+wedding would be no wedding without his presence. That had moved him
+considerably. It was very desirable that the wedding should be more than
+a merely legal wedding. The world ought to be made aware that the heir
+to Buston had been married in the presence of the Squire of Buston. But
+the journey was a tremendous difficulty. If he could have gone from
+Buston direct to Cheltenham it would have been comparatively easy. But
+he must pass through London, and to do this must travel the whole way
+between the Northern and Western railway-stations. And the trains would
+not fit. He studied his Bradshaw for an entire morning and found that
+they would not fit. "Where am I to spend the hour and a quarter?" he
+asked his sister, mournfully. "And there would be four journeys, going
+and coming,&mdash;four separate journeys!" And these would be irrespective of
+numerous carriages and cabs. It was absolutely impossible that he should
+be present in the flesh on that happy day at Cheltenham. He was left at
+home for three months,&mdash;July, August, and September,&mdash;in which to buy the
+furniture; which, however, was at last procured by Mr. Annesley.
+</p>
+<p>
+The marriage, as far as the wedding was concerned, was not nearly as
+good fun as that of Joe and Molly. There was no Mr. Crabtree there, and
+no Miss Thoroughbung. And Mrs. Mountjoy, though she meant to do it all
+as well as it could be done, was still joyous only with bated joy. Some
+tinge of melancholy still clung to her. She had for so many years
+thought of her nephew as the husband destined for her girl, that she
+could not be as yet demonstrative in her appreciation of Harry Annesley.
+"I have no doubt we shall come to be true friends, Mr. Annesley," she
+had said to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't call me Mr. Annesley."
+</p>
+<p>
+"No, I won't, when you come back again and I am used to you. But at
+present there&mdash;there is a something&mdash;"
+</p>
+<p>
+"A regret, perhaps?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Well, not quite a regret. I am an old-fashioned person, and I can't
+change my manners all at once. You know what it was that I used to
+hope."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh yes. But Florence was very stupid, and would have a different
+opinion."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I am happy now. Her happiness is all the world to me. And
+things have undergone a change."
+</p>
+<p>
+"That's true. Mr. Prosper has made over the marrying business to me, and
+I mean to go through it like a man. Only you must call me Harry." This
+she promised to do, and did, in the seclusion of her room, give him a
+kiss. But still her joy was not loud, and the hilarity of her guests was
+moderated. Mr. Annesley did his best, and the bridesmaids' dresses
+were pretty,&mdash;which is all that is required of a bride's maid. Then at
+last the father's carriage came, and they were carried away to
+Gloucester, where they were committed to the untender, commonplace, but
+much more comfortable mercies of the railway-carriage. There we will
+part with them, and encounter them again but for a few moments as, after
+a long day's ramble, they made their way back to a solitary but
+comfortable hotel among the Bernese Alps. Florence was on a pony, which
+Harry had insisted on hiring for her, though Florence had declared
+herself able to walk the whole way. It had been very hot, and she was
+probably glad of the pony. They both had alpenstocks in their hands, and
+on the pommel of her saddle hung the light jacket with which he had
+started, and which had not been so light but that he had been glad to
+ease himself of the weight. The guide was lagging behind, and they two
+were close together. "Well, old girl!" he said, "and now what do you
+think of it all?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I'm not so very much older than I was when you took me, pet."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Oh, yes, you are. Half of your life has gone; you have settled down
+into the cares and duties of married life, none of which had been so
+much as thought of when I took you."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Not thought of! They have been on my mind ever since that night at Mrs.
+Armitage's."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Only in a romantic and therefore untrue sort of manner. Since that time
+you have always thought of me with a white choker and dress-boots."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Don't flatter yourself; I never looked at your boots."
+</p>
+<p>
+"You knew that they were the boots and the clothes of a man making love,
+didn't you? I don't care personally very much about my own boots: I
+never shall care about another pair; but I should care about them.
+Anything that might give me the slightest assistance."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Nothing was wanted; it had all been done, Harry."
+</p>
+<p>
+"My pet! But still a pair of high-lows heavy with nails would not have
+been efficacious then. I should think I love him, you might have said to
+yourself, but he is such an awkward fellow."
+</p>
+<p>
+"It had gone much beyond that at Mrs. Armitage's."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But now you have to take my high-lows as part of your duty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"And you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"When a man loves a woman he falls in love with everything belonging to
+her. You don't wear high-lows. Everything you possess as specially your
+own has to administer to my sense of love and beauty."
+</p>
+<p>
+"I wish&mdash;I wish it might be so."
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is no danger about that at all. But I have to come before you on
+an occasion such as this as a kind of navvy,&mdash;and you must accept me."
+She glanced around furtively to see whether their guide was looking, but
+the guide had gone back out of sight. For, sitting on her pony, she had
+her arm around his neck and kissed him. "And then there is ever so much
+more," he continued. "I don't think I snore?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Indeed, no! There isn't a sound comes from you. I sometimes look to see
+if I think you are alive."
+</p>
+<p>
+"But if I do, you'll have to put up with it. That would be one of your
+duties as a wife. You never could have thought of that when I had those
+dress-boots on."
+</p>
+<p>
+"Of course I didn't. How can you talk such rubbish?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I don't know whether it is rubbish. Those are the kind of things that
+must fall upon a woman so heavily. Suppose I were to beat you?"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Beat me!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yes;&mdash;hit you over the head with this stick!"
+</p>
+<p>
+"I am sure you would not do that."
+</p>
+<p>
+"So am I. But suppose I were to? Your mother must be told of my leaving
+that poor man bloody and speechless. What if I were to carry out my
+usual habits as then shown? Take care, my darling, or that brute'll
+throw you!" This he said as the pony stumbled over a stone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Almost as unlikely as you are. One has to risk dangers in the world,
+but one makes the risk as little as possible. I know they won't give me
+a pony that will tumble down; and I know that I've told you to look to
+see that they don't. You chose the pony, but I had to choose you. I
+don't know very much about ponies, but I do know something about a
+lover, and I know that I have got one that will suit me."
+</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" size="5" noshade>
+<pre>
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Scarborough's Family, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Mr. Scarborough's Family
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+Release Date: May 2, 2004  [eBook #12234]
+Most recently updated: November 30, 2011
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Steven desJardins, Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D., and
+Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY
+
+BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE
+
+1883
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back
+more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain
+with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which
+led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say
+that these first four chapters of the book--though they may be thought
+to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents
+for their interest in a tale--are in this way only preliminary.
+
+The world has not yet forgotten the intensity of the feeling which
+existed when old Mr. Scarborough declared that his well-known eldest son
+was not legitimate. Mr. Scarborough himself had not been well known in
+early life. He had been the only son of a squire in Staffordshire over
+whose grounds a town had been built and pottery-works established. In
+this way a property which had not originally been extensive had been
+greatly increased in value, and Mr. Scarborough, when he came into
+possession, had found himself to be a rich man. He had then gone abroad,
+and had there married an English lady. After the lapse of some years he
+had returned to Tretton Park, as his place was named, and there had lost
+his wife. He had come back with two sons, Mountjoy and Augustus, and
+there, at Tretton, he had lived, spending, however, a considerable
+portion of each year in chambers in the Albany. He was a man who,
+through many years, had had his own circle of friends, but, as I have
+said before, he was not much known in the world. He was luxurious and
+self-indulgent, and altogether indifferent to the opinion of those
+around him. But he was affectionate to his children, and anxious above
+all things for their welfare, or rather happiness. Some marvellous
+stories were told as to his income, which arose chiefly from the
+Tretton delf-works and from the town of Tretton, which had been built
+chiefly on his very park, in consequence of the nature of the clay and
+the quality of the water. As a fact, the original four thousand a year,
+to which his father had been born, had grown to twenty thousand by
+nature of the operations which had taken place. But the whole of this,
+whether four thousand or twenty thousand, was strictly entailed, and Mr.
+Scarborough had been very anxious, since his second son was born, to
+create for him also something which might amount to opulence. But they
+who knew him best knew that of all things he hated most the entail.
+
+The boys were both educated at Eton, and the elder went into the Guards,
+having been allowed an intermediate year in order to learn languages on
+the Continent. He had then become a cornet in the Coldstreams, and had,
+from that time, lived a life of reckless expenditure. His brother
+Augustus had in the mean time gone to Cambridge and become a barrister.
+He had been called but two years when the story was made known of his
+father's singular assertion. As from that time it became unnecessary for
+him to practise his profession, no more was heard of him as a lawyer. But
+they who had known the young man in the chambers of that great luminary,
+Mr. Rugby, declared that a very eminent advocate was now spoiled by a
+freak of fortune.
+
+Of his brother Mountjoy,--or Captain Scarborough, as he came to be known
+at an early period of his life,--the stories which were told in the world
+at large were much too remarkable to be altogether true. But it was only
+too true that he lived as though the wealth at his command were without
+limit. For some few years his father bore with him patiently, doubling
+his allowance, and paying his bills for him again and again. He made up
+his mind,--with many regrets,--that enough had been done for his younger
+son, who would surely by his intellect be able to do much for himself.
+But then it became necessary to encroach on the funds already put by,
+and at last there came the final blow, when he discovered that Captain
+Scarborough had raised large sums on post-obits from the Jews. The Jews
+simply requested the father to pay the money or some portion of it,
+which if at once paid would satisfy them, explaining to him that
+otherwise the whole property would at his death fall into their hands.
+It need not here be explained how, through one sad year, these
+negotiations were prolonged; but at last there came a time in which Mr.
+Scarborough, sitting in his chambers in the Albany, boldly declared his
+purpose. He sent for his own lawyer, Mr. Grey, and greatly astonished
+that gentleman by declaring to him that Captain Scarborough was
+illegitimate.
+
+At first Mr. Grey refused altogether to believe the assertion made to
+him. He had been very conversant with the affairs of the family, and had
+even dealt with marriage settlements on behalf of the lady in question.
+He knew Mr. Scarborough well,--or rather had not known him, but had heard
+much of him,--and therefore suspected him. Mr. Grey was a thoroughly
+respectable man, and Mr. Scarborough, though upright and honorable in
+many dealings, had not been thoroughly respectable. He had lived with
+his wife off and on, as people say. Though he had saved much of his
+money for the purpose above described, he had also spent much of it in a
+manner which did not approve itself to Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey had thoroughly
+disliked the eldest son, and had, in fact, been afraid of him. The
+captain, in the few interviews that had been necessary between them, had
+attempted to domineer over the lawyer, till there had at last sprung up
+a quarrel, in which, to tell the truth, the father took the part of the
+son. Mr. Grey had for a while been so offended as to find it necessary
+to desire Mr. Scarborough to employ another lawyer. He had not, however,
+done so, and the breach had never become absolute. In these
+circumstances Mr. Scarborough had sent for Mr. Grey to come to him at
+the Albany, and had there, from his bed, declared that his eldest son
+was illegitimate. Mr. Grey had at first refused to accept the assertion
+as being worth anything, and had by no means confined himself to polite
+language in expressing his belief. "I would much rather have nothing to
+do with it," he had said when Mr. Scarborough insisted on the truth of
+his statement.
+
+"But the evidence is all here," said Mr. Scarborough, laying his hand on
+a small bundle of papers. "The difficulty would have been, and the
+danger, in causing Mountjoy to have been accepted in his brother's
+place. There can be no doubt that I was not married till after Mountjoy
+was born."
+
+Mr. Grey's curiosity was roused, and he began to ask questions. Why, in
+the first place, had Mr. Scarborough behaved so dishonestly? Why had he
+originally not married his wife? And then, why had he married her? If,
+as he said, the proofs were so easy, how had he dared to act so directly
+in opposition to the laws of his country? Why, indeed, had he been
+through the whole of his life so bad a man,--so bad to the woman who had
+borne his name, so bad to the son whom he called illegitimate, and so
+bad also to the other son whom he now intended to restore to his
+position, solely with the view of defrauding the captain's creditors?
+
+In answer to this Mr. Scarborough, though he was suffering much at the
+time,--so much as to be considered near to his death,--had replied with
+the most perfect good-humor.
+
+He had done very well, he thought, by his wife, whom he had married
+after she had consented to live with him on other terms. He had done
+very well by his elder son, for whom he had intended the entire
+property. He had done well by his second son, for whom he had saved his
+money. It was now his first duty to save the property. He regarded
+himself as being altogether unselfish and virtuous from his point of
+view.
+
+When Mr. Grey had spoken about the laws of his country he had simply
+smiled, though he was expecting a grievous operation on the following
+day. As for marriage, he had no great respect for it, except as a mode
+of enabling men and women to live together comfortably. As for the
+"outraged laws of his country," of which Mr. Grey spoke much, he did not
+care a straw for such outrages--nor, indeed, for the expressed opinion
+of mankind as to his conduct. He was very soon about to leave the world,
+and meant to do the best he could for his son Augustus. The other son
+was past all hope. He was hardly angry with his eldest son, who had
+undoubtedly given him cause for just anger. His apparent motives in
+telling the truth about him at last were rather those of defrauding the
+Jews, who had expressed themselves to him with brutal audacity, than
+that of punishing the one son or doing justice to the other; but even of
+them he spoke with a cynical good-humor, triumphing in his idea of
+thoroughly getting the better of them.
+
+"I am consoled, Mr. Grey," he said, "when I think how probably it might
+all have been discovered after my death. I should have destroyed all
+these," and he laid his hands upon the papers, "but still there might
+have been discovery."
+
+Mr. Grey could not but think that during the last twenty-four years,--the
+period which had elapsed since the birth of the younger son,--no idea of
+such a truth had occurred to himself.
+
+He did at last consent to take the papers in his hands, and to read them
+through with care. He took them away with that promise, and with an
+assurance that he would bring them back on the day but one
+following--should Mr. Scarborough then be alive.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, who seemed at that moment to have much life in him,
+insisted on this proviso:--
+
+"The surgeon is to be here to-morrow, you know, and his coming may mean
+a great deal. You will have the papers, which are quite clear, and will
+know what to do. I shall see Mountjoy myself this evening. I suppose he
+will have the grace to come, as he does not know what he is coming for."
+
+Then the father smiled again, and the lawyer went.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, though he was very strong of heart, did have some
+misgivings as the time came at which he was to see his son. The
+communication which he had to make was certainly one of vital
+importance. His son had some time since instigated him to come to terms
+with the "family creditors," as the captain boldly called them.
+
+"Seeing that I never owed a shilling in my life, or my father before me,
+it is odd that I should have family creditors," the father had answered.
+
+"The property has, then, at any rate," the son had said, with a scowl.
+
+But that was now twelve months since, before mankind and the Jews among
+them had heard of Mr. Scarborough's illness. Now, there could be no
+question of dealing on favorable terms with these gentlemen. Mr.
+Scarborough was, therefore, aware that the evil thing which he was about
+to say to his son would have lost its extreme bitterness. It did not
+occur to him that, in making such a revelation as to his son's mother he
+would inflict any great grief on his son's heart. To be illegitimate
+would be, he thought, nothing unless illegitimacy carried with it loss
+of property. He hardly gave weight enough to the feeling that the eldest
+son was the eldest son, and too little to the triumph which was present
+to his own mind in saving the property for one of the family. Augustus
+was but the captain's brother, but he was the old squire's son. The two
+brothers had hitherto lived together on fairly good terms, for the
+younger had been able to lend money to the elder, and the elder had
+found his brother neither severe or exacting. How it might be between
+them when their relations with each other should be altogether changed,
+Mr. Scarborough did not trouble himself to inquire. The captain by his
+own reckless folly had lost his money, had lost all that fortune would
+have given him as his father's eldest son. After having done so, what
+could it matter to him whether he were legitimate or illegitimate? His
+brother, as possessor of Tretton Park, would be able to do much more
+for him than could be expected from a professional man working for his
+bread.
+
+Mr. Scarborough had looked at the matter all round for the space of two
+years, and during the latter year had slowly resolved on his line of
+action. He had had no scruple in passing off his eldest-born as
+legitimate, and now would have none in declaring the truth to the world.
+What scruple need he have, seeing that he was so soon about to leave the
+world?
+
+As to what took place at that interview between the father and the son
+very much was said among the clubs, and in societies to which Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough was well known; but very little of absolute truth
+was ever revealed. It was known that Captain Scarborough left the room
+under the combined authority of apothecaries and servants, and that the
+old man had fainted from the effects of the interview. He had
+undoubtedly told the son of the simple facts as he had declared them to
+Mr. Grey, but had thought it to be unnecessary to confirm his statement
+by any proof. Indeed, the proofs, such as they were,--the written
+testimony, that is,--were at that moment in the hands of Mr. Grey, and to
+Mr. Grey the father had at last referred the son. But the son had
+absolutely refused to believe for a moment in the story, and had
+declared that his father and Mr. Grey had conspired together to rob him
+of his inheritance and good name. The interview was at last over, and
+Mr. Scarborough, at one moment fainting, and in the next suffering the
+extremest agony, was left alone with his thoughts.
+
+Captain Scarborough, when he left his father's rooms, and found himself
+going out from the Albany into Piccadilly, was an infuriated but at the
+same time a most wretched man. He did believe that a conspiracy had been
+hatched, and he was resolved to do his best to defeat it, let the effect
+be what it might on the property; but yet there was a strong feeling in
+his breast that the fraud would be successful. No man could possibly be
+environed by worse circumstances as to his own condition. He owed he
+knew not what amount of money to several creditors; but then he owed,
+which troubled him more, gambling debts, which he could only pay by his
+brother's assistance. And now, as he thought of it, he felt convinced
+that his brother must be joined with his father and the lawyer in this
+conspiracy. He felt, also, that he could meet neither Mr. Grey nor his
+brother without personally attacking them. All the world might perish,
+but he, with his last breath, would declare himself to be Captain
+Mountjoy Scarborough, of Tretton Park; and though he knew at the moment
+that he must perish,--as regarded social life among his comrades,--unless
+he could raise five hundred pounds from his brother, yet he felt that,
+were he to meet his brother, he could not but fly at his throat and
+accuse him of the basest villany.
+
+At that moment, at the corner of Bond Street, he did meet his brother.
+
+"What is this?" said he, fiercely.
+
+"What is what?" said Augustus, without any fierceness. "What is up now?"
+
+"I have just come from my father."
+
+"And how is the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk.
+I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come
+to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as a cucumber."
+
+There was something in this which at once shook, though it did not
+remove, the captain's belief, and he said something as to the property.
+Then there came questions and answers, in which the captain did not
+reveal the story which had been told to him, but the barrister did
+assert that he had as yet heard nothing as to anything of importance. As
+to Tretton, the captain believed his brother's manner rather than his
+words. In fact, the barrister had heard nothing as yet of what was to be
+done on his behalf.
+
+The interview ended in the two men going and dining at a club, where the
+captain told the whole story of his father's imagined iniquity.
+
+Augustus received the tale almost in silence. In reply to his brother's
+authoritative, domineering speeches he said nothing. To him it was all
+new, but to him, also, it seemed certainly to be untrue. He did not at
+all bring himself to believe that Mr. Grey was in the conspiracy, but he
+had no scruple of paternal regard to make him feel that this father
+would not concoct such a scheme simply because he was his father. It
+would be a saving of the spoil from the Amalekites, and of this idea he
+did give a hardly-expressed hint to his brother.
+
+"By George," said the captain, "nothing of the kind shall be done with
+my consent."
+
+"Why, no," the barrister had answered, "I suppose that neither your
+consent nor mine is to be asked; and it seems as though it were a farce
+ordered to be played over the poor governor's grave. He has prepared a
+romance, as to the truth or falsehood of which neither you nor I can
+possibly be called as witnesses."
+
+It was clear to the captain that his brother had thought that the plot
+had been prepared by their father in anticipation of his own death.
+Nevertheless, by the younger brother's assistance, the much-needed sum
+of money was found for the supply of the elder's immediate wants.
+
+The next day was the day of terror, and nothing more was heard, either
+then or for the following week, of the old gentleman's scheme. In two
+days it was understood that his death might be hourly expected, but on
+the third it was thought that he might "pull through," as his younger
+son filially expressed himself. He was constantly with his father, but
+not a word passed his lips as to the property. The elder son kept
+himself gloomily apart, and indeed, during a part of the next week was
+out of London. Augustus Scarborough did call on Mr. Grey, but only
+learned from him that it was, at any rate, true that the story had been
+told by his father. Mr. Grey refused to make any farther communication,
+simply saying that he would as yet express no opinion.
+
+"For myself," said Augustus, as he left the attorney's chambers, "I can
+only profess myself so much astonished as to have no opinion. I suppose
+I must simply wait and see what Fortune intends to do with me."
+
+At the end of a fortnight Mr. Scarborough had so far recovered his
+strength as to be able to be moved down to Tretton, and thither he went.
+It was not many days after that "the world" was first informed that
+Captain Scarborough was not his father's heir. "The world" received the
+information with a great deal of expressed surprise and inward
+satisfaction,--satisfaction that the money-lenders should be done out of
+their money; that a professed gambler like Captain Scarborough should
+suddenly become an illegitimate nobody; and, more interesting still,
+that a very wealthy and well-conditioned, if not actually respectable,
+squire should have proved himself to be a most brazen-faced rascal. All
+of these were matters which gave extreme delight to the world at large.
+At first there came little paragraphs without any name, and then, some
+hours afterward, the names became known to the quidnuncs, and in a short
+space of time were in possession of the very gentry who found themselves
+defrauded in this singular manner.
+
+It is not necessary here that I should recapitulate all the
+circumstances of the original fraud, for a gross fraud had been
+perpetrated. After the perpetration of that fraud papers had been
+prepared by Mr. Scarborough himself with a great deal of ingenuity, and
+the matter had been so arranged that,--but for his own declaration,--his
+eldest son would undoubtedly have inherited the property. Now there was
+no measure to the clamor and the uproar raised by the money-lenders. Mr.
+Grey's outer office was besieged, but his clerk simply stated that the
+facts would be proved on Mr. Scarborough's death as clearly as it might
+be possible to prove them. The curses uttered against the old squire
+were bitter and deep, but during this time he was still supposed to be
+lying at death's door, and did not, in truth, himself expect to live
+many days. The creditors, of course, believed that the story was a
+fiction. None of them were enabled to see Captain Scarborough, who,
+after a short period, disappeared altogether from the scene. But they
+were, one and all, convinced that the matter had been arranged between
+him and his father.
+
+There was one from whom better things were expected than to advance
+money on post-obits to a gambler at a rate by which he was to be repaid
+one hundred pounds for every forty pounds, on the death of a gentleman
+who was then supposed to be dying. For it was proved afterward that this
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had made most minute inquiries among the old squire's
+servants as to the state of their master's health. He had supplied forty
+thousand pounds, for which he was to receive one hundred thousand pounds
+when the squire died, alleging that he should have difficulty in
+recovering the money. But he had collected the sum so advanced on better
+terms among his friends, and had become conspicuously odious in the
+matter.
+
+In about a month's time it was generally believed that Mr. Scarborough
+had so managed matters that his scheme would be successful. A struggle
+was made to bring the matter at once into the law courts, but the
+attempt for the moment failed. It was said that the squire down at
+Tretton was too ill, but that proceedings would be taken as soon as he
+was able to bear them. Rumors were afloat that he would be taken into
+custody, and it was even asserted that two policemen were in the house
+at Tretton. But it was soon known that no policemen were there, and that
+the squire was free to go whither he would, or rather whither he could.
+In fact, though the will to punish him, and even to arrest him, was
+there, no one had the power to do him an injury.
+
+It was then declared that he had in no sense broken the law,--that no
+evil act of his could be proved,--that though he had wished his eldest
+son to inherit the property wrongfully, he had only wished it; and that
+he had now simply put his wishes into unison with the law, and had
+undone the evil which he had hitherto only contemplated. Indeed, the
+world at large rather sympathized with the squire when Mr. Tyrrwhit's
+dealings became known, for it was supposed by many that Mr. Tyrrwhit was
+to have become the sole owner of Tretton.
+
+But the creditors were still loud, and still envenomed. They and their
+emissaries hung about Tretton and demanded to know where was the
+captain. Of the captain's whereabouts his father knew nothing, not even
+whether he was still alive; for the captain had actually disappeared
+from the world, and his creditors could obtain no tidings respecting
+him. At this period, and for long afterward, they imagined that he and
+his father were in league together, and were determined to try at law
+the question as to the legitimacy of his birth as soon as the old squire
+should be dead. But the old squire did not die. Though his life was
+supposed to be most precarious he still continued to live, and became
+even stronger. But he remained shut up at Tretton, and utterly refused
+to see any emissary of any creditor. To give Mr. Tyrrwhit his due, it
+must be acknowledged that he personally sent no emissaries, having
+contented himself with putting the business into the hands of a very
+sharp attorney. But there were emissaries from others, who after a while
+were excluded altogether from the park.
+
+Here Mr. Scarborough continued to live, coming out on to the lawn in his
+easy-chair, and there smoking his cigar and reading his French novel
+through the hot July days. To tell the truth, he cared very little for
+the emissaries, excepting so far as they had been allowed to interfere
+with his own personal comfort. In these days he had down with him two or
+three friends from London, who were good enough to make up for him a
+whist-table in the country; but he found the chief interest in his life
+in the occasional visits of his younger son.
+
+"I look upon Mountjoy as utterly gone," he said.
+
+"But he has utterly gone," his other son replied.
+
+"As to that I care nothing. I do not believe that a man can be murdered
+without leaving a trace of his murder. A man cannot even throw himself
+overboard without being missed. I know nothing of his whereabouts,--
+nothing at all. But I must say that his absence is a relief to me.
+The only comfort left to me in this world is in your presence, and
+in those material good things which I am still able to enjoy."
+
+This assertion as to his ignorance about his eldest son the squire
+repeated again and again to his chosen heir, feeling it was only
+probable that Augustus might participate in the belief which he knew to
+be only too common. There was, no doubt, an idea prevalent that the
+squire and the captain were in league together to cheat the creditors,
+and that the squire, who in these days received much undeserved credit
+for Machiavellian astuteness, knew more than any one else respecting his
+eldest son's affairs. But, in truth, he at first knew nothing, and in
+making these assurances to his younger son was altogether wasting his
+breath, for his younger son knew everything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+Mr. Scarborough had a niece, one Florence Mountjoy, to whom it had been
+intended that Captain Scarborough should be married. There had been no
+considerations of money when the intention had been first formed, for
+the lady was possessed of no more than ten thousand pounds, which would
+have been as nothing to the prospects of the captain when the idea was
+first entertained. But Mr. Scarborough was fond of people who belonged
+to him. In this way he had been much attached to his late
+brother-in-law, General Mountjoy, and had perceived that his niece was
+beautiful and graceful, and was in every way desirable, as one who might
+be made in part thus to belong to himself. Florence herself, when the
+idea of the marriage was first suggested to her by her mother, was only
+eighteen, and received it with awe rather than with pleasure or
+abhorrence. To her her cousin Mountjoy had always been a most
+magnificent personage. He was only seven years her senior, but he had
+early in life assumed the manners, as he had also done the vices, of
+mature age, and loomed large in the girl's eyes as a man of undoubted
+wealth and fashion. At that period, three years antecedent to his
+father's declaration, he had no doubt been much in debt, but his debts
+had not been generally known, and his father had still thought that a
+marriage with his cousin might serve to settle him--to use the phrase
+which was common with himself. From that day to this the courtship had
+gone on, and the squire had taught himself to believe that the two
+cousins were all but engaged to each other. He had so considered it, at
+any rate, for two years, till during the last final year he had resolved
+to throw the captain overboard. And even during this year there had been
+periods of hope, for he had not finally made up his mind till but a
+short time before he had put it in practice. No doubt he was fond of his
+niece in accordance with his own capability for fondness. He would
+caress her and stroke her hair, and took delight in having her near to
+him. And of true love for such a girl his heart was quite capable. He
+was a good-natured, fearless, but not a selfish man, to whom the fate in
+life of this poor girl was a matter of real concern.
+
+And his eldest son, who was by no means good-natured, had something of
+the same nature. He did love truly,--after his own fashion of loving. He
+would have married his cousin at any moment, with or without her ten
+thousand pounds,--for of all human beings he was the most reckless. And
+yet in his breast was present a feeling of honor of which his father
+knew nothing. When it was explained to him that his mother's fair name
+was to be aspersed,--a mother whom he could but faintly remember,--the
+threat did bring with it its own peculiar agony. But of this the squire
+neither felt or knew anything. The lady had long been dead, and could be
+none the better or the worse for aught that could be said of her. To the
+captain it was not so, and it was preferable to him to believe his
+father to be dishonest than his mother. He, at any rate, was in truth in
+love with his cousin Florence, and when the story was told to him one of
+its first effects was the bearing which it would have upon her mind.
+
+It has been said that within two or three days after the communication
+he had left London. He had done so in order that he might at once go
+down to Cheltenham and see his cousin. There Miss Mountjoy lived, with
+her mother.
+
+The time had been when Florence Mountjoy had been proud of her cousin,
+and, to tell the truth of her feelings, though she had never loved him,
+she had almost done so. Rumors had made their way through even to her
+condition of life, and she in her innocence had gradually been taught to
+believe that Captain Scarborough was not a man whom she could be safe in
+loving. And there had, perhaps, come another as to whom her feelings
+were different. She had, no doubt, at first thought that she would be
+willing to become her cousin's wife, but she had never said as much
+herself. And now both her heart and mind were set against him.
+
+Captain Scarborough, as he went down to Cheltenham, turned the matter
+over in his mind, thinking within himself how best he might carry out
+his project. His intention was to obtain from his cousin an assurance of
+her love, and a promise that it should not be shaken by any stories
+which his father might tell respecting him. For this purpose he he must
+make known to her the story his father had told him, and his own
+absolute disbelief in it. Much else must be confided to her. He must
+acknowledge in part his own debts, and must explain that his father had
+taken this course in order to defraud the creditors. All this would be
+very difficult; but he must trust in her innocence and generosity. He
+thought that the condition of his affairs might be so represented that
+the story should tend rather to win her heart toward him than to turn it
+away. Her mother had hitherto always been in his favor, and he had, in
+fact, been received almost as an Apollo in the house at Cheltenham.
+
+"Florence," he said, "I must see you alone for a few minutes. I know
+that your mother will trust you with me." This was spoken immediately on
+his arrival, and Mrs. Mountjoy at once left the room. She had been
+taught to believe that it was her daughter's duty to marry her cousin;
+and though she knew that the captain had done much to embarrass the
+property, she thought that this would be the surest way to settle him.
+The heir of Tretton Park was, in her estimation, so great a man that
+very much was to be endured at his hands.
+
+The meeting between the two cousins was very long, and when Mrs.
+Mountjoy at last returned unannounced to the room she found her daughter
+in tears.
+
+"Oh, Florence, what is the matter?" asked her mother.
+
+The poor girl said nothing, but still continued to weep, while the
+captain stood by looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
+
+"What is it, Mountjoy?" said Mrs. Mountjoy, turning to him.
+
+"I have told Florence some of my troubles," said he, "and they seemed to
+have changed her mind toward me."
+
+There was something in this which was detestable to Florence,--an
+unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of
+love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess. She knew
+that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to
+be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend. He had blurted
+it all out roughly,--the story as told by his father of his mother's
+dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened
+loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,--and added his
+conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a
+thorough rascal. The full story of his debts he kept back, not with any
+predetermined falseness, but because it is so difficult for a man to own
+that he has absolutely ruined himself by his own folly. It was not
+wonderful that the girl should not have understood such a story as had
+then been told her. Why was he defending his mother? Why was he accusing
+his father? The accusations against her uncle, whom she did know, were
+more fearful to her than these mysterious charges against her aunt, whom
+she did not know, from which her son defended her. But then he had
+spoken passionately of his own love, and she had understood that. He had
+besought her to confess that she loved him, and then she had at once
+become stubborn. There was something in the word "confess" which grated
+against her feelings. It seemed to imply a conviction on his part that
+she did love him. She had never told him so, and was now sure that it
+was not so. When he had pressed her she could only weep. But in her
+weeping she never for a moment yielded. She never uttered a single word
+on which he could be enabled to build a hope. Then he had become blacker
+and still blacker, fiercer and still fiercer, more and more earnest in
+his purpose, till at last he asked her whom it was that she loved--as she
+could not love him. He knew well whom it was that he suspected;--and she
+knew also. But he had no right to demand any statement from her on that
+head. She did not think that the man loved her; nor did she know what to
+say or to think of her own feelings. Were he, the other man, to come to
+her, she would only bid him go away; but why she should so bid him she
+had hardly known. But now this dark frowning captain, with his big
+mustache and his military look, and his general aspect of invincible
+power, threatened the other man.
+
+"He came to Tretton as my friend," he said, "and by Heaven if he stands
+in my way, if he dare to cross between you and me, he shall answer it
+with his life!"
+
+The name had not been mentioned; but this had been very terrible to
+Florence, and she could only weep.
+
+He went away, refusing to stay to dinner, but said that on the following
+afternoon he would again return. In the street of the town he met one of
+his creditors, who had discovered his journey to Cheltenham, and had
+followed him.
+
+"Oh, Captain Mountjoy, what is all dis that they are talking about in
+London?"
+
+"What are they talking about?"
+
+"De inheritance!" said the man, who was a veritable Jew, looking up
+anxiously in his face.
+
+The man had his acceptance for a very large sum of money, with an
+assurance that it should be paid on his father's death, for which he had
+given him about two thousand pounds in cash.
+
+"You must ask my father."
+
+"But is it true?"
+
+"You must ask my father. Upon my word, I can tell you nothing else. He
+has concocted a tale of which I for one do not believe a word. I never
+heard of the story till he condescended to tell it me the other day.
+Whether it be true or whether it be false, you and I, Mr. Hart, are in
+the same boat."
+
+"But you have had de money."
+
+"And you have got the bill. You can't do anything by coming after me. My
+father seems to have contrived a very clever plan by which he can rob
+you; but he will rob me at the same time. You may believe me or not as
+you please; but that you will find to be the truth."
+
+Then Mr. Hart left him, but certainly did not believe a word the captain
+had said to him.
+
+To her mother Florence would only disclose her persistent intention of
+not marrying her cousin. Mrs. Mountjoy, over whose spirit the glamour of
+the captain's prestige was still potent, said much in his favor.
+Everybody had always intended the marriage, and it would be the setting
+right of everything. The captain, no doubt, owed a large sum of money,
+but that would be paid by Florence's fortune. So little did the poor
+lady know of the captain's condition. When she had been told that there
+had been a great quarrel between the captain and his father, she
+declared that the marriage would set that all right.
+
+"But, mamma, Captain Scarborough is not to have the property at all."
+
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy, believing thoroughly in entails, had declared that
+all Heaven could not prevent it.
+
+"But that makes no difference," said the daughter; "if I--I--I loved him
+I would marry him so much the more, if he had nothing."
+
+Then Mrs. Mountjoy declared that she could not understand it at all.
+
+On the next day Captain Scarborough came, according to his promise, but
+nothing that he could say would induce Florence to come into his
+presence. Her mother declared that she was so ill that it would be
+wicked to disturb her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY.
+
+
+Together with Augustus Scarborough at Cambridge had been one Harry
+Annesley, and he it was to whom the captain in his wrath had sworn to
+put an end if he should come between him and his love. Harry Annesley
+had been introduced to the captain by his brother, and an intimacy had
+grown up between them. He had brought him to Tretton Park when Florence
+was there, and Harry had since made his own way to Cheltenham, and had
+endeavored to plead his own cause after his own fashion. This he had
+done after the good old English plan, which is said to be somewhat
+loutish, but is not without its efficacy. He had looked at her, and
+danced with her, and done the best with his gloves and his cravat, and
+had let her see by twenty unmistakable signs that in order to be
+perfectly happy he must be near her. Her gloves, and her flowers, and
+her other little properties were sweeter to him than any scents, and
+were more valuable in his eyes than precious stones. But he had never as
+yet actually asked her to love him. But she was so quick a linguist that
+she had understood down to the last letter what all these tokens had
+meant. Her cousin, Captain Scarborough, was to her magnificent,
+powerful, but terrible withal. She had asked herself a thousand times
+whether it would be possible for her to love him and to become his wife.
+She had never quite given even to herself an answer to this question
+till she had suddenly found herself enabled to do so by his
+over-confidence in asking her to confess that she loved him. She had
+never acknowledged anything, even to herself, as to Harry Annesley. She
+had never told herself that it would be possible that he should ask her
+any such question. She had a wild, dreamy, fearful feeling that,
+although it would be possible to her to refuse her cousin, it would be
+impossible that she should marry any other while he should still be
+desirous of making her his wife. And now Captain Scarborough had
+threatened Harry Annesley, not indeed by name, but still clearly
+enough. Any dream of her own in that direction must be a vain dream.
+
+As Harry Annesley is going to be what is generally called the hero of
+this story, it is necessary that something should be said of the
+particulars of his life and existence up to this period. There will be
+found to be nothing very heroic about him. He is a young man with more
+than a fair allowance of a young man's folly;--it may also be said of a
+young man's weakness. But I myself am inclined to think that there was
+but little of a young man's selfishness, with nothing of falseness or
+dishonesty; and I am therefore tempted to tell his story.
+
+He was the son of a clergyman, and the eldest of a large family of
+children. But as he was the acknowledged heir to his mother's brother,
+who was the squire of the parish of which his father was rector, it was
+not thought necessary that he should follow any profession. This uncle
+was the Squire of Buston, and was, after all, not a rich man himself.
+His whole property did not exceed two thousand a year, an income which
+fifty years since was supposed to be sufficient for the moderate wants
+of a moderate country gentleman; but though Buston be not very far
+removed from the centre of everything, being in Hertfordshire and not
+more than forty miles from London, Mr. Prosper lived so retired a life,
+and was so far removed from the ways of men, that he apparently did not
+know but that his heir was as completely entitled to lead an idle life
+as though he were the son of a duke or a brewer. It must not, however,
+be imagined that Mr. Prosper was especially attached to his nephew. When
+the boy left the Charter-house, where his uncle had paid his
+school-bills, he was sent to Cambridge, with an allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds a year, and that allowance was still continued to him,
+with an assurance that under no circumstances could it ever be
+increased. At college he had been successful, and left Cambridge with a
+college fellowship. He therefore left it with one hundred and
+seventy-five pounds added to his income, and was considered by all those
+at Buston Rectory to be a rich young man.
+
+But Harry did not find that his combined income amounted to riches amid
+a world of idleness. At Buston he was constantly told by his uncle of
+the necessity of economy. Indeed, Mr. Prosper, who was a sickly little
+man about fifty years of age, always spoke of himself as though he
+intended to live for another half-century. He rarely walked across the
+park to the rectory, and once a week, on Sundays, entertained the
+rectory family. A sad occasion it generally was to the elder of the
+rectory children, who were thus doomed to abandon the loud pleasantries
+of their own home for the sober Sunday solemnities of the Hall. It was
+not that the Squire of Buston was peculiarly a religious man, or that
+the rector was the reverse: but the parson was joyous, whereas the other
+was solemn. The squire,--who never went to church, because he was supposed
+to be ill,--made up for the deficiency by his devotional tendencies when
+the children were at the Hall. He read through a sermon after dinner,
+unintelligibly and even inaudibly. At this his brother-in-law, who had
+an evening service in his own church, of course never was present; but
+Mrs. Annesley and the girls were there, and the younger children. But
+Harry Annesley had absolutely declined; and his uncle having found out
+that he never attended the church service, although he always left the
+Hall with his father, made this a ground for a quarrel. It at last came
+to pass that Mr. Prosper, who was jealous and irritable, would hardly
+speak to his nephew; but the two hundred and fifty pounds went on, with
+many bickerings on the subject between the parson and the squire. Once,
+when the squire spoke of discontinuing it, Harry's father reminded him
+that the young man had been brought up in absolute idleness, in
+conformity with his uncle's desire. This the squire denied in strong
+language; but Harry had not hitherto run loudly in debt, nor kicked over
+the traces very outrageously; and as he absolutely must be the heir, the
+allowance was permitted to go on.
+
+There was one lady who conceived all manner of bad things as to Harry
+Annesley, because, as she alleged, of the want of a profession and of
+any fixed income. Mrs. Mountjoy, Florence's mother, was this lady.
+Florence herself had read every word in Harry's language, not knowing,
+indeed, that she had read anything, but still never having missed a
+single letter. Mrs. Mountjoy also had read a good deal, though not all,
+and dreaded the appearance of Harry as a declared lover. In her eyes
+Captain Scarborough was a very handsome, very powerful, and very grand
+personage; but she feared that Florence was being induced to refuse her
+allegiance to this sovereign by the interference of her other very
+indifferent suitor. What would be Buston and two thousand a year, as
+compared with all the glories and limitless income of the great Tretton
+property? Captain Scarborough, with his mustaches and magnificence, was
+just the man who would be sure to become a peer. She had always heard
+the income fixed at thirty thousand a year. What would a few debts
+signify to thirty thousand a year? Such had been her thoughts up to the
+period of Captain Scarborough's late visit, when he had come to
+Cheltenham, and had renewed his demand for Florence's hand somewhat
+roughly. He had spoken ambiguous words, dreadful words, declaring that
+an internecine quarrel had taken place between him and his father; but
+these words, though they had been very dreadful, had been altogether
+misunderstood by Mrs. Mountjoy. The property she knew to be entailed,
+and she knew that when a property was entailed the present owner of it
+had nothing to do with its future disposition. Captain Scarborough, at
+any rate, was anxious for the marriage, and Mrs. Mountjoy was inclined
+to accept him, encumbered as he now was with his father's wrath, in
+preference to poor Harry Annesley.
+
+In June Harry came up to London, and there learned at his club the
+singular story in regard to old Mr. Scarborough and his son. Mr.
+Scarborough had declared his son illegitimate, and all the world knew
+now that he was utterly penniless and hopelessly in debt. That he had
+been greatly embarrassed Harry had known for many months, and added to
+that was now the fact, very generally believed, that he was not and
+never had been the heir to Tretton Park. All that still increasing
+property about Tretton, on which so many hopes had been founded, would
+belong to his brother. Harry, as he heard the tale, immediately
+connected it with Florence. He had, of course, known the captain was a
+suitor to the girl's hand, and there had been a time when he thought
+that his own hopes were consequently vain. Gradually the conviction
+dawned upon him that Florence did not love the grand warrior, that she
+was afraid of him rather and awe-struck. It would be terrible now were
+she brought to marry him by this feeling of awe. Then he learned that
+the warrior had gone down to Cheltenham, and in the restlessness of his
+spirit he pursued him. When he reached Cheltenham the warrior had
+already gone.
+
+"The property is certainly entailed," said Mrs. Mountjoy. He had called
+at once at the house and saw the mother, but Florence was discreetly
+sent away to her own room when the dangerous young man was admitted.
+
+"He is not Mr. Scarborough's eldest son at all," said Harry; "that is,
+in the eye of the law." Then he had to undertake that task, very
+difficult for a young man, of explaining to her all the circumstances of
+the case.
+
+But there was something in them so dreadful to the lady's imagination
+that he failed for a long time to make her comprehend it. "Do you mean
+to say that Mr. Scarborough was not married to his own wife?"
+
+"Not at first."
+
+"And that he knew it?"
+
+"No doubt he knew it. He confesses as much himself."
+
+"What a very wicked man he must be!" said Mrs. Mountjoy. Harry could
+only shrug his shoulder. "And he meant to rob Augustus all through?"
+Harry again shrugged his shoulder. "Is it not much more probable that if
+he could be so very wicked he would be willing to deny his eldest son in
+order to save paying the debts?"
+
+Harry could only declare that the facts were as he told them, or at
+least that all London believed them to be so, that at any rate Captain
+Mountjoy had gambled so recklessly as to put himself for ever and ever
+out of reach of a shilling of the property, and that it was clearly the
+duty of Mrs. Mountjoy, as Florence's mother, not to accept him as a
+suitor.
+
+It was only by slow degrees that the conversation had arrived at this
+pass. Harry had never as yet declared his own love either to the mother
+or daughter, and now appeared simply as a narrator of this terrible
+story. But at this point it did appear to him that he must introduce
+himself in another guise.
+
+"The fact is, Mrs. Mountjoy," he said, starting to his feet, "that I am
+in love with your daughter myself."
+
+"And therefore you have come here to vilify Captain Scarborough."
+
+"I have come," said he, "at any rate to tell the truth. If it be as I
+say, you cannot think it right that he should marry your daughter. I say
+nothing of myself, but that, at any rate, cannot be."
+
+"It is no business of yours, Mr. Annesley."
+
+"Except that I would fain think that her business should be mine."
+
+But he could not prevail with Mrs. Mountjoy either on this day or the
+next to allow him to see Florence, and at last was obliged to leave
+Cheltenham without having done so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+CAPTAIN SCARBOROUGH'S DISAPPEARANCE.
+
+
+A few days after the visits to Cheltenham, described in the last
+chapters, Harry Annesley, coming down a passage by the side of the
+Junior United Service Club into Charles Street, suddenly met Captain
+Scarborough at two o'clock in the morning. Where Harry had been at that
+hour need not now be explained, but it may be presumed that he had not
+been drinking tea with any of his female relatives.
+
+Captain Scarborough had just come out of some neighboring club, where he
+had certainly been playing, and where, to all appearances, he had been
+drinking also. That there should have been no policemen in the street
+was not remarkable, but there was no one else there present to give any
+account of what took place during the five minutes in which the two men
+remained together. Harry, who was at the moment surprised by the
+encounter, would have passed the captain by without notice, had he been
+allowed to do so; but this the captain perceived, and stopped him
+suddenly, taking him roughly by the collar of his coat. This Harry
+naturally resented, and before a word of intelligible explanation had
+been given the two young men had quarrelled.
+
+Captain Scarborough had received a long letter from Mrs. Mountjoy,
+praying for explanation of circumstances which could not be explained,
+and stating over and over again that all her information had come from
+Harry Annesley.
+
+The captain now called him an interfering, meddlesome idiot, and shook
+him violently while holding him in his grasp. This was a usage which
+Harry was not the man to endure, and there soon arose a scuffle, in
+which blows had passed between them. The captain stuck to his prey,
+shaking him again and again in his drunken wrath, till Harry, roused to
+a passion almost equal to that of his opponent, flung him at last
+against the corner of the club railings, and there left his foe
+sprawling upon the ground, having struck his head violently against the
+ground as he fell. Harry passed on to his own bed, indifferent, as it
+was afterwards said, to the fate of his antagonist. All this occupied
+probably five minutes in the doing, but was seen by no human eye.
+
+As the occurrence of that night was subsequently made the ground for
+heavy accusation against Harry Annesley, it has been told here with
+sufficient minuteness to show what might be said in justification or in
+condemnation of his conduct,--to show what might be said if the truth
+were spoken. For, indeed, in the discussions which arose on the subject,
+much was said which was not true. When he had retired from the scuffle
+on that night, Harry had certainly not dreamed that any serious damage
+had been done to the man who had certainly been altogether to blame in
+his provocation of the quarrel. Had he kept his temper and feelings
+completely under control, and knocked down Captain Scarborough only in
+self-defence; had he not allowed himself to be roused to wrath by
+treatment which could not but give rise to wrath in a young man's bosom,
+no doubt, when his foe lay at his feet, he would have stooped to pick
+him up, and have tended his wounds. But such was not Harry's
+character,--nor that of any of the young men with whom I have been
+acquainted. Such, however, was the conduct apparently expected from him
+by many, when the circumstances of those five minutes were brought to
+the light. But, on the other hand, had passion not completely got the
+better of him, had he not at the moment considered the attack made upon
+him to amount to misconduct so gross as to supersede all necessity for
+gentle usage on his own part, he would hardly have left the man to live
+or die as chance would have it. Boiling with passion, he went his way,
+and did leave the man on the pavement, not caring much, or rather, not
+thinking much, whether his victim might live or die.
+
+On the next day Harry Annesley left London and went down to Buston,
+having heard no word farther about the captain. He did not start till
+late in the afternoon, and during the day took some trouble to make
+himself conspicuous about the town; but he heard nothing of Captain
+Scarborough. Twice he walked along Charles Street, and looked at the
+spot on which he had stood on the night before in what might have been
+deadly conflict. Then he told himself that he had not been in the least
+wounded, that the ferocious maddened man had attempted to do no more
+than shake him, that his coat had suffered and not himself, and that in
+return he had certainly struck the captain with all his violence. There
+were probably some regrets, but he said not a word on the subject to any
+one, and so he left London.
+
+For three or four days nothing was heard of the captain, nor was
+anything said about him. He had lodgings in town, at which he was no
+doubt missed, but he also had quarters at the barracks, at which he did
+not often sleep, but to which it was thought possible on the next
+morning that he might have betaken himself. Before the evening of that
+day had come he had no doubt been missed, but in the world at large no
+special mention was made of his absence for some time. Then, among the
+haunts which he was known to frequent, questions began to be asked as to
+his whereabouts, and to be answered by doubtful assertions that nothing
+had been seen or heard of him for the last sixty or seventy hours.
+
+It must be remembered that at this time Captain Scarborough was still
+the subject of universal remark, because of the story told as to his
+birth. His father had declared him to be illegitimate, and had thereby
+robbed all his creditors. Captain Scarborough was a man quite remarkable
+enough to insure universal attention for such a tale as this; but now,
+added to his illegitimacy was his disappearance. There was at first no
+idea that he had been murdered. It became quickly known to all the world
+that he had, on the night in question, lost a large sum of money at a
+whist-club which he frequented, and, in accordance with the custom of
+the club, had not paid the money on the spot.
+
+The fatal Monday had come round, and the money undoubtedly was not paid.
+Then he was declared a defaulter, and in due process of time his name
+was struck off the club books, with some serious increase of the
+ignominy hitherto sustained.
+
+During the last fortnight or more Captain Scarborough's name had been
+subjected to many remarks and to much disgrace. But this non-payment of
+the money lost at whist was considered to be the turning-point. A man
+might be declared illegitimate, and might in consequence of that or any
+other circumstance defraud all his creditors. A man might conspire with
+his father with the object of doing this fraudulently, as Captain
+Scarborough was no doubt thought to have done by most of his
+acquaintances. All this he might do and not become so degraded but that
+his friends would talk to him and play cards with him. But to have sat
+down to a whist-table and not be able to pay the stakes was held to be
+so foul a disgrace that men did not wonder that he should have
+disappeared.
+
+Such was the cause alleged for the captain's disappearance among his
+intimate friends; but by degrees more than his intimate friends came to
+talk of it. In a short time his name was in all the newspapers, and
+there was not a constable in London whose mind was not greatly exercised
+on the matter. All Scotland Yard and the police-officers were busy. Mr.
+Grey, in Lincoln's Inn, was much troubled on the matter. By degrees
+facts had made themselves clear to his mind, and he had become aware
+that the captain had been born before his client's marriage. He was
+ineffably shocked at the old squire's villany in the matter, but
+declared to all to whom he spoke openly on the subject that he did not
+see how the sinner could be punished. He never thought that the father
+and son were in a conspiracy together. Nor had he believed that they had
+arranged the young man's disappearance in order the more thoroughly to
+defraud the creditors. They could not, at any rate, harm a man of whose
+whereabouts they were unaware and who, for all they knew, might be dead.
+But the reader is already aware that this surmise on the part of Mr.
+Grey was unfounded.
+
+The captain had been absent for three weeks when Augustus Scarborough
+went down for a second time to Tretton Park, in order to discuss the
+matter with his father.
+
+Augustus had, with much equanimity and a steady, fixed purpose, settled
+himself down to the position as elder son. He pretended no anger to his
+father for the injury intended, and was only anxious that his own rights
+should be confirmed. In this he found that no great difficulty stood in
+his way. The creditors would contest his rights when his father should
+die; but for such contest he would be prepared. He had no doubt as to
+his own position, but thought that it would be safer,--and that it would
+also probably be cheaper,--to purchase the acquiescence of all claimants
+than to encounter the expense of a prolonged trial, to which there might
+be more than one appeal, and of which the end after all would be
+doubtful.
+
+No very great sum of money would probably be required. No very great sum
+would, at any rate, be offered. But such an arrangement would certainly
+be easier if his brother were not present to be confronted with the men
+whom he had duped.
+
+The squire was still ill down at Tretton, but not so ill but that he had
+his wits about him in all their clearness. Some said that he was not ill
+at all, but that in the present state of affairs the retirement suited
+him. But the nature of the operation which he had undergone was known to
+many who would not have him harassed in his present condition. In truth,
+he had only to refuse admission to all visitors and to take care that
+his commands were carried out in order to avoid disagreeable intrusions.
+
+"Do you mean to say that a man can do such a thing as this and that no
+one can touch him for it?" This was an exclamation made by Mr. Tyrrwhit
+to his lawyer, in a tone of aggrieved disgust.
+
+"He hasn't done anything," said the lawyer. "He only thought of doing
+something, and has since repented. You cannot arrest a man because he
+had contemplated the picking of your pocket, especially when he has
+shown that he is resolved not to pick it."
+
+"As far as I can learn, nothing has been heard about him as yet," said
+the son to the father.
+
+"Those limbs weren't his that were picked out of the Thames near
+Blackfriars Bridge?"
+
+"They belonged to a poor cripple who was murdered two months since."
+
+"And that body that was found down among the Yorkshire Hills?"
+
+"He was a peddler. There is nothing to induce a belief that Mountjoy has
+killed himself or been killed. In the former case his dead body would be
+found or his live body would be missing. For the second there is no
+imaginable cause for suspicion."
+
+"Then where the devil is he?" said the anxious father.
+
+"Ah, that's the difficulty. But I can imagine no position in which a man
+might be more tempted to hide himself. He is disgraced on every side,
+and could hardly show his face in London after the money he has lost.
+You would not have paid his gambling debts?"
+
+"Certainly not," said the father. "There must be an end to all things."
+
+"Nor could I. Within the last month past he has drawn from me every
+shilling that I have had at my immediate command."
+
+"Why did you give 'em to him?"
+
+"It would be difficult to explain all the reasons. He was then my elder
+brother, and it suited me to have him somewhat under my hand. At any
+rate I did do so, and am unable for the present to do more. Looking
+round about, I do not see where it was possible for him to raise a
+sovereign as soon as it was once known that he was nobody."
+
+"What will become of him?" said the father. "I don't like the idea of
+his being starved. He can't live without something to live upon."
+
+"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," said the son. "For lambs such
+as he there always seems to be pasture provided of one sort or another."
+
+"You would not like to have to trust to such pastures," said the
+father.
+
+"Nor should I like to be hanged; but I should have to be hanged if I had
+committed murder. Think of the chances which he has had, and the way in
+which he has misused them. Although illegitimate, he was to have had the
+whole property,--of which not a shilling belongs to him; and he has not
+lost it because it was not his own, but has simply gambled it away among
+the Jews. What can happen to a man in such a condition better than to
+turn up as a hunter among the Rocky Mountains or as a gold-digger in
+Australia? In this last adventure he seems to have plunged horribly, and
+to have lost over three thousand pounds. You wouldn't have paid that for
+him?"
+
+"Not again;--certainly not again."
+
+"Then what could he do better than disappear? I suppose I shall have to
+make him an allowance some of these days, and if he can live and keep
+himself dark I will do so."
+
+There was in this a tacit allusion to his father's speedy death which
+was grim enough; but the father passed it by without any expression of
+displeasure. He certainly owed much to his younger son, and was willing
+to pay it by quiescence. Let them both forbear. Such was the language
+which he held to himself in thinking of his younger son. Augustus was
+certainly behaving well to him. Not a word of rebuke had passed his lips
+as to the infamous attempt at spoliation which had been made. The old
+squire felt grateful for his younger son's conduct, but yet in his heart
+of hearts he preferred the elder.
+
+"He has denuded me of every penny," said Augustus, "and I must ask you
+to refund me something of what has gone."
+
+"He has kept me very bare. A man with so great a propensity for getting
+rid of money I think no father ever before had to endure."
+
+"You have had the last of it."
+
+"I do not know that. If I live, and he lets me know his whereabouts, I
+cannot leave him penniless. I do feel that a great injustice has been
+done him."
+
+"I don't exactly see it," said Augustus.
+
+"Because you're too hard-hearted to put yourself in another man's place.
+He was my eldest son."
+
+"He thought that he was."
+
+"And should have remained so had there been a hope for him," said the
+squire, roused to temporary anger. Augustus only shrugged his
+shoulders. "But there is no good talking about it."
+
+"Not the least in the world. Mr. Grey, I suppose, knows the truth at
+last. I shall have to get three or four thousand pounds from you, or I
+too must resort to the Jews. I shall do it, at any rate, under better
+circumstances than my brother."
+
+Some arrangement was at last made which was satisfactory to the son, and
+which we must presume that the father found to be endurable. Then the
+son took his leave, and went back to London, with the understood
+intention of pushing the inquiries as to his brother's existence and
+whereabouts.
+
+The sudden and complete disappearance of Captain Scarborough struck Mrs.
+Mountjoy with the deepest awe. It was not at first borne in upon her to
+believe that Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, an officer in the
+Coldstreams, and the acknowledged heir to the Tretton property, had
+vanished away as a stray street-sweeper might do, or some milliner's
+lowest work-woman. But at last there were advertisements in all the
+newspapers and placards on all the walls, and Mrs. Mountjoy did
+understand that the captain was gone. She could as yet hardly believe
+that he was no longer heir to Tretton: and in such short discussions
+with Florence as were necessary on the subject she preferred to express
+no opinion whatever as to his conduct. But she would by no means give
+way when urged to acknowledge that no marriage between Florence and the
+captain was any longer to be regarded as possible. While the captain was
+away the matter should be left as if in abeyance; but this by no means
+suited the young lady's views. Mrs. Mountjoy was not a reticent woman,
+and had no doubt been too free in whispering among her friends something
+of her daughter's position. This Florence had resented; but it had still
+been done, and in Cheltenham generally she was regarded as an engaged
+young lady. It had been in vain that she had denied that it was so. Her
+mother's word on such a subject was supposed to be more credible that
+her own; and now this man with whom she was believed to be so closely
+connected had disappeared from the world among the most disreputable
+circumstances. But when she explained the difficulty to her mother her
+mother bade her hold her tongue for the present, and seemed to hold out
+a hope that the captain might at last be restored to his old position.
+
+"Let them restore him ever so much, he would never be anything to me,
+mamma." Then Mrs. Mountjoy would only shake her head and purse her lips.
+
+On the evening of the day after the fracas in the street Harry Annesley
+went down to Buston, and there remained for the next two or three days,
+holding his tongue absolutely as to the adventure of that night. There
+was no one at Buston to whom he would probably have made known the
+circumstances. But there was clinging to it a certain flavor of
+disreputable conduct on his own part which sealed his lips altogether.
+The louder and more frequent the tidings which reached his ears as to
+the captain's departure, the more strongly did he feel that duty
+required him to tell what he knew upon the matter. Many thoughts and
+many fears encompassed him. At first was the idea that he had killed the
+man by the violence of his blow, or that his death had been caused by
+the fall. Then it occurred to him that it was impossible that
+Scarborough should have been killed and that no account should be given
+as to the finding of the body. At last he persuaded himself that he
+could not have killed the man, but he was assured at the same time that
+the disappearance must in some sort have been occasioned by what then
+took place. And it could not but be that the captain, if alive, should
+be aware of the nature of the struggle which had taken place. He heard,
+chiefly from the newspapers, the full record of the captain's
+illegitimacy; he heard of his condition with the creditors; he heard of
+those gambling debts which were left unpaid at the club. He saw it also
+stated--and repeated--that these were the grounds for the man's
+disappearance. It was quite credible that the man should disappear, or
+endeavor to disappear, under such a cloud of difficulties. It did not
+require that he and his violence should be adduced as an extra cause.
+Indeed, had the man been minded to vanish before the encounter, he might
+in all human probability have been deterred by the circumstances of the
+quarrel. It gave no extra reason for his disappearance, and could in no
+wise be counted with it were he to tell the whole story, in Scotland
+Yard. He had been grossly misused on the occasion, and had escaped from
+such misusage by the only means in his power. But still he felt that,
+had he told the story, people far and wide would have connected his name
+with the man's absence, and, worse again, that Florence's name would
+have become entangled with it also. For the first day or two he had from
+hour to hour abstained from telling all that he knew, and then when the
+day or two were passed, and when a week had run by,--when a fortnight had
+been allowed to go,--it was impossible for him not to hold his tongue.
+
+He became nervous, unhappy, and irritated down at Buston, with his
+father and mother and sister's, but more especially with his uncle.
+Previous to this his uncle for a couple of months had declined to see
+him; now he was sent for to the Hall and interrogated daily on this
+special subject. Mr. Prosper was aware that his nephew had been intimate
+with Augustus Scarborough, and that he might, therefore, be presumed to
+know much about the family. Mr. Prosper took the keenest interest in the
+illegitimacy and the impecuniosity and final disappearance of the
+captain, and no doubt did, in his cross-examinations, discover the fact
+that Harry was unwilling to answer his questions. He found out for the
+first time that Harry was acquainted with the captain, and also
+contrived to extract from him the name of Miss Mountjoy. But he could
+learn nothing else, beyond Harry's absolute unwillingness to talk upon
+the subject, which was in itself much. It must be understood that Harry
+was not specially reverential in these communications. Indeed, he gave
+his uncle to understand that he regarded his questions as impertinent,
+and at last declared his intention of not coming to the Hall any more
+for the present. Then Mr. Prosper whispered to his sister that he was
+quite sure that Harry Annesley knew more than he choose to say as to
+Captain Scarborough's whereabouts.
+
+"My dear Peter," said Mrs. Annesley, "I really think that you are doing
+poor Harry an injustice."
+
+Mrs. Annesley was always on her guard to maintain something like an
+affectionate intercourse between her own family and the squire.
+
+"My dear Anne, you do not see into a millstone as far as I do. You never
+did."
+
+"But, Peter, you really shouldn't say such things of Harry. When all the
+police-officers themselves are looking about to catch up anything in
+their way, they would catch him up at a moment's notice if they heard
+that a magistrate of the county had expressed such an opinion."
+
+"Why don't he tell me?" said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"There's nothing to tell."
+
+"Ah, that's your opinion--because you can't see into a millstone. I tell
+you that Harry knows more about this Captain Scarborough than any one
+else. They were very intimate together."
+
+"Harry only just knew him."
+
+"Well, you'll see. I tell you that Harry's name will become mixed up
+with Captain Scarborough's, and I hope that it will be in no
+discreditable manner. I hope so, that's all." Harry in the mean time
+had returned to London, in order to escape his uncle, and to be on the
+spot to learn anything that might come in his way as to the now
+acknowledged mystery respecting the captain.
+
+Such was the state of things at the commencement of the period to which
+my story refers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+Harry Annesley, when he found himself in London, could not for a moment
+shake off that feeling of nervous anxiety as to the fate of Mountjoy
+Scarborough which had seized hold of him. In every newspaper which he
+took in his hand he looked first for the paragraph respecting the fate
+of the missing man, which the paper was sure to contain in one of its
+columns. It was his habit during these few days to breakfast at a club,
+and he could not abstain from speaking to his neighbors about the
+wonderful Scarborough incident. Every man was at this time willing to
+speak on the subject, and Harry's interest might not have seemed to be
+peculiar; but it became known that he had been acquainted with the
+missing man, and Harry in conversation said much more than it would have
+been prudent for him to do on the understanding that he wished to remain
+unconnected with the story. Men asked him questions as though he were
+likely to know; and he would answer them, asserting that he knew
+nothing, but still leaving an impression behind that he did know more
+than he chose to avow. Many inquiries were made daily at this time in
+Scotland Yard as to the captain. These, no doubt, chiefly came from the
+creditors and their allies. But Harry Annesley became known among those
+who asked for information as Henry Annesley, Esq., late of St. John's
+College, Cambridge; and even the police were taught to think that there
+was something noticeable in the interest which he displayed.
+
+On the fourth day after his arrival in London, just at that time of the
+year when everybody was supposed to be leaving town, and when faded
+members of Parliament, who allowed themselves to be retained for the
+purpose of final divisions, were cursing their fate amid the heats of
+August, Harry accepted an invitation to dine with Augustus Scarborough
+at his chambers in the Temple. He understood when he accepted the
+invitation that no one else was to be there, and must have been aware
+that it was the intention of the heir of Tretton to talk to him
+respecting his brother. He had not seen Scarborough since he had been up
+in town, and had not been desirous of seeing him; but when the
+invitation came he had told himself that it would be better that he
+should accept it, and that he would allow his host to say what he
+pleased to say on the subject, he himself remaining reticent. But poor
+Harry little knew the difficulty of reticency when the heart is full. He
+had intended to be very reticent when he came up to London, and had, in
+fact, done nothing but talk about the missing man, as to whom he had
+declared that he would altogether hold his tongue.
+
+The reader must here be pleased to remember that Augustus Scarborough
+was perfectly well aware of what had befallen his brother, and must,
+therefore, have known among other things of the quarrel which had taken
+place in the streets. He knew, therefore, that Harry was concealing his
+knowledge, and could make a fair guess at the state of the poor fellow's
+mind.
+
+"He will guess," he had said to himself, "that he did not leave him for
+dead on the ground, or the body would be there to tell the tale. But he
+must be ashamed of the part which he took in the street-fight, and be
+anxious to conceal it. No doubt Mountjoy was the first offender, but
+something had occurred which Annesley is unwilling should make its way
+either to his uncle's ears, or to his father's, or to mine, or to the
+squire's,--or to those of Florence."
+
+It was thus that Augustus Scarborough reasoned with himself when he
+asked Harry Annesley to dine with him.
+
+It was not supposed by any of his friends that Augustus Scarborough
+would continue to live in the moderate chambers which he now occupied in
+the Temple; but he had as yet made no sign of a desire to leave them.
+They were up two pair of stairs, and were not great in size; but they
+were comfortable enough, and even luxurious, as a bachelor's abode.
+
+"I've asked you to come alone," said Augustus, "because there is such a
+crowd of things to be talked of about poor Mountjoy which are not
+exactly fitted for the common ear."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Harry, who did not, however, quite understand why it
+would be necessary that the heir should discuss with him the affairs of
+his unfortunate brother. There had, no doubt, been a certain degree of
+intimacy between them, but nothing which made it essential that the
+captain's difficulties should be exposed to him. The matter which
+touched him most closely was the love which both the men had borne to
+Florence Mountjoy; but Harry did not expect that any allusion to
+Florence would be made on the present occasion.
+
+"Did you ever hear of such a devil of a mess?" said Augustus.
+
+"No, indeed. It is not only that he has disappeared--"
+
+"That is as nothing when compared with all the other incidents of this
+romantic tale. Indeed, it is the only natural thing in it. Given all the
+other circumstances, I should have foretold his disappearance as a thing
+certain to occur. Why shouldn't such a man disappear, if he can?"
+
+"But how has he done it?" replied Harry. "Where has he gone to? At this
+moment where is he?"
+
+"Ah, if you will answer all those questions, and give your information
+in Scotland Yard, the creditors, no doubt, will make up a handsome purse
+for you. Not that they will ever get a shilling from him, though he were
+to be seen walking down St. James's Street to-morrow. But they are a
+sanguine gentry, these holders of bills, and I really believe that if
+they could see him they would embrace him with the warmest affection. In
+the mean time let us have some dinner, and we will talk about poor
+Mountjoy when we have got rid of young Pitcher. Young Pitcher is my
+laundress's son to the use of whose services I have been promoted since
+I have been known to be the heir of Tretton."
+
+Then they sat down and dined, and Augustus Scarborough made himself
+agreeable. The small dinner was excellent of its kind, and the wine was
+all that it ought to be. During dinner not a word was said as to
+Mountjoy, nor as to the affairs of the estate. Augustus, who was old for
+his age, and had already practised himself much in London life, knew
+well how to make himself agreeable. There was plenty to be said while
+young Pitcher was passing in and out of the room, so that there appeared
+no awkward vacancies of silence while one course succeeded the other.
+The weather was very hot, the grouse were very tempting, everybody was
+very dull, and members of Parliament more stupid than anybody else; but
+a good time was coming. Would Harry come down to Tretton and see the old
+governor? There was not much to offer him in the way of recreation, but
+when September came the partridges would abound. Harry gave a
+half-promise that he would go to Tretton for a week, and Augustus
+Scarborough expressed himself as much gratified. Harry at the moment
+thought of no reason why he should not go to Tretton, and thus
+committed himself to the promise; but he afterward felt that Tretton was
+of all places the last which he ought just at present to visit.
+
+At last Pitcher and the cheese were gone, and young Scarborough produced
+his cigars. "I want to smoke directly I've done eating," he said.
+"Drinking goes with smoking as well as it does with eating, so there
+need be no stop for that. Now, tell me, Annesley, what is it that you
+think about Mountjoy?"
+
+There was an abruptness in the question which for the moment struck
+Harry dumb. How was he to say what he thought about Mountjoy
+Scarborough, even though he should have no feeling to prevent him from
+expressing the truth? He knew, or thought that he knew, Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be a thorough blackguard; one whom no sense of honesty
+kept from spending money, and who was now a party to robbing his
+creditors without the slightest compunction,--for it was in Harry's mind
+that Mountjoy and his father were in league together to save the
+property by rescuing it from the hands of the Jews. He would have
+thought the same as to the old squire,--only that the old squire had not
+interfered with him in reference to Florence Mountjoy.
+
+And then there was present to his mind the brutal attack which had been
+made on himself in the street. According to his views Mountjoy
+Scarborough was certainly a blackguard; but he did not feel inclined
+quite to say so to the brother, nor was he perfectly certain as to his
+host's honesty. It might be that the three Scarboroughs were all in a
+league together; and if so, he had done very wrong, as he then
+remembered, to say that he would go down to Tretton. When, therefore, he
+was asked the question he could only hold his tongue.
+
+"I suppose you have some scruple in speaking because he's my brother?
+You may drop that altogether."
+
+"I think that his career has been what the novel-reader would call
+romantic; but what I, who am not one of them, should describe as
+unfortunate."
+
+"Well, yes; taking it altogether it has been unfortunate. I am not a
+soft-hearted fellow, but I am driven to pity him. The worst of it is
+that, had not my father been induced at last to tell the truth, from
+most dishonest causes, he would not have been a bit better off than he
+is. I doubt whether he could have raised another couple of thousand on
+the day when he went. If he had done so then, and again more and more,
+to any amount you choose to think of, it would have been the same with
+him."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"His lust for gambling was a bottomless quicksand, which no possible
+amount of winning could ever have satiated. Let him enter his club with
+five thousand pounds at his banker's and no misfortune could touch him.
+He being such as he is,--or, alas! for aught we know, such as he was,--the
+escape which the property has had cannot but be regarded as very
+fortunate. I don't care to talk much of myself in particular, though no
+wrong can have been done to a man more infinite than that which my
+father contrived for me."
+
+"I cannot understand your father," said Harry. In truth, there was
+something in Scarborough's manner in speaking of his father which almost
+produced belief in Harry's mind. He began to doubt whether Augustus was
+in the conspiracy.
+
+"No, I should say not. It is hard to understand that an English
+gentleman should have the courage to conceive such a plot, and the wit
+to carry it out. If Mountjoy had run only decently straight, or not more
+than indecently crooked, I should have been a younger brother,
+practising law in the Temple to the end of my days. The story of Esau
+and of Jacob is as nothing to it. But that is not the most remarkable
+circumstance. My father, for purposes of his own, which includes the
+absolute throwing over of Mountjoy's creditors, changes his plan, and is
+pleased to restore to me that of which he had resolved to rob me. What
+father would dare to look in the face of the son whom he had thus
+resolved to defraud? My father tells me the story with a gentle chuckle,
+showing almost as much indifference to Mountjoy's ruin as to my
+recovered prosperity. He has not a blush when he reveals it all. He has
+not a word to say, or, as far as I can see, a thought as to the world's
+opinion. No doubt he is supposed to be dying. I do presume that three or
+four months will see the end of him. In the mean time he takes it all as
+quietly as though he had simply lent a five-pound note to Mountjoy out
+of my pocket."
+
+"You, at any rate, will get your property?"
+
+"Oh, yes; and that, no doubt, is his argument when he sees me. He is
+delighted to have me down at Tretton, and, to tell the truth, I do not
+feel the slightest animosity toward him. But as I look at him I think
+him to be the most remarkable old gentleman that the world has ever
+produced. He is quite unconscious that I have any ground of complaint
+against him."
+
+"He has probably thought that the circumstances of your brother's birth
+should not militate against his prospects."
+
+"But the law, my dear fellow," said Scarborough, getting up from his
+chair and standing with his cigar between his finger and thumb,--"the law
+thinks otherwise. The making of all right and wrong in this world
+depends on the law. The half-crown in my pocket is merely mine because
+of the law. He did choose to marry my mother before I was born, but did
+not choose to go through that ceremony before my brother's time. That
+may be a trifle to you, or to my moral feeling may be a trifle; but
+because of that trifle all Tretton will be my property, and his attempt
+to rob me of it was just the same as though he should break into a bank
+and steal what he found there. He knows that just as well as I do, but
+to suit his own purposes he did it."
+
+There was something in the way in which the young man spoke both of his
+father and mother which made Harry's flesh creep. He could not but think
+of his own father and his own mother, and his feelings in regard to
+them. But here this man was talking of the misdoings of the one parent
+and the other with the most perfect _sang-froid._ "Of course I
+understand all that," said Harry.
+
+"There is a manner of doing evil so easy and indifferent as absolutely
+to quell the general feeling respecting it. A man shall tell you that he
+has committed a murder in a tone so careless as to make you feel that a
+murder is nothing. I don't suppose my father can be punished for his
+attempt to rob me of twenty thousand a year, and therefore he talks to
+me about it as though it were a good joke. Not only that, but he expects
+me to receive it in the same way. Upon the whole, he prevails. I find
+myself not in the least angry with him, and rather obliged to him than
+otherwise for allowing me to be his eldest son."
+
+"What must Mountjoy's feelings be!" said Harry.
+
+"Exactly; what must be Mountjoy's feelings! There is no need to consider
+my father's, but poor Mountjoy's! I don't suppose that he can be dead."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"While a man is alive he can carry himself off, but when a fellow is
+dead it requires at least one or probably two to carry him. Men do not
+wish to undertake such a work secretly unless they've been concerned in
+the murder; and then there will have been a noise which must have been
+heard, or blood which must have been seen, and the body will at last be
+forthcoming, or some sign of its destruction. I do not think he be
+dead."
+
+"I should hope not," said Harry, rather tamely, and feeling that he was
+guilty of a falsehood by the manner in which he expressed his hope.
+
+"When was it you saw him last?" Scarborough asked the question with an
+abruptness which was predetermined, but which did not quite take Harry
+aback.
+
+"About three months since--in London," said Harry, going back in his
+memory to the last meeting, which had occurred before the squire had
+declared his purpose.
+
+"Ah;--you haven't seen him, then, since he knew that he was nobody?" This
+he asked in an indifferent tone, being anxious not to discover his
+purpose, but in doing so he gave Harry great credit for his readiness of
+mind.
+
+"I have not seen him since he heard the news which must have astonished
+him more than any one else."
+
+"I wonder," said Augustus, "how Florence Mountjoy has borne it?"
+
+"Neither have I seen her. I have been at Cheltenham, but was not allowed
+to see her." This he said with an assertion to himself that though he
+had lied as to one particular he would not lie as to any other.
+
+"I suppose she must have been much cut up by it all. I have half a mind
+to declare to myself that she shall still have an opportunity of
+becoming the mistress of Tretton. She was always afraid of Mountjoy, but
+I do not know that she ever loved him. She had become so used to the
+idea of marrying him that she would have given herself up in mere
+obedience. I too think that she might do as a wife, and I shall
+certainly make a better husband than Mountjoy would have done."
+
+"Miss Mountjoy will certainly do as a wife for any one who may be lucky
+enough to get her," said Harry, with a certain tone of magnificence
+which at the moment he felt to be overstrained and ridiculous.
+
+"Oh yes; one has got to get her, as you call it, of course. You mean to
+say that you are supposed to be in the running. That is your own
+lookout. I can only allege, on my own behalf, that it has always been
+considered to be an old family arrangement that Florence Mountjoy shall
+marry the heir to Tretton Park. I am in that position now, and I only
+throw it out as a hint that I may feel disposed to follow out the family
+arrangement. Of course if other things come in the way there will be an
+end of it. Come in." This last invitation was given in consequence of a
+knock at the door. The door was opened, and there entered a policeman in
+plain clothes named Prodgers, who seemed from his manner to be well
+acquainted with Augustus Scarborough.
+
+The police for some time past had been very busy on the track of
+Mountjoy Scarborough, but had not hitherto succeeded in obtaining any
+information. Such activity as had been displayed cannot be procured
+without expense, and it had been understood in this case that old Mr.
+Scarborough had refused to furnish the means. Something he had supplied
+at first, but had latterly declined even to subscribe to a fund. He was
+not at all desirous, he said, that his son should be brought back to the
+world, particularly as he had made it evident by his disappearance that
+he was anxious to keep out of the way. "Why should I pay the fellows?
+It's no business of mine," he had said to his son. And from that moment
+he had declined to do more than make up the first subscription which had
+been suggested to him. But the police had been kept very busy, and it
+was known that the funds had been supplied chiefly by Mr. Tyrrwhit. He
+was a resolute and persistent man, and was determined to "run down"
+Mountjoy Scarborough, as he called it, if money would enable him to do
+so. It was he who had appealed to the squire for assistance in this
+object, and to him the squire had expressed his opinion that, as his son
+did not seem anxious to be brought back, he should not interfere in the
+matter.
+
+"Well, Prodgers, what news have you to-day?" asked Augustus.
+
+"There is a man a-wandering about down in Skye, just here and there,
+with nothing in particular to say for himself."
+
+"What sort of a looking fellow is he?"
+
+"Well, he's light, and don't come up to the captain's marks; but there's
+no knowing what disguises a fellow will put on. I don't think he's got
+the captain's legs, and a man can't change his legs."
+
+"Captain Scarborough would not remain loitering about in Skye where he
+would be known by half the autumn tourists who saw him."
+
+"That's just what I was saying to Wilkinson," said Prodgers. "Wilkinson
+seems to think that a man may be anybody as long as nobody knows who he
+is. 'That ain't the captain,' said I."
+
+"I'm afraid he's got out of England," said the captain's brother.
+
+"There's no place where he can be run down like New York, or Paris, or
+Melbourne, and it's them they mostly go to. We've wired 'em all three,
+and a dozen other ports of the kind. We catches 'em mostly if they go
+abroad; but when they remains at home they're uncommon troublesome.
+There was a man wandering about in County Donegal. We call Ireland at
+home, because we've so much to do with their police since the Land
+League came up; but this chap was only an artist who couldn't pay his
+bill. What do you think about it, Mr. Annesley?" said the policeman,
+turning short round upon Harry, and addressing him a question. Why
+should the policeman even have known his name?
+
+"Who? I? I don't think about it at all. I have no means of thinking
+about it."
+
+"Because you have been so busy down there at the Yard, I thought that,
+as you was asking so many questions, you was, perhaps, interested in the
+matter."
+
+"My friend Mr. Annesley," said Augustus, "was acquainted with Captain
+Scarborough, as he is with me."
+
+"It did seem as though he was more than usually interested, all the
+same," said the policeman.
+
+"I am more than usually interested," replied Harry; "but I do not know
+that I am going to give you my reason. As to his present existence I
+know absolutely nothing."
+
+"I dare say not. If you'd any information as was reliable I dare say as
+it would be forthcoming. Well, Mr. Scarborough, you may be sure of this:
+if we can get upon his trail we'll do so, and I think we shall. There
+isn't a port that hasn't been watched from two days after his
+disappearance, and there isn't a port as won't be watched as soon as any
+English steamer touches 'em. We've got our eyes out, and we means to use
+'em. Good-night, Mr. Scarborough; good-night, Mr. Annesley," and he
+bobbed his head to our friend Harry. "You say as there is a reason as is
+unknown. Perhaps it won't be unknown always. Good-night, gentlemen."
+Then Constable Prodgers left the room.
+
+Harry had been disconcerted by the policeman's remarks, and showed that
+it was so as soon as he was alone with Augustus Scarborough. "I'm afraid
+you think the man intended to be impertinent," said Augustus.
+
+"No doubt he did, but such men are allowed to be impertinent."
+
+"He sees an enemy, of course, in every one who pretends to know more
+than he knows himself,--or, indeed, in every one who does not. You said
+something about having a reason of your own, and he at once connected
+you with Mountjoy's disappearance. Such creatures are necessary, but
+from the little I've seen of them I do not think that they make the best
+companions in the world. I shall leave Mr. Prodgers to carry on his
+business to the man who employs him,--namely, Mr. Tyrrwhit,--and I advise
+you to do the same."
+
+Soon after that Harry Annesley took his leave, but he could not divest
+himself of an opinion that both the policeman and his host had thought
+that he had some knowledge respecting the missing man. Augustus
+Scarborough had said no word to that effect, but there had been a
+something in his manner which had excited suspicion in Harry's mind. And
+then Augustus had declared his purpose of offering his hand and fortune
+to Florence Mountjoy. He to be suitor to Florence,--he, so soon after
+Mountjoy had been banished from the scene! And why should he have been
+told of it?--he, of whose love for the girl he could not but think that
+Augustus Scarborough had been aware. Then, much perturbed in his mind,
+he resolved, as he returned to his lodgings, that he would go down to
+Cheltenham on the following day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY TELLS HIS SECRET.
+
+
+Harry hurried down to Cheltenham, hardly knowing what he was going to do
+or say when he got there. He went to the hotel and dined alone. "What's
+all this that's up about Captain Mountjoy?" said a stranger, coming and
+whispering to him at his table.
+
+The inquirer was almost a stranger, but Harry did know his name. It was
+Mr. Baskerville, the hunting man. Mr. Baskerville was not rich, and not
+especially popular, and had no special amusement but that of riding two
+nags in the winter along the roads of Cheltenham in the direction which
+the hounds took. It was still summer, and the nags, who had been made to
+do their work in London, were picking up a little strength in idleness,
+or, as Mr. Baskerville called it, getting into condition. In the mean
+time Mr. Baskerville amused himself as well as he could by lying in bed
+and playing lawn-tennis. He sometimes dined at the hotel, in order that
+the club might think that he was entertained at friends' houses; but the
+two places were nearly the same to him, as he could achieve a dinner and
+half a pint of wine for five or six shillings at each of them. A more
+empty existence, or, one would be inclined to say, less pleasurable, no
+one could pass; but he had always a decent coat on his back and a smile
+on his face, and five shillings in his pocket with which to pay for his
+dinner. His asking what was up about Scarborough showed, at any rate,
+that he was very backward in the world's news.
+
+"I believe he has vanished," said Harry.
+
+"Oh yes, of course he's vanished. Everybody knows that--he vanished ever
+so long ago; but where is he?"
+
+"If you can tell them in Scotland Yard they will be obliged to you."
+
+"I suppose it is true the police are after him? Dear me! Forty thousand
+a year! This is a very queer story about the property, isn't it?"
+
+"I don't know the story exactly, and therefore can hardly say whether it
+is queer or not."
+
+"But about the younger son? People say that the father has contrived
+that the younger son shall have the money. What I hear is that the whole
+property is to be divided, and that the captain is to have half, on
+conditions that he keeps out of the way. But I am sure that you know
+more about it. You used to be intimate with both the brothers. I have
+seen you down here with the captain. Where is he?" And again he
+whispered into Harry's ear. But he could not have selected any subject
+more distasteful, and, therefore, Harry repulsed Mr. Baskerville not in
+the most courteous manner.
+
+"Hang it! what airs that fellow gives himself," he said to another
+friend of the same kidney. "That's young Annesley, the son of a
+twopenny-halfpenny parson down in Hertfordshire. The kind of ways
+these fellows put on now are unbearable. He hasn't got a horse to ride
+on, but to hear him talk you'd think he was mounted three days a week."
+
+"He's heir to old Prosper, of Buston Hall."
+
+"How's that? But is he? I never heard that before. What's Buston Hall
+worth?" Then Mr. Baskerville made up his mind to be doubly civil to
+Harry Annesley the next time he saw him.
+
+Harry had to consider on that night in what manner he would endeavor to
+see Florence Mountjoy on the next day. He was thoroughly discontented
+with himself as he walked about the streets of Cheltenham. He had now
+not only allowed the disappearance of Scarborough to pass by without
+stating when and where, and how he had last seen him, but had directly
+lied on the subject. He had told the man's brother that he had not seen
+him for some weeks previous, whereas to have concealed his knowledge on
+such a subject was in itself held to be abominable. He was ashamed of
+himself, and the more so because there was no one to whom he could talk
+openly on the matter. And it seemed to him as though all whom he met
+questioned him as to the man's disappearance, as if they suspected him.
+What was the man to him, or the man's guilt, or his father, that he
+should be made miserable? The man's attack upon him had been ferocious
+in its nature,--so brutal that when he had escaped from Mountjoy
+Scarborough's clutches there was nothing for him but to leave him lying
+in the street where, in his drunkenness, he had fallen. And now, in
+consequence of this, misery had fallen upon himself. Even this
+empty-headed fellow Baskerville, a man the poverty of whose character
+Harry perfectly understood, had questioned him about Mountjoy
+Scarborough. It could not, he thought, be possible that Baskerville
+could have had any reasons for suspicion, and yet the very sound of the
+inquiry stuck in his ears.
+
+On the next morning, at eleven o'clock, he knocked at Mrs. Mountjoy's
+house in Mountpellier Place and asked for the elder lady. Mrs. Mountjoy
+was out, and Harry at once inquired for Florence. The servant at first
+seemed to hesitate, but at last showed Harry into the dining-room. There
+he waited five minutes, which seemed to him to be half an hour, and then
+Florence came to him. "Your mother is not at home," he said, putting out
+his hand.
+
+"No, Mr. Annesley, but I think she will be back soon. Will you wait for
+her?"
+
+"I do not know whether I am not glad that she should be out. Florence, I
+have something that I must tell you."
+
+"Something that you must tell me!"
+
+He had called her Florence once before, on a happy afternoon which he
+well remembered, but he was not thinking of that now. Her name, which
+was always in his mind, had come to him naturally, as though he had no
+time to pick and choose about names in the importance of the
+communication which he had to make. "Yes. I don't believe that you were
+ever really engaged to your cousin Mountjoy."
+
+"No, I never was," she answered, briskly. Harry Annesley was certainly a
+handsome man, but no young man living ever thought less of his own
+beauty. He had fair, wavy hair, which he was always submitting to some
+barber, very much to the unexpressed disgust of poor Florence; because
+to her eyes the longer the hair grew the more beautiful was the wearer
+of it. His forehead, and eyes, and nose were all perfect in their form--
+
+  "Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
+  An eye like Mars, to threaten and command."
+
+There was a peculiar brightness in his eye, which would have seemed to
+denote something absolutely great in his character had it not been for
+the wavering indecision of his mouth. There was as it were a vacillation
+in his lips which took away from the manliness of his physiognomy.
+Florence, who regarded his face as almost divine, was yet conscious of
+some weakness about his mouth which she did not know how to interpret.
+But yet, without knowing why it was so, she was accustomed to expect
+from him doubtful words, half expressed words, which would not declare
+to her his perfected thoughts--as she would have them declared. He was
+six feet high, but neither broad nor narrow, nor fat nor thin, but a
+very Apollo in Florence's eye. To the elders who knew him the
+quintessence of his beauty lay in the fact that he was altogether
+unconscious of it. He was a man who counted nothing on his personal
+appearance for the performance of those deeds which he was most anxious
+to achieve. The one achievement now essentially necessary to his
+happiness was the possession of Florence Mountjoy; but it certainly
+never occurred to him that he was more likely to obtain this because he
+was six feet high, or because his hair waved becomingly.
+
+"I have supposed so," he said, in answer to her last assertion.
+
+"You ought to have known it for certain. I mean to say that, had I ever
+been engaged to my cousin, I should have been miserable at such a moment
+as this. I never should have given him up because of the gross injustice
+done to him about the property. But his disappearance in this dreadful
+way would, I think, have killed me. As it is, I can think of nothing
+else, because he is my cousin."
+
+"It is very dreadful," said Harry. "Have you any idea what can have
+happened to him?"
+
+"Not in the least. Have you?"
+
+"None at all, but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"I was the last person who saw him."
+
+"You saw him last!"
+
+"At least, I know no one who saw him after me."
+
+"Have you told them?"
+
+"I have told no one but you. I have come down here to Cheltenham on
+purpose to tell you."
+
+"Why me?" she said, as though struck with fear at such an assertion on
+his part.
+
+"I must tell some one, and I have not known whom else to tell. His
+father appears not at all anxious about him. His brother I do not
+altogether trust. Were I to go to these men, who are only looking after
+their money, I should be communicating with his enemies. Your mother
+already regards me as his enemy. If I told the police I should simply be
+brought into a court of justice, where I should be compelled to mention
+your name."
+
+"Why mine?"
+
+"I must begin the story from the beginning. One night I was coming home
+in London very late, about two o'clock, when whom should I meet in the
+street suddenly but Mountjoy Scarborough. It came out afterward that he
+had then been gambling; but when he encountered me he was intoxicated.
+He took me suddenly by the collar and shook me violently, and did his
+best to maltreat me. What words were spoken I cannot remember; but his
+conduct to me was as that of a savage beast. I struggled with him in the
+street as a man would struggle who is attacked by a wild dog. I think
+that he did not explain the cause of his hatred, though, of course, my
+memory as to what took place at that moment is disturbed and imperfect;
+but I did know in my heart why it was that he had quarrelled with me."
+
+"Why was it?" Florence asked.
+
+"Because he thought that I had ventured to love you."
+
+"No, no!" shrieked Florence; "he could not have thought that."
+
+"He did think so, and he was right enough. If I have never said so
+before, I am bound at any rate to say it now." He paused for a moment,
+but she made him no answer. "In the struggle between us he fell on the
+pavement against a rail;--and then I left him."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He has never been heard of since. On the following day, in the
+afternoon, I left London for Buston; but nothing had been then heard of
+his disappearance. I neither knew of it nor suspected it. The question
+is, when others were searching for him, was I bound to go to the police
+and declare what I had suffered from him that night? Why should I
+connect his going with the outrage which I had suffered?"
+
+"But why not tell it all?"
+
+"I should have been asked why he had quarrelled with me. Ought I to have
+said that I did not know? Ought I to have pretended that there was no
+cause? I did know, and there was a cause. It was because he thought that
+I might prevail with you, now that he was a beggar, disowned by his own
+father."
+
+"I would never have given him up for that," said Florence.
+
+"But do you not see that your name would have been brought in,--that I
+should have had to speak of you as though I thought it possible that you
+loved me?" Then he paused, and Florence sat silent. But another thought
+struck him now. It occurred to him that under the plea put forward he
+would appear to seek shelter from his silence as to her name. He was
+aware how anxious he was on his own behalf not to mention the occurrence
+in the street, and it seemed that he was attempting to escape under the
+pretence of a fear that her name would be dragged in. "But independently
+of that I do not see why I should be subjected to the annoyance of
+letting it be known that I was thus attacked in the streets. And the
+time has now gone by. It did not occur to me when first he was missed
+that the matter would have been of such importance. Now it is too late."
+
+"I suppose that you ought to have told his father."
+
+"I think that I ought to have done so. But at any rate I have come to
+explain it all to you. It was necessary that I should tell some one.
+There seems to be no reason to suspect that the man has been killed."
+
+"Oh, I hope not; I hope not that."
+
+"He has been spirited away--out of the way of his creditors. For myself
+I think that it has all been done with his father's connivance. Whether
+his brother be in the secret or not I cannot tell, but I suspect he is.
+There seems to be no doubt that Captain Scarborough himself has run so
+overhead into debt as to make the payment of his creditors impossible by
+anything short of the immediate surrender of the whole property. Some
+month or two since they all thought that the squire was dying, and that
+there would be nothing to do but to sell the property which would then
+be Mountjoy's, and pay themselves. Against this the dying man has
+rebelled, and has come, as it were, out of the grave to disinherit the
+son who has already contrived to disinherit himself. It is all an
+effort to save Tretton."
+
+"But it is dishonest," said Florence.
+
+"No doubt about it. Looking at it any way it is dishonest, Either the
+inheritance must belong to Mountjoy still, or it could not have been his
+when he was allowed to borrow money upon it."
+
+"I cannot understand it. I thought it was entailed upon him. Of course
+it is nothing to me. It never could have been anything."
+
+"But now the creditors declare that they have been cheated, and assert
+that Mountjoy is being kept out of the way to aid old Mr. Scarborough in
+the fraud. I cannot but say that I think it is so. But why he should
+have attacked me just at the moment of his going, or why, rather, he
+should have gone immediately after he had attacked me, I cannot say. I
+have no concern whatever with him or his money, though I hope--I hope
+that I may always have much with you. Oh, Florence, you surely have
+known what has been within my heart."
+
+To this appeal she made no response, but sat awhile considering what she
+would say respecting Mountjoy Scarborough and his affairs.
+
+"Am I to keep all this a secret?" she asked him at last.
+
+"You shall consider that for yourself. I have not exacted from you any
+silence on the matter. You may tell whom you please, and I shall not
+consider that I have any ground of complaint against you. Of course for
+my own sake I do not wish it to be told. A great injury was done me, and
+I do not desire to be dragged into this, which would be another injury.
+I suspect that Augustus Scarborough knows more than he pretends, and I
+do not wish to be brought into the mess by his cunning. Whether you will
+tell your mother you must judge yourself."
+
+"I shall tell nobody unless you bid me." At that moment the door of the
+room was opened, and Mrs. Mountjoy entered, with a frown upon her brow.
+She had not yet given up all hope that Mountjoy might return, and that
+the affairs of Tretton might be made to straighten themselves.
+
+"Mamma, Mr. Annesley is here."
+
+"So I perceive, my dear."
+
+"I have come to your daughter to tell her how dearly I love her," said
+Harry, boldly.
+
+"Mr. Annesley, you should have come to me before speaking to my
+daughter."
+
+"Then I shouldn't have seen her at all."
+
+"You should have left that as it might be. It is not at all a proper
+thing that a young gentleman should come and address a young lady in
+this way behind her only parent's back."
+
+"I asked for you, and I did not know that you would not be at home."
+
+"You should have gone away at once--at once. You know how terribly the
+family is cut up by this great misfortune to our cousin Mountjoy.
+Mountjoy Scarborough has been long engaged to Florence."
+
+"No, mamma; no, never."
+
+"At any rate, Mr. Annesley knows all about it. And that knowledge ought
+to have kept him away at the present moment. I must beg him to leave us
+now."
+
+Then Harry took his hat and departed; but he had great consolation in
+feeling that Florence had not repudiated his love, which she certainly
+would have done had she not loved him in return. She had spoken no word
+of absolute encouragement, but there had much more of encouragement than
+of repudiation in her manner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY GOES TO TRETTON.
+
+
+Harry had promised to go down to Tretton, and when the time came
+Augustus Scarborough did not allow him to escape from the visit. He
+explained to him that in his father's state of health there would be no
+company to entertain him; that there was only a maiden sister of his
+father's staying in the house, and that he intended to take down into
+the country with him one Septimus Jones, who occupied chambers on the
+same floor with him in London, and whom Annesley knew to be young
+Scarborough's most intimate friend. "There will be a little shooting,"
+he said, "and I have bought two or three horses, which you and Jones can
+ride. Cannock Chase is one of the prettiest parts of England, and as you
+care for scenery you can get some amusement out of that. You'll see my
+father, and hear, no doubt, what he has got to say for himself. He is
+not in the least reticent in speaking of my brother's affairs." There
+was a good deal in this which was not agreeable. Miss Scarborough was
+sister to Mrs. Mountjoy as well as to the squire, and had been one of
+the family party most anxious to assure the marriage of Florence and the
+captain. The late General Mountjoy had been supposed to be a great man
+in his way, but had died before Tretton had become as valuable as it was
+now. Hence the eldest son had been christened with his name, and much of
+the Mountjoy prestige still clung to the family. But Harry did not care
+much about the family except so far as Florence was concerned. And then
+he had not been on peculiarly friendly terms with Septimus Jones, who
+had always been submissive to Augustus; and, now that Augustus was a
+rich man and could afford to buy horses, was likely to be more
+submissive than ever.
+
+He went down to Tretton alone early in September, and when he reached
+the house he found that the two young men were out shooting. He asked
+for his own room, but was instead immediately taken to the old squire,
+whom he found lying on a couch in a small dressing-room, while his
+sister, who had been reading to him, was by his side. After the usual
+greetings Harry made some awkward apology as to his intrusion at the
+sick man's bedside. "Why, I ordered them to bring you in here," said the
+squire; "you can't very well call that intrusion. I have no idea of
+being shut up from the world before they nail me down in my coffin."
+
+"That will be a long time first, we all hope," said his sister.
+
+"Bother! you hope it, but I don't know that any one else does;--I don't
+for one. And if I did, what's the good of hoping? I have a couple of
+diseases, either of which is enough to kill a horse." Then he mentioned
+his special maladies in a manner which made Harry shrink. "What are they
+talking about in London just at present?" he asked.
+
+"Just the old set of subjects," said Harry.
+
+"I suppose they have got tired of me and my iniquities?" Harry could
+only smile and shake his head. "There has been such a complication of
+romances that one expects the story to run a little more than the
+ordinary nine days."
+
+"Men still do talk about Mountjoy."
+
+"And what are they saying? Augustus declares that you are especially
+interested on the subject."
+
+"I don't know why I should be," said Harry.
+
+"Nor I either. When a fellow becomes no longer of any service to either
+man, woman, or beast, I do not know why any should take an interest in
+him. I suppose you didn't lend him money?"
+
+"I was not likely to do that, sir."
+
+"Then I cannot conceive how it can interest you whether he be in London
+or Kamtchatka. It does not interest me the least in the world. Were he
+to turn up here it would be a trouble; and yet they expect me to
+subscribe largely to a fund for finding him. What good could he do me if
+he were found?"
+
+"Oh, John, he is your son," said Miss Scarborough.
+
+"And would be just as good a son as Augustus, only that he has turned
+out uncommonly badly. I have not the slightest feeling in the world as
+to his birth, and so I think I showed pretty plainly. But nothing could
+stop him in his course, and therefore I told the truth, that's all." In
+answer to this, Harry found it quite impossible to say a word, but got
+away to his bedroom and dressed for dinner as quickly as possible.
+
+While he was still thus employed Augustus came into the room still
+dressed in his shooting-clothes. "So you've seen my father," he said.
+
+"Yes, I saw him."
+
+"And what did he say to you about Mountjoy?"
+
+"Little or nothing that signifies. He seems to think it unreasonable
+that he should be asked to pay for finding him, seeing that the
+creditors expect to get the advantage of his presence when found."
+
+"He is about right there."
+
+"Oh yes; but still he is his father. It may be that it would be expected
+that he should interest himself in finding him."
+
+"Upon my word I don't agree with you. If a thousand a year could be paid
+to keep Mountjoy out of the way I think it would be well expended."
+
+"But you were acting with the police."
+
+"Oh, the police! What do the police know about it? Of course I talk it
+all over with them. They have not the smallest idea where the man is,
+and do not know how to go to work to discover him. I don't say that my
+father is judicious in his brazen-faced opposition to all inquiry. He
+should pretend to be a little anxious--as I do. Not that there would be
+any use now in pretending to keep up appearances. He has declared
+himself utterly indifferent to the law, and has defied the world. Never
+mind, old fellow, we shall eat the more dinner, only I must go and
+prepare myself for it."
+
+At dinner Harry found only Septimus Jones, Augustus Scarborough, and his
+aunt. Miss Scarborough said a good deal about her brother, and declared
+him to be much better. "Of course you know, Augustus, that Sir William
+Brodrick was down here for two days."
+
+"Only fancy," replied he, "what one has to pay for two days of Sir
+William Brodrick in the country!"
+
+"What can it matter?" said the generous spinster.
+
+"It matters exactly so many hundred pounds; but no one will begrudge it
+if he does so many hundred pounds' worth of good."
+
+"It will show, at any rate, that we have had the best advice," said the
+lady.
+
+"Yes, it will show;--that is exactly what people care about. What did Sir
+William say?" Then during the first half of dinner a prolonged reference
+was made to Mr. Scarborough's maladies, and to Sir William's opinion
+concerning them. Sir William had declared that Mr. Scarborough's
+constitution was the most wonderful thing that he had ever met in his
+experience. In spite of the fact that Mr. Scarborough's body was one
+mass of cuts and bruises and faulty places, and that nothing would keep
+him going except the wearing of machinery which he was unwilling to
+wear, yet the facilities for much personal enjoyment were left to him,
+and Sir William declared that, if he would only do exactly as he were
+told, he might live for the next five years. "But everybody knows that
+he won't do anything that he is told," said Augustus, in a tone of voice
+which by no means expressed extreme sorrow.
+
+From his father he led the conversation to the partridges, and declared
+his conviction that, with a little trouble and some expense, a very good
+head of game might be got up at Tretton. "I suppose it wouldn't cost
+much?" said Jones, who beyond ten shillings to a game-keeper never paid
+sixpence for whatever shooting came in his way.
+
+"I don't know what you call much," said Augustus, "but I think it may be
+done for three or four hundred a year. I should like to calculate how
+many thousand partridges at that rate Sir William has taken back in his
+pocket."
+
+"What does it matter?" asked Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Only as a speculation. Of course my father, while he lives, is
+justified in giving his whole income to doctors if he likes it; but one
+gets into a manner of speaking about him as though he had done a good
+deal with his money in which he was not justified."
+
+"Don't talk in that way, Augustus."
+
+"My dear aunt, I am not at all inclined to be more open-mouthed than he
+is. Only reflect what it was that he was disposed to do with me, and
+the good-humor with which I have borne it!"
+
+"I think I should hold my tongue about it," said Harry Annesley.
+
+"And I think that in my place you would do no such thing. To your nature
+it would be almost impossible to hold your tongue. Your sense of justice
+would be so affronted that you would feel yourself compelled to discuss
+the injury done to you with all your intimate friends. But with your
+father your quarrel would be eternal. I made nothing of it, and, indeed,
+if he pertinaciously held his tongue on the subject, so should I."
+
+"But because he talks," said Harry, "why should you?"
+
+"Why should he not?" said Septimus Jones. "Upon my word I don't see the
+justice of it."
+
+"I am not speaking of justice, but of feeling."
+
+"Upon my word I wish you would hold your tongues about it; at any rate
+till my back is turned," said the old lady.
+
+Then Augustus finished the conversation. "I am determined to treat it
+all as though it were a joke, and, as a joke, one to be spoken of
+lightly. It was a strong measure, certainly, this attempt to rob me of
+twenty or thirty thousand pounds a year. But it was done in favor of my
+brother, and therefore let it pass. I am at a loss to conceive what my
+father has done with his money. He hasn't given Mountjoy, at any rate,
+more than a half of his income for the last five or six years, and his
+own personal expenses are very small. Yet he tells me that he has the
+greatest difficulty in raising a thousand pounds, and positively refuses
+in his present difficulties to add above five hundred a year to my
+former allowance. No father who had thoroughly done his duty by his son,
+could speak in a more fixed and austere manner. And yet he knows that
+every shilling will be mine as soon as he goes." The servant who was
+waiting upon them had been in and out of the room while this was said,
+and must have heard much of it. But to that Augustus seemed to be quite
+indifferent. And, indeed, the whole family story was known to every
+servant in the house. It is true that gentlemen and ladies who have
+servants do not usually wish to talk about their private matters before
+all the household, even though the private matters may be known; but
+this household was unlike all others in that respect. There was not a
+housemaid about the rooms or a groom in the stables who did not know how
+terrible a reprobate their master had been.
+
+"You will see your father before you go to bed?" Miss Scarborough said
+to her nephew as she left the room.
+
+"Certainly, if he will send to say that he wishes it."
+
+"He does wish it, most anxiously."
+
+"I believe that to be your imagination. At any rate, I will come--say in
+an hour's time. He would be just as pleased to see Harry Annesley, for
+the matter of that, or Mr. Grey, or the inspector of police. Any one
+whom he could shock, or pretend to shock, by the peculiarity of his
+opinions, would do as well." By that time, however, Miss Scarborough had
+left the room.
+
+Then the three men sat and talked, and discussed the affairs of the
+family generally. New leases had just been granted for adding
+manufactories to the town of Tretton: and as far as outward marks of
+prosperity went all was prosperous. "I expect to have a water-mill on
+the lawn before long," said Augustus. "These mechanics have it all their
+own way. If they were to come and tell me that they intended to put up a
+wind-mill in my bedroom to-morrow morning, I could only take off my hat
+to them. When a man offers you five per cent. where you've only had
+four, he is instantly your lord and master. It doesn't signify how
+vulgar he is, or how insolent, or how exacting. Associations of the
+tenderest kind must all give way to trade. But the shooting which lies
+to the north and west of us is, I think, safe for the present. I suppose
+I must go and see what my father wants, or I shall be held to have
+neglected my duty to my affectionate parent."
+
+"Capital fellow, Augustus Scarborough," said Jones, as soon as their
+host had left them.
+
+"I was at Cambridge with him, and he was popular there."
+
+"He'll be more popular now that he's the heir to Tretton. I don't know
+any fellow that I can get along better with than Scarborough. I think
+you were a little hard upon him about his father, you know."
+
+"In his position he ought to hold his tongue."
+
+"It's the strangest thing that has turned up in the whole course of my
+experience. You see, if he didn't talk about it people wouldn't quite
+understand what it was that his father has done. It's only matter of
+report now, and the creditors, no doubt, do believe that when old
+Scarborough goes off the hooks they will be able to walk in and take
+possession. He has got to make the world think that he is the heir, and
+that will go a long way. You may be sure he doesn't talk as he does
+without having a reason for it. He's the last man I know to do anything
+without a reason."
+
+The evening dragged along very slowly while Jones continued to tell all
+that he knew of his friend's character. But Augustus Scarborough did not
+return, and soon after ten o'clock, when Harry Annesley could smoke no
+more cigars, and declared that he had no wish to begin upon
+brandy-and-water after his wine, he went to his bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY TAKES A WALK.
+
+
+"There was the devil to pay with my father last night after I went to
+him," said Scarborough to Harry next morning. "He now and then suffers
+agonies of pain, and it is the most difficult thing in the world to get
+him right again. But anything equal to his courage I never before met."
+
+"How is he this morning?"
+
+"Very weak and unable to exert himself. But I cannot say that he is
+otherwise much the worse. You won't see him this morning; but to-morrow
+you will, or next day. Don't you be shy about going to him when he sends
+for you. He likes to show the world that he can bear his sufferings with
+a light heart, and is ready to die to-morrow without a pang or a regret.
+Who was the fellow who sent for a fellow to let him see how a Christian
+could die? I can fancy my father doing the same thing, only there would
+be nothing about Christianity in the message. He would bid you come and
+see a pagan depart in peace, and would be very unhappy if he thought
+that your dinner would be disturbed by the ceremony. Now come down to
+breakfast, and then we'll go out shooting."
+
+For three days Harry remained at Tretton, and ate and drank, and shot
+and rode, always in young Scarborough's company. During this time he did
+not see the old squire, and understood from Miss Scarborough's absence
+that he was still suffering from his late attack. The visit was to be
+prolonged for one other day, and he was told that on that day the squire
+would send for him. "I'm sick of these eternal partridges," said
+Augustus. "No man should ever shoot partridges two days running. Jones
+can go out by himself. He won't have to tip the game-keeper any more for
+an additional day, and so it will be all gain to him. You'll see my
+father in the afternoon after lunch, and we will go and take a walk
+now."
+
+Harry started for his walk, and his companion immediately began again
+about the property. "I'm beginning to think," said he, "that it's nearly
+all up with the governor. These attacks come upon him worse and worse,
+and always leave him absolutely prostrate. Then he will do nothing to
+prevent them. To assure himself a week of life, he will not endure an
+hour of discomfort. It is plucky, you know."
+
+"He is in all respects as brave a man as I have known."
+
+"He sets God and man at absolute defiance, and always does it with the
+most profound courtesy. If he goes to the infernal regions he will
+insist upon being the last of the company to enter the door. And he will
+be prepared with something good-humored to say as soon as he has been
+ushered in. He was very much troubled about you yesterday."
+
+"What has he to say of me?"
+
+"Nothing in the least uncivil; but he has an idea in his head which
+nothing on earth will put out of it, and in which, but for your own
+word, I should be inclined to agree." Harry, when this was said, stood
+still on the mountain-side, and looked full into his companion's face.
+He felt at the moment that the idea had some reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough and his disappearance. They were together on the heathy,
+unenclosed ground of Cannock Chase, and had already walked some ten or
+twelve miles. "He thinks you know where Mountjoy is."
+
+"Why should I know?"
+
+"Or at any rate that you have seen him since any of us. He professes not
+to care a straw for Mountjoy or his whereabouts, and declares himself
+under obligation to those who have contrived his departure.
+Nevertheless, he is curious."
+
+"What have I to do with Mountjoy Scarborough?"
+
+"That's just the question. What have you to do with him? He suggests
+that there have been words between you as to Florence, which has caused
+Mountjoy to vanish. I don't profess to explain anything beyond
+that,--nor, indeed, do I profess to agree with my father. But the odd
+thing is that Prodgers, the policeman, has the same thing running in his
+head."
+
+"Because I have shown some anxiety about your brother in Scotland Yard."
+
+"No doubt; Prodgers says that you've shown more anxiety than was to be
+expected from a mere acquaintance. I quite acknowledge that Prodgers is
+as thick-headed an idiot as you shall catch on a summer's day; but
+that's his opinion. For myself, I know your word too well to doubt it."
+Harry walked on in silence, thinking, or trying to think, what, on the
+spur of the moment, he had better do. He was minded to speak out the
+whole truth, and declare to himself that it was nothing to him what
+Augustus Scarborough might say or think. And there was present to him a
+feeling that his companion was dealing unfairly with him, and was
+endeavoring in some way to trap him and lead him into a difficulty. But
+he had made up his mind, as it were, not to know anything of Mountjoy
+Scarborough, and to let those five minutes in the street be as though
+they had never been. He had been brutally attacked, and had thought it
+best to say nothing on the subject. He would not allow his secret, such
+as it was, to be wormed out of him. Scarborough was endeavoring to
+extort from him that which he had resolved to conceal; and he determined
+at last that he would not become a puppet in his hands. "I don't see why
+you should care a straw about it," said Scarborough.
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"At any rate you repeat your denial. It will be well that I should let
+my father know that he is mistaken, and also that ass Prodgers. Of
+course, with my father it is sheer curiosity. Indeed, if he thought that
+you were keeping Mountjoy under lock and key, he would only admire your
+dexterity in so preserving him. Any bold line of action that was
+contrary to the law recommends itself to his approbation. But Prodgers
+has a lurking idea that he should like to arrest you."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Simply because he thinks you know something that he doesn't know. As
+he's a detective, that, in his mind, is quite enough for arresting any
+man. I may as well give him my assurance, then, that he is mistaken."
+
+"Why should your assurance go for more than mine? Give him nothing of
+the kind."
+
+"I may give him, at any rate, my assurance that I believe your word."
+
+"If you do believe it, you can do so."
+
+"But you repeat your assertion that you saw nothing of Mountjoy just
+before his disappearance?"
+
+"This is an amount of cross-questioning which I do not take in good
+part, and to which I will not submit." Here Scarborough affected to
+laugh loudly. "I know nothing of your brother, and care almost as
+little. He has professed to admire a young lady to whom I am not
+indifferent, and has, I believe, expressed a wish to make her his wife.
+He is also her cousin, and the lady in question has, no doubt, been much
+interested about him. It is natural that she should be so."
+
+"Quite natural--seeing that she has been engaged to him for twelve
+months."
+
+"Of that I know nothing. But my interest about your brother has been
+because of her. You can explain all this about your brother if you
+please, or can let it alone. But for myself, I decline to answer any
+more questions. If Prodgers thinks that he can arrest me, let him come
+and try."
+
+"The idea of your flying into a passion because I have endeavored to
+explain it all to you! At any rate I have your absolute denial, and that
+will enable me to deal both with my father and Prodgers." To this Harry
+made no answer, and the two young men walked back to Tretton together
+without many more words between them.
+
+When Harry had been in the house about half an hour, and had already
+eaten his lunch, somewhat sulkily, a message came to him from Miss
+Scarborough requiring his presence. He went to her, and was told by her
+that Mr. Scarborough would now see him. He was aware that Mr.
+Scarborough never saw Septimus Jones, and that there was something
+peculiar in the sending of this message to him. Why should the man who
+was supposed to have but a few weeks to live be so anxious to see one
+who was comparatively a stranger to him? "I am so glad you have come in
+before dinner, Mr. Annesley, because my brother is so anxious to see
+you, and I am afraid you'll go too early in the morning." Then he
+followed her, and again found Mr. Scarborough on a couch in the same
+room to which he had been first introduced.
+
+"I've had a sharp bout of it since I saw you before," said the sick man.
+
+"So we heard, sir."
+
+"There is no saying how many or rather how few bouts of this kind it
+will take to polish me off. But I think I am entitled to some little
+respite now. The apothecary from Tretton was here this morning, and I
+believe has done me just as much good as Sir William Brodrick. His
+charge will be ten shillings, while Sir William demanded three hundred
+pounds. But it would be mean to go out with no one but the Tretton
+apothecary to look after one."
+
+"I suppose Sir William's knowledge has been of some service."
+
+"His dexterity with his knife has been of more. So you and Augustus have
+been quarrelling about Mountjoy?"
+
+"Not that I know of."
+
+"He says so; and I believe his word on such a subject sooner than yours.
+You are likely to quarrel without knowing it, and he is not. He thinks
+that you know what has become of Mountjoy."
+
+"Does he? Why should he think so, when I told him that I know nothing? I
+tell you that I know absolutely nothing. I am ignorant whether he is
+dead or alive."
+
+"He is not dead," said the father.
+
+"I suppose not; but I know nothing about him. Why your second son--"
+
+"You mean my eldest according to law,--or rather my only son!"
+
+"Why Augustus Scarborough," continued Harry Annesley, "should take upon
+himself to suspect that I know aught of his brother I cannot say. He has
+some cock-and-bull story about a policeman whom he professes to believe
+to be ignorant of his own business. This policeman, he says, is anxious
+to arrest me."
+
+"To make you give evidence before a magistrate," said his father.
+
+"He did not dare to tell me that he suspected me himself."
+
+"There;--I knew you had quarrelled."
+
+"I deny it altogether. I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough.
+He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I
+should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton,
+so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in
+future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough; but to you I give my
+positive assurance, which I do not doubt you will believe, that I know
+nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he
+spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his
+mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret.
+
+"Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that
+kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I
+have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his
+appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's
+confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how
+successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!"
+
+"People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry.
+
+"What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do
+justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly
+successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a
+little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of
+his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I
+determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of
+my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not
+prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I
+am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my
+death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar?
+Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in
+doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have
+spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have
+gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of
+the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."
+
+What was Harry Annesley to say in answer to such an address as this?
+There was the man, stretched on his bed before him, haggard, unshaved,
+pale, and grizzly, with a fire in his eyes, but weakness in his
+voice,--bold, defiant, self-satisfied, and yet not selfish. He had lived
+through his life with the one strong resolution of setting the law at
+defiance in reference to the distribution of his property; but chiefly
+because he had thought the law to be unjust. Then, when the accident of
+his eldest son's extravagance had fallen upon him, he had endeavored to
+save his second son, and had thought, without the slightest remorse, of
+the loss which was to fall on the creditors. He had done all this in
+such a manner that, as far as Harry knew, the law could not touch him,
+though all the world was aware of his iniquity. And now he lay boasting
+of what he had done. It was necessary that Harry should say something as
+he rose from his seat, and he lamely expressed a wish that Mr.
+Scarborough might quickly recover. "No, my dear fellow," said the
+squire; "men do not recover when they are brought to such straits as I
+am in. Nor do I wish it. Were I to live, Augustus would feel the second
+injustice to be quite intolerable. His mind is lost in amazement at what
+I had contemplated. And he feels that the matter can only be set right
+between him and fortune by my dying at once. If he were to understand
+that I were to live ten years longer, I think that he would either
+commit a murder or lose his senses."
+
+"But there is enough for both of you," said Harry.
+
+"There is no such word in the language as enough. An estate can have but
+one owner, and Augustus is anxious to be owner here. I do not blame him
+in the least. Why should he desire to spare a father's rights when that
+father showed himself so willing to sacrifice his? Good-bye, Annesley; I
+am sorry you are going, for I like to have some honest fellow to talk
+to. You are not to suppose that because I have done this thing I am
+indifferent to what men shall say of me. I wish them to think me good,
+though I have chosen to run counter to the prejudices of the world."
+
+Then Harry escaped from the room, and spent the remaining evening with
+Augustus Scarborough and Septimus Jones. The conversation was devoted
+chiefly to the partridges and horses; and was carried on by Septimus
+with severity toward Harry, and by Scarborough with an extreme civility
+which was the more galling of the two.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+AUGUSTUS HAS HIS OWN DOUBTS.
+
+
+"That's an impertinent young puppy," said Septimus Jones as soon as the
+fly which was to carry Harry Annesley to the station had left the
+hall-door on the following morning. It may be presumed that Mr. Jones
+would not thus have expressed himself unless his friend Augustus
+Scarborough had dropped certain words in conversation in regard to Harry
+to the same effect. And it may be presumed also that Augustus would not
+have dropped such words without a purpose of letting his friend know
+that Harry was to be abused. Augustus Scarborough had made up his mind,
+looking at the matter all round, that more was to be got by abusing
+Harry than by praising him.
+
+"The young man has a good opinion of himself certainly."
+
+"He thinks himself to be a deal better than anybody else," continued
+Jones, "whereas I for one don't see it. And he has a way with him of
+pretending to be quite equal to his companions, let them be who they
+may, which to me is odious. He was down upon you and down upon your
+father. Of course your father has made a most fraudulent attempt; but
+what the devil is it to him?" The other young man made no answer, but
+only smiled. The opinion expressed by Mr. Jones as to Harry Annesley had
+only been a reflex of that felt by Augustus Scarborough. But the reflex,
+as is always the case when the looking-glass is true, was correct.
+
+Scarborough had known Harry Annesley for a long time, as time is counted
+in early youth, and had by degrees learned to hate him thoroughly. He
+was a little the elder, and had at first thought to domineer over his
+friend. But the friend had resisted, and had struggled manfully to
+achieve what he considered an equality in friendship. "Now, Scarborough,
+you may as well take it once for all that I am not going to be talked
+down. If you want to talk a fellow down you can go to Walker, Brown, or
+Green. Then when you are tired of the occupation you can come back to
+me." It was thus that Annesley had been wont to address his friend. But
+his friend had been anxious to talk down this special young man for
+special purposes, and had been conscious of some weakness in the other's
+character which he thought entitled him to do so. But the weakness was
+not of that nature, and he had failed. Then had come the rivalry between
+Mountjoy and Harry, which had seemed to Augustus to be the extreme of
+impudence. From of old he had been taught to regard his brother Mountjoy
+as the first of young men--among commoners; the first in prospects and
+the first in rank; and to him Florence Mountjoy had been allotted as a
+bride. How he had himself learned first to envy and then to covet this
+allotted bride need not here be told. But by degrees it had come to pass
+that Augustus had determined that his spendthrift brother should fall
+under his own power, and that the bride should be the reward. How it was
+that two brothers, so different in character, and yet so alike in their
+selfishness, should have come to love the same girl with a true
+intensity of purpose, and that Harry Annesley, whose character was
+essentially different, and who was in no degree selfish, should have
+loved her also, must be left to explain itself as the girl's character
+shall be developed. But Florence Mountjoy had now for many months been
+the cause of bitter dislike against poor Harry in the mind of Augustus
+Scarborough. He understood much more clearly than his brother had done
+who it was that the girl really preferred. He was ever conscious, too,
+of his own superiority,--falsely conscious,--and did feel that if Harry's
+character were really known, no girl would in truth prefer him. He
+could not quite see Harry with Florence's eyes nor could he see himself
+with any other eyes but his own.
+
+Then had come the meeting between Mountjoy and Harry Annesley in the
+street, of which he had only such garbled account as Mountjoy himself
+had given him within half an hour afterward. From that story, told in
+the words of a drunken man,--a man drunk, and bruised, and bloody, who
+clearly did not understand in one minute the words spoken in the
+last,--Augustus did learn that there had been some great row between his
+brother and Harry Annesley. Then Mountjoy had disappeared,--had
+disappeared, as the reader will have understood, with his brother's
+co-operation,--and Harry had not come forward, when inquiries were made,
+to declare what he knew of the occurrences of that night. Augustus had
+narrowly watched his conduct, in order at first that he might learn in
+what condition his brother had been left in the street, but afterward
+with the purpose of ascertaining why it was that Harry had been so
+reticent. Then he had allured Harry on to a direct lie, and soon
+perceived that he could afterward use the secret for his own purpose.
+
+"I think we shall have to see what that young man's about, you know," he
+said afterward to Septimus Jones.
+
+"Yes, yes, certainly," said Septimus. But Septimus did not quite
+understand why it was that they should have to see what the young man
+was about.
+
+"Between you and me, I think he means to interfere with me, and I do not
+mean to stand his interference."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"He must go back to Buston, among the Bustonians, or he and I will have
+a stand-up fight of it. I rather like a stand-up fight."
+
+"Just so. When a fellow's so bumptious as that he ought to be licked."
+
+"He has lied about Mountjoy," said Augustus. Then Jones waited to be
+told how it was that Harry had lied. He was aware that there was some
+secret unknown to him, and was anxious to be informed. Was Harry aware
+of Mountjoy's hiding-place, and if so, how had he learned it? Why was it
+that Harry should be acquainted with that which was dark to all the
+world besides? Jones was of opinion that the squire knew all about it,
+and thought it not improbable that the squire and Augustus had the
+secret in their joint keeping. But if so, how should Harry Annesley know
+anything about it? "He has lied like the very devil," continued
+Augustus, after a pause.
+
+"Has he, now?"
+
+"And I don't mean to spare him."
+
+"I should think not." Then there was a pause, at the end of which Jones
+found himself driven to ask a question: "How has he lied?" Augustus
+smiled and shook his head, from which the other man gathered that he was
+not now to be told the nature of the lie in question. "A fellow that
+lies like that," said Jones, "is not to be endured."
+
+"I do not mean to endure him. You have heard of a young lady named Miss
+Mountjoy, a cousin of ours?"
+
+"Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy?" suggested Jones.
+
+"Yes, Mountjoy's Miss Mountjoy. That, of course, is over. Mountjoy has
+brought himself to such a pass that he is not entitled to have a Miss
+Mountjoy any longer. It seems the proper thing that she shall pass, with
+the rest of the family property, to the true heir."
+
+"You marry her!"
+
+"We need not talk about that just at present. I don't know that I've
+made up my mind. At any rate, I do not intend that Harry Annesley shall
+have her."
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"He's a pestilential cur, that has got himself introduced into the
+family, and the sooner we get quit of him the better. I should think the
+young lady would hardly fancy him when she knows that he has lied like
+the very devil, with the object of getting her former lover out of the
+way."
+
+"By Jove, no, I should think not!"
+
+"And when the world comes to understand that Harry Annesley, in the
+midst of all these inquiries, knows all about poor Mountjoy,--was the
+last to see him in London,--and has never come forward to say a word
+about him, then I think the world will be a little hard upon the
+immaculate Harry Annesley. His own uncle has quarrelled with him
+already."
+
+"What uncle?"
+
+"The gentleman down in Hertfordshire, on the strength of whose acres
+Master Harry is flaunting it about in idleness. I have my eyes open and
+can see as well as another. When Harry lectures me about my father and
+my father about me, one would suppose that there's not a hole in his own
+coat. I think he'll find that the garment is not altogether
+water-tight." Then Augustus, finding that he had told as much as was
+needful to Septimus Jones, left his friend and went about his own family
+business.
+
+On the next morning Septimus Jones took his departure, and on the day
+following Augustus followed him. "So you're off?" his father said to
+him when he came to make his adieux.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose so. A man has got so many things to look after
+which he can't attend to down here."
+
+"I don't know what they are, but you understand it all. I'm not going to
+ask you to stay. Does it ever occur to you that you may never see me
+again?"
+
+"What a question!"
+
+"It's one that requires an answer, at any rate."
+
+"It does occur to me; but not at all as probable."
+
+"Why not probable?"
+
+"Because there's a telegraph wire from Tretton to London; and because
+the journey down here is very short. It also occurs to me to think so
+from what has been said by Sir William Brodrick. Of course any man may
+die suddenly."
+
+"Especially when the surgeons have been at him."
+
+"You have your sister with you, sir, and she will be of more comfort to
+you than I can be. Your condition is in some respects an advantage to
+you. These creditors of Mountjoy can't force their way in upon you."
+
+"You are wrong there."
+
+"They have not done so."
+
+"Nor should they, though I were as strong as you. What are Mountjoy's
+creditors to me? They have not a scrap of my handwriting in their
+possession. There is not one who can say that he has even a verbal
+promise from me. They never came to me when they wanted to lend him
+money at fifty per cent. Did they ever hear me say that he was my heir?"
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Not one has ever heard it. It was not to them I lied, but to you and to
+Grey. D---- the creditors! What do I care for them, though they be all
+ruined?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Why do you talk to me about the creditors? You, at any rate, know the
+truth." Then Augustus quitted the room, leaving his father in a passion.
+But, as a fact, he was by no means assured as to the truth. He supposed
+that he was the heir; but might it not be possible that his father had
+contrived all this so as to save the property from Mountjoy and that
+greedy pack of money-lenders? Grey must surely know the truth. But why
+should not Grey be deceived on the second event as well as the first.
+There was no limit, Augustus sometimes thought, to his father's
+cleverness. This idea had occurred to him within the last week, and his
+mind was tormented with reflecting what might yet be his condition. But
+of one thing he was sure, that his father and Mountjoy were not in
+league together. Mountjoy at any rate believed himself to have been
+disinherited. Mountjoy conceived that his only chance of obtaining money
+arose from his brother. The circumstances of Mountjoy's absence were, at
+any rate, unknown to his father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SIR MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+It was the peculiarity of Florence Mountjoy that she did not expect
+other people to be as good as herself. It was not that she erected for
+herself a high standard and had then told herself that she had no right
+to demand from others one so exalted. She had erected nothing. Nor did
+she know that she attempted to live by grand rules. She had no idea that
+she was better than anybody else; but it came to her naturally as the
+result of what had gone before, to be unselfish, generous, trusting, and
+pure. These may be regarded as feminine virtues, and may be said to be
+sometimes tarnished, by faults which are equally feminine. Unselfishness
+may become want of character; generosity essentially unjust; confidence
+may be weak, and purity insipid. Here it was that the strength of
+Florence Mountjoy asserted itself. She knew well what was due to
+herself, though she would not claim it. She could trust to another, but
+in silence be quite sure of herself. Though pure herself, she was rarely
+shocked by the ways of others. And she was as true as a man pretends to
+be.
+
+In figure, form, and face she never demanded immediate homage by the
+sudden flash of her beauty. But when her spell had once fallen on a
+man's spirit it was not often that he could escape from it quickly. When
+she spoke a peculiar melody struck the hearer's ears. Her voice was soft
+and low and sweet, and full at all times of harmonious words; but when
+she laughed it was like soft winds playing among countless silver bells.
+There was something in her touch which to men was almost divine. Of this
+she was all unconscious, but was as chary with her fingers as though it
+seemed that she could ill spare her divinity.
+
+In height she was a little above the common, but it was by the grace of
+her movements that the world was compelled to observe her figure. There
+are women whose grace is so remarkable as to demand the attention of
+all. But then it is known of them, and momentarily seen, that their
+grace is peculiar. They have studied their graces, and the result is
+there only too evident. But Florence seemed to have studied nothing. The
+beholder felt that she must have been as graceful when playing with her
+doll in the nursery. And it was the same with her beauty. There was no
+peculiarity of chiselled features. Had you taken her face and measured
+it by certain rules, you would have found that her mouth was too large
+and her nose irregular. Of her teeth she showed but little, and in her
+complexion there was none of that pellucid clearness in which men
+ordinarily delight. But her eyes were more than ordinarily bright, and
+when she laughed there seemed to stream from them some heavenly delight.
+When she did laugh it was as though some spring had been opened from
+which ran for the time a stream of sweetest intimacy. For the time you
+would then fancy that you had been let into the inner life of this girl,
+and would be proud of yourself that so much should have been granted
+you. You would feel that there was something also in yourself in that
+this should have been permitted. Her hair and eyebrows were dark brown,
+of the hue most common to men and women, and had in them nothing that
+was peculiar; but her hair was soft and smooth and ever well dressed,
+and never redolent of peculiar odors. It was simply Florence Mountjoy's
+hair, and that made it perfect in the eyes of her male friends
+generally.
+
+"She's not such a wonderful beauty, after all," once said of her a
+gentleman to whom it may be presumed that she had not taken the trouble
+to be peculiarly attractive. "No," said another,--"no. But, by George! I
+shouldn't like to have the altering of her." It was thus that men
+generally felt in regard to Florence Mountjoy. When they came to reckon
+her up they did not see how any change was to be made for the better.
+
+To Florence, as to most other girls, the question of her future life had
+been a great trouble. Whom should she marry? and whom should she decline
+to marry? To a girl, when it is proposed to her suddenly to change
+everything in life, to go altogether away and place herself under the
+custody of a new master, to find for herself a new home, new pursuits,
+new aspirations, and a strange companion, the change must be so
+complete as almost to frighten her by its awfulness. And yet it has to
+be always thought of, and generally done.
+
+But this change had been presented to Florence in a manner more than
+ordinarily burdensome. Early in life, when naturally she would not have
+begun to think seriously of marriage, she had been told rather than
+asked to give herself to her cousin Mountjoy. She was too firm of
+character to accede at once--to deliver herself over body and soul to
+the tender mercies of one, in truth, unknown. But she had been unable to
+interpose any reason that was valid, and had contented herself by
+demanding time. Since that there had been moments in which she had
+almost yielded. Mountjoy Scarborough had been so represented to her that
+she had considered it to be almost a duty to yield. More than once the
+word had been all but spoken; but the word had never been spoken. She
+had been subjected to what might be called cruel pressure. In season and
+out of season her mother had represented as a duty this marriage with
+her cousin. Why should she not marry her cousin? It must be understood
+that these questions had been asked before any of the terrible facts of
+Captain Scarborough's life had been made known to her. Because, it may
+be said, she did not love him. But in these days she had loved no man,
+and was inclined to think so little of herself as to make her want of
+love no necessary bar to the accomplishment of the wish of others. By
+degrees she was spoken of among their acquaintance as the promised bride
+of Mountjoy Scarborough, and though she ever denied the imputation,
+there came over her girl's heart a feeling,--very sad and very solemn,
+but still all but accepted,--that so it must be. Then Harry Annesley had
+crossed her path, and the question had been at last nearly answered, and
+the doubts nearly decided. She did not quite know at first that she
+loved Harry Annesley, but was almost sure that it was impossible for her
+to become the wife of Mountjoy Scarborough.
+
+Then there came nearly twelve months of most painful uncertainty in her
+life. It is very hard for a young girl to have to be firm with her
+mother in declining a proposed marriage, when all circumstances of the
+connection are recommended to her as being peculiarly alluring. And
+there was nothing in the personal manners of her cousin which seemed to
+justify her in declaring her abhorrence. He was a dark, handsome,
+military-looking man, whose chief sin it was in the eyes of his cousin
+that he seemed to demand from her affection, worship, and obedience. She
+did not analyse his character, but she felt it. And when it came to
+pass that tidings of his debts at last reached her, she felt that she
+was glad of an excuse, though she knew that the excuse would not have
+prevailed with her had she liked him. Then came his debts, and with the
+knowledge of them a keener perception of his imperiousness. She could
+consent to become the wife of the man who had squandered his property
+and wasted his estate; but not of one who before his marriage demanded
+of her that submission which, as she thought, should be given by her
+freely after her marriage. Harry Annesley glided into her heart after a
+manner very different from this. She knew that he adored her, but yet he
+did not hasten to tell her so. She knew that she loved him, but she
+doubted whether a time would ever come in which she could confess it. It
+was not till he had come to acknowledge the trouble to which Mountjoy
+had subjected him that he had ever ventured to speak plainly of his own
+passion, and even then he had not asked for a reply. She was still free,
+as she thought of all this, but she did at last tell herself that, let
+her mother say what she would, she certainly never would stand at the
+altar with her cousin Mountjoy.
+
+Even now, when the captain had been declared not to be his father's
+heir, and when all the world knew that he had disappeared from the face
+of the earth, Mrs. Mountjoy did not altogether give him up. She partly
+disbelieved her brother, and partly thought that circumstances could not
+be so bad as they were described.
+
+To her feminine mind,--to her, living, not in the world of London, but in
+the very moderate fashion of Cheltenham,--it seemed to be impossible that
+an entail should be thus blighted in the bud. Why was an entail called
+an entail unless it were ineradicable,--a decision of fate rather than of
+man and of law? And to her eyes Mountjoy Scarborough was so commanding
+that all things must at last be compelled to go as he would have them.
+And, to tell the truth, there had lately come to Mrs. Mountjoy a word of
+comfort, which might be necessary if the world should be absolutely
+upset in accordance with the wicked skill of her brother, which even in
+that case might make crooked things smooth. Augustus, whom she had
+regarded always as quite a Mountjoy, because of his talent, and
+appearance, and habit of command, had whispered to her a word. Why
+should not Florence be transferred with the remainder of the property?
+There was something to Mrs. Mountjoy's feelings base in the idea at the
+first blush of it. She did not like to be untrue to her gallant nephew.
+But as she came to turn it in her mind there were certain circumstances
+which recommended the change to her--should the change be necessary.
+Florence certainly had expressed an unintelligible objection to the
+elder brother. Why should the younger not be more successful? Mrs.
+Mountjoy's heart had begun to droop within her as she had thought that
+her girl would prove deaf to the voice of the charmer. Another charmer
+had come, most objectionable in her sight, but to him no word of
+absolute encouragement had, as she thought, been yet spoken. Augustus
+had already obtained for himself among his friends the character of an
+eloquent young lawyer. Let him come and try his eloquence on his
+cousin,--only let it first be ascertained, as an assured fact, and beyond
+the possibility of all retrogression, that the squire's villainy was
+certain.
+
+"I think, my love," she said to her daughter one day, "that, under the
+immediate circumstances of the family, we should retire for a while into
+private life." This occurred on the very day on which Septimus Jones had
+been vaguely informed of the iniquitous falsehood of Harry Annesley.
+
+"Good gracious, mamma, is not our life always private?" She had
+understood it all,--that the private life was intended altogether to
+exclude Harry, but was to be made open to the manoeuvres of her cousin,
+such as they might be.
+
+"Not in the sense in which I mean. Your poor uncle is dying."
+
+"We hear that Sir William says he is better."
+
+"I fear, nevertheless, that he is dying,--though it may, perhaps, take a
+long time. And then poor Mountjoy has disappeared. I think that we
+should see no one till the mystery about Mountjoy has been cleared up.
+And then the story is so very discreditable."
+
+"I do not see that that is an affair of ours," said Florence, who had no
+desire to be shut up just at the present moment.
+
+"We cannot help ourselves. This making his eldest son out to be--oh,
+something so very different--is too horrible to be thought of. I am told
+that nobody knows the truth."
+
+"We at any rate are not implicated in that."
+
+"But we are. He at any rate is my brother, and Mountjoy is my nephew,--or
+at any rate was. Poor Augustus is thrown into terrible difficulties."
+
+"I am told that he is greatly pleased at finding that Tretton is to
+belong to him."
+
+"Who tells you that? You have no right to believe anything about such
+near relatives from any one. Whoever told you so has been very wicked."
+Mrs. Mountjoy no doubt thought that this wicked communication had been
+made by Harry Annesley. "Augustus has always proved himself to be
+affectionate and respectful to his elder brother, that is, to his
+brother who is--is older than himself," added Mrs. Mountjoy, feeling
+that there was a difficulty in expressing herself as to the presumed
+condition of the two Scarboroughs, "Of course he would rather be owner
+of Tretton than let any one else have it, if you mean that. The honor of
+the family is very much to him."
+
+"I do not know that the family can have any honor left," said Florence,
+severely.
+
+"My dear, you have no right to say that. The Scarboroughs have always
+held their heads very high in Staffordshire, and more so of late than
+ever. I don't mean quite of late, but since Tretton became of so much
+importance. Now, I'll tell you what I think we had better do. We'll go
+and spend six weeks with your uncle at Brussels. He has always been
+pressing us to come."
+
+"Oh, mamma, he does not want us."
+
+"How can you say that? How do you know?"
+
+"I am sure Sir Magnus will not care for our coming now. Besides, how
+could that be retiring into private life? Sir Magnus, as ambassador, has
+his house always full of company."
+
+"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is
+not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative,--our
+nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation,
+of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."
+
+"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But
+Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind.
+Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand
+that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be
+received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their
+joint wardrobe.
+
+Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the
+last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been
+minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man
+hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very
+extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive
+governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus
+had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would
+have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that
+such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his
+well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been
+well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the
+blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus
+had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as
+her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject
+was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady
+Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they
+were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there
+as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than
+at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw
+no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be
+expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of
+course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English
+world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but
+there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who
+thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously
+resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady
+Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and
+wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to
+be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her
+carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon
+the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in
+life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in
+truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things
+done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did
+not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He
+could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his
+wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based
+on a different footing.
+
+He knew well that as a rule it was not fitting that he should ask a
+married man without his wife; but there are occasions on which an excuse
+can be given, and upon the whole the men liked it. He was a stout, tall,
+portly old gentleman, sixty years of age, but looking somewhat older,
+whom it was a difficulty to place on horseback, but who, when there,
+looked remarkably well. He rarely rose to a trot during his two hours of
+exercise, which to the two attache's who were told off for the duty of
+accompanying him was the hardest part of their allotted work. But other
+gentlemen would lay themselves out to meet Sir Magnus and to ride with
+him, and in this way he achieved that character for popularity which had
+been a better aid to him in life than all the diplomatic skill which he
+possessed.
+
+"What do you think?" said he, walking off with Mrs. Mountjoy's letter
+into his wife's room.
+
+"I don't think anything, my dear."
+
+"You never do." Lady Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting,
+looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are
+proposing to come here."
+
+"Good gracious! At once?"
+
+"Yes, at once. Of course, I've asked them over and over again, and
+something was said about this autumn, when we had come back from
+Pimperingen."
+
+"Why did you not tell me?"
+
+"Bother! I did tell you. This kind of thing always turns up at last.
+She's a very good kind of a woman, and the daughter is all that she
+ought to be."
+
+"Of course she'll be flirting with Anderson." Anderson was one of the
+two mounted attaches.
+
+"Anderson will know how to look after himself," said Sir Magnus. "At any
+rate they must come. They have never troubled us before, and we ought to
+put up with them once."
+
+"But, my dear, what is all this about her brother?"
+
+"She won't bring her brother with her."
+
+"How can you be sure of that?" said the anxious lady.
+
+"He is dying, and can't be moved."
+
+"But that son of his--Mountjoy. It's altogether a most distressing
+story. He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared,
+and the papers for an entire month were full of him. What would you do
+if he were to turn up here? The girl was engaged to him, you know, and
+has only thrown him off since his own father declared that he was not
+legitimate. There never was such a mess about anything since London
+first began."
+
+Then Sir Magnus declared that, let Mountjoy Scarborough and his father
+have misbehaved as they might, Mr. Scarborough's sister must be received
+at Brussels. There was a little family difficulty. Sir Magnus had
+borrowed three thousand pounds from the general which had been settled
+on the general's widow, and the interest was not always paid with
+extreme punctuality. To give Mrs. Mountjoy her due, it must be said that
+this had not entered into her consideration when she had written to her
+brother-in-law; but it was a burden to Sir Magnus, and had always
+tended to produce from him a reiteration of those invitations, which
+Mrs. Mountjoy had taken as an expression of brotherly love. Her own
+income was always sufficient for her wants, and the hundred and fifty
+pounds coming from Sir Magnus had not troubled her much. "Well, my dear,
+if it must be it must;--only what I'm to do with her I do not know."
+
+"Take her about in the carriage," said Sir Magnus, who was beginning to
+be a little angry with this interference.
+
+"And the daughter? Daughters are twice more troublesome than their
+mothers."
+
+"Pass her over to Miss Abbott. And for goodness' sake don't make so much
+trouble about things which need not be troublesome." Then Sir Magnus
+left his wife to ring for her chambermaid and go on with her painting,
+while he himself undertook the unwonted task of writing an affectionate
+letter to his sister-in-law. It should be here explained that Sir Magnus
+had no children of his own, and that Miss Abbott was the lady who was
+bound to smile and say pretty things on all occasions to Lady Mountjoy
+for the moderate remuneration of two hundred a year and her maintenance.
+
+The letter which Sir Magnus wrote was as follows:
+
+
+  MY DEAR SARAH,--Lady Mountjoy bids me say that we shall
+  be delighted to receive you and my niece at the British
+  Ministry on the 1st of October, and hope that you will
+  stay with us till the end of the month.--Believe me, most
+  affectionately yours,                    MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+"I have a most kind letter from Sir Magnus," said Mrs. Mountjoy to her
+daughter.
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"That he will be delighted to receive us on the 1st of October. I did
+say that we should be ready to start in about a week's time, because I
+know that he gets home from his autumn holiday by the middle of
+September. But I have no doubt he has his house full till the time he
+has named."
+
+"Do you know her, mamma?" asked Florence.
+
+"I did see her once; but I cannot say that I know her. She used to be a
+very handsome woman, and looks to be quite good-natured; but Sir Magnus
+has always lived abroad, and except when he came home about your poor
+father's death I have seen very little of him."
+
+"I never saw him but that once," said Florence.
+
+And so it was settled that she and her mother were to spend a month at
+Brussels.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MONTE CARLO.
+
+
+Toward the end of September, while the weather was so hot as to keep
+away from the south of France all but very determined travellers, an
+English gentleman, not very beautiful in his outward appearance, was
+sauntering about the great hall of the gambling-house at Monte Carlo, in
+the kingdom or principality of Monaco, the only gambling-house now left
+in Europe in which idle men of a speculative nature may yet solace their
+hours with some excitement. Nor is the amusement denied to idle ladies,
+as might be seen by two or three highly-dressed _habituees_ who at this
+moment were depositing their shawls and parasols with the porters. The
+clock was on the stroke of eleven, when the gambling-room would be open,
+and the amusement was too rich in its nature to allow of the loss of
+even a few minutes. But this gentleman was not an _habitue_, nor was he
+known even by name to any of the small crowd that was then assembled.
+But it was known to many of them that he had had a great "turn of luck"
+on the preceding day, and had walked off from the "rouge-et-noir" table
+with four or five hundred pounds.
+
+The weather was still so hot that but few Englishmen were there, and the
+play had not as yet begun to run high. There were only two or three,--men
+who cannot keep their hands from ruin when ruin is open to them. To them
+heat and cold, the dog-star or twenty degrees below zero, make no
+difference while the croupier is there, with his rouleaux before him,
+capable of turning up the card. They know that the chance is against
+them,--one in twenty, let us say,--and that in the long-run one in twenty
+is as good as two to one to effect their ruin. For a day they may stand
+against one in twenty, as this man had done. For two or three days, for
+a week, they may possibly do so; but they know that the doom must come
+at last,--as it does come invariably,--and they go on. But our friend, the
+Englishman who had won the money, was not such a one as these, at any
+rate in regard to Monaco. Yesterday had been his first appearance, and
+he had broken ground there with great success. He was an ill-looking
+person, poorly clad,--what, in common parlance, we should call seedy. He
+had not a scrap of beard on his face, and though swarthy and dark as to
+his countenance, was light as to his hair, which hung in quantities down
+his back. He was dressed from head to foot in a suit of cross-barred,
+light-colored tweed, of which he wore the coat buttoned tight over his
+chest, as though to hide some deficiency of linen.
+
+The gentleman was altogether a disreputable-looking personage, and they
+who had seen him win his money,--Frenchmen and Italians for the most
+part,--had declared among themselves that his luck had been most
+miraculous. It was observed that he had a companion with him, who stuck
+close to his elbow, and it was asserted that this companion continually
+urged him to leave the room. But as long as the croupier remained at the
+table he remained, and continued to play through the day with almost
+invariable luck. It was surmised among the gamblers there that he had
+not entered the room with above twenty or thirty pieces in his pocket,
+and that he had taken away with him, when the place was closed, six
+hundred napoleons. "Look there; he has come again to give it all back to
+Madame Blanc, with interest," said a Frenchman to an Italian.
+
+"Yes; and he will end by blowing his brains out within a week. He is
+just the man to do it."
+
+"These Englishmen always rush at their fate like mad bulls," said the
+Frenchman. "They get less distraction for their money than any one."
+
+"Che va piano va sano," said the Italian, jingling the four napoleons in
+his pocket, which had been six on yesterday morning. Then they sauntered
+up to the Englishman, and both of them touched their hats to him. The
+Englishman just acknowledged the compliment, and walked off with his
+companion, who was still whispering something into his ear.
+
+"It is a gendarme who is with him, I think," said the Frenchman, "only
+the man does not walk erect."
+
+Who does not know the outside hall of the magnificent gambling-house at
+Monte Carlo, with all the golden splendor of its music-room within? Who
+does not know the lofty roof and lounging seats, with its luxuries of
+liveried servants, its wealth of newspapers, and every appanage of
+costly comfort which can be added to it? And its music within,--who does
+not know that there are to be heard sounds in a greater perfection of
+orchestral melody than are to be procured by money and trouble combined
+in the great capitals of Europe? Think of the trouble endured by those
+unhappy fathers of families who indulge their wives and daughters at the
+Philharmonic and St. James's Hall! Think of the horrors of our theatres,
+with their hot gas, and narrow passages, and difficulties of entrance,
+and almost impossibility of escape! And for all this money has to be
+paid,--high prices,--and the day has to be fixed long beforehand, so that
+the tickets may be secured, and the daily feast,--papa's too often
+solitary enjoyment,--has to be turned into a painful early fast. And when
+at last the thing has been done, and the torment endured, the sounds
+heard have not always been good of their kind, for the money has not
+sufficed to purchase the aid of a crowd of the best musicians. But at
+Monte Carlo you walk in with your wife in her morning costume, and
+seating yourself luxuriously in one of those soft stalls which are there
+prepared for you, you give yourself up with perfect ease to absolute
+enjoyment. For two hours the concert lasts, and all around is perfection
+and gilding. There is nothing to annoy the most fastidious taste. You
+have not heated yourself with fighting your way up crowded stairs; no
+box-keeper has asked you for a shilling. No link-boy has dunned you
+because he stood useless for a moment at the door of your carriage. No
+panic has seized you, and still oppresses you, because of the narrow
+dimensions in which you have to seat yourself for the next three hours.
+There are no twenty minutes during which you are doomed to sit in
+miserable expectation. Exactly at the hour named the music begins, and
+for two hours it is your own fault if you be not happy. A
+railway-carriage has brought you to steps leading up to the garden in
+which these princely halls are built, and when the music is over will
+again take you home. Nothing can be more perfect than the concert-room
+at Monte Carlo, and nothing more charming; and for all this there is
+nothing whatever to pay.
+
+But by whom;--out of whose pocket are all these good things provided?
+They tell you at Monte Carlo that from time to time are to be seen men
+walking off in the dark of the night or the gloom of the evening, or,
+for the matter of that, in the broad light of day, if the stern
+necessity of the hour require it, with a burden among them, to be
+deposited where it may not be seen or heard of any more. They are
+carrying away "all that mortal remains" of one of the gentlemen who have
+paid for your musical entertainment. He has given his all for the
+purpose, and has then--blown his brains out. It is one of the
+disagreeable incidents to which the otherwise extremely pleasant
+money-making operations of the establishment are liable. Such accidents
+will happen. A gambling-house, the keeper of which is able to maintain
+the royal expense of the neighboring court out of his winnings and also
+to keep open for those who are not ashamed to accept it,--gratis, all
+for love,--a concert-room brilliant with gold, filled with the best
+performers whom the world can furnish, and comfortable beyond all
+opera-houses known to men must be liable to a few such misfortunes. Who
+is not ashamed to accept, I have said, having lately been there and
+thoroughly enjoyed myself? But I did not put myself in the way of having
+to cut my throat, on which account I felt, as I came out, that I had
+been somewhat shabby. I was ashamed in that I had not put a few
+napoleons down on the table. Conscience had prevented me, and a wish to
+keep my money. But should not conscience have kept me away from all that
+happiness for which I had not paid? I had not thought of it before I
+went to Monte Carlo, but I am inclined now to advise others to stay
+away, or else to put down half a napoleon, at any rate, as the price of
+a ticket. The place is not overcrowded, because the conscience of many
+is keener than was mine.
+
+We ought to be grateful to the august sovereign of Monaco in that he
+enabled an enterprising individual to keep open for us in so brilliant a
+fashion the last public gambling-house in Europe. The principality is
+but large enough to contain the court of the sovereign which is held in
+the little town of Monaco, and the establishment of the last of
+legitimate gamblers which is maintained at Monte Carlo. If the report of
+the world does not malign the prince, he lives, as does the gambler, out
+of the spoil taken from the gamblers. He is to be seen in his royal
+carriage going forth with his royal consort,--and very royal he looks!
+His little teacup of a kingdom,--or rather a roll of French bread, for it
+is crusty and picturesque,--is now surrounded by France. There is Nice
+away to the west, and Mentone to the east, and the whole kingdom lies
+within the compass of a walk. Mentone, in France, at any rate, is within
+five miles of the monarch's residence. How happy it is that there should
+be so blessed a spot left in tranquillity on the earth's surface!
+
+But on the present occasion Monte Carlo was not in all its grandeur,
+because of the heat of the weather. Another month, and English lords,
+and English members of Parliament, and English barristers would be
+there,--all men, for instance, who could afford to be indifferent as to
+their character for a month,--and the place would be quite alive with
+music, cards, and dice. At present men of business only flocked to its
+halls, eagerly intent on making money, though, alas! almost all doomed
+to lose it. But our one friend with the long light locks was impatient
+for the fray. The gambling-room had now been opened, and the servants
+of the table, less impatient than he, were slowly arranging their money
+and their cards. Our friend had taken his seat, and was already
+resolving, with his eyes fixed on the table, where he would make his
+first plunge. In his right hand was a bag of gold, and under his left
+hand were hidden the twelve napoleons with which he intended to
+commence. On yesterday he had gone through his day's work by twelve,
+though on one or two occasions he had plunged deeply. It had seemed to
+this man as though a new heaven had been opened to him, as of late he
+had seen little of luck in this world. The surmises made as to the low
+state of his funds when he entered the room had been partly true; but
+time had been when he was able to gamble in a more costly fashion even
+than here, and to play among those who had taken his winnings and
+losings simply as a matter of course.
+
+And now the game had begun, and the twelve napoleons were duly
+deposited. Again he won his stake, an omen for the day, and was
+exultant. A second twelve and a third were put down, and on each
+occasion he won. In the silly imagination of his heart he declared to
+himself that the calculation of all chances was as nothing against his
+run of luck. Here was the spot on which it was destined that he should
+redeem all the injury which fortune had done him. And in truth this man
+had been misused by fortune. His companion whispered in his ear, but he
+heard not a word of it. He increased the twelve to fifteen, and again
+won. As he looked round there was a halo of triumph which seemed to
+illuminate his face. He had chained Chance to his chariot-wheel and
+would persevere now that the good time had come. What did he care for
+the creature at his elbow? He thought of all the good things which money
+could again purchase for him as he carefully fingered the gold for the
+next stake. He had been rich, though he was now poor; though how could a
+man be accounted poor who had an endless sum of six hundred napoleons in
+his pocket, a sum which was, in truth, endless, while it could be so
+rapidly recruited in this fashion? The next stake he also won, but as he
+raked all the pieces which the croupier pushed toward him his mind had
+become intent on another sphere and on other persons. Let him win what
+he might, his old haunts were now closed against him. What good would
+money do him, living such a life as he must now be compelled to pass? As
+he thought of this the five-and-twenty napoleons on the table were taken
+away from him almost without consciousness on his part.
+
+At that moment there came a voice in his ear,--not the voice of his
+attending friend, but one of which he accurately knew the lisping,
+fiendish sound: "Ah, Captain Scarborough, I thought it vas posshible you
+might be here. Dis ish a very nice place." Our friend looked round and
+glared at the man, and felt that it was impossible that this occupation
+should be continued under his eyes. "Yesh; it was likely. How do you
+like Monte Carlo? You have plenty of money--plenty!" The man was small,
+and oily, and black-haired, and beaky-nosed, with a perpetual smile on
+his face, unless when on special occasions he would be moved to the
+expression of deep anger. Of the modern Hebrews a most complete Hebrew;
+but a man of purpose, who never did things by halves, who could count
+upon good courage within, and who never allowed himself to be foiled by
+misadventure. He was one who, beginning with nothing, was determined to
+die a rich man, and was likely to achieve his purpose. Now there was no
+gleam of anger on his face, but a look of invincible good-humor, which
+was not, however, quite good-humor, when you came to examine it closely.
+
+"Oh, that is you, is it, Mr. Hart?"
+
+"Yesh; it is me. I have followed you. Oh, I have had quite a pleasant
+tour following you. But ven I got my noshe once on to the schent then I
+was sure it was Monte Carlo. And it ish Monte Carlo; eh, Captain
+Scarborough?"
+
+"Yes; of course it is Monte Carlo. That is to say, Monte Carlo is the
+place where we are now. I don't know what you mean by running on in that
+way." Then he drew back from the table, Mr. Hart following close behind
+him, and his attendant at a farther distance behind him. As he went he
+remembered that he had slightly increased the six hundred napoleons of
+yesterday, and that the money was still in his own possession. Not all
+the Jews in London could touch the money while he kept it in his pocket.
+
+"Who ish dat man there?" asked Mr. Hart.
+
+"What can that be to you?"
+
+"He seems to follow you pretty close."
+
+"Not so close as you do, by George; and perhaps he has something to get
+by it, which you haven't."
+
+"Come, come, come! If he have more to get than I he mush be pretty deep.
+There is Mishter Tyrrwhit. No one have more to get than I, only Mishter
+Tyrrwhit. Vy, Captain Scarborough, the little game you wash playing
+there, which wash a very pretty little game, is as nothing to my game
+wish you. When you see the money down, on the table there, it seems to
+be mush because the gold glitters, but it is as noting to my little
+game, where the gold does not glitter, because it is pen and ink. A pen
+and ink soon writes ten thousand pounds. But you think mush of it when
+you win two hundred pounds at roulette."
+
+"I think nothing of it," said our friend Captain Scarborough.
+
+"And it goes into your pocket to give champagne to the ladies, instead
+of paying your debts to the poor fellows who have supplied you for so
+long with all de money."
+
+All this occurred in the gambling-house at a distance from the table,
+but within hearing of that attendant who still followed the player.
+These moments were moments of misery to the captain in spite of the
+bank-notes for six hundred napoleons which were still in his breast
+coat-pocket. And they were not made lighter by the fact that all the
+words spoken by the Jew were overheard by the man who was supposed to be
+there in the capacity of his servant. But the man, as it seemed, had a
+mission to fulfil, and was the captain's master as well as servant. "Mr.
+Hart," said Captain Scarborough, repressing the loudness of his words as
+far as his rage would admit him, but still speaking so as to attract the
+attention of some of those round him, "I do not know what good you
+propose to yourself by following me in this manner. You have my bonds,
+which are not even payable till my father's death."
+
+"Ah, there you are very much mistaken."
+
+"And are then only payable out of the property to which I believed
+myself to be heir when the money was borrowed."
+
+"You are still de heir--de heir to Tretton. There is not a shadow of a
+doubt as to that."
+
+"I hope when the time comes," said the captain, "you'll be able to prove
+your words."
+
+"Of course we shall prove dem. Why not? Your father and your brother are
+very clever shentlemen, I think, but they will not be more clever than
+Mishter Samuel Hart. Mr. Tyrrwhit also is a clever man. Perhaps he
+understands your father's way of doing business. Perhaps it is all right
+with Mr. Tyrrwhit. It shall be all right with me too;--I swear it. When
+will you come back to London, Captain Scarborough?"
+
+Then there came an angry dispute in the gambling-room, during which Mr.
+Hart by no means strove to repress his voice. Captain Scarborough
+asserted his rights as a free agent, declaring himself capable, as far
+as the law was concerned, of going wherever he pleased without reference
+to Mr. Hart; and told that gentleman that any interference on his part
+would be regarded as an impertinence. "But my money--my money, which you
+must pay this minute, if I please to demand it."
+
+"You did not lend me five-and-twenty thousand pounds without security."
+
+"It is forty-five--now, at this moment."
+
+"Take it, get it; go and put it in your pocket. You have a lot of
+writings; turn then into cash at once. Take them to any other Jew in
+London and sell them. See if you can get your five-and-twenty thousand
+pounds for them,--or twenty-five thousand shillings. You certainly
+cannot get five-and-twenty pence for them here, though you had all the
+police of this royal kingdom to support you. My father says that the
+bonds I gave you are not worth the paper on which they were written. If
+you are cheated, so have I been. If he has robbed you, so has he me. But
+I have not robbed you, and you can do nothing to me."
+
+"I vill stick to you like beesvax," said Mr. Hart, while the look of
+good-humor left his countenance for a moment. "Like beesvax! You shall
+not escape me again."
+
+"You will have to follow me to Constantinople, then."
+
+"I vill follow you to the devil."
+
+"You are likely to go before me there. But for the present I am off to
+Constantinople, from whence I intend to make an extended tour to Mount
+Caucasus, and then into Thibet. I shall be very glad of your company,
+but cannot offer to pay the bill. When you and your companions have
+settled yourselves comfortably at Tretton, I shall be happy to come and
+see you there. You will have to settle the matter first with my younger
+brother, if I may make bold to call that well-born gentleman my brother
+at all. I wish you a good-morning, Mr. Hart." Upon that he walked out
+into the hall, and thence down the steps into the garden in front of the
+establishment, his own attendant following him.
+
+Mr. Hart also followed him, but did not immediately seek to renew the
+conversation. If he meant to show any sign of keeping his threat and of
+sticking to the captain like beeswax, he must show his purpose at once.
+The captain for a time walked round the little enclosure in earnest
+conversation with the attendant, and Mr. Hart stood on the steps
+watching them. Play was over, at any rate for that day, as far as the
+captain was concerned.
+
+"Now, Captain Scarborough, don't you think you've been very rash?" said
+the attendant.
+
+"I think I've got six hundred and fifty napoleons in my pocket, instead
+of waiting to get them in driblets from my brother."
+
+"But if he knew that you had come here he would withdraw them
+altogether. Of course, he will know now. That man will be sure to tell
+him. He will let all London know. Of course, it would be so when you
+came to a place of such common resort as Monte Carlo."
+
+"Common resort! Do you believe he came here as to a place of common
+resort? Do you think that he had not tracked me out, and would not have
+done so, whether I had gone to Melbourne, or New York, or St.
+Petersburg? But the wonder is that he should spend his money in such a
+vain pursuit."
+
+"Ah, captain, you do not know what is vain and what is not. It is your
+brother's pleasure that you should be kept in the dark for a time."
+
+"Hang my brother's pleasure! Why am I to follow my brother's pleasure?"
+
+"Because he will allow you an income. He will keep a coat on your back
+and a hat on your head, and supply meat and wine for your needs." Here
+Captain Scarborough jingled the loose napoleons in his trousers pocket.
+"Oh, yes, that is all very well but it will not last forever. Indeed, it
+will not last for a week unless you leave Monte Carlo."
+
+"I shall leave it this afternoon by the train for Genoa."
+
+"And where shall you go then?"
+
+"You heard me suggest to Mr. Hart to the devil,--or else Constantinople,
+and after that to Thibet. I suppose I shall still enjoy the pleasure of
+your company?"
+
+"Mr. Augustus wishes that I should remain with you, and, as you yourself
+say, perhaps it will be best."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S SUCCESS.
+
+
+Harry Annesley, a day or two after he had left Tretton, went down to
+Cheltenham; for he had received an invitation to a dance there, and with
+the invitation an intimation that Florence Mountjoy was to be at the
+dance. If I were to declare that the dance had been given and Florence
+asked to it merely as an act of friendship to Harry, it would perhaps be
+thought that modern friendship is seldom carried to so great a length.
+But it was undoubtedly the fact that Mrs. Armitage, who gave the dance,
+was a great friend and admirer of Harry's, and that Mr. Armitage was an
+especial chum. Let not, however, any reader suppose that Florence was in
+the secret. Mrs. Armitage had thought it best to keep her in the dark as
+to the person asked to meet her. "As to my going to Montpelier Place,"
+Harry had once said to Mrs. Armitage, "I might as well knock at a
+prison-door." Mrs. Mountjoy lived in Montpelier Place.
+
+"I think we could perhaps manage that for you," Mrs. Armitage had
+replied, and she had managed it.
+
+"Is she coming?" Harry said to Mrs. Armitage, in an anxious whisper, as
+he entered the room.
+
+"She has been here this half-hour,--if you had taken the trouble to leave
+your cigars and come and meet her."
+
+"She has not gone?" said Harry, almost awe-struck at the idea.
+
+"No; she is sitting like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief, in
+the room inside. She has got horrible news to tell you."
+
+"Oh, heavens! What news?"
+
+"I suppose she will tell you, though she has not been communicative to
+me in regard to your royal highness. The news is simply that her mother
+is going to take her to Brussels, and that she is to live for a while
+amid the ambassadorial splendors with Sir Magnus and his wife."
+
+By retiring from the world Mrs. Mountjoy had not intended to include
+such slight social relaxations as Mrs. Armitage's party, for Harry on
+turning round encountered her talking to another Cheltenham lady. He
+greeted her with his pleasantest smile, to which Mrs. Mountjoy did not
+respond quite so sweetly. She had ever greatly feared Harry Annesley,
+and had to-day heard a story very much, as she thought, to his
+discredit. "Is your daughter here?" asked Harry, with well-trained
+hypocrisy. Mrs. Mountjoy could not but acknowledge that Florence was in
+the room, and then Harry passed on in pursuit of his quarry.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Annesley, when did you come to Cheltenham?"
+
+"As soon as I heard that Mrs. Armitage was going to have a party I began
+to think of coming immediately." Then an idea for the first time shot
+through Florence's mind--that her friend Mrs. Armitage was a woman
+devoted to intrigue. "What dance have you disengaged? I have something
+that I must tell you to-night. You don't mean to say that you will not
+give me one dance?" This was merely a lover's anxious doubt on his
+part, because Florence had not at once replied to him. "I am told that
+you are going away to Brussels."
+
+"Mamma is going on a visit to her brother-in-law."
+
+"And you with her?"
+
+"Of course I shall go with mamma." All this had been said apart, while a
+fair-haired, lackadaisical young gentleman was standing twiddling his
+thumbs waiting to dance with Florence. At last the little book from her
+waist was brought forth, and Harry's name was duly inscribed. The next
+dance was a quadrille, and he saw that the space after that was also
+vacant; so he boldly wrote down his name for both. I almost think that
+Florence must have suspected that Harry Annesley was to be there that
+night, or why should the two places have been kept vacant? "And now what
+is this," he began, "about your going to Brussels?"
+
+"Mamma's brother is minister there, and we are just going on a visit."
+
+"But why now? I am sure there is some especial cause." Florence would
+not say that there was no especial cause, so she could only repeat her
+assertion that they certainly were going to Brussels. She herself was
+well aware that she was to be taken out of Harry's way, and that
+something was expected to occur during this short month of her absence
+which might be detrimental to him,--and to her also. But this she could
+not tell, nor did she like to say that the plea given by her mother was
+the general state of the Scarborough affairs. She did not wish to
+declare to this lover that that other lover was as nothing to her. "And
+how long are you to be away?" asked Harry.
+
+"We shall be a month with Sir Magnus; but mamma is talking of going on
+afterward to the Italian lakes."
+
+"Good heavens! you will not be back, I suppose, till ever so much after
+Christmas?"
+
+"I cannot tell. Nothing as yet has been settled. I do not know that I
+ought to tell you anything about it." Harry at this moment looked up,
+and caught the eye of Mrs. Mountjoy, as she was standing in the door-way
+opposite. Mrs. Mountjoy certainly looked as though no special
+communication as to Florence's future movements ought to be made to
+Harry Annesley.
+
+Then, however, it came to his turn to dance, and he had a moment allowed
+to him to collect his thoughts. By nothing that he could do or say could
+he prevent her going, and he could only use the present moment to the
+best purpose in his power. He bethought himself then that he had never
+received from her a word of encouragement, and that such word, if ever
+to be spoken, should be forthcoming that night. What might not happen to
+a girl who was passing the balmy Christmas months amid the sweet shadows
+of an Italian lake? Harry's ideas of an Italian lake were, in truth, at
+present somewhat vague. But future months were, to his thinking,
+interminable; the present moment only was his own. The dance was now
+finished. "Come and take a walk," said Harry.
+
+"I think I will go to mamma." Florence had seen her mother's eye fixed
+upon her.
+
+"Oh, come, that won't do at all," said Harry, who had already got her
+hand within his arm. "A fellow is always entitled to five minutes, and
+then I am down for the next waltz."
+
+"Oh no!"
+
+"But I am, and you can't get out of it now. Oh, Florence, will you
+answer me a question,--one question? I asked it you before, and you did
+not vouchsafe me any answer."
+
+"You asked me no question," said Florence, who remembered to the last
+syllable every word that had been said to her on that occasion.
+
+"Did I not? I am sure you knew what it was that I intended to ask."
+Florence could not but think that this was quite another thing. "Oh,
+Florence, can you love me?" Had she given her ears for it she could not
+have told him the truth then, on the spur of the moment. Her mother's
+eye was, she knew, watching her through the door-way all the way across
+from the other room. And yet, had her mother asked her, she would have
+answered boldly that she did love Harry Annesley, and intended to love
+him for ever and ever with all her heart. And she would have gone
+farther if cross-questioned, and have declared that she regarded him
+already as her lord and master. But now she had not a word to say to
+him. All she knew was that he had now pledged himself to her, and that
+she intended to keep him to his pledge. "May I not have one word," he
+said,--"one word?"
+
+What could he want with a word more? thought Florence. Her silence now
+was as good as any speech. But as he did want more she would, after her
+own way, reply to him. So there came upon his arm the slightest possible
+sense of pressure from those sweet fingers, and Harry Annesley was on a
+sudden carried up among azure-tinted clouds into the farthest heaven of
+happiness. After a moment he stood still, and passed his fingers through
+his hair and waved his head as a god might do it. She had now made to
+him a solemn promise than which no words could be more binding. "Oh,
+Florence," he exclaimed, "I must have you alone with me for one moment."
+For what could he want her alone for any moment? thought Florence. There
+was her mother still looking at them; but for her Harry did not now care
+one straw. Nor did he hate those bright Italian lakes with nearly so
+strong a feeling of abhorrence. "Florence, you are now all my own."
+There came another slightest pressure, slight, but so eloquent from
+those fingers.
+
+"I hate dancing. How is a fellow to dance now? I shall run against
+everybody. I can see no one. I should be sure to make a fool of myself.
+No, I don't want to dance even with you. No, certainly not!--let you
+dance with somebody else, and you engaged to me! Well, if I must, of
+course I must. I declare, Florence, you have not spoken a single word to
+me, though there is so much that you must have to say. What have you got
+to say? What a question to ask! You must tell me. Oh, you know what you
+have got to tell me! The sound of it will be the sweetest music that a
+man can possibly hear."
+
+"You knew it all, Harry," she whispered.
+
+"But I want to hear it. Oh, Florence, Florence, I do not think you can
+understand how completely I am beyond myself with joy. I cannot dance
+again, and will not. Oh, my wife, my wife!"
+
+"Hush!" said Florence, afraid that the very walls might hear the sound
+of Harry's words.
+
+"What does it signify though all the world knew it?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+"That I should have been so fortunate! That is what I cannot understand.
+Poor Mountjoy! I do feel for him. That he should have had the start of
+me so long, and have done nothing!"
+
+"Nothing," whispered Florence.
+
+"And I have done everything. I am so proud of myself that I think I must
+look almost like a hero."
+
+They had now got to the extremity of the room near an open window, and
+Florence found that she was able to say one word. "You are my hero." The
+sound of this nearly drove him mad with joy. He forgot all his troubles.
+Prodgers, the policeman, Augustus Scarborough, and that fellow whom he
+hated so much, Septimus Jones;--what were they all to him now? He had set
+his mind upon one thing of value, and he had got it. Florence had
+promised to be his, and he was sure that she would never break her word
+to him. But he felt that for the full enjoyment of his triumph he must
+be alone somewhere with Florence for five minutes. He had not actually
+explained to himself why, but he knew that he wished to be alone with
+her. At present there was no prospect of any such five minutes, but he
+must say something in preparation for some future five minutes at a time
+to come. Perhaps it might be to-morrow, though he did not at present see
+how that might be possible, for Mrs. Mountjoy, he knew, would shut her
+door against him. And Mrs. Mountjoy was already prowling round the room
+after her daughter. Harry saw her as he got Florence to an opposite
+door, and there for the moment escaped with her. "And now," he said,
+"how am I to manage to see you before you go to Brussels?"
+
+"I do not know that you can see me."
+
+"Do you mean that you are to be shut up, and that I am not to be allowed
+to approach you?"
+
+"I do mean it. Mamma is, of course, attached to her nephew."
+
+"What, after all that has passed?"
+
+"Why not? Is he to blame for what his father has done?" Harry felt that
+he could not press the case against Captain Scarborough without some
+want of generosity. And though he had told Florence once about that
+dreadful midnight meeting, he could say nothing farther on that subject.
+"Of course mamma thinks that I am foolish."
+
+"But why?" he asked.
+
+"Because she doesn't see with my eyes, Harry. We need not say anything
+more about it at present. It is so; and therefore I am to go to
+Brussels. You have made this opportunity for yourself before I start.
+Perhaps I have been foolish to be taken off my guard."
+
+"Don't say that, Florence."
+
+"I shall think so, unless you can be discreet. Harry, you will have to
+wait. You will remember that we must wait; but I shall not change."
+
+"Nor I,--nor I."
+
+"I think not, because I trust you. Here is mamma, and now I must leave
+you. But I shall tell mamma everything before I go to bed." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy came up and took Florence away, with a few words of most
+disdainful greeting to Harry Annesley.
+
+When Florence was gone Harry felt that as the sun and the moon and the
+stars had all set, and as absolute darkness reigned through the rooms,
+he might as well escape into the street, where there was no one but the
+police to watch him, as he threw his hat up into the air in his
+exultation. But before he did so he had to pass by Mrs. Armitage and
+thank her for all her kindness; for he was aware how much she had done
+for him in his present circumstances. "Oh, Mrs. Armitage, I am so
+obliged to you! no fellow was ever so obliged to a friend before."
+
+"How has it gone off? For Mrs. Mountjoy has taken Florence home."
+
+"Oh yes, she has taken her away. But she hasn't shut the stable-door
+till the steed has been stolen."
+
+"Oh, the steed has been stolen?"
+
+"Yes, I think so; I do think so."
+
+"And that poor man who has disappeared is nowhere."
+
+"Men who disappear never are anywhere. But I do flatter myself that if
+he had held his ground and kept his property the result would have been
+the same."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"Don't suppose, Mrs. Armitage, that I am taking any pride to myself. Why
+on earth Florence should have taken a fancy to such a fellow as I am I
+cannot imagine."
+
+"Oh no; not in the least."
+
+"It's all very well for you to laugh, Mrs. Armitage, but as I have
+thought of it all I have sometimes been in despair."
+
+"But now you are not in despair."
+
+"No, indeed; just now I am triumphant. I have thought so often that I
+was a fool to love her, because everything was so much against me."
+
+"I have wondered that you continued. It always seemed to me that there
+wasn't a ghost of a chance for you. Mr. Armitage bade me give it all up,
+because he was sure you would never do any good."
+
+"I don't care how much you laugh at me, Mrs. Armitage."
+
+"Let those laugh who win." Then he rushed out into the Paragon, and
+absolutely did throw his hat up in the air in his triumph.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MRS. MOUNTJOY'S ANGER.
+
+
+Florence, as she went home in the fly with her mother after the party at
+which Harry had spoken to her so openly, did not find the little journey
+very happy. Mrs. Mountjoy was a woman endowed with a strong power of
+wishing rather than of willing, of desiring rather than of contriving;
+but she was one who could make herself very unpleasant when she was
+thwarted. Her daughter was now at last fully determined that if she ever
+married anybody, that person should be Harry Annesley. Having once
+pressed his arm in token of assent, she had as it were given herself
+away to him, so that no reasoning, no expostulations could, she thought,
+change her purpose; and she had much more power of bringing about her
+purposed design than had her mother. But her mother could be obstinate
+and self-willed, and would for the time make herself disagreeable.
+Florence had assured her lover that everything should be told her mother
+that night before she went to bed. But Mrs. Mountjoy did not wait to be
+simply told. No sooner were they seated in the fly together than she
+began to make her inquiries. "What has that man been saying to you?" she
+demanded.
+
+Florence was at once offended by hearing her lover so spoken of, and
+could not simply tell the story of Harry's successful courtship, as she
+had intended. "Mamma," she said "why do you speak of him like that?"
+
+"Because he is a scamp."
+
+"No, he is no scamp. It is very unkind of you to speak in such terms of
+one whom you know is very dear to me."
+
+"I do not know it. He ought not to be dear to you at all. You have been
+for years intended for another purpose." This was intolerable to
+Florence,--this idea that she should have been considered as capable of
+being intended for the purposes of other people! And a resolution at
+once was formed in her mind that she would let her mother know that such
+intentions were futile. But for the moment she sat silent. A journey
+home at twelve o'clock at night in a fly was not the time for the
+expression of her resolution. "I say he is a scamp," said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+"During all these inquiries that have been made after your cousin he has
+known all about it."
+
+"He has not known all about it," said Florence.
+
+"You contradict me in a very impertinent manner, and cannot be
+acquainted with the circumstances. The last person who saw your cousin
+in London was Mr. Henry Annesley, and yet he has not said a word about
+it, while search was being made on all sides. And he saw him under
+circumstances most suspicious in their nature; so suspicious as to have
+made the police arrest him if they were aware of them. He had at that
+moment grossly insulted Captain Scarborough."
+
+"No, mamma; no, it was not so."
+
+"How do you know? how can you tell?"
+
+"I do know; and I can tell. The ill-usage had come from the other side."
+
+"Then you, too, have known the secret, and have said nothing about it?
+You, too, have been aware of the violence which took place at that
+midnight meeting? You have been aware of what befell your cousin, the
+man to whom you were all but engaged. And you have held your tongue at
+the instigation, no doubt, of Mr. Henry Annesley. Oh, Florence, you also
+will find yourself in the hands of the policeman!" At this moment the
+fly drew up at the door of the house in Montpelier Place, and the two
+ladies had to get out and walk up the steps into the hall, where they
+were congratulated on their early return from the party by the
+lady's-maid.
+
+"Mamma, I will go to bed," said Florence, as soon as she reached her
+mother's room.
+
+"I think you had better, my dear, though Heaven knows what disturbances
+there may be during the night." By this Mrs. Mountjoy had intended to
+imply that Prodgers, the policeman, might probably lose not a moment
+more before he would at once proceed to arrest Miss Mountjoy for the
+steps she had taken in regard to the disappearance of Captain
+Scarborough.
+
+She had heard from Harry Annesley the fact that he had been brutally
+attacked by the captain in the middle of the night in the streets of
+London; and for this, in accordance with her mother's theory, she was to
+be dragged out of bed by a constable, and that, probably, before the
+next morning should have come. There was something in this so ludicrous
+as regarded the truth of the story, and yet so cruel as coming from her
+mother, that Florence hardly knew whether to cry or laugh as she laid
+her head upon the pillow.
+
+But in the morning, as she was thinking that the facts of her own
+position had still to be explained to her mother,--that it would be
+necessary that she should declare her purpose and the impossibility of
+change, now that she had once pledged herself to her lover,--Mrs.
+Mountjoy came into the room, and stood at her bedside, with that
+appearance of ghostly displeasure which always belongs to an angry old
+lady in a night-cap.
+
+"Well, mamma?"
+
+"Florence, there must be an understanding between us."
+
+"I hope so. I thought there always had been. I am sure, mamma, you have
+known that I have never liked Captain Scarborough so as to become his
+wife, and I think you have known that I have liked Harry Annesley."
+
+"Likings are all fiddlesticks!"
+
+"No, mamma; or, if you object to the word, I will say love. You have
+known that I have not loved my cousin, and that I have loved this other
+man. That is not nonsense; that at any rate is a stern reality, if there
+be anything real in the world."
+
+"Stern! you may well call it stern."
+
+"I mean unbending, strong, not to be overcome by outside circumstances.
+If Mr. Annesley had not spoken to me as he did last night,--could never
+have so spoken to me,--I should have been a miserable girl, but my love
+for him would have been just as stern. I should have remained and
+thought of it, and have been unhappy through my whole life. But he has
+spoken, and I am exultant. That is what I mean by stern. All that is
+most important, at any rate to me."
+
+"I am here now to tell you that it is impossible."
+
+"Very well, mamma. Then things must go on, and we must bide our time."
+
+"It is proper that I should tell you that he has disgraced himself."
+
+"Never! I will not admit it. You do not know the circumstances,"
+exclaimed Florence.
+
+"It is most impertinent in you to pretend that you know them better than
+I do," said her mother, indignantly.
+
+"The story was told to me by himself."
+
+"Yes; and therefore told untruly."
+
+"I grieve that you should think so of him, mamma; but I cannot help it.
+Where you have got your information I cannot tell. But that mine has
+been accurately told to me I feel certain."
+
+"At any rate, my duty is to look after you and to keep you from harm. I
+can only do my duty to the best of my ability. Mr. Annesley is, to my
+thinking, a most objectionable young man, and he will, I believe, be in
+the hands of the police before long. Evidence will have to be given, in
+which your name will, unfortunately, be mentioned."
+
+"Why my name?"
+
+"It is not probable that he will keep it a secret, when
+cross-questioned, as to his having divulged the story to some one. He
+will declare that he has told it to you. When that time shall come it
+will be well that we should be out of the country. I propose to start
+from here on this day week."
+
+"Uncle Magnus will not be able to have us then."
+
+"We must loiter away our time on the road. I look upon it as quite
+imperative that we shall both be out of England within eight days' time
+of this."
+
+"But where will you go?"
+
+"Never mind. I do not know that I have as yet quite made up my mind. But
+you may understand that we shall start from Cheltenham this day week.
+Baker will go with us, and I shall leave the other two servants in
+charge of the house. I cannot tell you anything farther as yet,--except
+that I will never consent to your marriage with Mr. Henry Annesley. You
+had better know that for certain, and then there will be less cause for
+unhappiness between us." So saying, the angry ghost with the night-cap
+on stalked out of the room.
+
+It need hardly be explained that Mrs. Mountjoy's information respecting
+the scene in London had come to her from Augustus Scarborough. When he
+told her that Annesley had been the last in London to see his brother
+Mountjoy, and had described the nature of the scene that had occurred
+between them, he had no doubt forgotten that he himself had subsequently
+seen his brother. In the story, as he had told it, there was no need to
+mention himself,--no necessity for such a character in making up the
+tragedy of that night. No doubt, according to his idea, the two had been
+alone together. Harry had struck the blow by which his brother had been
+injured, and had then left him in the street. Mountjoy had subsequently
+disappeared, and Harry had told to no one that such an encounter had
+taken place. This had been the meaning of Augustus Scarborough when he
+informed his aunt that Harry had been the last who had seen Mountjoy
+before his disappearance. To Mrs. Mountjoy the fact had been most
+injurious to Harry's character. Harry had wilfully kept the secret while
+all the world was at work looking for Mountjoy Scarborough; and, as far
+as Mrs. Mountjoy could understand, it might well be that Harry had
+struck the fatal blow that had sent her nephew to his long account. All
+the impossibilities in the case had not dawned upon her. It had not
+occurred to her that Mountjoy could not have been killed and his body
+made away with without some great effort, in the performance of which
+the "scamp" would hardly have risked his life or his character. But the
+scamp was certainly a scamp, even though he might not be a murderer, or
+he would have revealed the secret. In fact, Mrs. Mountjoy believed in
+the matter exactly what Augustus had intended, and, so believing, had
+resolved that her daughter should suffer any purgatory rather than
+become Harry's wife.
+
+But her daughter made her resolutions exactly in the contrary direction.
+She in truth did know what had been done on that night, while her mother
+was in ignorance. The extent of her mother's ignorance she understood,
+but she did not at all know where her mother had got her information.
+She felt that Harry's secret was in hands other than he had intended,
+and that some one must have spoken of the scene. It occurred to Florence
+at the moment that this must have come from Mountjoy himself, whom she
+believed,--and rightly believed,--to have been the only second person
+present on the occasion. And if he had told it to any one, then must
+that "any one" know where and how he had disappeared. And the
+information must have been given to her mother solely with the view of
+damaging Harry's character, and of preventing Harry's marriage.
+
+Thinking of all this, Florence felt that a premeditated and foul
+attempt,--for, as she turned it in her mind, the attempt seemed to be
+very foul,--was being made to injure Harry. A false accusation was
+brought against him, and was grounded on a misrepresentation of the
+truth in such a manner as to subvert it altogether to Harry's injury. It
+should have no effect upon her. To this determination she came at once,
+and declared to herself solemnly that she would be true to it. An
+attempt was made to undermine him in her estimation; but they who made
+it had not known her character. She was sure of herself now, within her
+own bosom, that she was bound in a peculiar way to be more than
+ordinarily true to Harry Annesley. In such an emergency she ought to do
+for Harry Annesley more than a girl in common circumstances would be
+justified in doing for her lover. Harry was maligned, ill-used, and
+slandered. Her mother had been induced to call him a scamp, and to give
+as her reason for doing so an account of a transaction which was
+altogether false, though she no doubt had believed it to be true.
+
+As she thought of all this she resolved that it was her duty to write to
+her lover, and tell him the story as she had heard it. It might be most
+necessary that he should know the truth. She would write her letter and
+post it,--so that it should be altogether beyond her mother's
+control,--and then would tell her mother that she had written it. She at
+first thought that she would keep a copy of the letter and show it to
+her mother. But when it was written,--those first words intended for a
+lover's eyes which had ever been produced by her pen,--she found that she
+could not subject those very words to her mother's hard judgment.
+
+Her letter was as follows:
+
+"DEAR HARRY,--You will be much surprised at receiving a letter from me
+so soon after our meeting last night. But I warn you that you must not
+take it amiss. I should not write now were it not that I think it may be
+for your interest that I should do so. I do not write to say a word
+about my love, of which I think you may be assured without any letter. I
+told mamma last night what had occurred between us, and she of course
+was very angry. You will understand that, knowing how anxious she has
+been on behalf of my cousin Mountjoy. She has always taken his part, and
+I think it does mamma great honor not to throw him over now that he is
+in trouble. I should never have thrown him over in his trouble, had I
+ever cared for him in that way. I tell you that fairly, Master Harry.
+
+"But mamma, in speaking against you, which she was bound to do in
+supporting poor Mountjoy, declared that you were the last person who had
+seen my cousin before his disappearance, and she knew that there had
+been some violent struggle between you. Indeed, she knew all the truth
+as to that night, except that the attack had been made by Mountjoy on
+you. She turned the story all round, declaring that you had attacked
+him,--which, as you perceive, gives a totally different appearance to the
+whole matter. Somebody has told her,--though who it may have been I
+cannot guess,--but somebody has been endeavoring to do you all the
+mischief he can in the matter, and has made mamma think evil of you. She
+says that after attacking him, and brutally ill-using him, you had left
+him in the street, and had subsequently denied all knowledge of having
+seen him. You will perceive that somebody has been at work inventing a
+story to do you a mischief, and I think it right that I should tell you.
+
+"But you must never believe that I shall believe anything to your
+discredit. It would be to my discredit now. I know that you are good,
+and true, and noble, and that you would not do anything so foul as this.
+It is because I know this that I have loved you, and shall always love
+you. Let mamma and others say what they will, you are now to me all the
+world. Oh, Harry, Harry, when I think of it, how serious it seems to me,
+and yet how joyful! I exult in you, and will do so, let them say what
+they may against you. You will be sure of that always. Will you not be
+sure of it?
+
+"But you must not write a line in answer, not even to give me your
+assurance. That must come when we shall meet at length,--say after a
+dozen years or so. I shall tell mamma of this letter, which
+circumstances seem to demand, and shall assure her that you will write
+no answer to it.
+
+"Oh, Harry, you will understand all that I might say of my feelings in
+regard to you.
+
+"Your own, FLORENCE."
+
+This letter, when she had written it and copied it fair and posted the
+copy in the pillar-box close by, she found that she could not in any way
+show absolutely to her mother. In spite of all her efforts it had become
+a love-letter. And what genuine love-letter can a girl show even to her
+mother? But she at once told her of what she had done. "Mamma, I have
+written a letter to Harry Annesley."
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes, mamma; I have thought it right to tell him what you had heard
+about that night."
+
+"And you have done this without my permission,--without even telling me
+what you were going to do?"
+
+"If I had asked you, you would have told me not."
+
+"Of course I should have told you not. Good gracious! has it come to
+this, that you correspond with a young gentleman without my leave, and
+when you know that I would not have given it?"
+
+"Mamma, in this instance it was necessary."
+
+"Who was to judge of that?"
+
+"If he is to be my husband--"
+
+"But he is not to be your husband. You are never to speak to him again.
+You shall never be allowed to meet him; you shall be taken abroad, and
+there you shall remain, and he shall hear nothing about you. If he
+attempts to correspond with you--"
+
+"He will not."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I have told him not to write."
+
+"Told him, indeed! Much he will mind such telling! I shall give your
+Uncle Magnus a full account of it all and ask for his advice. He is a
+man in a high position, and perhaps you may think fit to obey him,
+although you utterly refuse to be guided in any way by your mother."
+Then the conversation for the moment came to an end. But Florence, as
+she left her mother, assured herself that she could not promise any
+close obedience in any such matters to Sir Magnus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THEY ARRIVE IN BRUSSELS.
+
+
+For some weeks after the party at Mrs. Armitage's house, and the
+subsequent explanations with her mother, Florence was made to suffer
+many things. First came the one week before they started, which was
+perhaps the worst of all. This was specially embittered by the fact that
+Mrs. Mountjoy absolutely refused to divulge her plans as they were made.
+There was still a fortnight before she could be received at Brussels,
+and as to that fortnight she would tell nothing.
+
+Her knowledge of human nature probably went so far as to teach her that
+she could thus most torment her daughter. It was not that she wished to
+torment her in a revengeful spirit. She was quite sure within her own
+bosom that she did all in love. She was devoted to her daughter. But she
+was thwarted; and therefore told herself that she could best farther the
+girl's interests by tormenting her. It was not meditated revenge, but
+that revenge which springs up without any meditation, and is often
+therefore the most bitter. "I must bring her nose to the grindstone,"
+was the manner in which she would have probably expressed her thoughts
+to herself. Consequently Florence's nose was brought to the grindstone,
+and the operation made her miserable. She would not, however, complain
+when she had discovered what her mother was doing. She asked such
+questions as appeared to be natural, and put up with replies which
+purposely withheld all information. "Mamma, have you not settled on what
+day we shall start?" "No, my dear." "Mamma, where are we going?" "I
+cannot tell you as yet; I am by no means sure myself." "I shall be glad
+to know, mamma, what I am to pack up for use on the journey." "Just the
+same as you would do on any journey." Then Florence held her tongue, and
+consoled herself with thinking of Harry Annesley.
+
+At last the day came, and she knew that she was to be taken to Boulogne.
+Before this time she had received one letter from Harry, full of love,
+full of thanks,--just what a lover's letter ought to have been;--but yet
+she was disturbed by it. It had been delivered to herself in the usual
+way, and she might have concealed the receipt of it from her mother,
+because the servants in the house were all on her side. But this would
+not be in accordance with the conduct which she had arranged for
+herself, and she told her mother. "It is just an acknowledgment of mine
+to him. It was to have been expected, but I regret it."
+
+"I do not ask to see it," said Mrs. Mountjoy, angrily.
+
+"I could not show it you, mamma, though I think it right to tell you of
+it."
+
+"I do not ask to see it, I tell you. I never wish to hear his name again
+from your tongue. But I knew how it would be;--of course. I cannot allow
+this kind of thing to go on. It must be prevented."
+
+"It will not go on, mamma."
+
+"But it has gone on. You tell me that he has already written. Do you
+think it proper that you should correspond with a young man of whom I do
+not approve?" Florence endeavored to reflect whether she did think it
+proper or not. She thought it quite proper that she should love Harry
+Annesley with all her heart, but was not quite sure as to the
+correspondence. "At any rate, you must understand," continued Mrs.
+Mountjoy, "that I will not permit it. All letters, while we are abroad,
+must be brought to me; and if any come from him they shall be sent back
+to him. I do not wish to open his letters, but you cannot be allowed to
+receive them. When we are at Brussels I shall consult your uncle upon
+the subject. I am very sorry, Florence, that there should be this cause
+of quarrel between us; but it is your doing."
+
+"Oh, mamma, why should you be so hard?"
+
+"I am hard, because I will not allow you to accept a young man who has,
+I believe, behaved very badly, and who has got nothing of his own."
+
+"He is his uncle's heir."
+
+"We know what that may come to. Mountjoy was his father's heir; and
+nothing could be entailed more strictly than Tretton. We know what
+entails have come to there. Mr. Prosper will find some way of escaping
+from it. Entails go for nothing now; and I hear that he thinks so badly
+of his nephew that he has already quarrelled with him. And he is quite a
+young man himself. I cannot think how you can be so foolish,--you, who
+declared that you are throwing your cousin over because he is no longer
+to have all his father's property."
+
+"Oh, mamma, that is not true."
+
+"Very well, my dear."
+
+"I never allowed it to be said in my name that I was engaged to my
+cousin Mountjoy."
+
+"Very well, I will never allow it to be said in my name that with my
+consent you are engaged to Mr. Henry Annesley."
+
+Six or seven days after this they were settled together most
+uncomfortably in a hotel at Boulogne. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there
+because there was no other retreat to which she could take her daughter,
+and because she had resolved to remove her from beyond the sphere of
+Harry Annesley's presence. She had at first thought of Ostend; but it
+had seemed to her that Ostend was within the kingdom reigned over by Sir
+Magnus and that there would be some impropriety in removing from thence
+to the capital in which Sir Magnus was reigning. It was as though you
+were to sojourn for three days at the park-gates before you were
+entertained at the mansion. Therefore they stayed at Boulogne, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy tried the bathing, cold as the water was with equinoctial
+gales, in order that there might be the appearance of a reason for her
+being at Boulogne. And for company's sake, in the hope of maintaining
+some fellowship with her mother, Florence bathed also. "Mamma, he has
+not written again," said Florence, coming up one day from the stand.
+
+"I suppose that you are impatient."
+
+"Why should there be a quarrel between us? I am not impatient. If you
+would only believe me, it would be so much more happy for both of us.
+You always used to believe me."
+
+"That was before you knew Mr. Harry Annesley."
+
+There was something in this very aggravating,--something specially
+intended to excite angry feelings. But Florence determined to forbear.
+"I think you may believe me, mamma. I am your own daughter, and I shall
+not deceive you. I do consider myself engaged to Mr. Annesley."
+
+"You need not tell me that."
+
+"But while I am living with you I will promise not to receive letters
+from him without your leave. If one should come I will bring it to you,
+unopened, so that you may deal with it as though it had been delivered
+to yourself. I care nothing about my uncle as to this affair. What he
+may say cannot affect me, but what you say does affect me very much. I
+will promise neither to write nor to hear from Mr. Annesley for three
+months. Will not that satisfy you?" Mrs. Mountjoy would not say that it
+did satisfy her; but she somewhat mitigated her treatment of her
+daughter till they arrived together at Sir Magnus's mansion.
+
+They were shown through the great hall by three lackeys into an inner
+vestibule, where they encountered the great man himself. He was just
+then preparing to be put on to his horse, and Lady Mountjoy had already
+gone forth in her carriage for her daily airing, with the object, in
+truth, of avoiding the new-comers. "My dear Sarah," said Sir Magnus, "I
+hope I have the pleasure of seeing you and my niece very well. Let me
+see, your name is--"
+
+"My name is Florence," said the young lady so interrogated.
+
+"Ah yes; to be sure. I shall forget my own name soon. If any one was to
+call me Magnus without the 'Sir,' I shouldn't know whom they meant."
+Then he looked his niece in the face, and it occurred to him that
+Anderson might not improbably desire to flirt with her. Anderson was the
+riding attache, who always accompanied him on horseback, and of whom
+Lady Mountjoy had predicted that he would be sure to flirt with the
+minister's niece. At that moment Anderson himself came in, and some
+ceremony of introduction took place. Anderson was a fair-haired,
+good-looking young man, with that thorough look of self-satisfaction and
+conceit which attaches are much more wont to exhibit than to deserve.
+For the work of an attache at Brussels is not of a nature to bring forth
+the highest order of intellect; but the occupations are of a nature to
+make a young man feel that he is not like other young men.
+
+"I am so sorry that Lady Mountjoy has just gone out. She did not expect
+you till the later train. You have been staying at Boulogne. What on
+earth made you stay at Boulogne?"
+
+"Bathing," said Mrs. Mountjoy, in a low voice.
+
+"Ah, yes; I suppose so. Why did you not come to Ostend? There is better
+bathing there, and I could have done something for you. What! The horses
+ready, are they? I must go out and show myself, or otherwise they'll all
+think that I am dead. If I were absent from the boulevard at this time
+of day I should be put into the newspapers. Where is Mrs. Richards?"
+Then the two guests, with their own special Baker, were made over to the
+ministerial house-keeper, and Sir Magnus went forth upon his ride.
+
+"She's a pretty girl, that niece of mine," said Sir Magnus.
+
+"Uncommonly pretty," said the attache.
+
+"But I believe she is engaged to some one. I quite forget who; but I
+know there is some aspirant. Therefore you had better keep your toe in
+your pump, young man."
+
+"I don't know that I shall keep my toe in my pump because there is
+another aspirant," said Anderson. "You rather whet my ardor, sir, to new
+exploits. In such circumstances one is inclined to think that the
+aspirant must look after himself. Not that I conceive for a moment that
+Miss Mountjoy should ever look after me."
+
+When Mrs. Mountjoy came down to the drawing-room there seemed to be
+quite "a party" collected to enjoy the hospitality of Sir Magnus, but
+there were not, in truth, many more than the usual number at the board.
+There were Lady Mountjoy, and Miss Abbot, and Mr. Anderson, with Mr.
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, the two attaches. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+especially proud of his name, but was otherwise rather a humble young
+man as an attache, having as yet been only three months with Sir Magnus,
+and desirous of perfecting himself in Foreign Office manners under the
+tuition of Mr. Anderson. Mr. Blow, Secretary of Legation, was not there.
+He was a married man of austere manners, who, to tell the truth, looked
+down from a considerable height, as regarded Foreign Office knowledge,
+upon his chief.
+
+It was Mr. Blow who did the "grinding" on behalf of the Belgian
+Legation, and who sometimes did not hesitate to let it be known that
+such was the fact. Neither he nor Mrs. Blow was popular at the Embassy;
+or it may, perhaps, be said with more truth that the Embassy was not
+popular with Mr. and Mrs. Blow. It may be stated, also, that there was a
+clerk attached to the establishment, Mr. Bunderdown, who had been there
+for some years, and who was good-naturedly regarded by the English
+inhabitants as a third attache. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot did his best to
+let it be understood that this was a mistake. In the small affairs of
+the legation, which no doubt did not go beyond the legation, Mr.
+Bunderdown generally sided with Mr. Blow. Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot was
+recognized as a second mounted attache, though his attendance on the
+boulevard was not as constant as that of Mr. Anderson, in consequence,
+probably, of the fact that he had not a horse of his own. But there were
+others also present. There were Sir Thomas Tresham, with his wife, who
+had been sent over to inquire into the iron trade of Belgium. He was a
+learned free-trader who could not be got to agree with the old familiar
+views of Sir Magnus,--who thought that the more iron that was produced in
+Belgium the less would be forthcoming from England. But Sir Thomas knew
+better, and as Sir Magnus was quite unable to hold his own with the
+political economist, he gave him many dinners and was civil to his wife.
+Sir Thomas, no doubt, felt that in doing so Sir Magnus did all that
+could be expected from him. Lady Tresham was a quiet little woman, who
+could endure to be patronized by Lady Mountjoy without annoyance. And
+there was M. Grascour, from the Belgian Foreign Office, who spoke
+English so much better than the other gentlemen present that a stranger
+might have supposed him to be a school-master whose mission it was to
+instruct the English Embassy in their own language.
+
+"Oh, Mrs Mountjoy, I am so ashamed of myself!" said Lady Mountjoy, as
+she waddled into the room two minutes after the guests had been
+assembled. She had a way of waddling that was quite her own, and which
+they who knew her best declared that she had adopted in lieu of other
+graces of manner. She puffed a little also, and did contrive to attract
+peculiar attention. "But I have to be in my carriage every day at the
+same hour. I don't know what would be thought of us if we were absent."
+Then she turned, with a puff and a waddle, to Miss Abbot. "Dear Lady
+Tresham was with us." Mrs. Mountjoy murmured something as to her
+satisfaction at not having delayed the carriage-party, and bethought
+herself how exactly similar had been the excuse made by Sir Magnus
+himself. Then Lady Mountjoy gave another little puff, and assured
+Florence that she hoped she would find Brussels sufficiently gay,--"not
+that we pretend at all to equal Paris."
+
+"We live at Cheltenham," said Florence, "and that is not at all like
+Paris. Indeed, I never slept but two nights at Paris in my life."
+
+"Then we shall do very well at Brussels." After this she waddled off
+again, and was stopped in her waddling by Sir Magnus, who sternly
+desired her to prepare for the august ceremony of going in to dinner.
+The one period of real importance at the English Embassy was, no doubt,
+the daily dinner-hour.
+
+Florence found herself seated between Mr. Anderson, who had taken her
+in, and M. Grascour, who had performed the same ceremony for her
+ladyship. "I am sure you will like this little capital very much," said
+M. Grascour. "It is as much nicer than Paris as it is smaller and less
+pretentious." Florence could only assent. "You will soon be able to
+learn something of us; but in Paris you must be to the manner born, or
+half a lifetime will not suffice."
+
+"We'll put you up to the time of day," said Mr. Anderson, who did not
+choose, as he said afterward, that this tidbit should be taken out of
+his mouth.
+
+"I dare say that all that I shall want will come naturally without any
+putting up."
+
+"You won't find it amiss to know a little of what's what. You have not
+got a riding-horse here?"
+
+"Oh no," said Florence.
+
+"I was going on to say that I can manage to secure one for you.
+Billibong has got an excellent horse that carried the Princess of Styria
+last year." Mr. Anderson was supposed to be peculiarly up to everything
+concerning horses.
+
+"But I have not got a habit. That is a much more serious affair."
+
+"Well, yes. Billibong does not keep habits: I wish he did. But we can
+manage that too. There does live a habit-maker in Brussels."
+
+"Ladies' habits certainly are made in Brussels," said M. Grascour. "But
+if Miss Mountjoy does not choose to trust a Belgian tailor there is the
+railway open to her. An English habit can be sent."
+
+"Dear Lady Centaur had one sent to her only last year, when she was
+staying here," said Lady Mountjoy across her neighbor, with two little
+puffs.
+
+"I shall not at all want the habit," said Florence, "not having the
+horse, and indeed, never being accustomed to ride at all."
+
+"Do tell me what it is that you do do," said Mr. Anderson, with a
+convenient whisper, when he found that M. Grascour had fallen into
+conversation with her ladyship. "Lawn-tennis?"
+
+"I do play at lawn-tennis, though I am not wedded to it."
+
+"Billiards? I know you play billiards."
+
+"I never struck a ball in my life."
+
+"Goodness gracious, how odd! Don't you ever amuse yourself at all? Are
+they so very devotional down at Cheltenham?"
+
+"I suppose we are stupid. I don't know that I ever do especially amuse
+myself."
+
+"We must teach you;--we really must teach you. I think I may boast of
+myself that I am a good instructor in that line. Will you promise to put
+yourself into my hands?"
+
+"You will find me a most unpromising pupil."
+
+"Not in the least. I will undertake that when you leave this you shall
+be _au fait_ at everything. Leap frog is not too heavy for me and
+spillikins not too light. I am up to them all, from backgammon to a
+cotillon,--not but what I prefer the cotillon for my own taste."
+
+"Or leap-frog, perhaps," suggested Florence.
+
+"Well, yes; leap-frog used to be a good game at Gother School, and I
+don't see why we shouldn't have it back again. Ladies, of course, must
+have a costume on purpose. But I am fond of anything that requires a
+costume. Don't you like everything out of the common way? I do."
+Florence assured him that their tastes were wholly dissimilar, as she
+liked everything in the common way. "That's what I call an uncommonly
+pretty girl," he said afterward to M. Grascour, while Sir Magnus was
+talking to Sir Thomas. "What an eye!"
+
+"Yes, indeed; she is very lovely."
+
+"My word, you may say that! And such a turn of the shoulders! I don't
+say which are the best-looking, as a rule, English or Belgians, but
+there are very few of either to come up to her."
+
+"Anderson, can you tell us how many tons of steel rails they turn out at
+Liege every week? Sir Thomas asks me, just as though it were the
+simplest question in the world."
+
+"Forty million," said Anderson,--"more or less."
+
+"Twenty thousand would, perhaps, be nearer the mark," said M. Grascour;
+"but I will send him the exact amount to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MR. ANDERSON'S LOVE.
+
+
+Lady Mountjoy had certainly prophesied the truth when she said that Mr.
+Anderson would devote himself to Florence. The first week in Brussels
+passed by quietly enough. A young man can hardly declare his passion
+within a week, and Mr. Anderson's ways in that particular were well
+known. A certain amount of license was usually given to him, both by Sir
+Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and when he would become remarkable by the
+rapidity of his changes the only adverse criticism would come generally
+from Mr. Blow. "Another peerless Bird of Paradise," Mr. Blow would say.
+"If the birds were less numerous, Anderson might, perhaps, do
+something." But at the end of the week, on this occasion, even Sir
+Magnus perceived that Anderson was about to make himself peculiar.
+
+"By George!" he said one morning, when Sir Magnus had just left the
+outer office, which he had entered with the object of giving some
+instruction as to the day's ride, "take her altogether, I never saw a
+girl so fit as Miss Mountjoy." There was something very remarkable in
+this speech, as, according to his usual habit of life, Anderson would
+certainly have called her Florence, whereas his present appellation
+showed an unwonted respect.
+
+"What do you mean when you say that a young lady is fit?" said Mr. Blow.
+
+"I mean that she is right all round, which is a great deal more than can
+be said of most of them."
+
+"The divine Florence--" began Mr. Montgomery Arbuthnot, struggling to
+say something funny.
+
+"Young man, you had better hold your tongue, and not talk of young
+ladies in that language."
+
+"I do believe that he is going to fall in love," said Mr. Blow.
+
+"I say that Miss Mountjoy is the fittest girl I have seen for many a
+day; and when a young puppy calls her the divine Florence, he does not
+know what he is about."
+
+"Why didn't you blow Mr. Blow up when he called her a Bird of Paradise?"
+said Montgomery Arbuthnot. "Divine Florence is not half so disrespectful
+of a young lady as Bird of Paradise. Divine Florence means divine
+Florence, but Bird of Paradise is chaff."
+
+"Mr. Blow, as a married man," said Anderson, "has a certain freedom
+allowed him. If he uses it in bad taste, the evil falls back upon his
+own head. Now, if you please, we'll change the conversation." From this
+it will be seen that Mr. Anderson had really fallen in love with Miss
+Mountjoy.
+
+But though the week had passed in a harmless way to Sir Magnus and Lady
+Mountjoy,--in a harmless way to them as regarded their niece and their
+attache,--a certain amount of annoyance had, no doubt, been felt by
+Florence herself. Though Mr. Anderson's expressions of admiration had
+been more subdued than usual, though he had endeavored to whisper his
+love rather than to talk it out loud, still the admiration had been both
+visible and audible, and especially so to Florence herself. It was
+nothing to Sir Magnus with whom his attache flirted. Anderson was the
+younger son of a baronet who had a sickly elder brother, and some
+fortune of his own. If he chose to marry the girl, that would be well
+for her; and if not, it would be quite well that the young people should
+amuse themselves. He expected Anderson to help to put him on his horse,
+and to ride with him at the appointed hour. He, in return, gave Anderson
+his dinner and as much wine as he chose to drink. They were both
+satisfied with each other, and Sir Magnus did not choose to interfere
+with the young man's amusements. But Florence did not like being the
+subject of a young man's love-making, and complained to her mother.
+
+Now, it had come to pass that not a word had been said as to Harry
+Annesley since the mother and daughter had reached Brussels. Mrs.
+Mountjoy had declared that she would consult her brother-in-law in that
+difficulty, but no such consultation had as yet taken place. Indeed,
+Florence would not have found her sojourn at Brussels to be unpleasant
+were it not for Mr. Anderson's unpalatable little whispers. She had
+taken them as jokes as long as she had been able to do so, but was now
+at last driven to perceive that other people would not do so. "Mamma,"
+she said, "don't you think that that Mr. Anderson is an odious young
+man?"
+
+"No, my dear, by no means. What is there odious about him? He is very
+lively; he is the second son of Sir Gregory Anderson, and has very
+comfortable means of his own."
+
+"Oh, mamma, what does that signify?"
+
+"Well, my dear, it does signify. In the first place, he is a gentleman,
+and in the next, has a right to make himself attentive to any young lady
+in your position. I don't say anything more. I am not particularly
+wedded to Mr. Anderson. If he were to come to me and ask for my
+permission to address you, I should simply refer him to yourself, by
+which I should mean to imply that if he could contrive to recommend
+himself to you I should not refuse my sanction."
+
+Then the subject for that moment dropped, but Florence was astonished to
+find that her mother could talk about it, not only without reference to
+Harry Annesley, but also without an apparent thought of Mountjoy
+Scarborough; and it was distressing to her to think that her mother
+should pretend to feel that she, her own daughter, should be free to
+receive the advances of another suitor. As she reflected it came across
+her mind that Harry was so odious that her mother would have been
+willing to accept on her behalf any suitor who presented himself, even
+though her daughter, in accepting him, should have proved herself to be
+heartless. Any alternative would have been better to her mother than
+that choice to which Florence had determined to devote her whole life.
+
+"Mamma," she said, going back to the subject on the next day, "if I am
+to stay here for three weeks longer--"
+
+"Yes, my dear, you are to stay here for three weeks longer."
+
+"Then somebody must say something to Mr. Anderson."
+
+"I do not see who can say it but you yourself. As far as I can see, he
+has not misbehaved."
+
+"I wish you would speak to my uncle."
+
+"What am I to tell him?"
+
+"That I am engaged."
+
+"He would ask me to whom, and I cannot tell him. I should then be driven
+to put the whole case in his hands, and to ask his advice. You do not
+suppose that I am going to say that you are engaged to marry that odious
+young man? All the world knows how atrociously badly he has behaved to
+your own cousin. He left him lying for dead in the street by a blow from
+his own hand; and though from that day to this nothing has been heard of
+Mountjoy, nothing is known to the police of what may have been his
+fate;--even stranger, he may have perished under the usage which he
+received, yet Mr. Annesley has not thought it right to say a word of
+what had occurred. He has not dared even to tell an inspector of police
+the events of that night. And the young man was your own cousin, to whom
+you were known to have been promised for the last two years."
+
+"No, no!" said Florence.
+
+"I say that it was so. You were promised to your cousin, Mountjoy
+Scarborough."
+
+"Not with my own consent."
+
+"All your friends,--your natural friends,--knew that it was to be so. And
+now you expect me to take by the hand this young man who has almost been
+his murderer!"
+
+"No, mamma, it is not true. You do not know the circumstances, and you
+assert things which are directly at variance with the truth."
+
+"From whom do you get your information? From the young man himself. Is
+that likely to be true? What would Sir Magnus say as to that were I to
+tell him?"
+
+"I do not know what he would say, but I do know what is the truth. And
+can you think it possible that I should now be willing to accept this
+foolish young man in order thus to put an end to my embarrassments?"
+
+Then she left her mother's room, and, retreating to her own, sat for a
+couple of hours thinking, partly in anger and partly in grief, of the
+troubles of her situation. Her mother had now, in truth, frightened her
+as to Harry's position. She did begin to see what men might say of him,
+and the way in which they might speak of his silence, though she was
+resolved to be as true to him in her faith as ever. Some exertion of
+spirit would, indeed, be necessary. She was beginning to understand in
+what way the outside world might talk of Harry Annesley, of the man to
+whom she had given herself and her whole heart. Then her mother was
+right. And as she thought of it she began to justify her mother. It was
+natural that her mother should believe the story which had been told to
+her, let it have come from where it might. There was in her mind some
+suspicion of the truth. She acknowledged a great animosity to her cousin
+Augustus, and regarded him as one of the causes of her unhappiness. But
+she knew nothing of the real facts; she did not even suspect that
+Augustus had seen his brother after Harry had dealt with him, or that he
+was responsible for his brother's absence. But she knew that she
+disliked him, and in some way she connected his name with Harry's
+misfortune.
+
+Of one thing she was certain: let them,--the Mountjoys, and Prospers, and
+the rest of the world,--think and say what they would of Harry, she would
+be true to him. She could understand that his character might be made to
+suffer, but it should not suffer in her estimation. Or rather, let it
+suffer ever so, that should not affect her love and her truth. She did
+not say this to herself. By saying it even to herself she would have
+committed some default of truth. She did not whisper it even to her own
+heart. But within her heart there was a feeling that, let Harry be right
+or wrong in what he had done, even let it be proved, to the satisfaction
+of all the world, that he had sinned grievously when he had left the man
+stunned and bleeding on the pavement,--for to such details her mother's
+story had gone,--still, to her he should be braver, more noble, more
+manly, more worthy of being loved, than was any other man. She,
+perceiving the difficulties that were in store for her, and looking
+forward to the misfortune under which Harry might be placed, declared to
+herself that he should at least have one friend who would be true to
+him.
+
+"Miss Mountjoy, I have come to you with a message from your aunt." This
+was said, three or four days after the conversation between Florence and
+her mother, by Mr. Anderson, who had contrived to follow the young lady
+into a small drawing-room after luncheon. What was the nature of the
+message it is not necessary for us to know. We may be sure that it had
+been manufactured by Mr. Anderson for the occasion. He had looked about
+and spied, and had discovered that Miss Mountjoy was alone in the little
+room. And in thus spying we consider him to have been perfectly
+justified. His business at the moment was that of making love, a
+business which is allowed to override all other considerations. Even the
+making an office copy of a report made by Mr. Blow for the signature of
+Sir Magnus might, according to our view of life, have been properly laid
+aside for such a purpose. When a young man has it in him to make love to
+a young lady, and is earnest in his intention, no duty, however
+paramount, should be held as a restraint. Such was Mr. Anderson's
+intention at the present moment; and therefore we think that he was
+justified in concocting a message from Lady Mountjoy. The business of
+love-making warrants any concoction to which the lover may resort. "But
+oh, Miss Mountjoy, I am so glad to have a moment in which I can find you
+alone!" It must be understood that the amorous young gentleman had not
+yet been acquainted with the young lady for quite a fortnight.
+
+"I was just about to go up-stairs to my mother," said Florence, rising
+to leave the room.
+
+"Oh, bother your mother! I beg her pardon and yours;--I really didn't
+mean it. There is such a lot of chaff going on in that outer room, that
+a fellow falls into the way of it whether he likes it or no."
+
+"My mother won't mind it at all; but I really must go."
+
+"Oh no. I am sure you can wait for five minutes. I don't want to keep
+you for more than five minutes. But it is so hard for a fellow to get an
+opportunity to say a few words."
+
+"What words can you want to say to me, Mr. Anderson?" This she said with
+a look of great surprise, as though utterly unable to imagine what was
+to follow.
+
+"Well, I did hope that you might have some idea of what my feelings
+are."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Haven't you, now? I suppose I am bound to believe you, though I doubt
+whether I quite do. Pray excuse me for saying this, but it is best to be
+open." Florence felt that he ought to be excused for doubting her, as
+she did know very well what was coming. "I--I--Come, then; I love you!
+If I were to go on beating about the bush for twelve months I could only
+come to the same conclusion."
+
+"Perhaps you might then have considered it better."
+
+"Not in the least. Fancy considering such a thing as that for twelve
+months before you speak of it! I couldn't do it,--not for twelve days."
+
+"So I perceive, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"Well, isn't it best to speak the truth when you're quite sure of it? If
+I were to remain dumb for three months, how should I know but what some
+one else might come in the way?"
+
+"But you can't expect that I should be so sudden?"
+
+"That's just where it is. Of course I don't. And yet girls have to be
+sudden too."
+
+"Have they?"
+
+"They're expected to be ready with their answer as soon as they're
+asked. I don't say this by way of impertinence, but merely to show that
+I have some justification. Of course, if you like to say that you must
+take a week to think of it, I am prepared for that. Only let me tell my
+own story first."
+
+"You shall tell your own story, Mr. Anderson; but I am afraid that it
+can be to no purpose."
+
+"Don't say that,--pray, don't say that,--but do let me tell it." Then he
+paused; but, as she remained silent, after a moment he resumed the
+eloquence of his appeal. "By George! Miss Mountjoy, I have been so
+struck of a heap that I do not know whether I am standing on my head or
+my heels. You have knocked me so completely off my pins that I am not at
+all like the same person. Sir Magnus himself says that he never saw such
+a difference. I only say that to show that I am quite in earnest. Now I
+am not quite like a fellow that has no business to fall in love with a
+girl. I have four hundred a year besides my place in the Foreign Office.
+And then, of course, there are chances." In this he alluded to his
+brother's failing health, of which he could not explain the details to
+Miss Mountjoy on the present occasion. "I don't mean to say that this is
+very splendid, or that it is half what I should like to lay at your
+feet. But a competence is comfortable."
+
+"Money has nothing to do with it, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"What, then? Perhaps it is that you don't like a fellow. What girls
+generally do like is devotion, and, by George, you'd have that. The very
+ground that you tread upon is sweet to me. For beauty,--I don't know how
+it is, but to my taste there is no one I ever saw at all like you. You
+fit me--well, as though you were made for me. I know that another fellow
+might say it a deal better, but no one more truly. Miss Mountjoy, I
+love you with all my heart, and I want you to be my wife. Now you've got
+it!"
+
+He had not pleaded his cause badly, and so Florence felt. That he had
+pleaded it hopelessly was a matter of course. But he had given rise to
+feelings of gentle regard rather than of anger. He had been honest, and
+had contrived to make her believe him. He did not come up to her ideal
+of what a lover should be, but he was nearer to it than Mountjoy
+Scarborough. He had touched her so closely that she determined at once
+to tell him the truth, thinking that she might best in this way put an
+end to his passion forever. "Mr. Anderson," she said, "though I have
+known it to be vain, I have thought it best to listen to you, because
+you asked it."
+
+"I am sure I am awfully obliged to you."
+
+"And I ought to thank you for the kind feeling you have expressed to me.
+Indeed, I do thank you. I believe every word you have said. It is better
+to show my confidence in your truth than to pretend to the humility of
+thinking you untrue."
+
+"It is true; it is true,--every word of it."
+
+"But I am engaged." Then it was sad to see the thorough change which
+came over the young man's face. "Of course a girl does not talk of her
+own little affairs to strangers, or I would let you have known this
+before, so as to have prevented it. But, in truth, I am engaged."
+
+"Does Sir Magnus know it, or Lady Mountjoy?"
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"Does your mother?"
+
+"Now you are taking advantage of my confidence, and pressing your
+questions too closely. But my mother does know of it. I will tell you
+more;--she does not approve of it. But it is fixed in Heaven itself. It
+may well be that I shall never be able to marry the gentleman to whom I
+allude, but most certainly I shall marry no one else. I have told you
+this because it seems to be necessary to your welfare, so that you may
+get over this passing feeling."
+
+"It is no passing feeling," said Anderson, with some tragic grandeur.
+
+"At any rate, you have now my story, and remember that it is trusted to
+you as a gentleman. I have told it you for a purpose." Then she walked
+out of the room, leaving the poor young man in temporary despair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+MR. AND MISS GREY.
+
+
+It was now the middle of October, and it may be said that from the time
+in which old Mr. Scarborough had declared his intention of showing that
+the elder of his sons had no right to the property, Mr. Grey, the
+lawyer, had been so occupied with the Scarborough affairs as to have had
+left him hardly a moment for other considerations.
+
+He had a partner, who during these four months had, in fact, carried on
+the business. One difficulty had grown out of another till Mr. Grey's
+whole time had been occupied; and all his thoughts had been filled with
+Mr. Scarborough, which is a matter of much greater moment to a man than
+the loss of his time. The question of Mountjoy Scarborough's position
+had been first submitted to him in June. October had now been reached
+and Mr. Grey had been out of town only for a fortnight, during which
+fortnight he had been occupied entirely in unravelling the mystery. He
+had at first refused altogether to have anything to do with the
+unravelling, and had desired that some other lawyer might be employed.
+But it had gradually come to pass that he had entered heart and soul
+into the case, and, with many execrations on his own part against Mr.
+Scarborough, could find a real interest in nothing else. He had begun
+his investigations with a thorough wish to discover that Mountjoy
+Scarborough was, in truth, the heir. Though he had never loved the young
+man, and, as he went on with his investigations, became aware that the
+whole property would go to the creditors should he succeed in proving
+that Mountjoy was the heir, yet for the sake of abstract honesty he was
+most anxious that it should be so. And he could not bear to think that
+he and other lawyers had been taken in by the wily craft of such a man
+as the Squire of Tretton. It went thoroughly against the grain with him
+to have to acknowledge that the estate would become the property of
+Augustus. But it was so, and he did acknowledge it. It was proved to him
+that, in spite of all the evidence which he had hitherto seen in the
+matter, the squire had not married his wife until after the birth of his
+eldest son. He did acknowledge it, and he said bravely that it must be
+so. Then there came down upon him a crowd of enemies in the guise of
+baffled creditors, all of whom believed, or professed to believe, that
+he, Mr. Grey, was in league with the squire to rob them of their rights.
+
+If it could be proved that Mountjoy had no claim to the property, then
+would it go nominally to Augustus, who according to their showing was
+also one of the confederates, and the property could thus, they said, be
+divided. Very shortly the squire would be dead, and then the
+confederates would get everything, to the utter exclusion of poor Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and poor Mr. Samuel Hart, and all the other poor creditors,
+who would thus be denuded, defrauded, and robbed by a lawyer's trick. It
+was in this spirit that Mr. Grey was attacked by Mr. Tyrrwhit and the
+others; and Mr. Grey found it very hard to bear.
+
+And then there was another matter which was also very grievous to him.
+If it were as he now stated,--if the squire had been guilty of this
+fraud,--to what punishment would he be subjected? Mountjoy was declared
+to have been innocent. Mr. Tyrrwhit, as he put the case to his own
+lawyers, laughed bitterly as he made this suggestion. And Augustus was,
+of course, innocent. Then there was renewed laughter. And Mr. Grey! Mr.
+Grey had, of course, been innocent. Then the laughter was very loud. Was
+it to be believed that anybody could be taken in by such a story as
+this? There was he, Mr. Tyrrwhit: he had ever been known as a sharp
+fellow; and Mr. Samuel Hart, who was now away on his travels, and the
+others;--they were all of them sharp fellows. Was it to be believed that
+such a set of gentlemen, so keenly alive to their own interest, should
+be made the victims of such a trick as this? Not if they knew it! Not if
+Mr. Tyrrwhit knew it!
+
+It was in this shape that the matter reached Mr. Grey's ears; and then
+it was asked, if it were so, what would be the punishment to which they
+would be subjected who had defrauded Mr. Tyrrwhit of his just claim. Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, who on one occasion made his way into Mr. Grey's presence,
+wished to get an answer to that question from Mr. Grey. "The man is
+dying," said Mr. Grey, solemnly.
+
+"Dying! He is not more likely to die than you are, from all I hear." At
+this time rumors of Mr. Scarborough's improved health had reached the
+creditors in London. Mr. Tyrrwhit had begun to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough's dangerous condition had been part of the hoax; that there
+had been no surgeon's knives, no terrible operations, no moment of
+almost certain death. "I don't believe he's been ill at all," said Mr.
+Tyrrwhit.
+
+"I cannot help your belief," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"But because a man doesn't die and recovers, is he on that account to be
+allowed to cheat people, as he has cheated me, with impunity?"
+
+"I am not going to defend Mr. Scarborough; but he has not, in fact,
+cheated you."
+
+"Who has? Come; do you mean to tell me that if this goes on I shall not
+have been defrauded of a hundred thousand pounds?"
+
+"Did you ever see Mr. Scarborough on the matter?"
+
+"No; it was not necessary."
+
+"Or have you got his writing to any document? Have you anything to show
+that he knew what his son was doing when he borrowed money of you? Is it
+not perfectly clear that he knew nothing about it?"
+
+"Of course he knew nothing about it then,--at that time. It was afterward
+that his fraud began. When he found that the estate was in jeopardy,
+then the falsehood was concocted."
+
+"Ah, there, Mr. Tyrrwhit, I can only say, that I disagree with you. I
+must express my opinion that if you endeavor to recover your money on
+that plea you will be beaten. If you can prove fraud of that kind, no
+doubt you can punish those who have been guilty of it,--me among the
+number."
+
+"I say nothing of that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"But if you have been led into your present difficulty by an illegal
+attempt on the part of my client to prove an illegitimate son to have
+been legitimate, and then to have changed his mind for certain purposes,
+I do not see how you are to punish him. The act will have been attempted
+and not completed. And it will have been an act concerning his son and
+not concerning you."
+
+"Not concerning me!" shrieked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Certainly not, legally. You are not in a position to prove that he knew
+that his son was borrowing money from you on the credit of the estate.
+As a fact he certainly did not know it."
+
+"We shall see about that," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Then you must see about it, but not with my aid. As a fact I am telling
+you all that I know about it. If I could I would prove Mountjoy
+Scarborough to be his father's heir to-morrow. Indeed, I am altogether
+on your side in the matter,--if you would believe it." Here Mr. Tyrrwhit
+again laughed. "But you will not believe it, and I do not ask you to do
+so. As it is we must be opposed to each other."
+
+"Where is the young man?" asked Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Ah, that is a question I am not bound to answer, even if I knew. It is
+a matter on which I say nothing. You have lent him money, at an
+exorbitant rate of interest."
+
+"It is not true."
+
+"At any rate it seems so to me; and it is out of the question that I
+should assist you in recovering it. You did it at your own peril, and
+not on my advice. Good-morning, Mr. Tyrrwhit." Then Mr. Tyrrwhit went
+his way, not without sundry threats as to the whole Scarborough family.
+
+It was very hard upon Mr. Grey, because he certainly was an honest man
+and had taken up the matter simply with a view of learning the truth. It
+had been whispered to him within the last day or two that Mountjoy
+Scarborough had lately been seen alive, and gambling with reckless
+prodigality, at Monte Carlo. It had only been told to him as probably
+true, but he certainly believed it. But he knew nothing of the details
+of his disappearance, and had not been much surprised, as he had never
+believed that the young man had been murdered or had made away with
+himself. But he had heard before that of the quarrel in the street
+between him and Harry Annesley; and the story had been told to him so as
+to fall with great discredit on Harry Annesley's head.
+
+According to that story Harry Annesley had struck his foe during the
+night and had left him for dead upon the pavement. Then Mountjoy
+Scarborough had been missing, and Harry Annesley had told no one of the
+quarrel. There had been some girl in question. So much and no more Mr.
+Grey had heard, and was, of course, inclined to think that Harry
+Annesley must have behaved very badly. But of the mode of Mountjoy's
+subsequent escape he had heard nothing.
+
+Mr. Grey at this time was living down at Fulham, in a small,
+old-fashioned house which over-looked the river, and was called the
+Manor-house. He would have said that it was his custom to go home every
+day by an omnibus, but he did, in truth, almost always remain at his
+office so late as to make it necessary that he should return by a cab.
+He was a man fairly well to do in the world, as he had no one depending
+on him but one daughter,--no one, that is to say, whom he was obliged to
+support. But he had a married sister with a scapegrace husband and six
+daughters whom, in fact, he did support. Mrs. Carroll, with the kindest
+intentions in the world, had come and lived near him. She had taken a
+genteel house in Bolsover Terrace,--a genteel new house on the Fulham
+Road, about a quarter of a mile from her brother. Mr. Grey lived in the
+old Manor-house, a small, uncomfortable place, which had a nook of its
+own, close upon the water, and with a lovely little lawn. It was
+certainly most uncomfortable as a gentleman's residence, but no
+consideration would induce Mr. Grey to sell it. There were but two
+sitting-rooms in it, and one was for the most part uninhabited. The
+up-stairs drawing-room was furnished, but any one with half an eye could
+see that it was never used. A "stray" caller might be shown up there,
+but callers of that class were very uncommon in Mr. Grey's
+establishment.
+
+With his own domestic arrangements Mr. Grey would have been quite
+contented, had it not been for Mrs. Carroll. It was now some years since
+he had declared that though Mr. Carroll,--or Captain Carroll, as he had
+then been called,--was an improvident, worthless, drunken Irishman, he
+would never see his sister want. The consequence was that Carroll had
+come with his wife and six daughters and taken a house close to him.
+There are such "whips and scorns" in the world to which a man shall be
+so subject as to have the whole tenor of his life changed by them. The
+hero bears them heroically, making no complaints to those around him.
+The common man shrinks, and squeals, and cringes, so that he is known to
+those around him as one especially persecuted. In this respect Mr. Grey
+was a grand hero. When he spoke to his friends of Mrs. Carroll his
+friends were taught to believe that his outside arrangements with his
+sister were perfectly comfortable. No doubt there did creep out among
+those who were most intimate with him a knowledge that Mr. Carroll,--for
+the captain had, in truth, never been more than a lieutenant, and had
+now long since sold out,--was impecunious, and a trouble rather than
+otherwise. But I doubt whether there was a single inhabitant of the
+neighborhood of Fulham who was aware that Mrs. Carroll and the Miss
+Carrolls cost Mr. Grey on an average above six hundred a year.
+
+There was one in Mr. Grey's family to whom he was so attached that he
+would, to oblige her, have thrown over the whole Carroll family; but of
+this that one person would not hear. She hated the whole Carroll family
+with an almost unholy hatred, of which she herself was endeavoring to
+repent daily, but in vain. She could not do other than hate them, but
+she could do other than allow her father to withdraw his fostering
+protection; for this one person was Mr. Grey's only daughter and his one
+close domestic associate. Miss Dorothy Grey was known well to all the
+neighborhood, and was both feared and revered. As we shall have much to
+do with her in the telling of our story, it may be well to make her
+stand plainly before the reader's eyes.
+
+In the first place, it must be understood that she was motherless,
+brotherless and sisterless. She had been Mr. Grey's only child, and her
+mother had been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. She was now about
+thirty years of age, but was generally regarded as ranging somewhere
+between forty and fifty. "If she isn't nearer fifty than forty I'll eat
+my old shoes," said a lady in the neighborhood to a gentleman. "I've
+known her these twenty years, and she's not altered in the least." As
+Dolly Grey had been only ten twenty years ago, the lady must have been
+wrong. But it is singular how a person's memory of things may be created
+out of their present appearances. Dorothy herself had apparently no
+desire to set right this erroneous opinion which the neighborhood
+entertained respecting her. She did not seem to care whether she was
+supposed to be thirty, or forty, or fifty. Of youth, as a means of
+getting lovers, she entertained a profound contempt. That no lover would
+ever come she was assured, and would not at all have known what to do
+with one had he come. The only man for whom she had ever felt the
+slightest regard was her father. For some women about she did entertain
+a passionless, well-regulated affection, but they were generally the
+poor, the afflicted, or the aged. It was, however, always necessary that
+the person so signalized should be submissive. Now, Mrs. Carroll, Mr.
+Grey's sister, had long since shown that she was not submissive enough,
+nor were the girls, the eldest of whom was a pert, ugly, well-grown
+minx, now about eighteen years old. The second sister, who was
+seventeen, was supposed to be a beauty, but which of the two was the
+more odious in the eyes of their cousin it would be impossible to say.
+
+Miss Dorothy Grey was Dolly only to her father. Had any one else so
+ventured to call her she would have started up at once, the outraged
+aged female of fifty. Even her aunt, who was trouble enough to her, felt
+that it could not be so. Her uncle tried it once, and she declined to
+come into his presence for a month, letting it be fully understood that
+she had been insulted.
+
+And yet she was not, according to my idea, by any means an ill-favored
+young woman. It is true that she wore spectacles; and, as she always
+desired to have her eyes about with her, she never put them off when out
+of bed. But how many German girls do the like, and are not accounted for
+that reason to be plain? She was tall and well-made, we may almost say
+robust. She had the full use of all her limbs, and was never ashamed of
+using them. I think she was wrong when she would be seen to wheel the
+barrow about the garden, and that her hands must have suffered in her
+attempts to live down the conventional absurdities of the world. It is
+true that she did wear gloves during her gardening, but she wore them
+only in obedience to her father's request. She had bright eyes, somewhat
+far apart, and well-made, wholesome, regular features. Her nose was
+large, and her mouth was large, but they were singularly intelligent,
+and full of humor when she was pleased in conversation. As to her hair,
+she was too indifferent to enable one to say that it was attractive; but
+it was smoothed twice a day, was very copious, and always very clean.
+Indeed, for cleanliness from head to foot she was a model. "She is very
+clean, but then it's second to nothing to her," had said a sarcastic old
+lady, who had meant to imply that Miss Dorothy Grey was not constant at
+church. But the sarcastic old lady had known nothing about it. Dorothy
+Grey never stayed away from morning church unless her presence was
+desired by her father, and for once or twice that she might do so she
+would take her father with her three or four times,--against the grain
+with him, it must be acknowledged.
+
+But the most singular attribute of the lady's appearance has still to be
+mentioned. She always wore a slouch hat, which from motives of propriety
+she called her bonnet, which gave her a singular appearance, as though
+it had been put on to thatch her entirely from the weather. It was made
+generally of black straw, and was round, equal at all points of the
+circle, and was fastened with broad brown ribbons. It was supposed in
+the neighborhood to be completely weather-tight.
+
+The unimaginative nature of Fulham did not allow the Fulham mind to
+gather in the fact that, at the same time, she might possess two or
+three such hats. But they were undoubtedly precisely similar, and she
+would wear them in London with exactly the same indifference as in the
+comparatively rural neighborhood of her own residence. She would, in
+truth, go up and down in the omnibus, and would do so alone, without the
+slightest regard to the opinion of any of her neighbors. The Carroll
+girls would laugh at her behind her back, but no Carroll girl had been
+seen ever to smile before her face, instigated to do so by their
+cousin's vagaries.
+
+But I have not yet mentioned that attribute of Miss Grey's which is,
+perhaps, the most essential in her character. It is necessary, at any
+rate, that they should know it who wish to understand her nature. When
+it had once been brought home to her that duty required her to do this
+thing or the other, or to say this word or another, the thing would be
+done or the word said, let the result be what it might. Even to the
+displeasure of her father the word was said or the thing was done. Such
+a one was Dolly Grey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MR. GREY DINES AT HOME.
+
+
+Mr. Grey returned home in a cab on the day of Mr. Tyrrwhit's visit, not
+in the happiest humor. Though he had got the best of Mr. Tyrrwhit in the
+conversation, still, the meeting, which had been protracted, had annoyed
+him. Mr. Tyrrwhit had made accusations against himself personally which
+he knew to be false, but which, having been covered up, and not
+expressed exactly, he had been unable to refute. A man shall tell you
+you are a thief and a scoundrel in such a manner as to make it
+impossible for you to take him by the throat. "You, of course, are not a
+thief and a scoundrel," he shall say to you, but shall say it in such a
+tone of voice as to make you understand that he conceives you to be
+both. We all know the parliamentary mode of giving an opponent the lie
+so as to make it impossible that the Speaker shall interfere.
+
+Mr. Tyrrwhit had treated Mr. Grey in the same fashion; and as Mr. Grey
+was irritable, thin-skinned, and irascible, and as he would brood over
+things of which it was quite unnecessary that a lawyer should take any
+cognizance, he went back home an unhappy man. Indeed, the whole
+Scarborough affair had been from first to last a great trouble to him.
+The work which he was now performing could not, he imagined, be put into
+his bill. To that he was supremely indifferent; but his younger partner
+thought it a little hard that all the other work of the firm should be
+thrown on his shoulders during the period which naturally would have
+been his holidays, and he did make his feelings intelligible to Mr.
+Grey. Mr. Grey, who was essentially a just man, saw that his partner was
+right, and made offers, but he would not accede to the only proposition
+which his partner made. "Let him go and look for a lawyer elsewhere,"
+said his partner. They both of them knew that Mr. Scarborough had been
+thoroughly dishonest, but he had been an old client. His father before
+him had been a client of Mr. Grey's father. It was not in accordance
+with Mr. Grey's theory to treat the old man after this fashion. And he
+had taken intense interest in the matter. He had, first of all, been
+quite sure that Mountjoy Scarborough was the heir; and though Mountjoy
+Scarborough was not at all to his taste, he had been prepared to fight
+for him. He had now assured himself, after most laborious inquiry, that
+Augustus Scarborough was the heir; and although, in the course of the
+business, he had come to hate the cautious, money-loving Augustus twice
+worse than the gambling spendthrift Mountjoy, still, in the cause of
+honesty and truth and justice, he fought for Augustus against the world
+at large, and against the band of creditors, till the world at large and
+the band of creditors began to think that he was leagued with
+Augustus,--so as to be one of those who would make large sums of money
+out of the irregularity of the affair. This made him cross, and put him
+into a very bad humor as he went back to Fulham.
+
+One thing must be told of Mr. Grey which was very much to his discredit,
+and which, if generally known, would have caused his clients to think
+him to be unfit to be the recipient of their family secrets;--he told all
+the secrets to Dolly. He was a man who could not possibly be induced to
+leave his business behind him at his office. It made the chief subject
+of conversation when he was at home. He would even call Dolly into his
+bedroom late at night, bringing her out of bed for the occasion, to
+discuss with her some point of legal strategy,--of legal but still honest
+strategy,--which had just occurred to him. Maybe he had not quite seen
+his way as to the honesty, and wanted Dolly's opinion on the subject.
+Dolly would come in in her dressing-gown, and, sitting on his bed, would
+discuss the matter with him as advocate against the devil. Sometimes she
+would be convinced; more frequently she would hold her own. But the
+points which were discussed in that way, and the strength of
+argumentation which was used on either side, would have surprised the
+clients, and the partner, and the clerks, and the eloquent barrister who
+was occasionally employed to support this side or the other. The
+eloquent barrister, or it might be the client himself, startled
+sometimes at the amount of enthusiasm which Mr. Grey would throw into
+his argument, would little dream that the very words had come from the
+young lady in her dressing-gown. To tell the truth, Miss Grey thoroughly
+liked these discussions, whether held on the lawn, or in the
+dining-room arm-chairs, or during the silent hours of the night. They
+formed, indeed, the very salt of her life. She felt herself to be the
+Conscience of the firm. Her father was the Reason. And the partner, in
+her own phraseology, was the--Devil. For it must be understood that
+Dolly Grey had a spice of fun about her, of which her father had the
+full advantage. She would not have called her father's partner the
+"Devil" to any other ear but her father's. And that her father knew,
+understanding also the spirit in which the sobriquet had been applied.
+He did not think that his partner was worse than another man, nor did he
+think that his daughter so thought. The partner, whose name was Barry,
+was a man of average honesty, who would occasionally be surprised at the
+searching justness with which Mr. Grey would look into a matter after it
+had been already debated for a day or two in the office. But Mr. Barry,
+though he had the pleasure of Miss Grey's acquaintance, had no idea of
+the nature of the duties which she performed in the firm.
+
+"I'm nearly broken-hearted about this abominable business," said Mr.
+Grey, as he went upstairs to his dressing room. The normal hour for
+dinner was half-past six. He had arrived on this occasion at half-past
+seven, and had paid a shilling extra to the cabman to drive him quick.
+The man, having a lame horse, had come very slowly, fidgeting Mr. Grey
+into additional temporary discomfort. He had got his additional
+shilling, and Mr. Grey had only additional discomfort. "I declare I
+think he is the wickedest old man the world ever produced." This he said
+as Dolly followed him upstairs; but Dolly, wiser than her father, would
+say nothing about the wicked old man in the servants' hearing.
+
+In five minutes Mr. Grey came down "dressed,"--by the use of which word
+was implied the fact that he had shaken his neckcloth, washed his hands
+and face, and put on his slippers. It was understood in the household
+that, though half-past six was the hour named for dinner, half-past
+seven was a much more probable time. Mr. Grey pertinaciously refused to
+have it changed.
+
+"Stare super vias antiquas," he had stoutly said when the proposition
+had been made to him; by which he had intended to imply that, as during
+the last twenty years he had been compelled to dine at half-past six
+instead of six, he did not mean to be driven any farther in the same
+direction. Consequently his cook was compelled to prepare his dinner in
+such a manner that it might be eaten at one hour or the other, as chance
+would have it.
+
+The dinner passed without much conversation other than incidental to
+Mr. Grey's wants and comforts. His daughter knew that he had been at the
+office for eight hours, and knew also that he was not a young man. Every
+kind of little cosseting was, therefore, applied to him. There was a
+pheasant for dinner, and it was essentially necessary, in Dolly's
+opinion, that he should have first the wing, quite hot, and then the
+leg, also hot, and that the bread-sauce should be quite hot on the two
+occasions. For herself, if she had had an old crow for dinner it would
+have been the same thing. Tea and bread-and-butter were her luxuries,
+and her tea and bread-and-butter had been enjoyed three hours ago. "I
+declare I think that, after all, the leg is the better joint of the
+two."
+
+"Then why don't you have the two legs?"
+
+"There would be a savor of greediness in that, though I know that the
+leg will go down,--and I shouldn't then be able to draw the comparison. I
+like to have them both, and I like always to be able to assert my
+opinion that the leg is the better joint. Now, how about the
+apple-pudding? You said I should have an apple-pudding." From which it
+appeared that Mr. Grey was not superior to having the dinner discussed
+in his presence at the breakfast-table. The apple-pudding came, and was
+apparently enjoyed. A large portion of it was put between two plates.
+"That's for Mrs. Grimes," suggested Mr. Grey. "I am not quite sure that
+Mrs. Grimes is worthy of it." "If you knew what it was to be left
+without a shilling of your husband's wages you'd think yourself worthy."
+When the conversation about the pudding was over Mr. Grey ate his
+cheese, and then sat quite still in his arm-chair over the fire while
+the things were being taken away. "I declare I think he is the wickedest
+man the world has ever produced," said Mr. Grey as soon as the door was
+shut, thus showing by the repetition of the words he had before used
+that his mind had been intent on Mr. Scarborough rather than on the
+pheasant.
+
+"Why don't you have done with them?"
+
+"That's all very well; but you wouldn't have done with them if you had
+known them all your life."
+
+"I wouldn't spend my time and energies in white-washing any rascal,"
+said Dolly, with vigor.
+
+"You don't know what you'd do. And a man isn't to be left in the lurch
+altogether because he's a rascal. Would you have a murderer hanged
+without some one to stand up for him?"
+
+"Yes, I would," said Dolly, thoughtlessly.
+
+"And he mightn't have been a murderer after all; or not legally so,
+which as far as the law goes is the same thing."
+
+But this special question had been often discussed between them, and Mr.
+Grey and Dolly did not intend to be carried away by it on the present
+occasion. "I know all about that," she said; "but this isn't a case of
+life and death. The old man is only anxious to save his property, and
+throws upon you all the burden of doing it. He never agrees with you as
+to anything you say."
+
+"As to legal points he does."
+
+"But he keeps you always in hot water, and puts forward so much villany
+that I would have nothing farther to do with him. He has been so crafty
+that you hardly know now which is, in truth, the heir."
+
+"Oh yes, I do," said the lawyer. "I know very well, and am very sorry
+that it should be so. And I cannot but feel for the rascal because the
+dishonest effort was made on behalf of his own son."
+
+"Why was it necessary?" said Dolly, with sparks flying from her eye.
+"Throughout from the beginning he has been bad. Why was the woman not
+his wife?"
+
+"Ah! why, indeed. But had his sin consisted only in that, I should not
+have dreamed of refusing my assistance as a family lawyer. All that
+would have gone for nothing then."
+
+"When evil creeps in," said Dolly, sententiously, "you cannot put it
+right afterward."
+
+"Never mind about that. We shall never get to the end if you go back to
+Adam and Eve."
+
+"People don't go back often enough."
+
+"Bother!" said Mr. Grey, finishing his second and last glass of
+port-wine. "Do keep yourself in some degree to the question in dispute.
+In advising an attorney of to-day as to how he is to treat a client you
+can't do any good by going back to Adam and Eve. Augustus is the heir,
+and I am bound to protect the property for him from these money-lending
+harpies. The moment the breath is out of the old man's body they will
+settle down upon it if we leave them an inch of ground on which to
+stand. Every detail of his marriage must be made as clear as daylight;
+and that must be done in the teeth of former false statements."
+
+"As far as I can see, the money-lending harpies are the honestest lot of
+people concerned."
+
+"The law is not on their side. They have got no right. The estate, as a
+fact, will belong to Augustus the moment his father dies. Mr.
+Scarborough endeavored to do what he could for him whom he regarded as
+his eldest son. It was very wicked. He was adding a second and a worse
+crime to the first. He was flying in the face of the laws of his
+country. But he was successful; and he threw dust into my eyes, because
+he wanted to save the property for the boy. And he endeavored to make it
+up to his second son by saving for him a second property. He was not
+selfish; and I cannot but feel for him."
+
+"But you say he is the wickedest man the world ever produced."
+
+"Because he boasts of it all, and cannot be got in any way to repent. He
+gives me my instructions as though from first to last he had been a
+highly honorable man, and only laughs at me when I object. And yet he
+must know that he may die any day. He only wishes to have this matter
+set straight so that he may die. I could forgive him altogether if he
+would but once say that he was sorry for what he'd done. But he has
+completely the air of the fine old head of a family who thinks he is to
+be put into marble the moment the breath is out of his body, and that he
+richly deserves the marble he is to be put into."
+
+"That is a question between him and his God," said Dolly.
+
+"He hasn't got a God. He believes only in his own reason,--and is content
+to do so, lying there on the very brink of eternity. He is quite content
+with himself, because he thinks that he has not been selfish. He cares
+nothing that he has robbed every one all round. He has no reverence for
+property and the laws which govern it. He was born only with the
+life-interest, and he has determined to treat it as though the
+fee-simple had belonged to him. It is his utter disregard for law, for
+what the law has decided, which makes me declare him to have been the
+wickedest man the world ever produced."
+
+"It is his disregard for truth which makes you think so."
+
+"He cares nothing for truth. He scorns it and laughs at it. And yet
+about the little things of the world he expects his word to be taken as
+certainly as that of any other gentleman."
+
+"I would not take it."
+
+"Yes, you would, and would be right too. If he would say he'd pay me a
+hundred pounds to-morrow, or a thousand, I would have his word as soon
+as any other man's bond. And yet he has utterly got the better of me,
+and made me believe that a marriage took place, when there was no
+marriage. I think I'll have a cup of tea."
+
+"You won't go to sleep, papa?"
+
+"Oh yes, I shall. When I've been so troubled as that I must have a cup
+of tea." Mr. Grey was often troubled, and as a consequence Dolly was
+called up for consultations in the middle of the night.
+
+At about one o'clock there came the well-known knock at Dolly's door and
+the usual invitation. Would she come into her father's room for a few
+minutes? Then her father trotted back to his bed, and Dolly, of course,
+followed him as soon as she had clothed herself decently.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"I thought I had made up my mind not to go; or I thought rather that I
+should be able to make up my mind not to go. But it is possible that
+down there I may have some effect for good."
+
+"What does he want of you?"
+
+"There is a long question about raising money with which Augustus
+desires to buy the silence of the creditors."
+
+"Could he get the money?" asked Dolly.
+
+"Yes, I think he could. The property at present is altogether
+unembarrassed. To give Mr. Scarborough his due, he has never put his
+name to a scrap of paper; nor has he had occasion to do so. The Tretton
+pottery people want more land, or rather more water, and a large sum of
+money will be forthcoming. But he doesn't see the necessity of giving
+Mr. Tyrrwhit a penny-piece, or certainly Mr. Hart. He would send them
+away howling without a scruple. Now, Augustus is anxious to settle with
+them, for some reason which I do not clearly understand. But he wishes
+to do so without any interference on his father's part. In fact, he and
+his father have very different ideas as to the property. The squire
+regards it as his, but Augustus thinks that any day may make it his own.
+In fact, they are on the very verge of quarrelling." Then, after a long
+debate, Dolly consented that her father should go down to Tretton, and
+act, if possible, the part of peace-maker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE CARROLL FAMILY.
+
+
+"Aunt Carroll is coming to dinner to-day," said Dolly the next day, with
+a serious face.
+
+"I know she is. Have a nice dinner for her. I don't think she ever has a
+nice dinner at home."
+
+"And the three eldest girls are coming."
+
+"Three!"
+
+"You asked them yourself on Sunday."
+
+"Very well. They said their papa would be away on business." It was
+understood that Mr. Carroll was never asked to the Manor-house.
+
+"Business! There is a club he belongs to where he dines and gets drunk
+once a month. It's the only thing he does regularly."
+
+"They must have their dinner, at any rate," said Mr. Grey. "I don't
+think they should suffer because he drinks." This had been a subject
+much discussed between them, but on the present occasion Miss Grey would
+not renew it. She despatched her father in a cab, the cab having been
+procured because he was supposed to be a quarter of an hour late, and
+then went to work to order her dinner.
+
+It has been said that Miss Grey hated the Carrolls; but she hated the
+daughters worse than the mother, and of all the people she hated in the
+world she hated Amelia Carroll the worst. Amelia, the eldest,
+entertained an idea that she was more of a personage in the world's eyes
+than her cousin,--that she went to more parties, which certainly was true
+if she went to any,--that she wore finer clothes, which was also true,
+and that she had a lover, whereas Dolly Grey,--as she called her cousin
+behind her back,--had none. This lover had something to do with horses,
+and had only been heard of, had never been seen, at the Manor-house.
+Sophy was a good deal hated also, being a forward, flirting, tricky girl
+of seventeen, who had just left the school at which Uncle John had paid
+for her education. Georgina, the third, was still at school under
+similar circumstances, and was pardoned her egregious noisiness and
+romping propensities under the score of youth. She was sixteen, and was
+possessed of terrible vitality. "I am sure they take after their father
+altogether," Mr. Grey had once said when the three left the Manor-house
+together. At half-past six punctually they came. Dolly heard a great
+clatter of four people leaving their clogs and cloaks in the hall, and
+would not move out of the unused drawing-room, in which for the moment
+she was seated. Betsey had to prepare the dinner-table down-stairs, and
+would have been sadly discomfited had she been driven to do it in the
+presence of three Carroll girls. For it must be understood that Betsey
+had no greater respect for the Carroll girls than her mistress. "Well,
+Aunt Carroll, how does the world use you?"
+
+"Very badly. You haven't been up to see me for ten days."
+
+"I haven't counted; but when I do come I don't often do any good. How
+are Minna, and Brenda, and Potsey?"
+
+"Poor Potsey has got a nasty boil under her arm."
+
+"It comes from eating too much toffy," said Georgina. "I told her it
+would."
+
+"How very nasty you are!" said Miss Carroll. "Do leave the child and her
+ailments alone!"
+
+"Poor papa isn't very well, either," said Sophy, who was supposed to be
+her father's pet.
+
+"I hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his
+friends to-night," said Miss Grey.
+
+"You have always something ill-natured to say about papa," said Sophy.
+
+"Nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his
+presence." This came from his afflicted wife, who, in spite of all his
+misfortunes, would ever speak with some respect of her husband's
+employments. "He wasn't at all in a fit state to go to-night, but he had
+promised, and that was enough."
+
+When they had waited three-quarters of an hour Amelia began to
+complain,--certainly not without reason. "I wonder why Uncle John always
+keeps us waiting in this way?"
+
+"Papa has, unfortunately, something to do with his time, which is not
+altogether his own." There was not much in these words, but the tone in
+which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than
+Amelia Carroll. But at that moment the cab arrived, and Dolly went down
+to meet her father.
+
+"Have they come?" he asked.
+
+"Come," she answered, taking his gloves and comforter from him, and
+giving him a kiss as she did so. "That girl up-stairs is nearly
+famished."
+
+"I won't be half a moment," said the repentant father, hastening
+up-stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement.
+
+"I wouldn't hurry for her," said Dolly; "but of course you'll hurry.
+You always do, don't you, papa?" Then they sat down to dinner.
+
+"Well, girls, what is your news?"
+
+"We were out to-day on the Brompton Road," said the eldest, "and there
+came up Prince Chitakov's drag with four roans."
+
+"Prince Chitakov! I didn't know there was such a prince."
+
+"Oh, dear, yes; with very stiff mustaches, turned up high at the
+corners, and pink cheeks, and a very sharp, nobby-looking hat, with a
+light-colored grey coat, and light gloves. You must know the prince."
+
+"Upon my word, I never heard of him, my dear. What did the prince do?"
+
+"He was tooling his own drag, and he had a lady with him on the box. I
+never saw anything more tasty than her dress,--dark red silk, with little
+fluffy fur ornaments all over it. I wonder who she was?"
+
+"Mrs. Chitakov, probably," said the attorney.
+
+"I don't think the prince is a married man," said Sophy.
+
+"They never are, for the most part," said Amelia; "and she wouldn't be
+Mrs. Chitakov, Uncle John."
+
+"Wouldn't she, now? What would she be? Can either of you tell me what
+the wife of a Prince of Chitakov would call herself?"
+
+"Princess of Chitakov, of course," said Sophy. "It's the Princess of
+Wales."
+
+"But it isn't the Princess of Christian, nor yet the Princess of Teck,
+nor the Princess of England. I don't see why the lady shouldn't be Mrs.
+Chitakov, if there is such a lady."
+
+
+"Papa, don't bamboozle her," said his daughter.
+
+"But," continued the attorney, "why shouldn't the lady have been his
+wife? Don't married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments?"
+
+"I wish, John, you wouldn't talk to the girls in that strain," said
+their mother. "It really isn't becoming."
+
+"To suggest that the lady was the gentleman's wife?"
+
+"But I was going to say," continued Amelia, "that as the prince drove by
+he kissed his hand--he did, indeed. And Sophy and I were walking along
+as demurely as possible. I never was so knocked of a heap in all my
+life."
+
+"He did," said Sophy. "It's the most impertinent thing I ever heard. If
+my father had seen it he'd have had the prince off the box of the coach
+in no time."
+
+"Then, my dear," said the attorney, "I am very glad that your father
+did not see it." Poor Dolly, during this conversation about the prince,
+sat angry and silent, thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of
+vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty. That she
+should be sitting at table with a girl who could boast that a reprobate
+foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable
+four-horsed coach! For it was in that light that Miss Grey regarded it.
+"And did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable
+encounter with the prince?"
+
+"Nothing nearly so interesting," said Sophy.
+
+"That was hardly to be expected," said the attorney. "Jane, you will
+have a glass of port-wine? Girls, you must have a glass of port-wine to
+support you after your disappointment with the prince."
+
+"We were not disappointed in the least," said Amelia.
+
+"Pray, pray, let the subject drop," said Dolly.
+
+"That is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you," said Sophy.
+Then Miss Grey sunk again into silence, crushed beneath this last blow.
+
+In the evening, when the dinner-things had been taken away, a matter of
+business came up, and took the place of the prince and his mustaches.
+Mrs. Carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could "lend"
+her a small sum of twenty pounds. It came out in conversation that the
+small sum was needed to satisfy some imperious demand made upon Mr.
+Carroll by a tailor. "He must have clothes, you know," said the poor
+woman, wailing. "He doesn't have many, but he must have some." There had
+been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since, and, to
+tell the truth, Mr. Grey did require to have the subject argued, in fear
+of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his
+daughter if he gave the money too easily. The loan had to be arranged in
+full conclave, as otherwise Mrs. Carroll would have found it difficult
+to obtain access to her brother's ear. But the one auditor whom she
+feared was her niece. On the present occasion Miss Grey simply took up
+her book to show that the subject was one which had no interest for her;
+but she did undoubtedly listen to all that was said on the subject.
+"There was never anything settled about poor Patrick's clothes," said
+Mrs. Carroll, in a half-whisper. She did not care how much her own
+children heard, and she knew how vain it was to attempt so to speak that
+Dolly should not hear.
+
+"I dare say something ought to be done at some time," said Mr. Grey, who
+knew that he would be told, when the evening was over, that he would
+give away all his substance to that man if he were asked.
+
+"Papa has not had a new pair of trousers this year," said Sophy.
+
+"Except those green ones he wore at the races," said Georgina.
+
+"Hold your tongue, miss!" said her mother. "That was a pair I made up
+for him and sent them to the man to get pressed."
+
+"When the hundred a year was arranged for all our dresses," said Amelia,
+"not a word was said about papa. Of course, papa is a trouble."
+
+"I don't see that he is more of a trouble than any one else," said
+Sophy. "Uncle John would not like not to have any clothes."
+
+"No, I should not, my dear."
+
+"And his own income is all given up to the house uses." Here Sophy
+touched imprudently on a sore subject. His "own" income consisted of
+what had been saved out of his wife's fortune, and was thus named as in
+opposition to the larger sum paid to Mrs. Carroll by Mr. Grey. There was
+one hundred and fifty pounds a year coming from settled property, which
+had been preserved by the lawyer's care, and which was regarded in the
+family as "papa's own."
+
+It certainly is essential for respectability that something should be
+set apart from a man's income for his wearing apparel; and though the
+money was, perhaps, improperly so designated, Dolly would not have
+objected had she not thought that it had already gone to the
+race-course,--in company with the green trousers. She had her own means
+of obtaining information as to the Carroll family. It was very necessary
+that she should do so, if the family was to be kept on its legs at all.
+"I don't think any good can come from discussing what my uncle does with
+the money." This was Dolly's first speech. "If he is to have it, let him
+have it, but let him have as little as possible."
+
+"I never heard anybody so cross as you always are to papa," said Sophy.
+
+"Your cousin Dorothy is very fortunate," said Mrs. Carroll. "She does
+not know what it is to want for anything."
+
+"She never spends anything--on herself," said her father. "It is Dolly's
+only fault that she won't."
+
+"Because she has it all done for her," said Amelia.
+
+Dolly had gone back to her book, and disdained to make any farther
+reply. Her father felt that quite enough had been said about it, and
+was prepared to give the twenty pounds, under the idea that he might be
+thought to have made a stout fight upon the subject. "He does want them
+very badly--for decency's sake," said the poor wife, thus winding up her
+plea. Then Mr. Grey got out his check-book and wrote the check for
+twenty pounds. But he made it payable, not to Mr. but to Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"I suppose, papa, nothing can be done about Mr. Carroll." This was said
+by Dolly as soon as the family had withdrawn.
+
+"In what way 'done,' my dear?"
+
+"As to settling some farther sum for himself."
+
+"He'd only spend it, my dear."
+
+"That would be intended," said Dolly.
+
+"And then he would come back just the same."
+
+"But in that case he should have nothing more. Though they were to
+declare that he hadn't a pair of trousers in which to appear at a
+race-course, he shouldn't have it."
+
+"My dear," said Mr. Grey, "you cannot get rid of the gnats of the world.
+They will buzz and sting and be a nuisance. Poor Jane suffers worse from
+this gnat than you or I. Put up with it; and understand in your own mind
+that when he comes for another twenty pounds he must have it. You
+needn't tell him, but so it must be."
+
+"If I had my way," said Dolly, after ten minutes' silence, "I would
+punish him. He is an evil thing, and should be made to reap the proper
+reward. It is not that I wish to avoid my share of the world's burdens,
+but that justice should be done. I don't know which I hate the
+worst,--Uncle Carroll or Mr. Scarborough."
+
+The next day was Sunday, and Dolly was very anxious before breakfast to
+induce her father to say that he would go to church with her; but he was
+inclined to be obstinate, and fell back upon his usual excuse, saying
+that there were Scarborough papers which it would be necessary that he
+should read before he started for Tretton on the following day.
+
+"Papa, I think it would do you good if you came."
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it would. That is the intention; but somehow it
+fails with me sometimes."
+
+"Do you think that you hate people when you go to church as much as when
+you don't?"
+
+"I am not sure that I hate anybody very much."
+
+"I do."
+
+"That seems an argument for your going."
+
+"But if you don't hate them it is because you won't take the trouble,
+and that again is not right. If you would come to church you would be
+better for it all round. You'd hate Uncle Carroll's idleness and
+abominable self-indulgence worse than you do."
+
+"I don't love him, as it is, my dear."
+
+"And I should hate him less. I felt last night as though I could rise
+from my bed and go and murder him."
+
+"Then you certainly ought to go to church."
+
+"And you had passed him off just as though he were a gnat from which you
+were to receive as little annoyance as possible, forgetting the
+influence he must have on those six unfortunate children. Don't you know
+that you gave her that twenty pounds simply to be rid of a disagreeable
+subject?"
+
+"I should have given it ever so much sooner, only that you were looking
+at me."
+
+"I know you would, you dear, sweet, kind-hearted, but most un-Christian,
+father. You must come to church, in order that some idea of what
+Christianity demands of you may make its way into your heart. It is not
+what the clergyman may say of you, but that your mind will get away for
+two hours from that other reptile and his concerns." Then Mr. Grey, with
+a loud, long sigh, allowed his boots, and his gloves, and his
+church-going hat, and his church-going umbrella to be brought to him. It
+was, in fact, his aversion to these articles that Dolly had to
+encounter.
+
+It may be doubted whether the church services of that day did Mr. Grey
+much good; but they seemed to have had some effect upon his daughter,
+from the fact that in the afternoon she wrote a letter in kindly words
+to her aunt: "Papa is going to Tretton, and I will come up to you on
+Tuesday. I have got a frock which I will bring with me as a present for
+Potsey; and I will make her sew on the buttons for herself. Tell Minna I
+will lend her that book I spoke of. About those boots--I will go with
+Georgina to the boot-maker." But as to Amelia and Sophy she could not
+bring herself to say a good-natured word, so deep in her heart had sunk
+that sin of which they had been guilty with reference to Prince
+Chitakov.
+
+On that night she had a long discussion with her father respecting the
+affairs of the Scarborough family. The discussion was held in the
+dining-room, and may, therefore, be supposed to have been premeditated.
+Those at night in Mr. Grey's own bedroom were generally the result of
+sudden thought. "I should lay down the law to him--" began Dolly.
+
+"The law is the law," said her father.
+
+"I don't mean the law in that sense. I should tell him firmly what I
+advised, and should then make him understand that if he did not follow
+my advice I must withdraw. If his son is willing to pay these
+money-lenders what sums they have actually advanced, and if by any
+effort on his part the money can be raised, let it be done. There seems
+to be some justice in repaying out of the property that which was lent
+to the property when by Mr. Scarborough's own doing the property was
+supposed to go into the eldest son's hands. Though the eldest son and
+the money-lenders be spendthrifts and profligates alike, there will in
+that be something of fairness. Go there prepared with your opinion. But
+if either father or son will not accept it, then depart, and shake the
+dust from your feet."
+
+"You propose it all as though it were the easiest thing in the world."
+
+"Easy or difficult. I would not discuss anything of which the justice
+may hereafter be disputed."
+
+What was the result of the consultation on Mr. Grey's mind he did not
+declare, but he resolved to take his daughter's advice in all that she
+said to him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+MR. GREY GOES TO TRETTON.
+
+
+Mr. Grey went down to Tretton with a great bag of papers. In fact,
+though he told his daughter that he had to examine them all before he
+started, and had taken them to Fulham for that purpose, he had not
+looked at them. And, as another fact, the bag was not opened till he got
+home again. They had been read;--at any rate, what was necessary. He knew
+his subject. The old squire knew it well.
+
+Mr. Grey was going down to Tretton, not to convey facts or to explain
+the law, but in order that he might take the side either of the father
+or of the son. Mr. Scarborough had sent for the lawyer to support his
+view of the case; and the son had consented to meet him in order that he
+might the more easily get the better of his father.
+
+Mr. Grey had of late learned one thing which had before been dark to
+him,--had seen one phase of this complicated farrago of dishonesty which
+had not before been visible to him. Augustus suspected his father of
+some farther treachery. That he should be angry at having been debarred
+from his birthright so long,--debarred from the knowledge of his
+birthright,--was, Mr. Grey thought, natural. A great wrong had been, at
+least, intended; and that such a man should resent it was to have been
+expected. But of late Mr. Grey had discovered that it was not in that
+way that the son's mind worked. It was not anger but suspicion that he
+showed; and he used his father's former treatment of him as a
+justification for the condemnation implied in his thoughts. There is no
+knowing what an old man may do who has already acted as he had done. It
+was thus that he expressed himself both by his words and deeds, and did
+so openly in his father's presence, Mr. Grey had not seen them together,
+but knew from the letters of both of them that such was the case. Old
+Mr. Scarborough scorned his son's suspicions, and disregarded altogether
+any words that might be said as to his own past conduct. He was willing,
+or half willing, that Mountjoy's debts should be, not paid, but settled.
+But he was willing to do nothing toward such a step except in his own
+way. While the breath was in his body the property was his, and he chose
+to be treated as its only master. If Augustus desired to do anything by
+"post-obits," let him ruin himself after his own fashion. "It is not
+very likely that Augustus can raise money by post obits, circumstanced
+as the property is," he had written to Mr. Grey, with a conveyed sneer
+and chuckle as to the success of his own villany. It was as though he
+had declared that the money-lenders had been too well instructed as to
+what tricks Mr. Scarborough could play with his property to risk a
+second venture.
+
+Augustus had, in truth, been awaiting his father's death with great
+impatience. It was unreasonable that a man should live who had acted in
+such a way and who had been so cut about by the doctors. His father's
+demise had, in truth, been promised to him, and to all the world. It was
+an understood thing, in all circles which knew anything, that old Mr.
+Scarborough could not live another month. It had been understood some
+time, and was understood at the present moment; and yet Mr. Scarborough
+went on living,--no doubt, as an invalid in the last stage of probable
+dissolution, but still with the full command of his intellect and mental
+powers for mischief. Augustus, suspecting him as he did, had begun to
+fear that he might live too long. His brother had disappeared, and he
+was the heir. If his father would die,--such had been his first
+thought,--he could settle with the creditors immediately, before any
+tidings should be heard of his brother. But tidings had come. His
+brother had been seen by Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo; and though Mr. Hart
+had not yet sent home the news to the other creditors, the news had been
+sent at once to Augustus Scarborough by his own paid attendant upon his
+brother. Of Mr. Hart's "little game" he did not yet know the
+particulars; but he was confident that there was some game.
+
+Augustus by no means gave his mother credit for the disgraceful conduct
+imputed to her in the story as now told by her surviving husband. It was
+not that he believed in the honesty of his mother, whom he had never
+known, and for whose memory he cared little, but that he believed so
+fully in the dishonesty of his father. His father, when he had
+thoroughly understood that Mountjoy had enveloped the property in debt,
+so that nothing but a skeleton would remain when the bonds were paid,
+had set to work, and by the ingenuity of his brain had resolved to
+redeem, as far as the Scarboroughs were concerned, their estate from its
+unfortunate position.
+
+It was so that Augustus believed; this was the theory existing in his
+mind. That his father should have been so clever, and Mr. Grey so blind,
+and even Mr. Hart and Mr. Tyrrwhit so easily hoodwinked, was remarkable.
+But so it was,--or might probably be so. He felt no assurance, but there
+was ever present to him the feeling of great danger. But the state of
+things as arranged by his father might be established by himself. If he
+could get these creditors to give up their bonds while his father's
+falsehood was still believed, it would be a great thing. He had learned
+by degrees how small a proportion of the money claimed had, in fact,
+been advanced to Mountjoy, and had resolved to confine himself to paying
+that. That might now probably be accepted with gratitude. The increasing
+value of the estate might bear that without being crushed. But it should
+be done at once, while Mountjoy was still absent and before Mr. Tyrrwhit
+at any rate knew that Mountjoy had not been killed. Then had happened
+that accidental meeting with Mr. Hart at Monte Carlo. That idiot of a
+keeper of his had been unable to keep Mountjoy from the gambling-house.
+But Mr. Hart had as yet told nothing. Mr. Hart was playing some game of
+his own, in which he would assuredly be foiled. The strong hold which
+Augustus had was in the great infirmity of his father and in the
+blindness of Mr. Grey, but it would be settled. It ought to have been
+well that the thing should be settled already by his father's death.
+Augustus did feel strongly that the squire ought to complete his work by
+dying. Were the story, as now told by him, true, he ought certainly to
+die, so as to make speedy atonement for his wickedness. Were it false,
+then he ought to go quickly, so that the lie might be effectual. Every
+day that he continued to live would go far to endanger the discovery.
+Augustus felt that he must at once have the property in his own hands,
+so as to buy the creditors and obtain security.
+
+Mr. Grey, who was not so blind as Augustus thought him, saw a great deal
+of this. Augustus suspected him as well as the squire. His mind went
+backward and forward on these suspicions. It was more probable that the
+squire should have contrived all this with the attorney's assistance
+than without it. The two, willing it together, might be very powerful.
+But then Mr. Grey would hardly dare to do it. His father knew that he
+was dying; but Mr. Grey had no such easy mode of immediate escape if
+detected. And his father was endowed with a courage as peculiar as it
+was great. He did not think that Mr. Grey was so brave a man as his
+father. And then he could trace the payment of no large sum to Mr.
+Grey,--such as would have been necessary as a bribe in such a case.
+Augustus suspected Mr. Grey, on and off. But Mr. Grey was sure that
+Augustus suspected his own father. Now, of one thing Mr. Grey was
+certain:--Augustus was, in truth, the rightful heir. The squire had at
+first contrived to blind him,--him, Mr. Grey,--partly by his own
+acuteness, partly through the carelessness of himself and those in his
+office, partly by the subornation of witnesses who seemed to have been
+actually prepared for such an event. But there could be no subsequent
+blinding. Mr. Grey had a well-earned reputation for professional
+acuteness and honesty. He knew there was no need for such suspicions as
+those now entertained by the young man; but he knew also that they
+existed, and he hated the young man for entertaining them.
+
+When he arrived at Tretton Park he first of all saw Mr. Septimus Jones,
+with whom he was not acquainted. "Mr. Scarborough will be here directly.
+He is out somewhere about the stables," said Mr. Jones, in that tone of
+voice with which a guest at the house,--a guest for pleasure,--may address
+sometimes a guest who is a guest on business. In such a case the guest
+on pleasure cannot be a gentleman, and must suppose that the guest on
+business is not one either.
+
+Mr. Grey, thinking that the Mr. Scarborough spoken of could not be the
+squire, put Mr. Jones right. "It is the elder Mr. Scarborough whom I
+wish to see. There is quite time enough. No doubt Miss Scarborough will
+be down presently."
+
+"You are Mr. Grey, I believe?"
+
+"That is my name."
+
+"My friend, Augustus Scarborough, is particularly anxious to see you
+before you go to his father. The old man is in very failing health, you
+know."
+
+"I am well acquainted with the state of Mr. Scarborough's health," said
+Mr. Grey, "and will leave it to himself to say when I shall see him.
+Perhaps to-morrow will be best." Then he rung the bell; but the servant
+entered the room at the same moment and summoned him up to the squire's
+chamber. Mr. Scarborough also wished to see Mr. Grey before his son, and
+had been on the alert to watch for his coming.
+
+On the landing he met Miss Scarborough. "He does seem to keep up his
+strength," said the lady. "Mr. Merton is living in the house now, and
+watches him very closely." Mr. Merton was a resident young doctor, whom
+Sir William Brodrick had sent down to see that all medical appliances
+were at hand as the sick man might require them. Then Mr. Grey was shown
+in, and found the squire recumbent on a sofa, with a store of books
+within his reach, and reading apparatuses of all descriptions, and every
+appliance which the ingenuity of the skilful can prepare for the relief
+of the sick and wealthy.
+
+"This is very kind of you, Mr. Grey," said the squire, speaking in a
+cheery voice. "I wanted you to come very much, but I hardly thought that
+you would take the trouble. Augustus is here, you know."
+
+"So I have heard from that gentleman down-stairs."
+
+"Mr. Jones? I have never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jones. What sort
+of a gentleman is Mr. Jones to look at?"
+
+"Very much like other gentlemen."
+
+"I dare say. He has done me the honor to stay a good deal at my house
+lately. Augustus never comes without him. He is 'Fidus Achates,' I take
+it, to Augustus. Augustus has never asked whether he can be received. Of
+course it does not matter. When a man is the eldest son, and, so to say,
+the only one, he is apt to take liberties with his father's house. I am
+so sorry that in my position I cannot do the honors and receive him
+properly. He is a very estimable and modest young man, I believe?" As
+Mr. Grey had not come down to Tretton either to be a spy on Mr. Jones or
+to answer questions concerning him, he held his tongue. "Well, Mr. Grey,
+what do you think about it;--eh?" This was a comprehensive question, but
+Mr. Grey well understood its purport. What did he, Mr. Grey, think of
+the condition to which the affairs of Tretton had been brought, and
+those of Mr. Scarborough himself and of his two sons? What did he think
+of Mountjoy, who had disappeared and was still absent? What did he think
+of Augustus, who was not showing his gratitude in the best way for all
+that had been done for him? And what did he think of the squire himself,
+who from his death-bed had so well contrived to have his own way in
+everything,--to do all manner of illegal things without paying any of the
+penalties to which illegality is generally subject? And having asked the
+question he paused for an answer.
+
+Mr. Grey had had no personal interview with the squire since the time at
+which it had been declared that Mountjoy was not the heir. Then some
+very severe words had been spoken. Mr. Grey had first sworn that he did
+not believe a word of what was said to him, and had refused to deal with
+the matter at all. If carried out Mr. Scarborough must take it to some
+other lawyer's office. There had, since that, been a correspondence as
+to much of which Mr. Scarborough had been forced to employ an
+amanuensis. Gradually Mr. Grey had assented, in the first instance on
+behalf of Mountjoy, and then on behalf of Augustus. But he had done so
+in the expectation that he should never again see the squire in this
+world. He, too, had been assured that the man would die, and had felt
+that it would be better that the management of things should then be in
+honest hands, such as his own, and in the hands of those who understood
+them, than be confided to those who did not not understand them, and who
+might probably not be honest.
+
+But the squire had not died, and here he was again at Tretton as the
+squire's guest. "I think," said Mr. Grey, "that the less said about a
+good deal of it the better."
+
+"That, of course, is sweeping condemnation, which, however, I expect.
+Let that be all as though it had been expressed. You don't understand
+the inner man which rules me,--how it has struggled to free itself from
+conventionalities. Nor do I quite understand how your inner man has
+succumbed to them and encouraged them."
+
+"I have encouraged an obedience to the laws of my country. Men generally
+find it safer to do so."
+
+"Exactly, and men like to be safe. Perhaps a condition of danger has
+had its attractions for me. It is very stupid, but perhaps it is so. But
+let that go. The rope has been round my own neck and not round that of
+others. Perhaps I have thought of late that if danger should come I
+could run away from it all, by the help of the surgeon. They have become
+so skilful now that a man has no chance in that way. But what do you
+think of Mountjoy and Augustus?"
+
+"I think that Mountjoy has been very ill-used."
+
+"But I endeavored to do the best I could for him."
+
+"And that Augustus has been worse used."
+
+"But he, at any rate, has been put right quite in time. Had he been
+brought up as the eldest son he might have done as Mountjoy did." Then
+there came a little gleam of satisfaction across the squire's face as he
+felt the sufficiency of his answer. "But they are neither of them
+pleased."
+
+"You cannot please men by going wrong, even in their own behalf."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. Were you to say that we cannot please men ever
+by doing right on their behalf you would perhaps be nearer the mark.
+Where do you think that Mountjoy is?" A rumor, had reached Mr. Grey that
+Mountjoy had been seen at Monte Carlo, but it had been only a rumor. The
+same had, in truth, reached Mr. Scarborough, but he chose to keep his
+rumor to himself. Indeed, more than a rumor had reached him.
+
+"I think that he will turn up safely," said the lawyer. "I think that if
+it were made worth his while he would turn up at once."
+
+"Is it not better that he should be away?" Mr. Grey shrugged his
+shoulders. "What's the good of his coming back into a nest of hornets? I
+have always thought that he did very well to disappear. Where is he to
+live if he came back? Should he come here?"
+
+"Not with his gambling debts unpaid at the club."
+
+"That might have been settled. Though, indeed, his gambling was as a tub
+that has no bottom to it. There has been nothing for it but to throw him
+over altogether. And yet how very much the better he has been of the
+two! Poor Mountjoy!"
+
+"Poor Mountjoy!"
+
+"You see, if I hadn't disinherited him I should have had to go on paying
+for him till the whole estate would have been squandered even during my
+lifetime."
+
+"You speak as though the law had given you the power of disinheriting
+him."
+
+"So it did."
+
+"But not the power of giving him the inheritance."
+
+"I took that upon myself. There I was stronger than the law. Now I
+simply and humbly ask the law to come and help me. And the upshot is
+that Augustus takes upon himself to lecture me and to feel aggrieved. He
+is not angry with me for what I did about Mountjoy, but is quarrelling
+with me because I do not die. I have no idea of dying just to please
+him. I think it important that I should live just at present."
+
+"But will you let him have the money to pay these creditors?"
+
+"That is what I want to speak about. If I can see the list of the sums
+to be paid, and if you can assure yourself that by paying them I shall
+get back all the post-obit bonds which Mountjoy has given, and that the
+money can be at once raised upon a joint mortgage, to be executed by me
+and Augustus, I will do it. But the first thing must be to know the
+amount. I will join Augustus in nothing without your consent. He wants
+to assume the power himself. In fact, the one thing he desires is that I
+shall go. As long as I remain he shall do nothing except by my
+co-operation. I will see you and him to-morrow, and now you may go and
+eat your dinner. I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for
+coming." And then Mr. Grey left the room, went to his chamber, and in
+process of time made his way into the drawing-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+MR. GREY'S OPINION OF THE SCARBOROUGH FAMILY.
+
+
+Had Augustus been really anxious to see Mr. Grey before Mr. Grey went to
+his father, he would probably have managed to do so. He did not always
+tell Mr. Jones everything. "So the fellow has hurried up to the governor
+the moment he came into the house," he said.
+
+"He's with him now."
+
+"Of course he is. Never mind. I'll be even with him in the long-run."
+Then he greeted the lawyer with a mock courtesy as soon as he saw him.
+"I hope your journey has done you no harm, Mr. Grey."
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"It's very kind of you, I am sure, to look after our poor concerns with
+so much interest. Jones, don't you think it is time they gave us some
+dinner? Mr. Grey, I'm sure, must want his dinner."
+
+"All in good time," said the lawyer.
+
+"You shall have your dinner, Mr. Grey. It is the least we can do for
+you." Mr. Grey felt that in every sound of his voice there was an
+insult, and took special notice of every tone, and booked them all down
+in his memory. After dinner he asked some unimportant question with
+reference to the meeting that was to take place in the morning, and was
+at once rebuked. "I do not know that we need trouble our friend here
+with our private concerns," he said.
+
+"Not in the least," said Mr. Grey. "You have already been talking about
+them in my presence and in his. It is necessary that I should have a
+list of the creditors before I can advise your father."
+
+"I don't see it; but, however, that is for you to judge. Indeed, I do
+not know on what points my father wants your advice. A lawyer generally
+furnishes such a list." Then Mr. Grey took up a book, and was soon left
+alone by the younger men.
+
+In the morning he walked out in the park, so as to have free time for
+thought. Not a word farther had been said between him and Augustus
+touching their affairs. At breakfast Augustus discussed with his friend
+the state of the odds respecting some race and then the characters of
+certain ladies. No subjects could have been less interesting to Mr.
+Grey, as Augustus was aware. They breakfasted at ten, and twelve had
+been named for the meeting. Mr. Grey had an hour or an hour and a half
+for his walk, in which he could again turn over in his mind all these
+matters of which his thoughts had been full for now many a day.
+
+Of two or three facts he was certain. Augustus was the legitimate heir
+of his father. Of that he had seen ample documentary evidence. The word
+of no Scarborough should go for anything with him;--but of that fact he
+was assured. Whether the squire knew aught of Mountjoy he did not feel
+sure, but that Augustus did he was quite certain. Who was paying the
+bills for the scapegrace during his travels he could not say, but he
+thought it probable that Augustus was finding the money. He, Mountjoy,
+was kept away, so as to be out of the creditors' way.
+
+He thought, therefore, that Augustus was doing this, so that he might
+the more easily buy up the debts. But why should Augustus go to the
+expense of buying up the debts, seeing that the money must ultimately
+come out of his own pocket? Because,--so Mr. Grey thought,--Augustus would
+not trust his own father. The creditors, if they could get hold of
+Mountjoy when his father was dead, and when the bonds would all become
+payable, might possibly so unravel the facts as to make it apparent
+that, after all, the property was Mountjoy's. This was not Mr. Grey's
+idea, but was Mr. Grey's idea of the calculation which Augustus was
+making for his own government. According to Mr. Grey's reading of all
+the facts of the case, such were the suspicions which Augustus
+entertained in the matter. Otherwise, why should he be anxious to take a
+step which would redound only to the advantage of the creditors? He was
+quite certain that no money would be paid, at any rate, by Augustus,
+solely with the view of honestly settling their claims.
+
+But there was another subject which troubled his mind excessively as he
+walked across the park. Why should he soil his hands, or, at any rate,
+trouble his conscience, with an affair so unclean, so perplexed, and so
+troublesome? Why was he there at Tretton at all, to be insulted by a
+young blackguard such as he believed Augustus Scarborough to be?
+Augustus Scarborough, he knew, suspected him. But he, in return,
+suspected Augustus Scarborough. The creditors suspected him. Mountjoy
+suspected him. The squire did not suspect him, but he suspected the
+squire. He never could again feel himself to be on comfortable terms of
+trusting legal friendship with a man who had played such a prank in
+reference to his marriage as this man had performed. Why, then, should
+he still be concerned in a matter so distasteful to him? Why should he
+not wipe his hands of it all and retreat? There was no act of parliament
+compelling him to meddle with the dirt.
+
+Such were his thoughts. But yet he knew that he was compelled. He did
+feel himself bound to look after interests which he had taken in hand
+now for many years. It had been his duty,--or the duty of some one
+belonging to him,--to see into the deceit by which an attempt had been
+made to rob Augustus Scarborough of his patrimony. It had been his duty,
+for a while, to protect Mountjoy, and the creditors who had lent their
+money to Mountjoy, from what he had believed to be a flagitious attempt.
+Then, as soon as he felt that the flagitious attempt had been made
+previously, in Mountjoy's favor, it became his duty to protect Augustus,
+in spite of the strong personal dislike which from the first he had
+conceived for that young man.
+
+And then he doubtless had been attracted by the singularity of all that
+had been done in the affair, and of all that was likely to be done. He
+had said to himself that the matter should be made straight, and that he
+would make it straight. Therefore, during his walk in the park, he
+resolved that he must persevere.
+
+At twelve o'clock he was ready to be taken up to the sick man's room.
+When he entered it, under the custody of Miss Scarborough, he found that
+Augustus was there. The squire was sitting up, with his feet supported,
+and was apparently in a good humor. "Well, Mr. Grey," he said, "have you
+settled this matter with Augustus?"
+
+"I have settled nothing."
+
+"He has not spoken to me about it at all," said Augustus.
+
+"I told him I wanted a list of the creditors. He said that it was my
+duty to supply it. That was the extent of our conversation."
+
+"Which he thought it expedient to have in the presence of my friend, Mr.
+Jones. Mr. Jones is very well in his way, but he is not acquainted with
+all my affairs."
+
+"Your son, Mr. Scarborough, has made no tender to me of any
+information."
+
+"Nor, sir, has Mr. Grey sought for any information from me." During this
+little dialogue Mr. Scarborough turned his face, with a smile, from one
+to the other, without a word.
+
+"If Mr. Grey has anything to suggest in the way of advice, let him
+suggest it," said Augustus.
+
+"Now, Mr. Grey," said the squire, with the same smile.
+
+"Till I get farther information," said Mr. Grey, "I can only limit
+myself to giving the advice which I offered to you yesterday."
+
+"Perhaps you will repeat it, so that he may hear it," said the squire.
+
+"If you get a list of those to whom your son Mountjoy owes money, and an
+assurance that the moneys named in that list have been from time to time
+lent by them to him,--the actual amount, I mean,--then I think that if you
+and your son Augustus shall together choose to pay those amounts, you
+will make the best reparation in your power for the injury you have no
+doubt done in having contrived that it should be understood that
+Mountjoy was legitimate."
+
+"You need not discuss," said the squire, "any injuries that I have done.
+I have done a great many, no doubt."
+
+"But," continued the lawyer, "before any such payment is made, close
+inquiries should be instituted as to the amounts of money which have
+absolutely passed."
+
+"We should certainly be taken in," said the squire. "I have great
+admiration for Mr. Samuel Hart. I do believe that it would be found
+impossible to extract the truth from Mr. Samuel Hart. If Mr. Samuel Hart
+does not make money yet out of poor Mountjoy I shall be surprised."
+
+"The truth may be ascertained," said Mr. Grey. "You should get some
+accountant to examine the checks."
+
+"When I remember how easy it was to deceive some really clever men as to
+the evidence of my marriage--" began Mr. Scarborough. So the squire
+began, but then stopped himself, with a shrug of his shoulders. Among
+the really clever men who had been easily deceived Mr. Grey was, if not
+actually first in importance, foremost, at any rate, in name.
+
+"The truth may be ascertained," Mr. Grey repeated, almost with a scowl
+of anger upon his brow.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it may. It will be difficult, in opposition to Mr.
+Samuel Hart."
+
+"You must satisfy yourselves, at any rate. These men will know that they
+have no other hope of getting a shilling."
+
+"It is a little hard to make them believe anything," said the squire.
+"They fancy, you know, that if they could get a hold of Mountjoy, so as
+to have him in their hands when the breath is out of my body and the
+bonds are really due, that then it may be made to turn out that he is
+really the heir."
+
+"We know that it is not so," said Mr. Grey. At this Augustus smiled
+blandly.
+
+"We know. But it is what we can make Mr. Samuel Hart know. In truth, Mr.
+Samuel Hart never allows himself to know anything,--except the amount of
+money which he may have at his banker's. And it will be difficult to
+convince Mr. Tyrrwhit. Mr. Tyrrwhit is assured that all of us,--you and
+I, and Mountjoy and Augustus,--are in a conspiracy to cheat him and the
+others."
+
+"I don't wonder at it," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Perhaps not," continued the squire; "the circumstances, no doubt, are
+suspicious. But he will have to find out his mistake. Augustus is very
+anxious to pay these poor men their money. It is a noble feeling on the
+part of Augustus; you must admit that, Mr. Grey." The irony with which
+this was said was evident in the squire's face and voice. Augustus only
+quietly laughed. The attorney sat as firm as death. He was not going to
+argue with such a statement or to laugh at such a joke. "I suppose it
+will come to over a hundred thousand pounds."
+
+"Eighty thousand, I should think," said Augustus. "The bonds amount to a
+great deal more than that--twice that."
+
+"It is for him to judge," said the squire, "whether he is bound by his
+honor to pay so large a sum to men whom I do not suppose he loves very
+well."
+
+"The estate can bear it," said Augustus.
+
+"Yes, the estate can bear it," said the attorney. "They should be paid
+what they have expended. That is my idea. Your son thinks that their
+silence will be worth the money."
+
+"What makes you say that?" demanded Augustus.
+
+"Just my own opinion."
+
+"I look upon it as an insult."
+
+"Would you be kind enough to explain to us what is your reason for
+wishing to do this thing?" asked Mr. Grey.
+
+"No, sir; I decline to give any reason. But those which you ascribe to
+me are insulting."
+
+"Will you deny them?"
+
+"I will not assent to anything,--coming from you,--nor will I deny
+anything. It is altogether out of your place as an attorney to ascribe
+motives to your clients. Can you raise the money, so that it shall be
+forthcoming at once? That is the question."
+
+"On your father's authority, backed by your signature, I imagine that I
+can do so. But I will not answer as a certainty. The best thing would be
+to sell a portion of the property. If you and your father will join, and
+Mountjoy also with you, it may be done."
+
+"What has Mountjoy got to do with it?" asked the father.
+
+"You had better have Mountjoy also. There may be some doubt as to the
+title. People will think so after the tricks that have been played."
+This was said by the lawyer; but the squire only laughed. He always
+showed some enjoyment of the fun which arose from the effects of his own
+scheming. The legal world, with its entails, had endeavored to dispose
+of his property, but he had shown the legal world that it was not an
+easy task to dispose of anything in which he was concerned.
+
+"How will you get hold of Mountjoy?" asked Augustus. Then the two older
+men only looked at each other. Both of them believed that Augustus knew
+more about his brother than any one else. "I think you had better send
+to Mr. Annesley and ask him."
+
+"What does Annesley know about him?" asked the squire.
+
+"He was the last person who saw him, at any rate, in London."
+
+"Are you sure of that?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"I think I may say that I am. I think, at any rate, that I know that
+there was a violent quarrel between them in the streets,--a quarrel in
+which the two men proceeded to blows,--and that Annesley struck him in
+such a way as to leave him for dead upon the pavement. Then the young
+man walked away, and Mountjoy has not been heard of, or, at least, has
+not been seen since. That a man should have struck such a blow, and
+then, on the spur of the moment, thinking of his own safety, should have
+left his opponent, I can understand. I should not like to be accused of
+such treatment myself, but I can understand it. I cannot understand that
+the man should have been missing altogether, and that then he should
+have held his tongue."
+
+"How do you know all this?" asked the attorney.
+
+"It is sufficient that I do know it."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said the squire.
+
+"Coming from you, of course I must put up with any contradiction," said
+Augustus. "I should not bear it from any one else," and he looked at the
+attorney.
+
+"One has a right to ask for your authority," said his father.
+
+"I cannot give it. A lady is concerned whose name I shall not mention.
+But it is of less importance, as his own friends are acquainted with the
+nature of his conduct. Indeed, it seems odd to see you two gentlemen so
+ignorant as to the matter which has been a subject of common
+conversation in most circles. His uncle means to cut him out from the
+property."
+
+"Can he too deal with entails?" said the squire.
+
+"He is still in middle life, and he can marry. That is what he intended
+to do, so much is he disgusted with his nephew. He has already stopped
+the young man's allowance, and swears that he shall not have a shilling
+of his money if he can help it. The police for some time were in great
+doubt whether they would not arrest him. I think I am justified in
+saying that he is a thorough reprobate."
+
+"You are not at all justified," said the father.
+
+"I can only express my opinion, and am glad to say that the world agrees
+with me."
+
+"It is sickening, absolutely sickening," said the squire, turning to the
+attorney. "You would not believe, now--"
+
+But he stopped himself. "What would not Mr. Grey believe?" asked the
+son.
+
+"There is no one one knows better than you that after the row in the
+street,--when Mountjoy was, I believe, the aggressor,--he was again seen
+by another person. I hate such deceit and scheming." Here Augustus
+smiled. "What are you sniggering there at, you blockhead?"
+
+"Your hatred, sir, at deceit and scheming. The truth is that when a man
+plays a game well, he does not like to find that he has any equal.
+Heaven forbid that I should say that there is rivalry here. You, sir,
+are so pre-eminently the first that no one can touch you." Then he
+laughed long,--a low, bitter, inaudible laugh,--during which Mr. Grey sat
+silent.
+
+"This comes well from you!" said the father.
+
+"Well, sir, you would try your hand upon me. I have passed over all that
+you have done on my behalf. But when you come to abuse me I cannot quite
+take your words as calmly as though there had been--no, shall I say,
+antecedents? Now about this money. Are we to pay it?"
+
+"I don't care one straw about the money. What is it to me? I don't owe
+these creditors anything."
+
+"Nor do I."
+
+"Let them rest, then, and do the worst they can. But upon the whole, Mr.
+Grey," he added, after a pause, "I think we had better pay them. They
+have endeavored to be insolent to me, and I have therefore ignored their
+claim. I have told them to do their worst. If my son here will agree
+with you in raising the money, and if Mountjoy,--as he, too, is
+necessary,--will do so, I too will do what is required of me. If eighty
+thousand pounds will settle it all, there ought not to be any
+difficulty. You can inquire what the real amount would be. If they
+choose to hold to their bonds, nothing will come of it;--that's all."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Scarborough. Then I shall know how to proceed. I
+understand that Mr. Scarborough, junior, is an assenting party?" Mr.
+Scarborough, junior, signified his assent by nodding his head.
+
+"That will do, then, for I think that I have a little exhausted myself."
+Then he turned round upon his couch, as though he intended to slumber.
+Mr. Grey left the room, and Augustus followed him, but not a word was
+spoken between them. Mr. Grey had an early dinner and went up to London
+by an evening train. What became of Augustus he did not inquire, but
+simply asked for his dinner and for a conveyance to the train. These
+were forthcoming, and he returned that night to Fulham.
+
+"Well?" said Dolly, as soon as she had got him his slippers and made
+him his tea.
+
+"I wish with all my heart I had never seen any one of the name of
+Scarborough!"
+
+"That is of course;--but what have you done?"
+
+"The father has been a great knave. He has set the laws of his country
+at defiance, and should be punished most severely. And Mountjoy
+Scarborough has proved himself to be unfit to have any money in his
+hands. A man so reckless is little better than a lunatic. But compared
+with Augustus they are both estimable, amiable men. The father has ideas
+of philanthropy, and Mountjoy is simply mad. But Augustus is as
+dishonest as either of them, and is odious also all round." Then at
+length he explained all that he had learned, and all that he had
+advised, and at last went to bed combating Dolly's idea that the
+Scarboroughs ought now to be thrown over altogether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S THOUGHTS OF HIMSELF.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough was left alone he did not go to sleep, as he had
+pretended, but lay there for an hour, thinking of his position and
+indulging to the full the feelings of anger which he now entertained
+toward his second son. He had never, in truth, loved Augustus. Augustus
+was very like his father in his capacity for organizing deceit, for
+plotting, and so contriving that his own will should be in opposition to
+the wills of all those around him. But they were thoroughly unlike in
+the object to be attained. Mr. Scarborough was not a selfish man.
+Augustus was selfish and nothing else. Mr. Scarborough hated the
+law,--because it was the law and endeavored to put a restraint upon him
+and others. Augustus liked the law,--unless when in particular points it
+interfered with his own actions. Mr. Scarborough thought that he could
+do better than the law. Augustus wished to do worse. Mr. Scarborough
+never blushed at what he himself attempted, unless he failed, which was
+not often the case. But he was constantly driven to blush for his son.
+Augustus blushed for nothing and for nobody. When Mr. Scarborough had
+declared to the attorney that just praise was due to Augustus for the
+nobility of the sacrifice he was making, Augustus had understood his
+father accurately and determined to be revenged, not because of the
+expression of his father's thoughts, but because he had so expressed
+himself before the attorney. Mr. Scarborough also thought that he was
+entitled to his revenge.
+
+When he had been left alone for an hour he rung the bell, which was
+close at his side, and called for Mr. Merton. "Where is Mr. Grey?"
+
+"I think he has ordered the wagonette to take him to the station."
+
+"And where is Augustus?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"And Mr. Jones? I suppose they have not gone to the station. Just feel
+my pulse, Merton. I am afraid I am very weak." Mr. Merton felt his pulse
+and shook his head. "There isn't a pulse, so to speak."
+
+"Oh yes; but it is irregular. If you will exert yourself so violently--"
+
+"That is all very well; but a man has to exert himself sometimes, let
+the penalty be what it may. When do you think that Sir William will have
+to come again?" Sir William, when he came, would come with his knife,
+and his advent was always to be feared.
+
+"It depends very much on yourself, Mr. Scarborough. I don't think he can
+come very often, but you can make the distances long or short. You
+should attend to no business."
+
+"That is absolute rubbish."
+
+"Nevertheless, it is my duty to say so. Whatever arrangements may be
+required, they should be made by others. Of course, if you do as you
+have done this morning, I can suggest some little relief. I can give you
+tonics and increase the amount; but I cannot resist the evil which you
+yourself do yourself."
+
+"I understand all about it."
+
+"You will kill yourself if you go on."
+
+"I don't mean to go on any farther,--not as I have done to-day; but as to
+giving up business, that is rubbish. I have got my property to manage,
+and I mean to manage it myself as long as I live. Unfortunately, there
+have been accidents which make the management a little rough at times. I
+have had one of the rough moments to-day, but they shall not be
+repeated. I give you my word for that. But do not talk to me about
+giving up my business. Now I'll take your tonics, and then would you
+have the kindness to ask my sister to come to me?"
+
+Miss Scarborough, who was always in waiting on her brother, was at once
+in the room. "Martha," he said, "where is Augustus?"
+
+"I think he has gone out."
+
+"And where is Mr. Septimus Jones?"
+
+"He is with him, John. The two are always together."
+
+"You would not mind giving my compliments to Mr. Jones, and telling him
+that his bedroom is wanted?"
+
+"His bedroom wanted! There are lots of bedrooms, and nobody to occupy
+them."
+
+"It's a hint that I want him to go; he'd understand that."
+
+"Would it not be better to tell Augustus?" asked the lady, doubting much
+her power to carry out the instructions given to her.
+
+"He would tell Augustus. It is not, you see, any objection I have to Mr.
+Jones. I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. He is a most
+agreeable young man, I'm sure; but I do not care to entertain an
+agreeable young man without having a word to say on the subject.
+Augustus does not think it worth his while even to speak to me about
+him. Of course, when I am gone, in a month or so,--perhaps a week or
+two,--he can do as he pleases."
+
+"Don't, John!"
+
+"But it is so. While I live I am master at least of this house. I cannot
+see Mr. Jones, and I do not wish to have another quarrel with Augustus.
+Mr. Merton says that every time I get angry it gives Sir William another
+chance with the knife. I thought that perhaps you could do it." Then
+Miss Scarborough promised that she would do it, and, having her
+brother's health very much at heart, she did do it. Augustus stood
+smiling while the message was, in fact, conveyed to him, but he made no
+answer. When the lady had done he bobbed his head to signify that he
+acknowledged the receipt of it, and the lady retired.
+
+"I have got my walking-papers," he said to Septimus Jones ten minutes
+afterward.
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"Don't you? Then you must be very thick-headed. My father has sent me
+word that you are to be turned out. Of course he means it for me. He
+does not wish to give me the power of saying that he sent me away from
+the house,--me, whom he has so long endeavored to rob,--me, to whom he
+owes so much for taking no steps to punish his fraud. And he knows that
+I can take none, because he is on his death-bed."
+
+"But you couldn't, could you, if he were--were anywhere else?"
+
+"Couldn't I? That's all you know about it. Understand, however, that I
+shall start to-morrow morning, and unless you like to remain here on a
+visit to him, you had better go with me." Mr. Jones signified his
+compliance with the hint, and so Miss Scarborough had done her work.
+
+Mr. Scarborough, when thus left alone, spent his time chiefly in
+thinking of the condition of his sons. His eldest son, Mountjoy, who had
+ever been his favorite, whom as a little boy he had spoiled by every
+means in his power, was a ruined man. His debts had all been paid,
+except the money due to the money-lenders. But he was not the less a
+ruined man. Where he was at this moment his father did not know. All the
+world knew the injustice of which he had been guilty on his boy's
+behalf, and all the world knew the failure of the endeavor. And now he
+had made a great and a successful effort to give back to his legitimate
+heir all the property. But in return the second son only desired his
+death, and almost told him so to his face. He had been proud of Augustus
+as a lad, but he had never loved him as he had loved Mountjoy. Now he
+knew that he and Augustus must henceforward be enemies. Never for a
+moment did he think of giving up his power over the estate as long as
+the estate should still be his. Though it should be but for a month,
+though it should be but for a week, he would hold his own. Such was the
+nature of the man, and when he swallowed Mr. Merton's tonics he did so
+more with the idea of keeping the property out of his son's hands than
+of preserving his own life. According to his view, he had done very much
+for Augustus, and this was the return which he received!
+
+And in truth he had done much for Augustus. For years past it had been
+his object to leave to his second son as much as would come to his
+first. He had continued to put money by for him, instead of spending his
+income on himself.
+
+Of this Mr. Grey had known much, but had said nothing when he was
+speaking those severe words which Mr. Scarborough had always contrived
+to receive with laughter. But he had felt their injustice, though he had
+himself ridiculed the idea of law. There had been the two sons, both
+born from the same mother, and he had willed that they should be both
+rich men, living among the foremost of their fellowmen, and the
+circumstances of the property would have helped him. The income from
+year to year went on increasing.
+
+The water-mills of Tretton and the town of Tretton had grown and been
+expanded within his domain, and the management of the sales in Mr.
+Grey's hands had been judicious. The revenues were double now what they
+had been when Mr. Scarborough first inherited it. It was all, no doubt,
+entailed, but for twenty years he had enjoyed the power of accumulating
+a sum of money for his second son's sake,--or would have enjoyed it, had
+not the accumulation been taken from him to pay Mountjoy's debts. It was
+in vain that he attempted to make Mountjoy responsible for the money.
+Mountjoy's debts, and irregularities, and gambling went on, till Mr.
+Scarborough found himself bound to dethrone the illegitimate son, and to
+place the legitimate in his proper position.
+
+In doing the deed he had not suffered much, though the circumstances
+which had led to the doing of it had been full of pain. There had been
+an actual pleasure to him in thus showing himself to be superior to the
+conventionalities of the world. There was Augustus still ready to occupy
+the position to which he had in truth been born. And at the moment
+Mountjoy had gone--he knew not where. There had been gambling debts
+which, coming as they did after many others, he had refused to pay. He
+himself was dying at the moment, as he thought. It would be better for
+him to take up with Augustus. Mountjoy he must leave to his fate. For
+such a son, so reckless, so incurable, so hopeless, it was impossible
+that anything farther should be done. He would at least enjoy the power
+of leaving those wretched creditors without their money. There would be
+some triumph, some consolation, in that. So he had done, and now his
+heir turned against him!
+
+It was very bitter to him, as he lay thinking of it all. He was a man
+who was from his constitution and heart capable of making great
+sacrifices for those he loved. He had a most thorough contempt for the
+character of an honest man. He did not believe in honesty, but only in
+mock honesty. And yet he would speak of an honest man with admiration,
+meaning something altogether different from the honesty of which men
+ordinarily spoke. The usual honesty of the world was with him all
+pretence, or, if not, assumed for the sake of the character it would
+achieve. Mr. Grey he knew to be honest; Mr. Grey's word he knew to be
+true; but he fancied that Mr. Grey had adopted this absurd mode of
+living with the view of cheating his neighbors by appearing to be better
+than others. All virtue and all vice were comprised by him in the words
+"good-nature" and "ill-nature." All church-going propensities,--and
+these propensities in his estimate extended very widely,--he scorned from
+the very bottom of his heart. That one set of words should be deemed
+more wicked than another, as in regard to swearing, was to him a sign
+either of hypocrisy, of idolatry, or of feminine weakness of intellect.
+To women he allowed the privilege of being, in regard to thought, only
+something better than dogs. When his sister Martha shuddered at some
+exclamation from his mouth, he would say to himself simply that she was
+a woman, not an idiot or a hypocrite. Of women, old and young, he had
+been very fond, and in his manner to them very tender; but when a woman
+rose to a way of thinking akin to his own, she was no longer a woman to
+his senses. Against such a one his taste revolted. She sunk to the level
+of a man contaminated by petticoats. And law was hardly less absurd to
+him than religion. It consisted of a perplexed entanglement of rules got
+together so that the few might live in comfort at the expense of the
+many.
+
+Robbery, if you could get to the bottom of it, was bad, as was all
+violence; but taxation was robbery, rent was robbery, prices fixed
+according to the desire of the seller and not in obedience to justice,
+were robbery. "Then you are the greatest of robbers," his friends would
+say to him. He would admit it, allowing that in such a state of society
+he was not prepared to go out and live naked in the streets if he could
+help it. But he delighted to get the better of the law, and triumphed in
+his own iniquity, as has been seen by his conduct in reference to his
+sons.
+
+In this way he lived, and was kind to many people, having a generous and
+an open hand. But he was a man who could hate with a bitter hatred, and
+he hated most those suspected by him of mean or dirty conduct. Mr. Grey,
+who constantly told him to his face that he was a rascal, he did not
+hate at all. Thinking Mr. Grey to be in some respects idiotic, he
+respected him, and almost loved him. He thoroughly believed Mr. Grey,
+thinking him to be an ass for telling so much truth unnecessarily. And
+he had loved his son Mountjoy in spite of all his iniquities, and had
+fostered him till it was impossible to foster him any longer. Then he
+had endeavored to love Augustus, and did not in the least love him the
+less because his son told him frequently of the wicked things he had
+done. He did not object to be told of his wickedness even by his son.
+But Augustus suspected him of other things than those of which he
+accused him, and attempted to be sharp with him and to get the better
+of him at his own game. And his son laughed at him and scorned him, and
+regarded him as one who was troublesome only for a time, and who need
+not be treated with much attention, because he was there only for a
+time. Therefore he hated Augustus. But Augustus was his heir, and he
+knew that he must die soon.
+
+But for how long could he live? And what could he yet do before he died?
+A braver man than Mr. Scarborough never lived,--that is, one who less
+feared to die. Whether that is true courage may be a question, but it
+was his, in conjunction with courage of another description. He did not
+fear to die, nor did he fear to live. But what he did fear was to fail
+before he died. Not to go out with the conviction that he was vanishing
+amid the glory of success, was to him to be wretched at his last moment,
+and to be wretched at his last moment, or to anticipate that he should
+be so, was to him,--even so near his last hours,--the acme of misery. How
+much of life was left to him, so that he might recover something of
+success? Or was any moment left to him?
+
+He could not sleep, so he rung his bell, and again sent for Mr. Merton.
+"I have taken what you told me."
+
+"So best," said Mr. Merton. For he did not always feel assured that this
+strange patient would take what had been ordered.
+
+"And I have tried to sleep."
+
+"That will come after a while. You would not naturally sleep just after
+the tonic."
+
+"And I have been thinking of what you said about business. There is one
+thing I must do, and then I can remain quiet for a fortnight, unless I
+should be called upon to disturb my rest by dying."
+
+"We will hope not."
+
+"That may go as it pleases," said the sick man. "I want you now to write
+a letter for me to Mr. Grey." Mr. Merton had undertaken to perform the
+duties of secretary as well as doctor, and had thought in this way to
+obtain some authority over his patient for the patient's own good; but
+he had found already that no authority had come to him. He now sat down
+at the table close to the bedside, and prepared to write in accordance
+with Mr. Scarborough's dictation. "I think that Grey,--the lawyer, you
+know,--is a good man."
+
+"The world, as far as I hear it, says that he is honest."
+
+"I don't care a straw what the world says. The world says that I am
+dishonest, but I am not." Merton could only shrug his shoulders. "I
+don't say that because I want you to change your opinion. I don't care
+what you think. But I tell you a fact. I doubt whether Grey is so
+absolutely honest as I am, but, as things go, he is a good man."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"But the world, I suppose, says that my son Augustus is honest?"
+
+"Well, yes; I should suppose so."
+
+"If you have looked into him and have seen the contrary, I respect your
+intelligence."
+
+"I did not mean anything particular."
+
+"I dare say not, and if so, I mean nothing particular as to your
+intelligence. He, at any rate, is a scoundrel. Mountjoy--you know
+Mountjoy?"
+
+"Never saw him in my life."
+
+"I don't think he is a scoundrel,--not all round. He has gambled when he
+has not had money to pay. That is bad. And he has promised when he
+wanted money, and broken his word as soon as he had got it, which is bad
+also. And he has thought himself to be a fine fellow because he has been
+intimate with lords and dukes, which is very bad. He has never cared
+whether he paid his tailor. I do not mean that he has merely got into
+debt, which a young man such as he cannot help; but he has not cared
+whether his breeches were his or another man's. That too is bad. Though
+he has been passionately fond of women, it has only been for himself,
+not for the women, which is very bad. There is an immense deal to be
+altered before he can go to heaven."
+
+"I hope the change may come before it is too late," said Merton.
+
+"These changes don't come very suddenly, you know. But there is some
+chance for Mountjoy. I don't think that there is any for Augustus." Here
+he paused, but Merton did not feel disposed to make any remark. "You
+don't happen to know a young man of the name of Annesley,--Harry
+Annesley?"
+
+"I have heard his name from your son."
+
+"From Augustus? Then you didn't hear any good of him, I'm sure. You have
+heard all the row about poor Mountjoy's disappearance?"
+
+"I heard that he did disappear."
+
+"After a quarrel with that Annesley?"
+
+"After some quarrel. I did not notice the name at the time."
+
+"Harry Annesley was the name. Now, Augustus says that Harry Annesley
+was the last person who saw Mountjoy before his disappearance,--the last
+who knew him. He implies thereby that Annesley was the conscious or
+unconscious cause of his disappearance."
+
+"Well, yes."
+
+"Certainly it is so. And as it has been thought by the police, and by
+other fools, that Mountjoy was murdered,--that his disappearance was
+occasioned by his death, either by murder or suicide, it follows that
+Annesley must have had something to do with it. That is the inference,
+is it not?"
+
+"I should suppose so," said Merton.
+
+"That is manifestly the inference which Augustus draws. To hear him
+speak to me about it you would suppose that he suspected Annesley of
+having killed Mountjoy."
+
+"Not that, I hope."
+
+"Something of the sort. He has intended it to be believed that Annesley,
+for his own purposes, has caused Mountjoy to be made away with. He has
+endeavored to fill the police with that idea. A policeman, generally, is
+the biggest fool that London, or England, or the world produces, and has
+been selected on that account. Therefore the police have a beautifully
+mysterious but altogether ignorant suspicion as to Annesley. That is the
+doing of Augustus, for some purpose of his own. Now, let me tell you
+that Augustus saw Mountjoy after Annesley had seen him, that he knows
+this to be the case, and that it was Augustus, who contrived Mountjoy's
+disappearance. Now what do you think of Augustus?" This was a question
+which Merton did not find it very easy to answer. But Mr. Scarborough
+waited for a reply. "Eh?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I had rather not give an opinion on a point so raised."
+
+"You may. Of course you understand that I intend to assert that Augustus
+is the greatest blackguard you ever knew. If you have anything to say in
+his favor you can say it."
+
+"Only that you may be mistaken. Living down here, you may not know the
+truth."
+
+"Just that. But I do know the truth. Augustus is very clever; but there
+are others as clever as he is. He can pay, but then so can I. That he
+should want to get Mountjoy out of the way is intelligible. Mountjoy has
+become disreputable, and had better be out of the way. But why
+persistently endeavor to throw the blame upon young Annesley? That
+surprises me;--only I do not care much about it. I hear now for the first
+time that he has ruined young Annesley, and that does appear to be very
+horrible. But why does he want to pay eighty thousand pounds to these
+creditors? That I should wish to do so,--out of a property which must in
+a very short time become his,--would be intelligible. I may be supposed
+to have some affection for Mountjoy, and, after all, am not called upon
+to pay the money out of my own pocket. Do you understand it?"
+
+"Not in the least," said Merton, who did not, indeed, very much care
+about it.
+
+"Nor do I;--only this, that if he could pay these men and deprive them of
+all power of obtaining farther payment, let who would have the property,
+they at any rate would be quiet. Augustus is now my eldest son. Perhaps
+he thinks he might not remain so. If I were out of the way, and these
+creditors were paid, he thinks that poor Mountjoy wouldn't have a
+chance. He shall pay this eighty thousand pounds. Mountjoy hasn't a
+chance as it is; but Augustus shall pay the penalty."
+
+Then he threw himself back on the bed, and Mr. Merton begged him to
+spare himself the trouble of the letter for the present. But in a few
+minutes he was again on his elbow and took some farther medicine. "I'm a
+great ass," he said, "to help Augustus in playing his game. If I were to
+go off at once he would be the happiest fellow left alive. But come, let
+us begin." Then he dictated the letter as follows:
+
+"DEAR MR. GREY,--I have been thinking much of what passed between us the
+other day. Augustus seems to be in a great hurry as to paying the
+creditors, and I do not see why he should not be gratified, as the money
+may now be forthcoming. I presume that the sales, which will be
+completed before Christmas, will nearly enable us to stop their mouths.
+I can understand that Mountjoy should be induced to join with me and
+Augustus, so that in disposing of so large a sum of money the authority
+of all may be given, both of myself and of the heir, and also of him who
+a short time since was supposed to be the heir. I think that you may
+possibly find Mountjoy's address by applying to Augustus, who is always
+clever in such matters.
+
+"But you will have to be certain that you obtain all the bonds. If you
+can get Tyrrwhit to help you you will be able to be sure of doing so.
+The matter to him is one of vital importance, as his sum is so much the
+largest. Of course he will open his mouth very wide; but when he finds
+that he can get his principal and nothing more, I think that he will
+help you. I am afraid that I must ask you to put yourself in
+correspondence with Augustus. That he is an insolent scoundrel I will
+admit; but we cannot very well complete this affair without him. I fancy
+that he now feels it to be his interest to get it all done before I die,
+as the men will be clamorous with their bonds as soon as the breath is
+out of my body.--
+
+"Yours sincerely, JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"That will do," he said, when the letter was finished. But when Mr.
+Merton turned to leave the room Mr. Scarborough detained him. "Upon the
+whole, I am not dissatisfied with my life," he said.
+
+"I don't know that you have occasion," rejoined Mr. Merton. In this he
+absolutely lied, for, according to his thinking, there was very much in
+the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's life which ought to have induced
+regret. He knew the whole story of the birth of the elder son, of the
+subsequent marriage, of Mr. Scarborough's fraudulent deceit which had
+lasted so many years, and of his later return to the truth, so as to
+save the property, and to give back to the younger son all of which for
+so many years he, his father, had attempted to rob him.
+
+All London had talked of the affair, and all London had declared that so
+wicked and dishonest an old gentleman had never lived. And now he had
+returned to the truth simply with the view of cheating the creditors and
+keeping the estate in the family. He was manifestly an old gentleman who
+ought to be, above all others, dissatisfied with his own life; but Mr.
+Merton, when the assertion was made to him, knew not what other answer
+to make.
+
+"I really do not think I have, nor do I know one to whom heaven with all
+its bliss will be more readily accorded. What have I done for myself?"
+
+"I don't quite know what you have done all your life."
+
+"I was born a rich man, and then I married,--not rich as I am now, but
+with ample means for marrying."
+
+"After Mr. Mountjoy's birth," said Merton, who could not pretend to be
+ignorant of the circumstance.
+
+"Well, yes. I have my own ideas about marriage and that kind of thing,
+which are, perhaps, at variance with yours." Whereupon Merton bowed. "I
+had the best wife in the world, who entirely coincided with me in all
+that I did. I lived entirely abroad, and made most liberal allowances to
+all the agricultural tenants. I rebuilt all the cottages;--go and look at
+them. I let any man shoot his own game till Mountjoy came up in the
+world and took the shooting into his own hands. When the people at the
+pottery began to build I assisted them in every way in the world. I
+offered to keep a school at my own expense, solely on the understanding
+that what they call Dissenters should be allowed to come there. The
+parson spread abroad a rumor that I was an atheist, and consequently the
+School was kept for the Dissenters only. The School-board has come and
+made that all right, though the parson goes on with his rumor. If he
+understood me as well as I understand him, he would know that he is more
+of an atheist than I am. I gave my boys the best education, spending on
+them more than double what is done by men with twice my means. My tastes
+were all simple, and were not specially vicious. I do not know that I
+have ever made any one unhappy. Then the estate became richer, but
+Mountjoy grew more and more expensive. I began to find that with all my
+economies the estate could not keep pace with him, so as to allow me to
+put by anything for Augustus. Then I had to bethink myself what I had to
+do to save the estate from those rascals."
+
+"You took peculiar steps."
+
+"I am a man who does take peculiar steps. Another would have turned his
+face to the wall in my state of health, and have allowed two dirty Jews
+such as Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart to have revelled in the wealth of
+Tretton. I am not going to allow them to revel. Tyrrwhit knows me, and
+Hart will have to know me. They could not keep their hands to themselves
+till the breath was out of my body. Now I am about to see that each
+shall have his own shortly, and the estate will still be kept in the
+family."
+
+"For Mr. Augustus Scarborough?"
+
+"Yes, alas, yes! But that is not my doing. I do not know that I have
+cause to be dissatisfied with myself, but I cannot but own that I am
+unhappy. But I wished you to understand that though a man may break the
+law, he need not therefore be accounted bad, and though he may have
+views of his own as to religious matters, he need not be an atheist. I
+have made efforts on behalf of others, in which I have allowed no
+outward circumstances to control me. Now I think I do feel sleepy."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS SUMMONED HOME.
+
+
+"Just now I am triumphant," Harry Annesley had said to his hostess as he
+left Mrs. Armitage's house in the Paragon, at Cheltenham. He was
+absolutely triumphant, throwing his hat up into the air in the
+abandonment of his joy. For he was not a man to have conceived so well
+of his own parts as to have flattered himself that the girl must
+certainly be his.
+
+There are at present a number of young men about who think that few
+girls are worth the winning, but that any girl is to be had, not by
+asking,--which would be troublesome,--but simply by looking at her. You
+can see the feeling in their faces. They are for the most part small in
+stature, well made little men, who are aware that they have something to
+be proud of, wearing close-packed, shining little hats, by which they
+seem to add more than a cubit to their stature; men endowed with certain
+gifts of personal--dignity I may perhaps call it, though the word rises
+somewhat too high. They look as though they would be able to say a
+clever thing; but their spoken thoughts seldom rise above a small, acrid
+sharpness. They respect no one; above all, not their elders. To such a
+one his horse comes first, if he have a horse; then a dog; and then a
+stick; and after that the mistress of his affections. But their fault is
+not altogether of their own making. It is the girls themselves who spoil
+them and endure their inanity, because of that assumed look of
+superiority which to the eyes of the outside world would be a little
+offensive were it not a little foolish. But they do not marry often.
+Whether it be that the girls know better at last, or that they
+themselves do not see sufficiently clearly their future dinners, who can
+say? They are for the most part younger brothers, and perhaps have
+discovered the best way of getting out of the world whatever scraps the
+world can afford them. Harry Annesley's faults were altogether of
+another kind. In regard to this young woman, the Florence whom he had
+loved, he had been over-modest. Now his feeling of glory was altogether
+redundant. Having been told by Florence that she was devoted to him, he
+walked with his head among the heavens. The first instinct with such a
+young man as those of whom I have spoken teaches him, the moment he has
+committed himself, to begin to consider how he can get out of the
+scrape. It is not much of a scrape, for when an older man comes this
+way, a man verging toward baldness, with a good professional income, our
+little friend is forgotten and he is passed by without a word. But Harry
+had now a conviction,--on that one special night,--that he never would be
+forgotten and never would forget. He was filled at once with an unwonted
+pride. All the world was now at his feet, and all the stars were open to
+him. He had begun to have a glimmering of what it was that Augustus
+Scarborough intended to do; but the intentions of Augustus Scarborough
+were now of no moment to him. He was clothed in a panoply of armor which
+would be true against all weapons. At any rate, on that night and during
+the next day this feeling remained the same with him.
+
+Then he received a summons from his mother at Buston. His mother pressed
+him to come at once down to the parsonage. "Your uncle has been with
+your father, and has said terrible things about you. As you know, my
+brother is not very strong-minded, and I should not care so much for
+what he says were it not that so much is in his hands. I cannot
+understand what it is all about, but your father says that he does
+nothing but threaten. He talks of putting the entail on one side.
+Entails used to be fixed things, I thought; but since what old Mr.
+Scarborough did nobody seems to regard them now. But even suppose the
+entail does remain, what are you to do about the income? Your father
+thinks you had better come down and have a little talk about the
+matter."
+
+This was the first blow received since the moment of his exaltation.
+Harry knew very well that the entail was fixed, and could not be put
+aside by Mr. Prosper, though Mr. Scarborough might have succeeded with
+his entail; but yet he was aware that his present income was chiefly
+dependent on his uncle's good-will. To be reduced to live on his
+fellowship would be very dreadful. And that income, such as it was,
+depended entirely on his celibacy. And he had, too, as he was well
+aware, engendered habits of idleness during the last two years. The mind
+of a young man so circumstanced turns always first to the Bar, and then
+to literature. At the Bar he did not think that there could be any
+opening for him. In the first place, it was late to begin; and then he
+was humble enough to believe of himself that he had none of the peculiar
+gifts necessary for a judge or for an advocate. Perhaps the knowledge
+that six or seven years of preliminary labor would be necessary was
+somewhat of a deterrent.
+
+The rewards of literature might be achieved immediately. Such was his
+idea. But he had another idea,--perhaps as erroneous,--that this career
+would not become a gentleman who intended to be Squire of Buston. He had
+seen two or three men, decidedly Bohemian in their modes of life, to
+whom he did not wish to assimilate himself. There was Quaverdale, whom
+he had known intimately at St. John's, and who was on the Press.
+Quaverdale had quarrelled absolutely with his father, who was also a
+clergyman, and having been thrown altogether on his own resources, had
+come out as a writer for _The Coming Hour_. He made his five or six
+hundred a year in a rattling, loose, uncertain sort of fashion, and
+was,--so thought Harry Annesley,--the dirtiest man of his acquaintance. He
+did not believe in the six hundred a year, or Quaverdale would certainly
+have changed his shirt more frequently, and would sometimes have had a
+new pair of trousers. He was very amusing, very happy, very thoughtless,
+and as a rule altogether impecunious. Annesley had never known him
+without the means of getting a good dinner, but those means did not rise
+to the purchase of a new hat. Putting Quaverdale before him as an
+example, Annesley could not bring himself to choose literature as a
+profession. Thinking of all this when he received his mother's letter,
+he assured himself that Florence would not like professional literature.
+
+He wrote to say that he would be down at Buston in five days' time. It
+does not become a son who is a fellow of a college and the heir to a
+property to obey his parents too quickly. But he gave up the
+intermediate days to thinking over the condition which bound him to his
+uncle, and to discussing his prospects with Quaverdale, who, as usual,
+was remaining in town doing the editor's work for _The Coming Hour_. "If
+he interfered with me I should tell him to go to bed," said Quaverdale.
+The allusion was, of course, made to Mr. Prosper.
+
+"I am not on those sort of terms with him."
+
+"I should make my own terms, and then let him do his worst. What can he
+do? If he means to withdraw his beggarly two hundred and fifty pounds,
+of course he'll do it."
+
+"I suppose I do owe him something, in the way of respect."
+
+"Not if he threatens you in regard to money. What does it come to? That
+you are to cringe at his heels for a beggarly allowance which he has
+been pleased to bestow upon you without your asking. 'Very well, my dear
+fellow,' I should say to him, 'you can stop it the moment you please.
+For certain objects of your own,--that your heir might live in the world
+after a certain fashion,--you have bestowed it. It has been mine since I
+was a child. If you can reconcile it to your conscience to discontinue
+it, do so.' You would find that he would have to think twice about it."
+
+"He will stop it, and what am I to do then? Can I get an opening on any
+of these papers?" Quaverdale whistled,--a mode of receiving the overture
+which was not pleasing to Annesley. "I don't suppose that anything so
+very super-human in the way of intellect is required." Annesley had got
+a fellowship, whereas Quaverdale had done nothing at the university.
+
+"Couldn't you make a pair of shoes? Shoemakers do get good wages."
+
+"What do you mean? A fellow never can get you to be serious for two
+minutes together.
+
+"I never was more serious in my life."
+
+"That I am to make shoes?"
+
+"No, I don't quite think that. I don't suppose you can make them. You'd
+have first to learn the trade and show that you were an adept."
+
+"And I must show that I am an adept before I can write for _The Coming
+Hour_." There was a tone of sarcasm in this which was not lost on
+Quaverdale.
+
+"Certainly you must; and that you are a better adept than I who have got
+the place, or some other unfortunate who will have to be put out of his
+berth. _The Coming Hour_ only requires a certain number. Of course there
+are many newspapers in London, and many magazines, and much literary
+work going. You may get your share of it, but you have got to begin by
+shoving some incompetent fellow out. And in order to be able to begin
+you must learn the trade."
+
+"How did you begin?"
+
+"Just in that way. While you were roaming about London like a fine
+gentleman I began by earning twenty-four shillings a week."
+
+"Can I earn twenty-four shillings a week?"
+
+"You won't because you have already got your fellowship. You had a knack
+at writing Greek iambics, and therefore got a fellowship. I picked up at
+the same time the way of stringing English together. I also soon learned
+the way to be hungry. I'm not hungry now very often, but I've been
+through it. My belief is that you wouldn't get along with my editor."
+
+"That's your idea of being independent."
+
+"Certainly it is. I do his work, and take his pay, and obey his orders.
+If you think you can do the same, come and try. There's not room here,
+but there is, no doubt, room elsewhere. There's the trade to be
+learned, like any other trade; but my belief is that even then you could
+not do it. We don't want Greek iambics."
+
+Harry turned away disgusted. Quaverdale was like the rest of the world,
+and thought that a peculiar talent and a peculiar tact were needed for
+his own business. Harry believed that he was as able to write a leading
+article, at any rate, as Quaverdale, and that the Greek iambics would
+not stand in his way. But he conceived it to be probable that his habits
+of cleanliness might do so, and gave up the idea for the present. He
+thought that his friend should have welcomed him with an open hand into
+the realms of literature; and, perhaps, it was the case that Quaverdale
+attributed too much weight to the knack of turning readable paragraphs
+on any subject at any moment's notice.
+
+But what should he do down at Buston? There were three persons there
+with whom he would have to contend,--his father, his mother, and his
+uncle. With his father he had always been on good terms, but had still
+been subject to a certain amount of gentle sarcasm. He had got his
+fellowship and his allowance, and so had been lifted above his father's
+authority. His father thoroughly despised his brother-in-law, and looked
+down upon him as an absolute ass. But he was reticent, only dropping a
+word here and there, out of deference, perhaps, to his wife, and from a
+feeling lest his son might be deficient in wise courtesy, if he were
+encouraged to laugh at his benefactor. He had said a word or two as to a
+profession when Harry left Cambridge, but the word or two had come to
+nothing. In those days the uncle had altogether ridiculed the idea, and
+the mother, fond of her son, the fellow and the heir, had altogether
+opposed the notion. The rector himself was an idle, good-looking,
+self-indulgent man,--a man who read a little and understood what he read,
+and thought a little and understood what he thought, but who took no
+trouble about anything. To go through the world comfortably with a
+rather large family and a rather small income was the extent of his
+ambition. In regard to his eldest son he had begun well. Harry had been
+educated free, and had got a fellowship. He had never cost his father a
+shilling. And now the eldest of two grown-up daughters was engaged to be
+married to the son of a brewer living in the little town of Buntingford.
+This also was a piece of good-luck which the rector accepted with a
+thankful heart. There was another grown-up girl, also pretty, and then a
+third girl not grown up and the two boys who were at present at school
+at Royston. Thus burdened, the Rev. Mr. Annesley went through the world
+with as jaunty a step as was possible, making but little of his
+troubles, but anxious to make as much as he could of his advantages. Of
+these, the position of Harry was the brightest, if only Harry would be
+careful to guard it. It was quite out of the question that he should
+find an income for Harry if the squire stopped the two hundred and fifty
+pounds per annum which he at present allowed him.
+
+Then there was Harry's mother, who had already very frequently
+discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a
+dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be
+swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of
+plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the
+young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be
+stopped would be almost as great a misfortune as though Mr. Thoroughbung
+were to break his neck out hunting with the Puckeridge hounds,--an
+amusement which, after the manner of brewers, he was much in the habit
+of following. Mrs. Annesley had lived at Buston all her life, having
+been born at the Hall. She was an excellent mother of a family, and a
+good clergyman's wife, being in both respects more painstaking and
+assiduous than her husband. But she did maintain something of respect
+for her brother, though in her inmost heart she knew that he was a fool.
+But to have been born Squire of Buston was something, and to have
+reached the age of fifty unmarried, so as to leave the position of heir
+open to her own son, was more. To such a one a great deal was due; but
+of that deal Harry was but little disposed to pay any part. He must be
+talked to, and very seriously talked to, and if possible saved from the
+sin of offending his easily-offended uncle. A terrible idea had been
+suggested to her lately by her husband. The entail might be made
+altogether inoperative by the marriage of her brother. It was a fearful
+notion, but one which if it entered into her brother's head might
+possibly be carried out. No one before had ever dreamed of anything so
+dangerous to the Annesley interests, and Mrs. Annesley now felt that by
+due submission on the part of the heir it might be avoided.
+
+But the squire himself was the foe whom Harry most feared. He quite
+understood that he would be required to be submissive, and, even if he
+were willing, he did not know how to act the part. There was much now
+that he would endure for the sake of Florence. If Mr. Prosper demanded
+that after dinner he should hear a sermon, he would sit and hear it out.
+It would be a bore, but might be endured on behalf of the girl whom he
+loved. But he much feared that the cause of his uncle's displeasure was
+deeper than that. A rumor had reached him that his uncle had declared
+his conduct to Mountjoy Scarborough to have been abominable. He had
+heard no words spoken by his uncle, but threats had reached him through
+his mother, and also through his uncle's man of business. He certainly
+would go down to Buston, and carry himself toward his uncle with what
+outward signs of respect would be possible. But if his uncle accused
+him, he could not but tell his uncle that he knew nothing of the matter
+of which he was talking. Not for all Buston could he admit that he had
+done anything mean or ignoble. Florence, he was quite sure, would not
+desire it. Florence would not be Florence were she to desire it. He
+thought that he could trace the hands,--or rather the tongues,--through
+which the calumny had made its way down to the Hall. He would at once go
+to the Hall, and tell his uncle all the facts. He would describe the
+gross ill-usage to which he had been subjected. No doubt he had left the
+man sprawling upon the pavement, but there had been no sign that the man
+had been dangerously hurt; and when two days afterward the man had
+vanished, it was clear that he could not have vanished without legs. Had
+he taken himself off,--as was probable,--then why need Harry trouble
+himself as to his vanishing? If some one else had helped him in
+escaping,--as was also probable,--why had not that some one come and told
+the circumstances when all the inquiries were being made? Why should he
+have been expected to speak of the circumstances of such an encounter,
+which could not have been told but to Captain Scarborough's infinite
+disgrace? And he could not have told of it without naming Florence
+Mountjoy.
+
+His uncle, when he heard the truth, must acknowledge that he had not
+behaved badly. And yet Harry, as he turned it all in his mind was uneasy
+as to his own conduct. He could not quite acquit himself in that he had
+kept secret all the facts of that midnight encounter in the face of the
+inquiries which had been made, in that he had falsely assured Augustus
+Scarborough of his ignorance. And yet he knew that on no consideration
+would he acknowledge himself to have been wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE RUMORS AS TO MR. PROSPER.
+
+
+It was still October when Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and the
+Mountjoys had just reached Brussels. Mr. Grey had made his visit to
+Tretton and had returned to London. Harry went home on an
+understanding,--on the part of his mother, at any rate,--that he should
+remain there till Christmas. But he felt himself very averse to so long
+a sojourn. If the Hall and park were open to him he might endure it. He
+would take down two or three stiff books which he certainly would never
+read, and would shoot a few pheasants, and possibly ride one of his
+future brother-in-law's horses with the hounds. But he feared that there
+was to be a quarrel by which he would be debarred from the Hall and the
+park; and he knew, too, that it would not be well for him to shoot and
+hunt when his income should have been cut off. It would be necessary
+that some great step should be taken at once; but then it would be
+necessary, also, that Florence should agree to that step. He had a
+modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for
+what must occur by giving notice. "I don't say as yet that I shall give
+them up; but I might as well let you know that it's possible." This he
+said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this
+intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do. But where should he betake
+himself when his home at Mrs. Brown's had been lost? He would, he
+thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the
+rectory. Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to
+Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.
+
+He saw it all in his mother's eye the moment she embraced him. There was
+some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle?
+"Well, mother, what is it?"
+
+"Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!"
+
+"Is my uncle dead?"
+
+"Dead! No!"
+
+"Then why do you look so sad?--
+
+  "'Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
+  So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
+  Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night.'"
+
+"Oh Harry do not laugh. Your uncle says such dreadful things!"
+
+"I don't care much what he says. The question is--what does he mean to
+do?"
+
+"He declares that he will cut you off altogether."
+
+"That is sooner said than done."
+
+"That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it. Oh, Harry! But come and
+sit down and talk to me. I told your father to be out, so that I might
+have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford."
+
+"Ah, like them! Thoroughbung will have enough of them."
+
+"He is our only happiness now."
+
+"Poor Thoroughbung! I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole
+household."
+
+"Joshua is a most excellent young man. Where we should be without him I
+do not know." The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had
+been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a
+brother-in-law.
+
+"I am sure he is; particularly as he has chosen Molly to be his wife. He
+is just the young man who ought to have a wife."
+
+"Of course he ought."
+
+"Because he can keep a family. But now about my uncle. He is to perform
+this ceremony of cutting me off. Will he turn out to have had a wife and
+family in former ages? I have no doubt old Scarborough could manage it,
+but I don't give my uncle credit for so much cleverness."
+
+"But in future ages--" said the unhappy mother, shaking her head and
+rubbing her eyes.
+
+"You mean that he is going to have a family?"
+
+"It is all in the hands of Providence," said the parson's wife.
+
+"Yes; that is true. He is not too old yet to be a second Priam, and have
+his curtains drawn the other way. That's his little game, is it?"
+
+"There's a sort of rumor about, that it is possible."
+
+"And who is the lady?"
+
+"You may be sure there will be no lack of a lady if he sets his mind
+upon it. I was turning it over in my mind, and I thought of Matilda
+Thoroughbung."
+
+"Joshua's aunt!"
+
+"Well; she is Joshua's aunt, no doubt. I did just whisper the idea to
+Joshua, and he says that she is fool enough for anything. She has
+twenty-five thousand pounds of her own, but she lives all by herself."
+
+"I know where she lives,--just out of Buntingford, as you go to Royston.
+But she's not alone. Is Uncle Prosper to marry Miss Tickle also?" Miss
+Tickle was an estimable lady living as companion to Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I don't know how they may manage; but it has to be thought of, Harry.
+We only know that your uncle has been twice to Buntingford."
+
+"The lady is fifty, at any rate."
+
+"The lady is barely forty. She gives out that she is thirty-six. And he
+could settle a jointure on her which would leave the property not worth
+having."
+
+"What can I do?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear; what can you do?"
+
+"Why is he going to upset all the arrangements of my life, and his life,
+after such a fashion as this?"
+
+"That's just what your father says."
+
+"I suppose he can do it. The law will allow him. But the injustice would
+be monstrous. I did not ask him to take me by the hand when I was a boy
+and lead me into this special walk of life. It has been his own doing.
+How will he look me in the face and tell me that he is going to marry a
+wife? I shall look him in the face and tell him of my wife."
+
+"But is that settled?"
+
+"Yes, mother; it is settled. Wish me joy for having won the finest lady
+that ever walked the earth." His mother blessed him,--but said nothing
+about the finest lady,--who at that moment she believed to be the future
+bride of Mr. Joshua Thoroughbung. "And when I shall tell my uncle that
+it is so, what will he say to me? Will he have the face then to tell me
+that I am to be cut out of Buston? I doubt whether he will have the
+courage."
+
+"He has thought of that, Harry."
+
+"How thought of it, mother?"
+
+"He has given orders that he is not to see you."
+
+"Not to see me!"
+
+"So he declares. He has written a long letter to your father, in which
+he says that he would be spared the agony of an interview."
+
+"What! is it all done, then?"
+
+"Your father got the letter yesterday. It must have taken my poor
+brother a week to write it."
+
+"And he tells the whole plan,--Matilda Thoroughbung, and the future
+family?"
+
+"No, he does not say anything about Miss Thoroughbung He says that he
+must make other arrangements about the property."
+
+"He can't make other arrangements; that is, not until the boy is born.
+It may be a long time first, you know."
+
+"But the jointure?"
+
+"What does Molly say about it?"
+
+"Molly is mad about it and so is Joshua. Joshua talks about it just as
+though he were one of us, and he says that the old people at Buntingford
+would not hear of it." The old people spoken of were the father and
+mother of Joshua, and the half-brother of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung.
+"But what can they do?"
+
+"They can do nothing. If Miss Matilda likes Uncle Prosper--"
+
+"Likes, my dear! How young you are! Of course she would like a country
+house to live in, and the park, and the county society. And she would
+like somebody to live with besides Miss Tickle."
+
+"My uncle, for instance."
+
+"Yes, your uncle."
+
+"If I had my choice, mother, I should prefer Miss Tickle."
+
+"Because you are a silly boy. But what are you to do now?"
+
+"In this long letter which he has written to my father does he give no
+reason?"
+
+"Your father will show you the letter. Of course he gives reasons. He
+says that you have done something which you ought not to have
+done--about that wretched Mountjoy Scarborough."
+
+"What does he know about it?--the idiot!"
+
+"Oh, Harry!"
+
+"Well, mother, what better can I say of him? He has taken me as a child
+and fashioned my life for me; has said that this property should be
+mine, and has put an income into my hand as though I were an eldest son;
+has repeatedly declared, when his voice was more potent than mine, that
+I should follow no profession. He has bound himself to me, telling all
+the world that I was his heir. And now he casts me out because he has
+heard some cock-and-bull story, of the truth of which he knows nothing.
+What better can I say of him than call him an idiot? He must be that or
+else a heartless knave. And he says that he does not mean to see me,--me
+with whose life he has thus been empowered to interfere, so as to blast
+it if not to bless it, and intends to turn me adrift as he might do a
+dog that did not suit him! And because he knows that he cannot answer me
+he declares that he will not see me."
+
+"It is very hard, Harry."
+
+"Therefore I call him an idiot in preference to calling him a knave. But
+I am not going to be dropped out of the running in that way, just in
+deference to his will. I shall see him. Unless they lock him up in his
+bedroom I shall compel him to see me."
+
+"What good would that do, Harry? That would only set him more against
+you."
+
+"You don't know his weakness."
+
+"Oh yes, I do; he is very weak."
+
+"He will not see me, because he will have to yield when he hears what I
+have to say for myself. He knows that, and would therefore fain keep
+away from me. Why should he be stirred to this animosity against me?"
+
+"Why indeed?"
+
+"Because there is some one who wishes to injure me more strong than he
+is, and who has got hold of him. Some one has lied behind my back."
+
+"Who has done this?"
+
+"Ah, that is the question. But I know who has done it, though I will not
+name him just now. This enemy of mine, knowing him to be weak,--knowing
+him to be an idiot, has got hold of him and persuaded him. He believes
+the story which is told to him, and then feels happy in shaking off an
+incubus. No doubt I have not been very soft with him,--nor, indeed, hard.
+I have kept out of his way, and he is willing to resent it; but he is
+afraid to face me and tell me that it is so. Here are the girls come
+back from Buntingford. Molly, you blooming young bride, I wish you joy
+of your brewer."
+
+"He's none the worse on that account, Master Harry," said the eldest
+sister.
+
+"All the better,--very much the better. Where would you be if he was not
+a brewer? But I congratulate you with all my heart, old girl. I have
+known him ever so long, and he is one of the best fellows I do know."
+
+"Thank you, Harry," and she kissed him.
+
+"I wish Fanny and Kate may even do so well."
+
+"All in good time," said Fanny.
+
+"I mean to have a banker--all to myself," said Kate.
+
+"I wish you may have half as good a man for your husband," said Harry.
+
+"And I am to tell you," continued Molly, who was now in high
+good-humor, "that there will be always one of his horses for you to ride
+as long as you remain at home. It is not every brother-in-law that would
+do as much as that for you."
+
+"Nor yet every uncle," said Kate, shaking her head, from which Harry
+could see that this quarrel with his uncle had been freely discussed in
+the family circle.
+
+"Uncles are very different," said the mother; "uncles can't be expected
+to do everything as though they were in love."
+
+"Fancy Uncle Peter in love!" said Kate. Mr. Prosper was called Uncle
+Peter by the girls, though always in a sort of joke. Then the other two
+girls shook their heads very gravely, from which Harry learned that the
+question respecting the choice of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung as a
+mistress for the Hall had been discussed also before them.
+
+"I am not going to marry all the family," said Molly.
+
+"Not Miss Matilda, for instance," said her brother, laughing.
+
+"No, especially not Matilda. Joshua is quite as angry about his aunt as
+anybody here can be. You'll find that he is more of an Annesley than a
+Thoroughbung."
+
+"My dear," said the mother, "your husband will, as a matter of course,
+think most of his own family. And so ought you to do of his family,
+which will be yours. A married woman should always think most of her
+husband's family." In this way the mother told her daughter of her
+future duties; but behind the mother's back Kate made a grimace, for the
+benefit of her sister Fanny, showing thereby her conviction that in a
+matter of blood,--what she called being a gentleman,--a Thoroughbung could
+not approach an Annesley.
+
+"Mamma does not know it as yet," Molly said afterward in privacy to her
+brother, "but you may take it for granted that Uncle Peter has been into
+Buntingford and has made an offer to Aunt Matilda. I could tell it at
+once, because she looked so sharp at me to-day. And Joshua says that he
+is sure it is so by the airs she gives herself."
+
+"You think she'll have him?"
+
+"Have him! Of course she'll have him. Why shouldn't she? A wretched old
+maid living with a companion like that would have any one."
+
+"She has got a lot of money."
+
+"She'll take care of her money, let her alone for that.
+
+"And she'll have his house to live in. And there'll be a jointure. Of
+course, if there were to be children--"
+
+"Oh, bother!"
+
+"Well, perhaps there will not. But it will be just as bad. We don't mean
+even to visit them; we think it so very wicked. And we shall tell them a
+bit of our mind as soon as the thing has been publicly declared."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY'S MISERY.
+
+
+The conversation which took place that evening between Harry and his
+father was more serious in its language, though not more important in
+its purpose. "This is bad news, Harry," said the rector.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir."'
+
+"Your uncle, no doubt, can do as he pleases."
+
+"You mean as to the income he has allowed me?"
+
+"As to the income! As to the property itself. It is bad waiting for dead
+men's shoes."
+
+"And yet it is what everybody does in this world. No one can say that I
+have been at all in a hurry to step into my uncle's shoes. It was he
+that first told you that he should never marry, and as the property had
+been entailed on me, he undertook to bring me up as his son."
+
+"So he did."
+
+"Not a doubt about it, sir. But I had nothing to say to it. As far as I
+understand, he has been allowing me two hundred and fifty pounds a year
+for the last dozen years."
+
+"Ever since you went to the Charter-house."
+
+"At that time I could not be expected to have a word to say to it. And
+it has gone on ever since."
+
+"Yes, it has gone on ever since."
+
+"And when I was leaving Cambridge he required that I should not go into
+a profession."
+
+"Not exactly that, Harry."
+
+"It was so that I understood it. He did not wish his heir to be burdened
+with a profession. He said so to me himself."
+
+"Yes, just when he was in his pride because you had got your fellowship.
+But there was a contract understood, if not made."
+
+"What contract?" asked Harry, with an air of surprise.
+
+"That you should be to him as a son."
+
+"I never undertook it. I wouldn't have done it at the price,--or for any
+price. I never felt for him the respect or the love that were due to a
+father. I did feel both of them, to the full, for my own father. They
+are a sort of a thing which we cannot transfer."
+
+"They may be shared, Harry," said the rector, who was flattered.
+
+"No, sir; in this instance that was not possible."
+
+"You might have sat by while he read a sermon to his sister and nieces.
+You understood his vanity, and you wounded it, knowing what you were
+doing. I don't mean to blame you, but it was a misfortune. Now we must
+look it in the face and see what must be done. Your mother has told you
+that he has written to me. There is his letter. You will see that he
+writes with a fixed purpose." Then he handed to Harry a letter written
+on a large sheet of paper, the reading of which would be so long that
+Harry seated himself for the operation.
+
+The letter need not here be repeated at length. It was written with
+involved sentences, but in very decided language. It said nothing of
+Harry's want of duty, or not attending to the sermons, or of other
+deficiencies of a like nature, but based his resolution in regard to
+stopping the income on his nephew's misconduct,--as it appeared to
+him,--in a certain particular case. And unfortunately,--though Harry was
+prepared to deny that his conduct on that occasion had been subject to
+censure,--he could not contradict any of the facts on which Mr. Prosper
+had founded his opinion. The story was told in reference to Mountjoy
+Scarborough, but not the whole story. "I understand that there was a row
+in the streets late at night, at the end of which young Mr. Scarborough
+was left as dead under the railings." "Left for dead!" exclaimed Harry.
+"Who says that he was left for dead? I did not think him to be dead."
+
+"You had better read it to the end," said his father, and Harry read it.
+The letter went on to describe how Mountjoy Scarborough was missed from
+his usual haunts, how search was made by the police, how the newspapers
+were filled with the strange incident, and how Harry had told nothing of
+what had occurred. "But beyond this," the letter went on to say, "he
+positively denied, in conversation with the gentleman's brother, that he
+had anything to do with the gentleman on the night in question. If this
+be so, he absolutely lied. A man who would lie on such an occasion,
+knowing himself to have been guilty of having beaten the man in such a
+way as to have probably caused his death,--for he had left him for dead
+under the railings in a London street and in the midnight hour,--and
+would positively assert to the gentleman's brother that he had not seen
+the gentleman on the night in question, when he had every reason to
+believe that he had killed him,--a deed which might or might not be
+murder,--is not fit to be recognized as my heir."
+
+There were other sentences equally long and equally complicated, in all
+of which Mr. Prosper strove to tell the story with tragic effect, but
+all of which had reference to the same transaction. He said nothing as
+to the ultimate destination of the property, nor of his own proposed
+marriage. Should he have a son, that son would, of course, have the
+property. Should there be no son, Harry must have it, even though his
+conduct might have been ever so abominable. To prevent this outrage on
+society, his marriage,--with its ordinary results,--would be the only
+step. Of that he need say nothing. But the two hundred and fifty pounds
+would not be paid after the Christmas quarter, and he must decline for
+the future the honor of receiving Mr. Henry Annesley at the Hall.
+
+Harry, when he had read it all, began to storm with anger. The man, as
+he truly observed, had grossly insulted him. Mr. Prosper had called him
+a liar and had hinted that he was a murderer. "You can do nothing to
+him," his father said. "He is your uncle, and you have eaten his bread."
+
+"I can't call him out and fight him."
+
+"You must let it alone."
+
+"I can make my way into the house and see him."
+
+"I don't think you can do that. You will find it difficult to get beyond
+the front-door, and I would advise you to abandon all such ideas. What
+can you say to him?"
+
+"It is false!"
+
+"What is false? Though in essence it is false, in words it is true. You
+did deny that you had seen him."
+
+"I forget what passed. Augustus Scarborough endeavored to pump me about
+his brother, and I did not choose to be pumped. As far as I can
+ascertain now, it is he that is the liar. He saw his brother after the
+affair with me."
+
+"Has he denied it?"
+
+"Practically he denies it by asking me the question. He asked me with
+the ostensible object of finding out what had become of his brother when
+he himself knew what had become of him."
+
+"But you can't prove it. He positively says that you did deny having
+seen him on the night in question, I am not speaking of Augustus
+Scarborough, but of your uncle. What he says is true, and you had better
+leave him alone. Take other steps for driving the real truth into his
+brain."
+
+"What steps can be taken with such a fool?"
+
+"Write your own account of the transaction, so that he shall read it.
+Let your mother have it. I suppose he will see your mother."
+
+"And so beg his favor."
+
+"You need beg for nothing. Or if the marriage comes off--"
+
+"You have heard of the marriage, sir?"
+
+"Yes; I have heard of the marriage. I believe that he contemplates it.
+Put your statement of what did occur, and of your motives, into the
+hands of the lady's friends. He will be sure to read it."
+
+"What good will that do?"
+
+"No good, but that of making him ashamed of himself. You have got to
+read the world a little more deeply than you have hitherto done. He
+thinks that he is quarrelling with you about the affair in London, but
+it is in truth because you have declined to hear him read the sermons
+after having taken his money."
+
+"Then it is he that is the liar rather than I."
+
+"I, who am a moderate man, would say that neither is a liar. You did not
+choose to be pumped, as you call it, and therefore spoke as you did.
+According to the world's ways that was fair enough. He, who is sore at
+the little respect you have paid him, takes any ground of offence rather
+than that. Being sore at heart, he believes anything. This young
+Scarborough in some way gets hold of him, and makes him accept this
+cock-and-bull story. If you had sat there punctual all those Sunday
+evenings, do you think he would have believed it then?"
+
+"And I have got to pay such a penalty as this?" The rector could only
+shrug his shoulders. He was not disposed to scold his son. It was not
+the custom of the house that Harry should be scolded. He was a fellow of
+his college and the heir to Buston, and was therefore considered to be
+out of the way of scolding. But the rector felt that his son had made
+his bed and must now lie on it, and Harry was aware that this was his
+father's feeling.
+
+For two or three days he wandered about the country very down in the
+mouth. The natural state of ovation in which the girls existed was in
+itself an injury to him. How could he join them in their ovation, he who
+had suffered so much? It seemed to be heartless that they should smile
+and rejoice when he,--the head of the family, as he had been taught to
+consider himself,--was being so cruelly ill-used. For a day or two he
+hated Thoroughbung, though Thoroughbung was all that was kind to him. He
+congratulated him with cold congratulations, and afterward kept out of
+his way. "Remember, Harry, that up to Christmas you can always have one
+of the nags. There's Belladonna and Orange Peel. I think you'd find the
+mare a little the faster, though perhaps the horse is the bigger
+jumper." "Oh, thank you!" said Harry, and passed on. Now, Thoroughbung
+was fond of his horses, and liked to have them talked about, and he knew
+that Harry Annesley was treating him badly. But he was a good-humored
+fellow, and he bore it without complaint. He did not even say a cross
+word to Molly. Molly, however, was not so patient. "You might be a
+little more gracious when he's doing the best he can for you. It is not
+every one who will lend you a horse to hunt for two months." Harry shook
+his head, and wandered away miserable through the fields, and would not
+in these days even set his foot upon the soil of the park. "He was not
+going to intrude any farther," he said to the rector. "You can come to
+church, at any rate," his father said, "for he certainly will not be
+there while you are at the parsonage." Oh yes, Harry would go to the
+church. "I have yet to understand that Mr. Prosper is owner of the
+church, and the path there from the rectory is, at any rate, open to the
+public;" for at Buston the church stands on one corner of the park.
+
+This went on for two or three days, during which nothing farther was
+said by the family as to Harry's woes. A letter was sent off to Mrs.
+Brown, telling her that the lodgings would not be required any longer,
+and anxious ideas began to crowd themselves on Harry's mind as to his
+future residence. He thought that he must go back to Cambridge and take
+his rooms at St. John's and look for college work. Two fatal years,
+years of idleness and gayety, had been passed, but still he thought that
+it might be possible. What else was there open for him? And then, as he
+roamed about the fields, his mind naturally ran away to the girl he
+loved. How would he dare again to look Florence in the face? It was not
+only the two hundred and fifty pounds per annum that was gone: that
+would have been a small income on which to marry. And he had never taken
+the girl's own money into account. He had rather chosen to look forward
+to the position as squire of Buston, and to take it for granted that it
+would not be very long before he was called upon to fill the position.
+He had said not a word to Florence about money, but it was thus that he
+had regarded the matter. Now the existing squire was going to marry, and
+the matter could not so be regarded any longer. He saw half a dozen
+little Prospers occupying half a dozen little cradles, and a whole suite
+of nurseries established at the Hall. The name of Prosper would be fixed
+at Buston, putting it altogether beyond his reach.
+
+In such circumstances would it not be reasonable that Florence should
+expect him to authorize her to break their engagement? What was he now
+but the penniless son of a poor clergyman, with nothing on which to
+depend but a miserable stipend, which must cease were he to marry? He
+knew that he ought to give her back her troth; and yet, as he thought of
+doing so, he was indignant with her. Was love to come to this? Was her
+regard for him to be counted as nothing? What right had he to expect
+that she should be different from any other girl?
+
+Then he was more miserable than ever, as he told himself that such would
+undoubtedly be her conduct. As he walked across the fields, heavy with
+the mud of a wet October day, there came down a storm of rain which wet
+him through. Who does not know the sort of sensation which falls upon a
+man when he feels that even the elements have turned against him,--how he
+buttons up his coat and bids the clouds open themselves upon his devoted
+bosom?
+
+  "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage, blow,
+  You cataracts and hurricanes!"
+
+It is thus that a man is apt to address the soft rains of heaven when he
+is becoming wet through in such a frame of mind; and on the present
+occasion Harry likened himself to Leer. It was to him as though the
+steeples were to be drenched and the cocks drowned when he found himself
+wet through. In this condition he went back to the house, and so bitter
+to him were the misfortunes of the world that he would hardly condescend
+to speak while enduring them. But when he had entered the drawing-room
+his mother greeted him with a letter. It had come by the day mail, and
+his mother looked into his face piteously as she gave it to him. The
+letter was from Brussels, and she could guess from whom it had come. It
+might be a sweetly soft love-letter; but then it might be neither sweet
+nor soft, in the condition of things in which Harry was now placed. He
+took it and looked at it, but did not dare to open it on the spur of the
+moment. Without a word he went up to his room, and then tore it asunder.
+No doubt, he said to himself, it would allude to his miserable stipend
+and penniless condition. The letter ran as follows:
+
+"DEAREST HARRY,--I think it right to write to you, though mamma does not
+approve of it. I have told her, however, that in the present
+circumstances I am bound to do so, and that I should implore you not to
+answer. Though I must write, there must be no correspondence between us.
+Rumors have been received here very detrimental to your character."
+Harry gnashed his teeth as he read this. "Stories are told about your
+meeting with Captain Scarborough in London, which I know to be only in
+part true. Mamma says that because of them I ought to give up my
+engagement, and my uncle, Sir Magnus, has taken upon himself to advise
+me to do so. I have told them both that that which is said of you is in
+part untrue; but whether it be true or whether it be false, I will never
+give up my engagement unless you ask me to do so. They tell me that as
+regards your pecuniary prospects you are ruined. I say that you cannot
+be ruined as long as you have my income. It will not be much, but it
+will, I should think, be enough.
+
+"And now you can do as you please. You may be quite sure that I shall be
+true to you, through ill report and good report. Nothing that mamma can
+say to me will change me, and certainly nothing from Sir Magnus.
+
+"And now there need not be a word from you, if you mean to be true to
+me. Indeed, I have promised that there shall be no word, and I expect
+you to keep my promise for me. If you wish to be free of me, then you
+must write and say so.
+
+"But you won't wish it, and therefore I am yours, always, always, always
+your own
+
+"FLORENCE."
+
+Harry read the letter standing up in the middle of the room, and in half
+a minute he had torn off his wet coat and kicked one of his wet boots to
+the farther corner of the room. Then there was a knock at the door, and
+his mother entered, "Tell me, Harry, what she says."
+
+He rushed up to his mother, all damp and half-shod as he was, and seized
+her in his arms. "Oh, mother, mother!"
+
+"What is it, dear?"
+
+"Read that, and tell me whether there ever was a finer human being!"
+Mrs. Annesley did read it, and thought that her own daughter Molly was
+just as fine a creature. Florence was simply doing what any girl of
+spirit would do. But she saw that her son was as jubilant now as he had
+been downcast, and she was quite willing to partake of his comfort. "Not
+write a word to her! Ha, ha! I think I see myself at it!"
+
+"But she seems to be in earnest there."
+
+"In earnest! And so am I in earnest. Would it be possible that a fellow
+should hold his hand and not write? Yes, my girl; I think that I must
+write a line. I wonder what she would say if I were not to write?"
+
+"I think she means that you should be silent."
+
+"She has taken a very odd way of assuming it. I am to keep her promise
+for her,--my darling, my angel, my life! But I cannot do that one thing.
+Oh, mother, mother, if you knew how happy I am! What the mischief does
+it all signify,--Uncle Prosper, Miss Thoroughbung, and the rest of
+it,--with a girl like that?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+HARRY AND HIS UNCLE.
+
+
+Harry was kissed all round by the girls, and was congratulated warmly on
+the heavenly excellence of his mistress. They could afford to be
+generous if he would be good-natured. "Of course you must write to her,"
+said Molly, when he came down-stairs with dry clothes.
+
+"I should think so, mother."
+
+"Only she does seem to be so much in earnest about it," said Mrs.
+Annesley.
+
+"I think she would rather get just a line to say that he is in earnest
+too," said Fanny.
+
+"Why should not she like a love-letter as much as any one else?" said
+Kate, who had her own ideas. "Of course she has to tell him about her
+mamma, but what need he care for that? Of course mamma thinks that
+Joshua need not write to Molly, but Molly won't mind."
+
+"I don't think anything of the kind, miss."
+
+"And besides, Joshua lives in the next parish," said Fanny, "and has a
+horse to ride over on if he has anything to say."
+
+"At any rate, I shall write," said Harry, "even at the risk of making
+her angry." And he did write as follows:
+
+"BUSTON, _October_, 188--.
+
+"MY OWN DEAR GIRL,--It is impossible that I should not send one line in
+answer. Put yourself in my place, and consult your own feelings. Think
+that you have a letter so full of love, so noble, so true, so certain to
+fill you with joy, and then say whether you would let it pass without a
+word of acknowledgment. It would be absolutely impossible. It is not
+very probable that I should ask you to break your engagement, which in
+the midst of my troubles is the only consolation I have. But when a man
+has a rock to stand upon like that, he does not want anything else. As
+long as a man has the one person necessary to his happiness to believe
+in him, he can put up with the ill opinion of all the others. You are to
+me so much that you outweigh all the world.
+
+"I did not choose to have my secret pumped out of me by Augustus
+Scarborough. I can tell you the whole truth now. Mountjoy Scarborough
+had told me that he regarded you as affianced to him, and required me to
+say that I would--drop you. You know now how probable that was. He was
+drunk on the occasion,--had made himself purposely drunk, so as to get
+over all scruples,--and attacked me with his stick. Then came a
+scrimmage, in which he was upset. A sober man has always the best of
+it." I am afraid that Harry put in that little word sober for a purpose.
+The opportunity of declaring that he was sober was too good too be lost.
+"I went away and left him, certainly not dead, nor apparently much hurt.
+But if I told all this to Augustus Scarborough, your name must have come
+out. Now I should not mind. Now I might tell the truth about you,--with
+great pride, if occasion required it. But I couldn't do it then. What
+would the world have said to two men fighting in the streets about a
+girl, neither of whom had a right to fight about her? That was the
+reason why I told an untruth,--because I did not choose to fall into the
+trap which Augustus Scarborough had laid for me.
+
+"If your mother will understand it all, I do not think she will object
+to me on that score. If she does quarrel with me, she will only be
+fighting the Scarborough game, in which I am bound to oppose her. I am
+afraid the fact is that she prefers the Scarborough game,--not because
+of my sins, but from auld lang syne.
+
+"But Augustus has got hold of my Uncle Prosper, and has done me a
+terrible injury. My uncle is a weak man, and has been predisposed
+against me from other circumstances. He thinks that I have neglected
+him, and is willing to believe anything against me. He has stopped my
+income,--two hundred and fifty pounds a year,--and is going to revenge
+himself on me by marrying a wife. It is too absurd, and the proposed
+wife is aunt of the man whom my sister is going to marry. It makes such
+a heap of confusion. Of course, if he becomes the father of a family I
+shall be nowhere. Had I not better take to some profession? Only what
+shall I take to? It is almost too late for the Bar. I must see you and
+talk over it all.
+
+"You have commanded me not to write, and now there is a long letter! It
+is as well to be hung for a sheep as a lamb. But when a man's character
+is at stake he feels that he must plead for it. You won't be angry with
+me because I have not done all that you told me? It was absolutely
+necessary that I should tell you that I did not mean to ask you to break
+your engagement, and one word has led to all the others. There shall be
+only one other, which means more than all the rest:--that I am yours,
+dearest, with all my heart,
+
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+
+"There," he said to himself, as he put the letter into the envelope,
+"she may think it too long, but I am sure she would not have been
+pleased had I not written at all."
+
+That afternoon Joshua was at the rectory, having just trotted over after
+business hours at the brewery because of some special word which had to
+be whispered to Molly, and Harry put himself in his way as he went out
+to get on his horse in the stable-yard. "Joshua," he said, "I know that
+I owe you an apology."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"You have been awfully good to me about the horses, and I have been very
+ungracious."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But I have. The truth is, I have been made thoroughly miserable by
+circumstances, and, when that occurs, a man cannot pick himself up all
+at once. It isn't my uncle that has made me wretched. That is a kind of
+thing that a man has to put up with, and I think that I can bear it as
+well as another. But an attack has been made upon me which has wounded
+me."
+
+"I know all about it."
+
+"I don't mind telling you, as you and Molly are going to hit it off
+together. There is a girl I love, and they have tried to interfere with
+her."
+
+"They haven't succeeded?"
+
+"No, by George! And now I'm as right as a trivet. When it came across me
+that she might have--might have yielded, you know,--it was as though all
+had been over. I ought not to have suspected her."
+
+"But she's all right?"
+
+"Indeed she is. I think you'll like her when you see her some day. If
+you don't, you have the most extraordinary taste I ever knew a man to
+possess. How about the horse?"
+
+"I have four, you know."
+
+"What a grand thing it is to be a brewer!"
+
+"And there are two of them will carry you. The other two are not quite
+up to your weight."
+
+"You haven't been out yet?"
+
+"Well, no;--not exactly out. The governor is the best fellow in the
+world, but he draws the line at cub-hunting. He says the business should
+be the business till November. Upon my word, I think he's right."
+
+"And how many days a week after that?"
+
+"Well, three regular. I do get an odd day with the Essex sometimes, and
+the governor winks."
+
+"The governor hunts himself as often as you."
+
+"Oh dear no; three a week does for the governor, and he is beginning to
+like frosty weather, and to hear with pleasure that one of the old
+horses isn't as fit as he should be. He's what they call training off.
+Good-bye, old fellow. Mind you come out on the 7th of November."
+
+But Harry, though he had been made happy by the letter from Florence,
+had still a great many troubles on his mind. His first trouble was the
+having to do something in reference to his uncle. It did not appear to
+him to be proper to accept his uncle's decision in regard to his income,
+without, at any rate, attempting to see Mr. Prosper. It would be as
+though he had taken what was done as a matter of course,--as though his
+uncle could stop the income without leaving him any ground of complaint.
+Of the intended marriage,--if it were intended,--he would say nothing. His
+uncle had never promised him in so many words not to marry, and there
+would be, he thought, something ignoble in his asking his uncle not to
+do that which he intended to do himself without even consulting his
+uncle about it. As he turned it all over in his mind he began to ask
+himself why his uncle should be asked to do anything for him, whereas he
+had never done anything for his uncle. He had been told that he was the
+heir, not to the uncle, but to Buston, and had gradually been taught to
+look upon Buston as his right,--as though he had a certain defeasible
+property in the acres. He now began to perceive that there was no such
+thing. A tacit contract had been made on his behalf, and he had declined
+to accept his share of the contract. But he had been debarred from
+following any profession by his uncle's promised allowance. He did not
+think that he could complain to his uncle about the proposed marriage;
+but he did think that he could ask a question or two as to the income.
+
+Without saying a word to any of his own family he walked across the
+park, and presented himself at the front-door of Buston Hall. In doing
+so he would not go upon the grass. He had told his father that he would
+not enter the park, and therefore kept himself to the road. And he had
+dressed himself with some little care, as a man does when he feels that
+he is going forth on some mission of importance. Had he intended to call
+on old Mr. Thoroughbung there would have been no such care. And he rung
+at the front-door, instead of entering the house by any of the numerous
+side inlets with which he was well acquainted. The butler understood the
+ring, and put on his company-coat when he answered the bell.
+
+"Is my uncle at home, Matthew?" he said.
+
+"Mr. Prosper, Mr. Harry? Well, no; I can't say that he just is;" and the
+old man groaned, and wheezed, and looked unhappy.
+
+"He is not often out at this time." Matthew groaned again, and wheezed
+more deeply, and looked unhappier. "I suppose you mean to say that he
+has given orders that I am not to be admitted?" To this the butler made
+no answer, but only looked woefully into the young man's face. "What is
+the meaning of it all, Matthew?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Harry, you shouldn't ask me, as is merely a servant."
+
+Harry felt the truth of this rebuke, but was not going to put up with
+it.
+
+"That's all my eye, Matthew; you know all about it as well as any one.
+It is so. He does not want to see me."
+
+"I don't think he does, Mr. Harry."
+
+"And why not? You know the whole of my family story as well as my
+father does, or my uncle. Why does he shut his doors against me, and
+send me word that he does not want to see me?"
+
+"Well Mr. Harry, I'm not just able to say why he does it,--and you the
+heir. But if I was asked I should make answer that it has come along of
+them sermons." Then Matthew looked very serious, and bathed his head.
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"That was it, Mr. Harry. We, none of us, were very fond of the sermons."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"We in the kitchen. But we was bound to have them, or we should have
+lost our places."
+
+"And now I must lose my place." The butler said nothing, but his face
+assented. "A little hard, isn't it, Matthew? But I wish to say a few
+words to my uncle,--not to express any regret about the sermons, but to
+ask what it is that he intends to do." Here Matthew shook his head very
+slowly. "He has given positive orders that I shall not be admitted?"
+
+"It must be over my dead body, Mr. Harry," and he stood in the way with
+the door in his hand, as though intending to sacrifice himself should he
+be called upon to do so by the nature of the circumstances. Harry,
+however, did not put him to the test; but bidding him good-bye with some
+little joke as to his fidelity, made his way back to the parsonage.
+
+That night before he went to bed he wrote a letter to his uncle, as to
+which he said not a word to either his father, or mother, or sisters. He
+thought that the letter was a good letter, and would have been proud to
+show it; but he feared that either his father or mother would advise him
+not to send it, and he was ashamed to read it to Molly. He therefore
+sent the letter across the park the next morning by the gardener.
+
+The letter was as follows:
+
+"MY DEAR UNCLE,--My father has shown me your letter to him, and, of
+course, I feel it incumbent on me to take some notice of it. Not wishing
+to trouble you with a letter I called this morning, but I was told by
+Matthew that you would not see me. As you have expressed yourself to my
+father very severely as to my conduct, I am sure you will agree with me
+that I ought not to let the matter pass by without making my own
+defence.
+
+"You say that there was a row in the streets between Mountjoy
+Scarborough and myself in which he was 'left for dead.' When I left him
+I did not think he had been much hurt, nor have I had reason to think so
+since. He had attacked me, and I had simply defended myself. He had come
+upon me by surprise; and, when I had shaken him off, I went away. Then
+in a day or two he had disappeared. Had he been killed, or much hurt,
+the world would have heard of it: but the world simply heard that he had
+disappeared, which could hardly have been the case had he been much
+hurt.
+
+"Then you say that I denied, in conversation with Augustus Scarborough,
+that I had seen his brother on the night in question. I did deny it.
+Augustus Scarborough, who was evidently well acquainted with the whole
+transaction, and who had, I believe, assisted his brother in
+disappearing, wished to learn from me what I had done, and to hide what
+he had done. He wished to saddle me with the disgrace of his brother's
+departure, and I did not choose to fall into his trap. At the moment of
+his asking me he knew that his brother was safe. I think that the word
+'lie,' as used by you, is very severe for such an occurrence. A man is
+not generally held to be bound to tell everything respecting himself to
+the first person that shall ask him. If you will ask any man who knows
+the world,--my father, for instance,--I think you will be told that such
+conduct was not faulty.
+
+"But it is at any rate necessary that I should ask you what you intend
+to do in reference to my future life. I am told that you intend to stop
+the income which I have hitherto received. Will this be considerate on
+your part?" (In his first copy of the letter Harry had asked whether it
+would be "fair," and had then changed the word for one that was milder.)
+"When I took my degree you yourself said that it would not be necessary
+that I should go into any profession, because you would allow me an
+income, and would then provide for me, I took your advice in opposition
+to my father's, because it seemed then that I was to depend on you
+rather than on him. You cannot deny that I shall have been treated
+hardly if I now be turned loose upon the world.
+
+"I shall be happy to come and see you if you shall wish it, so as to
+save you the trouble of writing to me.
+
+"Your affectionate nephew,
+
+"HENRY ANNESLEY."
+
+Harry might have been sure that his uncle would not see him,--probably
+was sure when he added the last paragraph. Mr. Prosper enjoyed greatly
+two things,--the mysticism of being invisible and the opportunity of
+writing a letter. Mr. Prosper had not a large correspondence, but it was
+laborious, and, as he thought, effective. He believed that he did know
+how to write a letter, and he went about it with a will. It was not
+probable that he would make himself common by seeing his nephew on such
+an occasion, or that he would omit the opportunity of spending an entire
+morning with pen and ink. The result was very short, but, to his idea,
+it was satisfactory.
+
+"SIR," he began. He considered this matter very deeply; but as the
+entire future of his own life was concerned in it he felt that it became
+him to be both grave and severe.
+
+"I have received your letter and have read it with attention. I observe
+that you admit that you told Mr. Augustus Scarborough a deliberate
+untruth. This is what the plain-speaking world, when it wishes to be
+understood as using the unadorned English language, which is always the
+language which I prefer myself, calls a lie--A LIE! I do not choose that
+this humble property shall fall at my death into the hands of A LIAR.
+Therefore I shall take steps to prevent it,--which may or may not be
+successful.
+
+"As such steps, whatever may be their result, are to be taken, the
+income,--intended to prepare you for another alternative, which may
+possibly not now be forth-coming,--will naturally now be no longer
+allowed.--I am, sir, your obedient servant, PETER PROSPER."
+
+The first effect of the letter was to produce laughter at the rectory.
+Harry could not but show it to his father, and in an hour or two it
+became known to his mother and sister, and, under an oath of secrecy, to
+Joshua Thoroughbung. It could not be matter of laughter when the future
+hopes of Miss Matilda Thoroughbung were taken into consideration. "I
+declare I don't know what you are all laughing about," said Kate,
+"except that Uncle Peter does use such comical phrases." But Mrs.
+Annesley, though the most good-hearted woman in the world, was almost
+angry. "I don't know what you all see to laugh at in it. Peter has in
+his hands the power of making or marring Harry's future."
+
+"But he hasn't," said Harry.
+
+"Or he mayn't have," said the rector.
+
+"It's all in the hands of the Almighty," said Mrs. Annesley, who felt
+herself bound to retire from the room and to take her daughter with her.
+
+But, when they were alone, both the father and his son were very angry.
+"I have done with him forever," said Harry. "Let come what may, I will
+never see him or speak to him again. A 'lie,' and 'liar!' He has written
+those words in that way so as to salve his own conscience for the
+injustice he is doing. He knows that I am not a liar. He cannot
+understand what a liar means, or he would know that he is one himself."
+
+"A man seldom has such knowledge as that."
+
+"Is it not so when he stigmatizes me in this way merely as an excuse to
+himself? He wants to be rid of me,--probably because I did not sit and
+hear him read the sermons. Let that pass. I may have been wrong in that,
+and he may be justified; but because of that he cannot believe really
+that I have been a liar,--a liar in such a determined way as to make me
+unfit to be his heir."
+
+"He is a fool, Harry! That is the worst of him."
+
+"I don't think it is the worst."
+
+"You cannot have worse. It is dreadful to have to depend on a fool,--to
+have to trust to a man who cannot tell wrong from right. Your uncle
+intends to be a good man. If it were brought home to him that he were
+doing a wrong he would not do it. He would not rob; he would not steal;
+he must not commit murder, and the rest of it. But he is a fool, and he
+does not know when he is doing these things."
+
+"I will wash my hands of him."
+
+"Yes; and he will wash his hands of you. You do not know him as I do. He
+has taken it into his silly head that you are the chief of sinners
+because you said what was not true to that man, who seems really to be
+the sinner, and nothing will eradicate the idea. He will go and marry
+that woman because he thinks that in that way he can best carry his
+purpose, and then he will repent at leisure. I used to tell you that you
+had better listen to the sermons."
+
+"And now I must pay for it!"
+
+"Well, my boy, it is no good crying for spilt milk. As I was saying just
+now, there is nothing worse than a fool."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+MARMADUKE LODGE.
+
+
+On the 7th of next month two things occurred, each of great importance.
+Hunting commenced in the Puckeridge country, and Harry with that famous
+mare Belladonna was there. And Squire Prosper was driven in his carriage
+into Buntingford, and made his offer with all due formality to Miss
+Thoroughbung. The whole household, including Matthew, and the cook, and
+the coachman, and the boy, and the two house-maids, knew what he was
+going to do. It would be difficult to say how they knew, because he was
+a man who never told anything. He was the last man in England who, on
+such a matter, would have made a confidant of his butler. He never spoke
+to a servant about matters unconnected with their service. He considered
+that to do so would be altogether against his dignity. Nevertheless when
+he ordered his carriage, which he did not do very frequently at this
+time of the year, when the horses were wanted on the farm,--and of which
+he gave twenty-four hours' notice to all the persons concerned,--and when
+early in the morning he ordered that his Sunday suit should be prepared
+for wearing, and when his aspect grew more and more serious as the hour
+drew nigh, it was well understood by them all that he was going to make
+the offer that day.
+
+He was both proud and fearful as to the thing to be done,--proud that he,
+the Squire of Buston, should be called on to take so important a step;
+proud by anticipation of his feelings as he would return home a jolly
+thriving wooer,--and yet a little fearful lest he might not succeed. Were
+he to fail the failure would be horrible to him. He knew that every man
+and woman about the place would know all about it. Among the secrets of
+the family there was a story, never now mentioned, of his having done
+the same thing, once before. He was then a young man, about twenty-five,
+and he had come forth to lay himself and Buston at the feet of a
+baronet's daughter who lived some twenty-five miles off. She was very
+beautiful, and was said to have a fitting dower, but he had come back,
+and had shut himself up in the house for a week afterward. To no human
+ears had he ever since spoken of his interview with Miss Courteney. The
+doings of that day had been wrapped in impenetrable darkness. But all
+Buston and the neighboring parishes had known that Miss Courteney had
+refused him. Since that day he had never gone forth again on such a
+mission.
+
+There were those who said of him that his love had been so deep and
+enduring that he had never got the better of it. Miss Courteney had been
+married to a much grander lover, and had been taken off to splendid
+circles. But he had never mentioned her name. That story of his abiding
+love was throughly believed by his sister, who used to tell it of him to
+his credit when at the rectory the rector would declare him to be a
+fool. But the rector used to say that he was dumb from pride, or that he
+could not bear to have it known that he had failed at anything. At any
+rate, he had never again attempted love, and had formally declared to
+his sister that, as he did not intend to marry, Harry should be regarded
+as his son. Then at last had come the fellowship, and he had been proud
+of his heir, thinking that in some way he had won the fellowship
+himself, as he had paid the bills. But now all was altered, and he was
+to go forth to his wooing again.
+
+There had been a rumor about the country that he was already accepted;
+but such was not the case. He had fluttered about Buntingford, thinking
+of it: but he had never put the question. To his thinking it would not
+have been becoming to do so without some ceremony. Buston was not to be
+made away during the turnings of a quadrille or as a part of an ordinary
+conversation. It was not probable,--nay, it was impossible,--that he
+should mention the subject to any one; but still he must visibly prepare
+for it, and I think that he was aware that the world around him knew
+what he was about.
+
+And the Thoroughbung's knew, and Miss Matilda Thoroughbung knew well.
+All Buntingford knew. In those old days in which he had sought the hand
+of the baronet's daughter, the baronet's daughter, and the baronet's
+wife, and the baronet himself, had known what was coming, though Mr.
+Prosper thought that the secret dwelt alone in his own bosom. Nor did he
+dream now that Harry and Harry's father, and Harry's mother and sisters,
+had all laughed at the conspicuous gravity of his threat. It was the
+general feeling on the subject which made the rumor current that the
+deed had been done. But when he came down-stairs with one new gray
+kid-glove on, and the other dangling in his hand, nothing had been done.
+
+"Drive to Buntingford," said the squire.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Matthew, the door of the carriage in his hand.
+
+"To Marmaduke Lodge."
+
+"Yes, sir." Then Matthew told the coachman, who had heard the
+instructions very plainly, and knew them before he had heard them. The
+squire threw himself back in the carriage, and applied himself to
+wondering how he should do the deed. He had, in truth, barely studied
+the words,--but not, finally, the manner of delivering them. With his
+bare hand up to his eyes so that he might hold the glove unsoiled in the
+other, he devoted his intellect to the task; nor did he withdraw his
+hand till the carriage turned in at the gate. The drive up to the door
+of Marmaduke Lodge was very short, and he had barely time to arrange his
+waistcoat and his whiskers before the carriage stood still. He was soon
+told that Miss Thoroughbung was at home, and within a moment he found
+himself absolutely standing on the carpet in her presence.
+
+Report had dealt unkindly with Miss Thoroughbung in the matter of her
+age. Report always does deal unkindly with unmarried young women who
+have ceased to be girls. There is an idea that they will wish to make
+themselves out to be younger than they are, and therefore report always
+makes them older. She had been called forty-five, and even fifty. Her
+exact age at this moment was forty-two, and as Mr. Prosper was only
+fifty there was no discrepancy in the marriage. He would have been
+young-looking for his age, but for an air of ancient dandyism which had
+grown upon him. He was somewhat dry, too, and skinny, with high
+cheekbones and large dull eyes. But he was clean, and grave, and
+orderly,--a man promising well to a lady on the lookout for a husband.
+Miss Thoroughbung was fat, fair, and forty to the letter, and she had a
+just measure of her own good looks, of which she was not unconscious.
+But she was specially conscious of twenty-five thousand pounds, the
+possession of which had hitherto stood in the way of her search after a
+husband. It was said commonly about Buntingford that she looked too
+high, seeing that she was only a Thoroughbung and had no more than
+twenty-five thousand pounds.
+
+But Miss Tickle was in the room, and might have been said to be in the
+way, were it not that a little temporary relief was felt by Mr. Prosper
+to be a comfort. Miss Tickle was at any rate twenty years older than
+Miss Thoroughbung, and was of all slaves at the same time the humblest
+and the most irritating. She never asked for anything, but was always
+painting the picture of her own deserts. "I hope I have the pleasure of
+seeing Miss Tickle quite well," said the squire, as soon as he had paid
+his first compliments to the lady of his love.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Prosper, pretty well. My anxiety is all for Matilda."
+Matilda had been Matilda to her since she had been a little girl, and
+Miss Tickle was not going now to drop the advantage which the old
+intimacy gave her.
+
+"I trust there is no cause for it."
+
+"Well, I'm not so sure. She coughed a little last night, and would not
+eat her supper. We always do have a little supper. A despatched crab it
+was; and when she would not eat it I knew there was something wrong."
+
+"Nonsense! what a fuss you make. Well, Mr. Prosper, have you seen your
+nephew yet?"
+
+"No, Miss Thoroughbung; nor do I intend to see him. The young man has
+disgraced himself."
+
+"Dear, dear; how sad!"
+
+"Young men do disgrace themselves, I fear, very often," said Miss
+Tickle.
+
+"We won't talk about it, if you please, because it is a family affair."
+
+"Oh no," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"At least, not as yet. It may be;--but never mind, I would not wish to be
+premature in anything."
+
+"I am always telling Matilda so. She is so impulsive. But as you may
+have matters of business, Mr. Prosper, on which to speak to Miss
+Thoroughbung, I will retire."
+
+"It is very thoughtful on your part, Miss Tickle."
+
+Then Miss Tickle retired; from which it may be surmised that the
+probable circumstances of the interview had been already discussed
+between the ladies. Mr. Prosper drew a long breath, and sighed audibly,
+as soon as he was alone with the object of his affections. He wondered
+whether men were ever bright and jolly in such circumstances. He sighed
+again, and then he began: "Miss Thoroughbung!"
+
+"Mr. Prosper!"
+
+All the prepared words had flown from his memory. He could not even
+bethink himself how he ought to begin. And, unfortunately, so much must
+depend upon manner! But the property was unembarrassed, and Miss
+Thoroughbung thought it probable that she might be allowed to do what
+she would with her own money. She had turned it all over to the right
+and to the left, and she was quite minded to accept him. With this view
+she had told Miss Tickle to leave the room, and she now felt that she
+was bound to give the gentleman what help might be in her power. "Oh,
+Miss Thoroughbung!" he said.
+
+"Mr. Prosper, you and I are such good friends, that--that--that--"
+
+"Yes, indeed. You can have no more true friend than I am,--not even Miss
+Tickle."
+
+"Oh, bother Miss Tickle! Miss Tickle is very well."
+
+"Exactly so. Miss Tickle is very well; a most estimable person."
+
+"We'll leave her alone just at present."
+
+"Yes, certainly. We had better leave her alone in our present
+conversation. Not but what I have a strong regard for her." Mr. Prosper
+had surely not thought of the opening he might be giving as to a future
+career for Miss Tickle by such an assertion.
+
+"So have I, for the matter of that, but we'll drop her just now." Then
+she paused, but he paused also. "You have come over to Buntingford
+to-day probably in order that you might congratulate them at the brewery
+on the marriage with one of your family." Then Mr. Prosper frowned, but
+she did not care for his frowning. "It will not be a bad match for the
+young lady, as Joshua is fairly steady, and the brewery is worth money."
+
+"I could have wished him a better brother-in-law," said the lover, who
+was taken away from the consideration of his love by the allusion to the
+Annesleys. He had thought of all that, and in the dearth of fitting
+objects of affection had resolved to endure the drawback of the
+connection. But it had for a while weighed very seriously with him, so
+that had the twenty-five thousand pounds been twenty thousand pounds, he
+might have taken himself to Miss Puffle, who lived near Saffron Walden
+and who would own Snickham Manor when her father died. The property was
+said to be involved, and Miss Puffle was certainly forty-eight. As an
+heir was the great desideratum, he had resolved that Matilda Thoroughbung
+should be the lady, in spite of the evils attending the new connection.
+He did feel that in throwing over Harry he would have to abandon all the
+Annesleys, and to draw a line between himself with Miss Thoroughbung and
+the whole family of the Thoroughbungs generally.
+
+"You mustn't be too bitter against poor Molly," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+Mr. Prosper did not like to be called bitter, and, in spite of the
+importance of the occasion, could not but show that he did not like it.
+"I don't think that we need talk about it."
+
+"Oh dear no. Kate and Miss Tickle need neither of them be talked
+about." Mr. Prosper disliked all familiarity, and especially that of
+being laughed at, but Miss Thoroughbung did laugh. So he drew himself
+up, and dangled his glove more slowly than before. "Then you were not
+going on to congratulate them at the brewery?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"I did not know."
+
+"My purpose carries me no farther than Marmaduke Lodge. I have no desire
+to see any one to-day besides Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"That is a compliment."
+
+Then his memory suddenly brought back to him one of his composed
+sentences. "In beholding Miss Thoroughbung I behold her on whom I hope I
+may depend for all the future happiness of my life." He did feel that it
+had come in the right place. It had been intended to be said immediately
+after her acceptance of him. But it did very well where it was. It
+expressed, as he assured himself, the feelings of his heart, and must
+draw from her some declaration of hers.
+
+"Goodness gracious me, Mr. Prosper!"
+
+This sort of coyness was to have been expected, and he therefore
+continued with another portion of his prepared words, which now came
+glibly enough to him. But it was a previous portion. It was all the same
+to Miss Thoroughbung, as it declared plainly the gentleman's intention.
+"If I can induce you to listen to me favorably, I shall say of myself
+that I am the happiest gentleman in Hertfordshire."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Prosper!"
+
+"My purpose is to lay at your feet my hand, my heart, and the lands of
+Buston." Here he was again going backward, but it did not much matter
+now in what sequence the words were said. The offer had been thoroughly
+completed and was thoroughly understood.
+
+"A lady, Mr. Prosper, has to think of these things," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"Of course I would not wish to hurry you prematurely to any declaration
+of your affections."
+
+"But there are other considerations, Mr. Prosper. You know about my
+property?"
+
+"Nothing particularly. It has not been a matter of consideration with
+me." This he said with some slight air of offence. He was a gentleman,
+whereas Miss Thoroughbung was hardly a lady. Matter of consideration her
+money of course had been. How should he not consider it? But he was
+aware that he ought not to rush on that subject, but should leave it to
+the arrangement of lawyers, expressing his own views through her own
+lawyer. To her it was the thing of most importance, and she had no
+feelings which induced her to be silent on a matter so near to her. She
+rushed.
+
+"But it has to be considered, Mr. Prosper. It is all my own, and comes
+to very nearly one thousand a year. I think it is nine hundred and
+seventy-two pounds six shillings and eightpence. Of course, when there
+is so much money it would have to be tied up somehow." Mr. Prosper was
+undoubtedly disgusted, and if he could have receded at this moment would
+have transferred his affections to Miss Puffle. "Of course you
+understand that."
+
+She had not accepted him as yet, nor said a word of her regard for him.
+All that went, it seemed, as a matter of no importance whatever. He had
+been standing for the last few minutes, and now he remained standing and
+looking at her. They were both silent, so that he was obliged to speak.
+"I understand that between a lady and gentleman so circumstanced there
+should be a settlement."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"I also have some property," said Mr. Prosper, with a touch of pride in
+his tone.
+
+"Of course you have. Goodness gracious me! Why else would you come? You
+have got Buston, which I suppose is two thousand a year. At any rate it
+has that name. But it isn't your own."
+
+"Not my own?"
+
+"Well, no. You couldn't leave it to your widow, so that she might give
+it to any one she pleased when you were gone." Here the gentleman
+frowned very darkly, and thought that after all Miss Puffle would be the
+woman for him. "All that has to be considered, and it makes Buston not
+exactly your own. If I were to have a daughter she wouldn't have it."
+
+"No, not a daughter," said Mr. Prosper, still wondering at the thorough
+knowledge of the business in hand displayed by the lady.
+
+"Oh, if it were to be a son, that would be all right, and then my money
+would go to the younger children, divided equally between the boys and
+girls." Mr. Prosper shook his head as he found himself suddenly provided
+with so plentiful and thriving a family. "That, I suppose, would be the
+way of the settlement, together with a certain income out of Buston set
+apart for my use. It ought to be considered that I should have to
+provide a house to live in. This belongs to my brother, and I pay him
+forty pounds a year for it. It should be something better than this."
+
+"My dear Miss Thoroughbung, the lawyer would do all that." There did
+come upon him an idea that she, with her aptitude for business, would
+not be altogether a bad helpmate.
+
+"The lawyers are very well; but in a transaction of this kind there is
+nothing like the principals understanding each other. Young women are
+always robbed when their money is left altogether to the gentlemen."
+
+"Robbed!"
+
+"Don't suppose I mean you, Mr. Prosper; and the robbery I mean is not
+considered disgraceful at all. The gentlemen I mean are the fathers and
+the brothers, and the uncles and the lawyers. And they intend to do
+right after the custom of their fathers and uncles. But woman's rights
+are coming up."
+
+"I hate woman's rights."
+
+"Nevertheless they are coming up. A young woman doesn't get taken in as
+she used to do. I don't mean any offence, you know." This was said in
+reply to Mr. Prosper's repeated frown. "Since woman's rights have come
+up a young woman is better able to fight her own battle."
+
+Mr. Prosper was willing to admit that Miss Thoroughbung was fair, but
+she was fat also, and at least forty. There was hardly need that she
+should refer so often to her own unprotected youth. "I should like to
+have the spending of my own income, Mr. Prosper;--that's a fact."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"Yes, I should. I shouldn't care to have to go to my husband if I wanted
+to buy a pair of stockings."
+
+"An allowance, I should say."
+
+"And that should be my own income."
+
+"Nothing to go to the house?"
+
+"Oh yes. There might be certain things which I might agree to pay for. A
+pair of ponies I should like."
+
+"I always keep a carriage and a pair of horses."
+
+"But the ponies would be my lookout. I shouldn't mind paying for my own
+maid, and the champagne, and my clothes, of course, and the
+fish-monger's bill. There would be Miss Tickle, too. You said you would
+like Miss Tickle. I should have to pay for her. That would be about
+enough, I think."
+
+Mr. Prosper was thoroughly disgusted; but when he left Marmaduke Lodge
+he had not said a word as to withdrawing from his offer. She declared
+that she would put her terms into writing and give them to her lawyer,
+who would communicate with Mr. Grey.
+
+Mr. Prosper was surprised to find that she knew the name of his lawyer,
+who was in truth our old friend. And then, while he was still
+hesitating, she astounded,--nay, shocked him by her mode of ending the
+conference. She got up and, throwing her arms round his neck, kissed him
+most affectionately. After that there was no retreating for Mr.
+Prosper,--no immediate mode of retreat, at all events. He could only back
+out of the room, and get into his carriage, and be carried home as
+quickly as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE PROPOSAL.
+
+
+It had never happened to him before. The first thought that came upon
+Mr. Prosper, when he got into his carriage, was that it had never
+occurred to him before. He did not reflect that he had not put himself
+in the way of it: but now the strangeness of the sensation overwhelmed
+him. He inquired of himself whether it was pleasant, but he found
+himself compelled to answer the question with a negative. It should have
+come from him, but not yet; not yet, probably, for some weeks. But it
+had been done, and by the doing of it she had sealed him utterly as her
+own. There was no getting out of it now. He did feel that he ought not
+to attempt to get out of it after what had taken place. He was not sure
+but that the lady had planned it all with that purpose; but he was sure
+that a strong foundation had been laid for a breach of promise case if
+he were to attempt to escape. What might not a jury do against him,
+giving damages out of the acres of Buston Hall? And then Miss
+Thoroughbung would go over to the other Thoroughbungs and to the
+Annesleys, and his condition would become intolerable. In some moments,
+as he was driven home, he was not sure but that it had all been got up
+as a plot against him by the Annesleys.
+
+When he got out of his carriage Matthew knew that things had gone badly
+with his master; but he could not conjecture in what way. The matter had
+been fully debated in the kitchen, and it had been there decided that
+Miss Thoroughbung was certainly to be brought home as the future
+mistress of Buston. The step to be taken by their master was not
+popular in the Buston kitchen. It had been there considered that Master
+Harry was to be the future master, and, by some perversity of intellect,
+they had all thought that this would occur soon. Matthew was much older
+than the squire, who was hardly to be called a sickly man, and yet
+Matthew had made up his mind that Mr. Harry was to reign over him as
+Squire of Buston. When, therefore, the tidings came that Miss
+Thoroughbung was to brought to Buston as the mistress, there had been
+some slight symptoms of rebellion. "They didn't want any 'Tilda
+Thoroughbung there." They had their own idea of a lady and a gentleman,
+which, as in all such cases, was perfectly correct. They knew the squire
+to be a fool, but they believed him to be a gentleman. They heard that
+Miss Thoroughbung was a clever woman, but they did not believe her to be
+a lady. Matthew had said a few words to the cook as to a public-house at
+Stevenage. She had told him not to be an old fool, and that he would
+lose his money, but she had thought of the public-house. There had been
+a mutinous feeling. Matthew helped his master out of the carriage, and
+then came a revulsion. That "froth of a beer-barrel," as Matthew had
+dared to call her, had absolutely refused his master.
+
+Mr. Prosper went into the house very meditative, and sad at heart. It
+was a matter almost of regret to him that it had not been as Matthew
+supposed. But he was caught and bound, and must make the best of it. He
+thought of all the particulars of her proposed mode of living, and
+recapitulated them to himself. A pair of ponies, her own maid,
+champagne, the fish-monger's bill, and Miss Tickle. Miss Puffle would
+certainly not have required such expensive luxuries. Champagne and the
+fish would require company for their final consumption.
+
+The ponies assumed a tone of being quite opposed to that which he had
+contemplated. He questioned with himself whether he would like Miss
+Tickle as a perpetual inmate. He had, in sheer civility, expressed a
+liking for Miss Tickle, but what need could there be to a married woman
+of a Miss Tickle? And then he thought of the education of the five or
+six children which she had almost promised him! He had suggested to
+himself simply an heir,--just one heir,--so that the nefarious Harry might
+be cut out. He already saw that he would not be enriched to the extent
+of a shilling by the lady's income. Then there would be all the trouble
+and the disgrace of a separate purse. He felt that there would be
+disgrace in having the fish and champagne, which were consumed in his
+own house,--paid for by his wife without reference to him. What if the
+lady had a partiality for champagne? He knew nothing about it, and would
+know nothing about it, except when he saw it in her heightened color.
+Despatched crabs for supper! He always went to bed at ten, and had a
+tumbler of barley-water brought to him,--a glass of barley-water with
+just a squeeze of lemon-juice.
+
+He saw ruin before him. No doubt she was a good manager, but she would
+be a good manager for herself. Would it not be better for him to stand
+the action for breach of promise, and betake himself to Miss Puffle? But
+Miss Puffle was fifty, and there could be no doubt that the lady ought
+to be younger than the gentleman. He was much distressed in mind. If he
+broke off with Miss Thoroughbung, ought he to do so at once, before she
+had had time to put the matter into the hands of the lawyer? And on what
+plea should he do it? Before he went to bed that night he did draw out a
+portion of a letter, which, however, was never sent:
+
+"MY DEAR MISS THOROUGHBUNG,--In the views which we both promulgated this
+morning I fear that there was some essential misunderstanding as to the
+mode of life which had occurred to both of us. You, as was so natural at
+your age, and with your charms, have not been slow to anticipate a
+coming period of uncheckered delights. Your allusion to a pony-carriage,
+and other incidental allusions,"--he did not think it well to mention
+more particularly the fish and the champagne,--"have made clear the sort
+of future life which you have pictured to yourself. Heaven forbid that I
+should take upon myself to find fault with anything so pleasant and so
+innocent! But my prospects of life are different, and in seeking the
+honor of an alliance with you I was looking for a quiet companion in my
+declining years, and it might be also to a mother to a possible future
+son. When you honored me with an unmistakable sign of your affection, on
+my going, I was just about to explain all this. You must excuse me if my
+mouth was then stopped by the mutual ardor of our feeling. I was about
+to say--" But he had found it difficult to explain what he had been
+about to say, and on the next morning, when the time for writing had
+come, he heard news which detained him for the day, and then the
+opportunity was gone.
+
+On the following morning, when Matthew appeared at his bedside with his
+cup of tea at nine o'clock, tidings were brought him. He took in the
+Buntingford _Gazette_, which came twice a week, and as Matthew laid it,
+opened and unread, in its accustomed place, he gave the information,
+which he had no doubt gotten from the paper. "You haven't heard it, sir,
+I suppose, as yet?"
+
+"Heard what?"
+
+"About Miss Puffle."
+
+"What about Miss Puffle? I haven't heard a word. What about Miss
+Puffle?" He had been thinking that moment of Miss Puffle,--of how she
+would be superior to Miss Thoroughbung in many ways,--so that he sat up
+in his bed, holding the untasted tea in his hand.
+
+"She's gone off with young Farmer Tazlehurst."
+
+"Miss Puffle gone off, and with her father's tenant's son!"
+
+"Yes indeed, sir. She and her father have been quarrelling for the last
+ten years, and now she's off. She was always riding and roistering about
+the country with them dogs and them men; and now she's gone."
+
+"Oh heavens!" exclaimed the squire, thinking of his own escape.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir. There's no knowing what any one of them is up to.
+Unless they gets married afore they're thirty, or thirty-five at most,
+they're most sure to get such ideas into their head as no one can mostly
+approve." This had been intended by Matthew as a word of caution to his
+master, but had really the opposite effect. He resolved at the moment
+that the latter should not be said of Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+And he turned Matthew out of the room with a flea in his ear. "How dare
+you speak in that way of your betters? Mr. Puffle, the lady's father,
+has for many years been my friend. I am not saying anything of the lady,
+nor saying that she has done right. Of course, down-stairs, in the
+servants' hall, you can say what you please; but up here, in my
+presence, you should not speak in such language of a lady behind whose
+chair you may be called upon to wait."
+
+"Very well, sir; I won't no more," said Matthew, retiring with mock
+humility. But he had shot his bolt, and he supposed successfully. He did
+not know what had taken place between his master and Miss Thoroughbung;
+but he did think that his speech might assist in preventing a repetition
+of the offer.
+
+Miss Puffle gone off with the tenant's son! The news made matrimony
+doubly dangerous to him, and yet robbed him of the chief reason by
+which he was to have been driven to send her a letter. He could not, at
+any rate, now fall back upon Miss Puffle. And he thought that nothing
+would have induced Miss Thoroughbung to go off with one of the carters
+from the brewery. Whatever faults she might have, they did not lie in
+that direction. Champagne and ponies were, as faults, less deleterious.
+
+Miss Puffle gone off with young Tazlehurst,--a lady of fifty, with a
+young man of twenty-five! and she the reputed heiress of Snickham Manor!
+It was a comfort to him as he remembered that Snickham Manor had been
+bought no longer ago than by the father of the present owner. The
+Prospers been at Buston ever since the time of George the First. You
+cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He had been ever assuring
+himself of that fact, which was now more of a fact than ever. And fifty
+years old! It was quite shocking. With a steady middle-aged man like
+himself, and with the approval of her family, marriage might have been
+thought of. But this harum-scarum young tenant's son, who was in no
+respect a gentleman, whose only thought was of galloping over hedges and
+ditches, such an idea showed a state of mind which--well, absolutely
+disgusted him. Mr. Prosper, because he had grown old himself, could not
+endure to think that others, at his age, should retain a smack of their
+youth. There are ladies besides Miss Puffle who like to ride across the
+country with a young man before them, or perhaps following, and never
+think much of their fifty years.
+
+But the news certainly brought to him a great change of feelings, so
+that the letter to which he had devoted the preceding afternoon was put
+back into the letter-case, and was never finished. And his mind
+immediately recurred to Miss Thoroughbung, and he bethought himself that
+the objection which he felt was, perhaps, in part frivolous. At any
+rate, she was a better woman than Miss Puffle. She certainly would run
+after no farmer's son. Though she might be fond of champagne, it
+was, he thought, chiefly for other people. Though she was ambitious of
+ponies, the ambition might be checked. At any rate, she could pay for
+her own ponies, whereas Mr. Puffle was a very hale old man of seventy.
+Puffle, he told himself, had married young, and might live for the next
+ten years, or twenty. To Mr. Prosper, whose imagination did not fly far
+afield, the world afforded at present but two ladies. These were Miss
+Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung, and as Miss Puffle had fallen out of the
+running, there seemed to be a walk-over for Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+He did think, during the two or three days which passed without any
+farther step on his part,--he did think how it might be were he to remain
+unmarried. As regarded his own comfort, he was greatly tempted. Life
+would remain so easy to him! But then duty demanded of him that he
+should marry, and he was a man who, in honest, sober talk, thought much
+of his duty. He was absurdly credulous, and as obstinate as a mule. But
+he did wish to do what was right. He had been convinced that Harry
+Annesley was a false knave, and had been made to swear an oath that
+Harry should not be his heir. Harry had been draped in the blackest
+colors, and to each daub of black something darker had been added by his
+uncle's memory of those neglected sermons. It was now his first duty in
+life to beget an heir, and for that purpose a wife must be had.
+
+Putting aside the ponies and the champagne,--and the despatched crab, the
+sound of which, as coming to him from Miss Tickle's mouth, was uglier
+than the other sounds,--he still thought that Miss Thoroughbung would
+answer his purpose. From her side there would not be making of a silk
+purse; but then "the boy" would be his boy as well as hers, and would
+probably take more after the father. He passed much of these days with
+the "Peerage" in his hand, and satisfied himself that the best blood had
+been maintained frequently by second-rate marriages. Health was a great
+thing. Health in the mother was everything. Who could be more healthy
+than Miss Thoroughbung? Then he thought of that warm embrace. Perhaps,
+after all, it was right that she should embrace him after what he had
+said to her.
+
+Three days only had passed by, and he was still thinking what ought to
+be his next step, when there came to him a letter from Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson, attorneys in Buntingford. He had heard of Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson, had been familiar with their names for the last twenty years,
+but had never dreamed that his own private affairs should become a
+matter of consultation in their office. Messrs. Grey & Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, were his lawyers, who were quite gentlemen. He knew
+nothing against Messrs. Soames & Simpson, but he thought that their work
+consisted generally in the recovery of local debts. Messrs. Soames &
+Simpson now wrote to him with full details as to his future life. Their
+client Miss Thoroughbung, had communicated to them his offer of
+marriage. They were acquainted with all the lady's circumstances, and
+she had asked them for their advice. They had proposed to her that the
+use of her own income should be by deed left to herself. Some proportion
+of it should go into the house, and might be made matter of agreement.
+They suggested that an annuity of a thousand pounds a year, in shape of
+dower, should be secured to their client in the event of her outliving
+Mr. Prosper. The estate should, of course, be settled on the eldest
+child. The mother's property should be equally divided among the other
+children. Buston Hall should be the residence of the widow till the
+eldest son should be twenty-four, after which Mr. Prosper would no doubt
+feel that their client would have to provide a home for herself. Messrs.
+Soames & Simpson did not think that there was anything in this to which
+Mr. Prosper would object, and if this were so, they would immediately
+prepare the settlement. "That woman didn't say against it, after all,"
+said Matthew to himself as he gave the letter from the lawyers to his
+master.
+
+The letter made Mr. Prosper very angry. It did, in truth, contain
+nothing more than a repetition of the very terms which the lady had
+herself suggested; but coming to him through these local lawyers it was
+doubly distasteful. What was he to do? He felt it to be out of the
+question to accede at once. Indeed, he had a strong repugnance to
+putting himself into communication with the Buntingford lawyers. Had the
+matter been other than it was, he would have gone to the rector for
+advice. The rector generally advised him.
+
+But that was out of the question now. He had seen his sister once since
+his visit to Buntingford, but had said nothing to her about it. Indeed,
+he had been anything but communicative, so that Mrs. Annesley had been
+forced to leave him with a feeling almost of offense. There was no help
+to be had in that quarter, and he could only write to Mr. Grey, and ask
+that gentleman to assist him in his difficulties.
+
+He did write to Mr. Grey, begging for his immediate attention. "There is
+that fool Prosper going to marry a brewer's daughter down at
+Buntingford," said Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+
+"He's sixty years old."
+
+"No, my love. He looks it, but he's only fifty. A man at fifty is
+supposed to be young enough to marry. There's a nephew who has been
+brought up as his heir; that's the hard part of it. And the nephew is
+mixed up in some way with the Scarboroughs."
+
+"Is it he who is to marry that young lady?"
+
+"I think it is. And now there's some devil's play going on. I've got
+nothing to do with it."
+
+"But you will have."
+
+"Not a turn. Mr. Prosper can marry if he likes it. They have sent him
+most abominable proposals as to the lady's money; and as to her
+jointure, I must stop that if I can, though I suppose he is not such a
+fool as to give way."
+
+"Is he soft?"
+
+"Well, not exactly. He likes his own money. But he's a gentleman, and
+wants nothing but what is or ought to be his own."
+
+"There are but few like that now."
+
+"It's true of him. But then he does not know what is his own, or what
+ought to be. He's almost the biggest fool I have ever known, and will do
+an injustice to that boy simply from ignorance." Then he drafted his
+letter to Mr. Prosper, and gave it to Dolly to read. "That's what I
+shall propose. The clerk can put it into proper language. He must offer
+less than he means to give."
+
+"Is that honest, father?"
+
+"It's honest on my part, knowing the people with whom I have to deal. If
+I were to lay down the strict minimum which he should grant, he would
+add other things which would cause him to act not in accordance with my
+advice. I have to make allowance for his folly,--a sort of windage, which
+is not dishonest. Had he referred her lawyers to me I could have been as
+hard and honest as you please." All which did not quite satisfy Dolly's
+strict ideas of integrity.
+
+But the terms proposed were that the lady's means should be divided so
+that one-half should go to herself for her own personal expenses, and
+the other half to her husband for the use of the house; that the lady
+should put up with a jointure of two hundred and fifty pounds, which
+ought to suffice when joined to her own property, and that the
+settlement among the children should be as recommended by Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson.
+
+"And if there are not any children, papa?"
+
+"Then each will receive his or her own property."
+
+"Because it may be so."
+
+"Certainly, my dear; very probably."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+MR. HARKAWAY.
+
+
+When the first Monday in November came Harry was still living at the
+rectory. Indeed, what other home had he in which to live? Other friends
+had become shy of him besides his uncle. He had been accustomed to
+receive many invitations. Young men who are the heirs to properties, and
+are supposed to be rich because they are idle, do get themselves asked
+about here and there, and think a great deal of themselves in
+consequence. "There's young Jones. He is fairly good-looking, but hasn't
+a word to say for himself. He will do to pair off with Miss Smith,
+who'll talk for a dozen. He can't hit a hay-stack, but he's none the
+worse for that. We haven't got too many pheasants. He'll be sure to come
+when you ask him,--and he'll be sure to go."
+
+So Jones is asked, and considers himself to be the most popular man in
+London. I will not say that Harry's invitations had been of exactly that
+description; but he too had considered himself to be popular, and now
+greatly felt the withdrawal of such marks of friendship. He had received
+one "put off"--from the Ingoldsbys of Kent. Early in June he had
+promised to be there in November. The youngest Miss Ingoldsby was very
+pretty, and he, no doubt, had been gracious. She knew that he had meant
+nothing,--could have meant nothing. But he might come to mean something,
+and had been most pressingly asked. In September there came a letter to
+him to say that the room intended for him at Ingoldsby had been burnt
+down. Mrs. Ingoldsby was so extremely sorry, and so were the "girls!"
+Harry could trace it all up. The Ingoldsbys knew the Greens, and Mrs.
+Green was Sister to Septimus Jones, who was absolutely the slave,--the
+slave, as Harry said, repeating the word to himself with emphasis,--of
+Augustus Scarborough. He was very unhappy, not that he cared in the
+least for any Miss Ingoldsby, but that he began to be conscious that he
+was to be dropped.
+
+He was to be taken up, on the other hand, by Joshua Thoroughbung. Alas!
+alas! though he smiled and resolved to accept his brother-in-law with a
+good heart, this did not in the least salve the wound. His own county
+was to him less than other counties, and his own neighborhood less than
+other neighborhoods. Buntingford was full of Thoroughbungs, the best
+people in the world, but not quite up to what he believed to be his
+mark. Mr. Prosper himself was the stupidest ass! At Welwyn people
+smelled of the City. At Stevenage the parsons' set began. Baldock was a
+_caput mortuum_ of dulness. Royston was alive only on market-days. Of
+his own father's house, and even of his mother and sisters, he
+entertained ideas that savored a little of depreciation. But, to redeem
+him from this fault,--a fault which would have led to the absolute ruin
+of his character had it not been redeemed and at last cured,--there was a
+consciousness of his own vanity and weakness. "My father is worth a
+dozen of them, and my mother and sisters two dozen," he would say of the
+Ingoldsbys when he went to bed in the room that was to be burnt down in
+preparation for his exile. And he believed it. They were honest; they
+were unselfish; they were unpretending. His sister Molly was not above
+owning that her young brewer was all the world to her; a fine, honest,
+bouncing girl, who said her prayers with a meaning, thanked the Lord for
+giving her Joshua, and laughed so loud that you could hear her out of
+the rectory garden half across the park. Harry knew that they were
+good,--did in his heart know that where the parsons begin the good things
+were likely to begin also.
+
+He was in this state of mind, the hand of good pulling one way and the
+devil's pride the other, when young Thoroughbung called for him one
+morning to carry him on to Cumberlow Green. Cumberlow Green was a
+popular meet in that county, where meets have not much to make them
+popular except the good-humor of those who form the hunt. It is not a
+county either pleasant or easy to ride over, and a Puckeridge fox is
+surely the most ill-mannered of foxes. But the Puckeridge men are
+gracious to strangers, and fairly so among themselves. It is more than
+can be said of Leicestershire, where sportsmen ride in brilliant boots
+and breeches, but with their noses turned supernaturally into the air.
+"Come along; we've four miles to do, and twenty minutes to do it in.
+Halloo, Molly, how d'ye do? Come up on to the step and give us a kiss."
+
+"Go away!" said Molly, rushing back into the house. "Did you ever hear
+anything like his impudence?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" said Kate. "All the world knows it." Then the gig,
+with the two sportsmen, was driven on. "Don't you think he looks
+handsome in his pink coat?" whispered Molly, afterward, to her elder
+sister. "Only think; I have never seen him in a red coat since he was my
+own. Last April, when the hunting was over, he hadn't spoken out; and
+this is the first day he has worn pink this year."
+
+Harry, when he reached the meet, looked about him to watch how he was
+received. There are not many more painful things in life than when an
+honest, gallant young fellow has to look about him in such a frame of
+mind. It might have been worse had he deserved to be dropped, some one
+will say. Not at all. A different condition of mind exists then, and a
+struggle is made to overcome the judgment of men which is not in itself
+painful. It is part of the natural battle of life, which does not hurt
+one at all,--unless, indeed, the man hate himself for that which has
+brought upon him the hatred of others. Repentance is always an
+agony,--and should be so. Without the agony there can be no repentance.
+But even then it is hardly so sharp as that feeling of injustice which
+accompanies the unmeaning look, and dumb faces, and pretended
+indifference of those who have condemned.
+
+When Harry descended from the gig he found himself close to old Mr.
+Harkaway, the master of the hounds. Mr. Harkaway was a gentleman who had
+been master of these hounds for more than forty years, and had given as
+much satisfaction as the county could produce. His hounds, which were
+his hobby, were perfect. His horses were good enough for the
+Hertfordshire lanes and Hertfordshire hedges. His object was not so much
+to run a fox as to kill him in obedience to certain rules of the game.
+Ever so many hinderances have been created to bar the killing a fox,--as
+for instance that you shouldn't knock him on the head with a
+brick-bat,--all of which had to Mr. Harkaway the force of a religion. The
+laws of hunting are so many that most men who hunt cannot know them all.
+But no law had ever been written, or had become a law by the strength of
+tradition, which he did not know.
+
+To break them was to him treason. When a young man broke them he pitied
+the young man's ignorance, and endeavored to instruct him after some
+rough fashion. When an old man broke them, he regarded him as a fool who
+should stay at home, or as a traitor who should be dealt with as such.
+And with such men he could deal very hardly. Forty years of reigning had
+taught him to believe himself to be omnipotent, and he was so in his own
+hunt. He was a man who had never much affected social habits. The
+company of one or two brother sportsmen to drink a glass of port-wine
+with him and then to go early to bed, was the most of it. He had a small
+library, but not a book ever came off the shelf unless it referred to
+farriers or the _res venatica_. He was unmarried. The time which other
+men gave to their wives and families he bestowed upon his hounds. To his
+stables he never went, looking on a horse as a necessary adjunct to
+hunting,--expensive, disagreeable, and prone to get you into danger. When
+anyone flattered him about his horse he would only grunt, and turn his
+head on one side. No one in these latter years had seen him jump any
+fence. But yet he was always with his hounds, and when any one said a
+kind word as to their doings, that he would take as a compliment. It was
+they who were there to do the work of the day, which horses and men
+could only look at. He was a sincere, honest, taciturn, and withal,
+affectionate man, who could on an occasion be very angry with those who
+offended him. He knew well what he could do, and never attempted that
+which was beyond his power. "How are you, Mr. Harkaway?" said Harry.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Annesley? how are you?" said the master, with all the
+grace of which he was capable. But Harry caught a tone in his voice
+which he thought implied displeasure. And Mr. Harkaway had in truth
+heard the story,--how Harry had been discarded at Buston because he had
+knocked the man down in the streets at night-time and had then gone
+away. After that Mr. Harkaway toddled off, and Harry sat and frowned
+with embittered heart.
+
+"Well, Malt-and-hops, and how are you?" This came from a fast young
+banker who lived in the neighborhood, and who thus intended to show his
+familiarity with the brewer; but when he saw Annesley, he turned round
+and rode away. "Scaly trick that fellow played the other day. He knocked
+a fellow down, and, when he thought that he was dead, he lied about it
+like old boots." All of which made itself intelligible to Harry. He told
+himself that he had always hated that banker.
+
+"Why do you let such a fellow as that call you Malt-and-hops?" he said
+to Joshua.
+
+"What,--young Florin? He's a very good fellow, and doesn't mean
+anything."
+
+"A vulgar cad, I should say."
+
+Then he rode on in silence till he was addressed by an old gentleman of
+the county who had known his father for the last thirty years. The old
+gentleman had had nothing about him to recommend him either to Harry's
+hatred or love till he spoke; and after that Harry hated him. "How d'you
+do, Mr. Annesley?" said the old gentleman, and then rode on. Harry knew
+that the old man had condemned him as the others had done, or he would
+never have called him Mr. Annesley. He felt that he was "blown upon" in
+his own county, as well as by the Ingoldsbys down in Kent.
+
+They had but a moderate day's sport, going a considerable distance in
+search of it, till an incident arose which gave quite an interest to the
+field generally, and nearly brought Joshua Thoroughbung into a scrape.
+They were drawing a covert which was undoubtedly the property of their
+own hunt,--or rather just going to draw it,--when all of a sudden they
+became aware that every hound in the pack was hunting. Mr. Harkaway at
+once sprung from his usual cold, apathetic manner into full action. But
+they who knew him well could see that it was not the excitement of joy.
+He was in an instant full of life, but it was not the life of successful
+enterprise. He was perturbed and unhappy, and his huntsman, Dillon,--a
+silent, cunning, not very popular man, who would obey his master in
+everything,--began to move about rapidly, and to be at his wit's end. The
+younger men prepared themselves for a run,--one of those sudden, short,
+decisive spurts which come at the spur of the moment, and on which a
+man, if he is not quite awake to the demands of the moment, is very apt
+to be left behind. But the old stagers had their eyes on Mr. Harkaway,
+and knew that there was something amiss.
+
+Then there appeared another field of hunters, first one man leading
+them, then others following, and after them the first ruck and then the
+crowd. It was apparent to all who knew anything that two packs had
+joined. These were the Hitchiners, as the rival sportsmen would call
+them, and this was the Hitchin Hunt, with Mr. Fairlawn, their master.
+Mr. Fairlawn was also an old man, popular, no doubt, in his own country,
+but by no means beloved by Mr. Harkaway. Mr. Harkaway used to declare
+how Fairlawn had behaved very badly about certain common coverts about
+thirty years ago, when the matter had to be referred to a committee of
+masters. No one in these modern days knew aught of the quarrel, or
+cared. The men of the two hunts were very good friends, unless they met
+under the joint eyes of the two masters, and then they were supposed to
+be bound to hate each other. Now the two packs were mixed together, and
+there was only one fox between them.
+
+The fox did not trouble them long. He could hardly have saved himself
+from one pack, but very soon escaped from the fangs of the two. Each
+hound knew that his neighbor hound was a stranger, and, in scrutinizing
+the singularity of the occurrence, lost all the power of hunting. In ten
+minutes there were nearly forty couples of hounds running hither and
+thither, with two huntsmen and four whips swearing at them with strange
+voices, and two old gentlemen giving orders each in opposition to the
+other. Then each pack was got together, almost on the same ground, and
+it was necessary that something should be done. Mr. Harkaway waited to
+see whether Mr. Fairlawn would ride away quickly to his own country. He
+would not have spoken to Mr. Fairlawn if he could have helped it. Mr.
+Fairlawn was some miles away from his country. He must have given up the
+day for lost had he simply gone away. But there was another covert a
+mile off, and he thought that one of his hounds had "shown a line,"--or
+said that he thought so.
+
+Now, it is well known that you may follow a hunted fox through whatever
+country he may take you to, if only your hounds are hunting him
+continuously. And one hound for that purpose is as good as thirty, and
+if a hound can only "show a line" he is held to be hunting. Mr. Fairlawn
+was quite sure that one of his hounds had been showing a line, and had
+been whipped off it by one of Mr. Harkaway's men. The man swore that he
+had only been collecting his own hounds. On this plea Mr. Fairlawn
+demanded to take his whole pack into Greasegate Wood,--the very covert
+that Mr. Harkaway had been about to draw. "I'm d----d if you do!" said Mr.
+Harkaway, standing, whip in hand, in the middle of the road, so as to
+prevent the enemy's huntsman passing by with his hounds. It was
+afterward declared that Mr. Harkaway had not been heard to curse and
+swear for the last fifteen years. "I'm d----d if I don't!" said Mr.
+Fairlawn, riding up to him. Mr. Harkaway was ten years the older man,
+and looked as though he had much less of fighting power. But no one saw
+him quail or give an inch. Those who watched his face declared that his
+lips were white with rage and quivered with passion.
+
+To tell the words which passed between them after that would require
+Homer's pathos and Homer's imagination. The two old men scowled and
+scolded at each other, and, had Mr. Fairlawn attempted to pass, Mr.
+Harkaway would certainly have struck him with his whip. And behind their
+master a crowd of the Puckeridge men collected themselves,--foremost
+among whom was Joshua Thoroughbung. "Take 'em round to the covert by
+Winnipeg Lane," said Mr. Fairlawn to his huntsman. The man prepared to
+take his pack round by Winnipeg Lane, which would have added a mile to
+the distance. But the huntsman, when he had got a little to the left,
+was soon seen scurrying across the country in the direction of the
+covert, with a dozen others at his heels, and the hounds following him.
+But old Mr. Harkaway had seen it too, and having possession of the road,
+galloped along it at such a pace that no one could pass him.
+
+All the field declared that they had regarded it as impossible that
+their master should move so fast. And Dillon, and the whips, and
+Thoroughbung, and Harry Annesley, with half a dozen others, kept pace
+with him. They would not sit there and see their master outmanoeuvred by
+any lack of readiness on their part. They got to the covert first, and
+there, with their whips drawn, were ready to receive the second pack.
+Then one hound went in without an order; but for their own hounds they
+did not care. They might find a fox and go after him, and nobody would
+follow them. The business here at the covert-side was more important and
+more attractive.
+
+Then it was that Mr. Thoroughbung nearly fell into danger. As to the
+other hounds,--Mr. Fairlawn's hounds,--doing any harm in the covert, or
+doing any good for themselves or their owners, that was out of the
+question. The rival pack was already there, with their noses up in the
+air, and thinking of anything but a fox; and this other pack,--the
+Hitchiners,--were just as wild. But it was the object of Mr. Fairlawn's
+body-guard to say that they had drawn the covert in the teeth of Mr.
+Harkaway, and to achieve this one of the whips thought that he could
+ride through the Puckeridge men, taking a couple of hounds with him.
+That would suffice for triumph.
+
+But to prevent such triumph on the part of the enemy Joshua Thoroughbung
+was prepared to sacrifice himself. He rode right at the whip, with his
+own whip raised, and would undoubtedly have ridden over him had not the
+whip tried to turn his horse sharp round, stumbled and fallen in the
+struggle, and had not Thoroughbung, with his horse, fallen over him.
+
+It will be the case that a slight danger or injury in one direction will
+often stop a course of action calculated to create greater dangers and
+worse injuries. So it was in this case. When Dick, the Hitchin whip,
+went down, and Thoroughbung, with his horse, was over him,--two men and
+two horses struggling together on the ground,--all desire to carry on the
+fight was over.
+
+The huntsman came up, and at last Mr. Fairlawn also, and considered it
+to be their duty to pick up Dick, whose breath was knocked out of him by
+the weight of Joshua Thoroughbung, and the Puckeridge side felt it to be
+necessary to give their aid to the valiant brewer. There was then no
+more attempt to draw the covert. Each general in gloomy silence took off
+his forces, and each afterward deemed that the victory was his. Dick
+swore, when brought to himself, that one of his hounds had gone in,
+whereas Squire 'Arkaway "had swore most 'orrid oaths that no 'Itchiner
+'ound should ever live to put his nose in. One of 'is 'ounds 'ad, and
+Squire 'Arkaway would have to be--" Well, Dick declared that he would
+not say what would happen to Mr. Harkaway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+RIDING HOME.
+
+
+The two old gentlemen rode away, each in his own direction, in gloomy
+silence. Not a word was said by either of them, even to one of his own
+followers. It was nearly twenty miles to Mr. Harkaway's house, and along
+the entire twenty miles he rode silent. "He's in an awful passion," said
+Thoroughbung; "he can't speak from anger." But, to tell the truth, Mr.
+Harkaway was ashamed of himself. He was an old gentleman, between
+seventy and eighty, who was supposed to go out for his amusement, and
+had allowed himself to be betrayed into most unseemly language. What
+though the hound had not "shown a line?" Was it necessary that he, at
+his time of life, should fight on the road for the maintenance of a
+trifling right of sport. But yet there came upon him from time to time a
+sense of the deep injury done to him. That man Fairlawn, that
+blackguard, that creature of all others the farthest removed from a
+gentleman, had declared that in his, Mr. Harkaway's teeth, he would draw
+his, Mr. Harkaway's covert! Then he would urge on his old horse, and
+gnash his teeth; and then, again, he would be ashamed. "Tantaene animis
+coelestibus irae?"
+
+But Thoroughbung rode home high in spirits, very proud, and conscious of
+having done good work. He was always anxious to stand well with the hunt
+generally, and was aware that he had now distinguished himself. Harry
+Annesley was on one side of him, and on the other rode Mr. Florin, the
+banker. "He's an abominable liar!" said Thoroughbung, "a wicked,
+wretched liar!" He was alluding to the Hitchiner's whip, whom in his
+wrath he had nearly sent to another world. "He says that one of his
+hounds got into the covert, but I was there and saw it all. Not a nose
+was over the little bank which runs between the field and the covert."
+
+"You must have seen a hound if he had been there," said the banker.
+
+"I was as cool as a cucumber, and could count the hounds he had with
+him. There were three of them. A big black-spotted bitch was leading,
+the one that I nearly fell upon. When the man went down the hound
+stopped, not knowing what was expected of him. How should he? The man
+would have been in the covert, but, by George! I managed to stop him."
+
+"What did you mean to do to him when you rode at him so furiously?"
+asked Harry.
+
+"Not let him get in there. That was my resolute purpose. I suppose I
+should have knocked him off his horse with my whip."
+
+"But suppose he had knocked you off your horse?" suggested the banker.
+
+"There is no knowing how that might have been. I never calculated those
+chances. When a man wants to do a thing like that he generally does it."
+
+"And you did it?" said Harry.
+
+"Yes; I think I did. I dare say his bones are sore. I know mine are. But
+I don't care for that in the least. When this day comes to be talked
+about, as I dare say it will be for many a long year, no one will be
+able to say that the Hitchiners got into that covert." Thoroughbung,
+with the genuine modesty of an Englishman, would not say that he had
+achieved by his own prowess all this glory for the Puckeridge Hunt, but
+he felt it down to the very end of his nails.
+
+Had he not been there that whip would have got into the wood, and a very
+different tale would then have been told in those coming years to which
+his mind was running away with happy thoughts. He had ridden the
+aggressors down; he had stopped the first intrusive hound. But though he
+continued to talk of the subject, he did not boast in so many words that
+he had done it. His "veni, vidi, vici," was confined to his own bosom.
+
+As they rode home together there came to be a little crowd of men round
+Thoroughbung, giving him the praises that were his due. But one by one
+they fell off from Annesley's side of the road. He soon felt that no one
+addressed a word to him. He was, probably, too prone to encourage them
+in this. It was he that fell away, and courted loneliness, and then in
+his heart accused them. There was no doubt something of truth in his
+accusations; but another man, less sensitive, might have lived it down.
+He did more than meet their coldness half-way, and then complained to
+himself of the bitterness of the world. "They are like the beasts of the
+field," he said, "who when another beast has been wounded, turn upon him
+and rend him to death." His future brother-in-law, the best natured
+fellow that ever was born, rode on thoughtless, and left Harry alone for
+three or four miles, while he received the pleasant plaudits of his
+companions. In Joshua's heart was that tale of the whip's discomfiture.
+He did not see that Molly's brother was alone as soon as he would have
+done but for his own glory. "He is the same as the others," said Harry
+to himself. "Because that man has told a falsehood of me, and has had
+the wit to surround it with circumstances, he thinks it becomes him to
+ride away and cut me." Then he asked himself some foolish questions as
+to himself and as to Joshua Thoroughbung, which he did not answer as he
+should have done, had he remembered that he was then riding
+Thoroughbung's horse, and that his sister was to become Thoroughbung's
+wife.
+
+After half an hour of triumphant ovation, Joshua remembered his
+brother-in-law, and did fall back so as to pick him up. "What's the
+matter, Harry? Why don't you come on and join us?"
+
+"I'm sick of hearing of that infernal squabble."
+
+"Well; as to a squabble, Mr. Harkaway behaved quite right. If a hunt is
+to be kept up, the right of entering coverts must be preserved for the
+hunt they belong to. There was no line shown. You must remember that
+there isn't a doubt about that. The hounds were all astray when we
+joined them. It's a great question whether they brought their fox into
+that first covert. There are they who think that Bodkin was just riding
+across the Puckeridge country in search of a fox." Bodkin was Mr.
+Fairlawn's huntsman. "If you admit that kind of thing, where will you
+be? As a hunting country, just nowhere. Then as a sportsman, where are
+you? It is necessary to put down such gross fraud. My own impression is
+that Mr. Fairlawn should be turned out from being master. I own I feel
+very strongly about it. But then I always have been fond of hunting."
+
+"Just so," said Harry, sulkily, who was not in the least interested as
+to the matter on which Joshua was so eloquent.
+
+Then Mr. Proctor rode by, the gentleman who in the early part of the day
+disgusted Harry by calling him "mister." "Now, Mr. Proctor," continued
+Joshua, "I appeal to you whether Mr. Harkaway was not quite right? If
+you won't stick up for your rights in a hunting county--" But Mr.
+Proctor rode on, wishing them good-night, very discourteously declining
+to hear the remainder of the brewer's arguments. "He's in a hurry, I
+suppose," said Joshua.
+
+"You'd better follow him. You'll find that he'll listen to you then."
+
+"I don't want him to listen to me particularly."
+
+"I thought you did." Then for half an hour the two men rode on in
+silence.
+
+"What's the matter with you Harry?" said Joshua. "I can see there's
+something up that riles you. I know you're a fellow of your college, and
+have other things to think of besides the vagaries of a fox."
+
+"The fellow of a college!" said Harry, who, had he been in a good-humor,
+would have thought much more of being along with a lot of fox-hunters
+than of any college honors.
+
+"Well, yes; I suppose it is a great thing to be a fellow of a college. I
+never could have been one if I had mugged forever."
+
+"My being a fellow of a college won't do me much good. Did you see that
+old man Proctor go by just now?"
+
+"Oh yes; he never likes to be out after a certain hour."
+
+"And did you see Florin, and Mr. Harkaway, and a lot of others? You
+yourself have been going on ahead for the last hour without speaking to
+me."
+
+"How do you mean without speaking to you?" said Joshua, turning sharp
+round.
+
+Then Harry Annesley reflected that he was doing an injustice to his
+future brother-in-law.
+
+"Perhaps I have done you wrong," he said.
+
+"You have."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I believe you are as honest and true a fellow as
+there is in Hertfordshire, but for those others--"
+
+"You think it's about Mountjoy Scarborough, then?" asked Joshua.
+
+"I do. That infernal fool, Peter Prosper, has chosen to publish to the
+world that he has dropped me because of something that he has heard of
+that occurrence. A wretched lie has been told with a purpose by
+Mountjoy Scarborough's brother, and my uncle has taken it into his wise
+head to believe it. The truth is, I have not been as respectful to him
+as he thinks I ought, and now he resents my neglect in this fashion. He
+is going to marry your aunt in order that he may have a lot of children,
+and cut me out. In order to justify himself, he has told these lies
+about me, and you see the consequence;--not a man in the county is
+willing to speak to me."
+
+"I really think a great deal of it's fancy."
+
+"You go and ask Mr. Harkaway. He's honest, and he'll tell you. Ask this
+new cousin of yours, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"I don't know that they are going to make a match of it, after all."
+
+"Ask my own father. Only think of it,--that a puling, puking idiot like
+that, from a mere freak, should be able to do a man such a mischief! He
+can rob me of my income, which he himself has brought me up to expect.
+That he can do by a stroke of his pen. He can threaten to have sons like
+Priam. All that is within his own bosom. But to justify himself to the
+world at large, he picks up a scandalous story from a man like Augustus
+Scarborough, and immediately not a man in the county will speak to me. I
+say that that is enough to break a man's heart,--not the injury done
+which a man should bear, but the injustice of the doing. Who wants his
+beggarly allowance! He can do as he likes about his own money. I shall
+never ask him for his money. But that he should tell such a lie as this
+about the county is more than a man can endure."
+
+"What was it that did happen?" asked Joshua.
+
+"The man met me in the street when he was drunk, and he struck at me and
+was insolent. Of course I knocked him down. Who wouldn't have done the
+same? Then his brother found him somewhere, or got hold of him, and sent
+him out of the country, and says that I had held my tongue when I left
+him in the street. Of course I held my tongue. What was Mountjoy to me?
+Then Augustus has asked me sly questions, and accuses me of lying
+because I did not choose to tell him everything. It all comes out of
+that."
+
+Here they had reached the rectory, and Harry, after seeing that the
+horses were properly supplied with gruel, took himself and his ill-humor
+up-stairs to his own chamber. But Joshua had a word or two to say to one
+of the inmates of the rectory.
+
+He felt that it would be improper to ride his horse home without giving
+time to the animal to drink his gruel, and therefore made his way into
+the little breakfast-parlor, where Molly had a cup of tea and buttered
+toast ready for him. He of course told her first of the grand occurrence
+of the day,--how the two packs of hounds had mixed themselves together,
+how violently the two masters had fallen out and had nearly flogged each
+other, how Mr. Harkaway had sworn horribly,--who had never been heard to
+swear before,--how a final attempt had been made to seize a second
+covert, and how, at last, it had come to pass that he had distinguished
+himself. "Do you mean to say that you absolutely rode over the
+unfortunate man?" asked Molly.
+
+"I did. Not that the man had the worst of it,--or very much the worse.
+There we were both down, and the two horses, all in a heap together."
+
+"Oh, Joshua, suppose you had been kicked!"
+
+"In that case I should have been--kicked."
+
+"But a kick from an infuriated horse!"
+
+"There wasn't much infuriation about him. The man had ridden all that
+out of the beast."
+
+"You are sure to laugh at me, Joshua, because I think what terrible
+things might have happened to you. Why do you go putting yourself so
+forward in every danger, now that you have got somebody else to depend
+upon you and to care for you? It's very, very wrong."
+
+"Somebody had to do it, Molly. It was most important, in the interests
+of hunting generally, that those hounds should not have been allowed to
+get into that covert. I don't think that outsiders ever understand how
+essential it is to maintain your rights. It isn't as though it were an
+individual. The whole county may depend upon it."
+
+"Why shouldn't it be some man who hasn't got a young woman to look
+after?" said Molly, half laughing and half crying.
+
+"It's the man who first gets there who ought to do it," said Joshua. "A
+man can't stop to remember whether he has got a young woman or not."
+
+"I don't think you ever want to remember." Then that little quarrel was
+brought to the usual end with the usual blandishments, and Joshua went
+on to discuss with her that other source of trouble, her brother's fall.
+"Harry is awfully cut up," said the brewer.
+
+"You mean these affairs about his uncle?"
+
+"Yes. It isn't only the money he feels, or the property, but people
+look askew at him. You ought all of you to be very kind to him."
+
+"I am sure we are."
+
+"There is something in it to vex him. That stupid old fool, your
+uncle--I beg your pardon, you know, for speaking of him in that way--"
+
+"He is a stupid old fool."
+
+"Is behaving very badly. I don't know whether he shouldn't be treated as
+I did that fellow up at the covert."
+
+"Ride over him?"
+
+"Something of that kind. Of course Harry is sore about it, and when a
+man is sore he frets at a thing like that more than he ought to do. As
+for that aunt of mine at Buntingford, there seems to be some hitch in
+it. I should have said she'd have married the Old Gentleman had he asked
+her."
+
+"Don't talk like that, Joshua."
+
+"But there is some screw loose. Simpson came up to my father about it
+yesterday, and the governor let enough of the cat out of the bag to make
+me know that the thing is not going as straight as she wishes."
+
+"He has offered, then?"
+
+"I am sure he has asked her."
+
+"And your aunt will accept him?" asked Molly.
+
+"There's probably some difference about money. It's all done with the
+intention of injuring poor Harry. If he were my own brother I could not
+be more unhappy about him. And as to Aunt Matilda, she's a fool. There
+are two fools together. If they choose to marry we can't hinder them.
+But there is some screw loose, and if the two young lovers don't know
+their own minds things may come right at last." Then, with some farther
+blandishments, the prosperous brewer walked away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+PERSECUTION.
+
+
+In the mean time Florence Mountjoy was not passing her time pleasantly
+at Brussels. Various troubles there attended her. All her friends around
+her were opposed to her marriage with Harry Annesley. Harry Annesley had
+become a very unsavory word in the mouths of Sir Magnus and the British
+Embassy generally. Mrs. Mountjoy told her grief to her brother-in-law,
+who thoroughly took her part, as did also, very strongly, Lady Mountjoy.
+It got to be generally understood that Harry was a _mauvais sujet_. Such
+was the name that was attached to him, and the belief so conveyed was
+thoroughly entertained by them all. Sir Magnus had written to friends in
+London, and the friends in London bore out the reports that were so
+conveyed. The story of the midnight quarrel was told in a manner very
+prejudicial to poor Harry, and both Sir Magnus and his wife saw the
+necessity of preserving their niece from anything so evil as such a
+marriage. But Florence was very firm, and was considered to be very
+obstinate. To her mother she was obstinate but affectionate To Sir
+Magnus she was obstinate and in some degree respectful. But to Lady
+Mountjoy she was neither affectionate nor respectful. She took a great
+dislike to Lady Mountjoy, who endeavored to domineer; and who, by the
+assistance of the two others, was in fact tyrannical. It was her opinion
+that the girl should be compelled to abandon the man, and Mrs. Mountjoy
+found herself constrained to follow this advice. She did love her
+daughter, who was her only child. The main interest of her life was
+centred in her daughter. Her only remaining ambition rested on her
+daughter's marriage. She had long revelled in the anticipation of being
+the mother-in-law of the owner of Tretton Park. She had been very proud
+of her daughter's beauty.
+
+Then had come the first blow, when Harry Annesley had come to Montpelier
+Place and had been welcomed by Florence. Mrs. Mountjoy had seen it all
+long before Florence had been aware of it. And the first coming of Harry
+had been long before the absolute disgrace of Captain Scarborough,--at
+any rate, before the tidings of that disgrace had reached Cheltenham.
+Mrs. Mountjoy had been still able to dream of Tretton Park, after the
+Jews had got their fingers on it,--even after the Jews had been forced to
+relinquish their hold. It can hardly be said that up to this very time
+Mrs. Mountjoy had lost all hope in her nephew, thinking that as the
+property had been entailed some portion of it must ultimately belong to
+him. She had heard that Augustus was to have it, and her desires had
+vacillated between the two. Then Harry had positively declared himself,
+and Augustus had given her to understand how wretched, how mean, how
+wicked had been Harry's conduct. And he fully explained to her that
+Harry would be penniless. She had indeed been aware that Buston,--quite a
+trifling thing compared to Tretton,--was to belong to him. But entails
+were nothing nowadays. It was part of the radical abomination to which
+England was being subjected. Not even Buston was now to belong to Harry
+Annesley. The small income which he had received from his uncle was
+stopped. He was reduced to live upon his fellowship,--which would be
+stopped also if he married. She even despised him because he was the
+fellow of a college;--she had looked for a husband for her daughter so
+much higher than any college could produce. It was not from any lack of
+motherly love that she was opposed to Florence, or from any innate
+cruelty that she handed her daughter over to the tender mercies of Lady
+Mountjoy.
+
+And since she had been at Brussels there had come up farther hopes.
+Another mode had shown itself of escaping Harry Annesley, who was of all
+catastrophes the most dreaded and hated. Mr. Anderson, the second
+secretary of legation,--he whose business it was to ride about the
+boulevard with Sir Magnus,--had now declared himself in form. "Never saw
+a fellow so bowled over," Sir Magnus had declared, by which he had
+intended to signify that Mr. Anderson was now truly in love. "I've seen
+him spooney a dozen times," Sir Magnus had said, confidentially, to his
+sister-in-law, "but he has never gone to this length. He has asked a lot
+of girls to have him, but he has always been off it again before the
+week was over. He has written to his mother now."
+
+And Mr. Anderson showed his love by very unmistakable signs. Sir Magnus
+too, and Lady Mountjoy, were evidently on the same side as Mr. Anderson.
+Sir Magnus thought there was no longer any good in waiting for his
+nephew, the captain, and of that other nephew, Augustus, he did not
+entertain any very high idea. Sir Magnus had corresponded lately with
+Augustus, and was certainly not on his side. But he so painted Mr.
+Anderson's prospects in life, as did also Lady Mountjoy, as to make it
+appear that if Florence could put up with young Anderson she would do
+very well with herself.
+
+"He's sure to be a baronet some of these days, you know," said Sir
+Magnus.
+
+"I don't think that would go very far with Florence," said her mother.
+
+"But it ought. Look about in the world and you'll see that it does go a
+long way. He'd be the fifth baronet."
+
+"But his elder brother is alive."
+
+"The queerest fellow you ever saw in your born days, and his life is not
+worth a year's purchase. He's got some infernal disease,--nostalgia, or
+what 'd'ye call it?--which never leaves him a moment's peace, and then
+he drinks nothing but milk. Sure to go off;--cock sure."
+
+"I shouldn't like Florence to count upon that."
+
+"And then Hugh Anderson, the fellow here, is very well off as it is. He
+has four hundred pounds here, and another five hundred pounds of his
+own. Florence has, or will have, four hundred pounds of her own. I
+should call them deuced rich. I should, indeed, as beginners. She could
+have her pair of ponies here, and what more would she want?"
+
+These arguments did go very far with Mrs. Mountjoy, the farther because
+in her estimation Sir Magnus was a great man. He was the greatest
+Englishman, at any rate, in Brussels, and where should she go for advice
+but to an Englishman? And she did not know that Sir Magnus had succeeded
+in borrowing a considerable sum of money from his second secretary of
+legation.
+
+"Leave her to me for a little;--just leave her to me," said Lady
+Mountjoy.
+
+"I would not say anything hard to her," said the mother, pleading for
+her naughty child.
+
+"Not too hard, but she must be made to understand. You see there have
+been misfortunes. As to Mountjoy Scarborough, he's past hoping for."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Altogether. When a man has disappeared there's an end of him. There was
+Lord Baltiboy's younger son disappeared, and he turned out to be a
+Zouave corporal in a French regiment. They did get him out, of course,
+but then he went preaching in America. You may take it for granted, that
+when a man has absolutely vanished from the clubs, he'll never be any
+good again as a marrying man."
+
+"But there's his brother, who, they say, is to have the property."
+
+"A very cold-blooded sort of young man, who doesn't care a straw for his
+own family." He had received very sternly the overtures for a loan from
+Sir Magnus. "And he, as I understand, has never declared himself in
+Florence's favor. You can't count upon Augustus Scarborough."
+
+"Not just count upon him."
+
+"Whereas there's young Anderson, who is the most gentleman-like young
+man I know, all ready. It will have been such a turn of luck your coming
+here and catching him up."
+
+"I don't know that it can be called a turn of luck. Florence has a very
+nice fortune of her own--"
+
+"And she wants to give it to this penniless reprobate. It is just one of
+those cases in which you must deal roundly with a girl. She has to be
+frightened, and that's about the truth of it."
+
+After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with
+herself into her morning-room. When her mother told her that her aunt
+wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to
+see her aunt. Her mother declared that in her aunt's house she was bound
+to go when her aunt sent for her. To this Florence demurred. She was,
+she thought, her aunt's guest, but by no means at her aunt's disposal.
+But at last she obeyed her mother. She had resolved that she would obey
+her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to
+her aunt's chamber.
+
+But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and
+taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room. "My
+dear," he said, "just come in here for two minutes."
+
+"I am on my way up to my aunt."
+
+"I know it, my dear. Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me.
+Upon my word you can't do anything better than take young Anderson."
+
+"I can't do that, Uncle Magnus."
+
+"Why not? There's poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray."
+
+"There is no question of my cousin."
+
+"And Augustus is no better."
+
+"There is no question of Augustus either."
+
+"As to that other chap, he isn't any good;--he isn't indeed."
+
+"You mean Mr. Annesley?"
+
+"Yes; Harry Annesley, as you call him. He hasn't got a shilling to bless
+himself with, or wouldn't have if he was to marry you."
+
+"But I have got something."
+
+"Not enough for both of you, I'm afraid. That uncle of his has
+disinherited him."
+
+"His uncle can't disinherit him."
+
+"He's quite young enough to marry and have a family, and then Annesley
+will be disinherited. He has stopped his allowance, anyway, and you
+mustn't think of him. He did something uncommonly unhandsome the other
+day, though I don't quite know what."
+
+"He did nothing unhandsome, Uncle Magnus."
+
+"Of course a young lady will stand up for her lover, but you will
+really have to drop him. I'm not a hard sort of man, but this was
+something that the world will not stand. When he thought the man had
+been murdered he didn't say anything about it for fear they should tax
+him with it. And then he swore he had never seen him. It was something
+of that sort."
+
+"He never feared that any one would suspect him."
+
+"And now young Anderson has proposed. I should not have spoken else, but
+it's my duty to tell you about young Anderson. He's a gentleman all
+round."
+
+"So is Mr. Annesley."
+
+"And Anderson has got into no trouble at all. He does his duty here
+uncommonly well. I never had less trouble with any young fellow than I
+have had with him. No licking him into shape,--or next to none,--and he
+has a very nice private income. You together would have plenty, and
+could live here till you had settled on apartments. A pair of ponies
+would be just the thing for you to drive about and support the British
+interests. You think of it, my dear, and you'll find that I'm right."
+Then Florence escaped from that room and went up to receive the much
+more severe lecture which she was to have from her aunt.
+
+"Come in, my dear," said Lady Mountjoy, in her most austere voice. She
+had a voice which could assume austerity when she knew her power to be
+in the ascendant. As Florence entered the room Miss Abbott left it by a
+door on the other side. "Take that chair, Florence. I want to have a few
+minutes' conversation with you." Then Florence sat down. "When a young
+lady is thinking of being married, a great many things have to be taken
+into consideration." This seemed to be so much a matter of fact that
+Florence did not feel it necessary to make any reply. "Of course I am
+aware you are thinking of being married."
+
+"Oh yes," said Florence.
+
+"But to whom?"
+
+"To Harry Annesley," said Florence, intending to imply that all the
+world knew that.
+
+"I hope not; I hope not. Indeed, I may say that it is quite out of the
+question. In the first place, he is a beggar."
+
+"He has begged from none," said Florence.
+
+"He is what the world calls a beggar, when a young man without a penny
+thinks of being married."
+
+"I'm not a beggar, and what I've got will be his."
+
+"My dear, you're talking about what you don't understand. A young lady
+cannot give her money away in that manner; it will not be allowed.
+Neither your mother, nor Sir Magnus, nor will I permit it." Here
+Florence restrained herself, but drew herself up in her chair as though
+prepared to speak out her mind if she should be driven. Lady Mountjoy
+would not permit it! She thought that she would feel herself quite able
+to tell Lady Mountjoy that she had neither power nor influence in the
+matter, but she determined to be silent a little longer. "In the first
+place, a gentleman who is a gentleman never attempts to marry a lady for
+her money."
+
+"But when a lady has the money she can express herself much more clearly
+than she could otherwise."
+
+"I don't quite understand what you mean by that, my dear."
+
+"When Mr. Annesley proposed to me he was the acknowledged heir to his
+uncle's property."
+
+"A trumpery affair at the best of it."
+
+"It would have sufficed for me. Then I accepted him."
+
+"That goes for nothing from a lady. Of course your acceptance was
+contingent on circumstances."
+
+"It was so;--on my regard. Having accepted him, and as my regard remains
+just as warm as ever, I certainly shall not go back because of anything
+his uncle may do. I only say this to explain that he was quite justified
+in his offer. It was not for my small fortune that he came to me."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that."
+
+"But if my money can be of any use to him, he's quite welcome to it. Sir
+Magnus spoke to me about a pair of ponies. I'd rather have him than a
+pair of ponies."
+
+"I'm coming to that just now. Here is Mr. Anderson."
+
+"Oh yes; he's here."
+
+There was certainly a touch of impatience in the tone in which this was
+uttered. It was as though she had said that Mr. Anderson had so
+contrived that she could have no doubt whatever about his continued
+presence. Mr. Anderson had made himself so conspicuous as to be visible
+to her constantly. Lady Mountjoy, who intended at present to sing Mr.
+Anderson's praises, felt this to be impertinent.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that. Mr. Anderson has behaved himself
+quite like a gentleman, and you ought to be very proud of any token you
+may receive of his regard and affection."
+
+"But I'm not bound to return to it."
+
+"You are bound to think of it when those who are responsible for your
+actions tell you to do so."
+
+"Mamma, you mean?"
+
+"I mean your uncle, Sir Magnus Mountjoy." She did not quite dare to say
+that she had meant herself. "I suppose you will admit that Sir Magnus is
+a competent judge of young men's characters?"
+
+"He may be a judge of Mr. Anderson, because Mr. Anderson is his clerk."
+
+There was something of an intention to depreciate in the word "clerk."
+Florence had not thought much of Mr. Anderson's worth, nor, as far as
+she had seen them, of the duties generally performed at the British
+Embassy. She was ignorant of the peculiar little niceties and
+intricacies which required the residence at Brussels of a gentleman with
+all the tact possessed by Sir Magnus. She did not know that while the
+mere international work of the office might be safely intrusted to Mr.
+Blow and Mr. Bunderdown, all those little niceties, that smiling and
+that frowning, that taking off of hats and only half taking them off,
+that genial, easy manner, and that stiff hauteur, formed the peculiar
+branch of Sir Magnus himself,--and, under Sir Magnus, of Mr. Anderson.
+She did not understand that even to that pair of ponies which was
+promised to her were to be attached certain important functions, which
+she was to control as the deputy of the great man's deputy And now she
+had called the great man's deputy a clerk!
+
+"Mr. Anderson is no such thing," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"His young man, then,--or private secretary;--only somebody else is
+that."
+
+"You are very impertinent and very ungrateful. Mr. Anderson is second
+secretary of legation. There is no officer attached to our establishment
+of more importance. I believe you say it on purpose to anger me. And
+then you compare this gentleman to Mr. Annesley, a man to whom no one
+will speak."
+
+"I will speak to him." Had Harry heard her say that, he ought to have
+been a happy man in spite of his trouble.
+
+"You! What good can you do him?" Florence nodded her head, almost
+imperceptibly, but still there was a nod, signifying more than she could
+possibly say. She thought that she could do him a world of good if she
+were near him, and some good, too, though she were far away. If she were
+with him she could hang on to his arm,--or perhaps at some future time
+round his neck,--and tell him that she would be true to him though all
+others might turn away. And she could be just as true where she was,
+though she could not comfort him by telling him so with her own words.
+Then it was that she resolved upon writing that letter. He should
+already have what little comfort she might administer in his absence.
+"Now, listen to me, Florence. He is a thorough reprobate."
+
+"I will not hear him so called. He is no reprobate."
+
+"He has behaved in such a way that all England is crying out about him.
+He has done that which will never allow any gentleman to speak to him
+again."
+
+"Then there will be more need that a lady should do so. But it is not
+true."
+
+"You put your knowledge of character against that of Sir Magnus."
+
+"Sir Magnus does not know the gentleman; I do. What's the good of
+talking of it, aunt? Harry Annesley has my word, and nothing on earth
+shall induce me to go back from it. Even were he what you say I would be
+true to him."
+
+"You would?"
+
+"Certainly I would. I could not willingly begin to love a man whom I
+knew to be base; but when I had loved him I would not turn because of
+his baseness;--I couldn't do it. It would be a great--a terrible
+misfortune; but it would have to be borne. But here--I know all the
+story to which you allude."
+
+"I know it too."
+
+"I am quite sure that the baseness has not been on his part. In defence
+of my name he has been silent. He might have spoken out, if he had known
+all the truth then. I was as much his own then as I am now. One of these
+days I suppose I shall be more so."
+
+"You mean to marry him, then?"
+
+"Most certainly I do, or I will never be married; and as he is poor now,
+and I must have my own money when I am twenty-four, I suppose I shall
+have to wait till then."
+
+"Will your mother's word go for nothing with you?"
+
+"Poor mamma! I do believe that mamma is very unhappy, because she makes
+me unhappy. What may take place between me and mamma I am not bound, I
+think, to tell you. We shall be away soon, and I shall be left to mamma
+alone."
+
+And mamma would be left alone to her daughter, Lady Mountjoy thought.
+The visit must be prolonged so that at last Mr. Anderson might be
+enabled to prevail.
+
+The visit had been originally intended for a month, but was now
+prolonged indefinitely. After that conversation between Lady Mountjoy
+and her niece two or three things happened, all bearing upon our story.
+Florence at once wrote her letter. If things were going badly in England
+with Harry Annesley, Harry should at any rate have the comfort of
+knowing what were her feelings,--if there might be comfort to him in
+that. "Perhaps, after all, he won't mind what I may say," she thought to
+herself; but only pretended to think it, and at once flatly contradicted
+her own "perhaps." Then she told him most emphatically not to reply. It
+was very important that she should write. He was to receive her letter,
+and there must be an end of it. She was quite sure that he would
+understand her. He would not subject her to the trouble of having to
+tell her own people that she was maintaining a correspondence, for it
+would amount to that. But still when the time came for the answer she
+had counted it up to the hour. And when Sir Magnus sent for her and
+handed to her the letter,--having discussed that question with her
+mother,--she fully expected it, and felt properly grateful to her uncle.
+She wanted a little comfort, too, and when she had read the letter she
+knew that she had received it.
+
+There had been a few words spoken between the two elder ladies after the
+interview between Florence and Lady Mountjoy. "She is a most self-willed
+young woman," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"Of course she loves her lover," said Mrs. Mountjoy, desirous of making
+some excuse for her own daughter. The girl was very troublesome, but not
+the less her daughter. "I don't know any of them that don't who are
+worth anything."
+
+"If you regard it in that light, Sarah, she'll get the better of you. If
+she marries him she will be lost; that is the way you have got to look
+at it. It is her future happiness you must think of--and respectability.
+She is a headstrong young woman, and has to be treated accordingly."
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"I would be very severe."
+
+"But what am I to do? I can't beat her; I can't lock her up in her
+room."
+
+"Then you mean to give it up?"
+
+"No, I don't. You shouldn't be so cross to me," said poor Mrs. Mountjoy.
+When it had reached this the two ladies had become intimate. "I don't
+mean to give it up at all; but what am I to do?"
+
+"Remain here for the next month, and--and worry her; let Mr. Anderson
+have his chance with her. When she finds that everything will smile
+with her if she accepts him, and that her life will be made a burden to
+her if she still sticks to her Harry Annesley, she'll come round, if she
+be like other girls. Of course a girl can't be made to marry a man, but
+there are ways and means." By this Lady Mountjoy meant that the utmost
+cruelty should be used which would be compatible with a good breakfast,
+dinner, and bedroom. Now, Mrs. Mountjoy knew herself to be incapable of
+this, and knew also, or thought that she knew, that it would not be
+efficacious.
+
+"You stay here,--up to Christmas, if you like it," said Sir Magnus to his
+sister-in-law. "She can't but see Anderson every day, and that goes a
+long way. She, of course, puts on a resolute air as well as she can.
+They all know how to do that. Do you be resolute in return. The deuce is
+in it if we can't have our way with her among us. When you talk of ill
+usage nobody wants you to put her in chains. There are different ways of
+killing a cat. You get friends to write to you from England about young
+Annesley, and I'll do the same. The truth, of course, I mean."
+
+"Nothing can be worse than the truth," said Mrs. Mountjoy, shaking her
+head, sorrowfully.
+
+"Just so," said Sir Magnus, who was not at all sorrowful to hear so bad
+an account of the favored suitor. "Then we'll read her the letters. She
+can't help hearing them. Just the true facts, you know. That's fair;
+nobody can call that cruel. And then, when she breaks down and comes to
+our call, we'll all be as soft as mother's milk to her. I shall see her
+going about the boulevards with a pair of ponies yet." Mrs. Mountjoy
+felt that when Sir Magnus spoke of Florence coming to his call he did
+not know her daughter. But she had nothing better to do than to obey Sir
+Magnus. Therefore she resolved to stay at Brussels another period of six
+weeks and told Florence that she had so resolved. Just at present
+Brussels and Cheltenham would be all the same to Florence.
+
+"It will be a dreadful bore having them so long," said poor Lady
+Mountjoy, piteously, to her husband. For in the presence of Sir Magnus
+she was by no means the valiant woman that she was with some of her
+friends.
+
+"You find everything a bore. What's the trouble?"
+
+"What am I to do with them?"
+
+"Take 'em about in the carriage. Lord bless my soul! what have you got a
+carriage for?"
+
+"Then, with Miss Abbott, there's never room for any one else."
+
+"Leave Miss Abbott at home, then. What's the good of talking to me about
+Miss Abbott? I suppose it doesn't matter to you whom my brother's
+daughter marries?" Lady Mountjoy did not think that it did matter much;
+but she declared that she had already evinced the most tender
+solicitude. "Then stick to it. The girl doesn't want to go out every
+day. Leave her alone, where Anderson can get at her."
+
+"He's always out riding with you."
+
+"No, he's not; not always. And leave Miss Abbott at home. Then there'll
+be room for two others. Don't make difficulties. Anderson will expect
+that I shall do something for him, of course."
+
+"Because of the money," said Lady Mountjoy, whispering.
+
+"And I've got to do something for her too." Now, there was a spice of
+honesty about Sir Magnus. He knew that as he could not at once pay back
+these sums, he was bound to make it up in some other way. The debts
+would be left the same. But that would remain with Providence.
+
+Then came Harry's letter, and there was a deep consultation. It was
+known to have come from Harry by the Buntingford post-mark. Mrs.
+Mountjoy proposed to consult Lady Mountjoy; but to that Sir Magnus would
+not agree. "She'd take her skin off her if she could, now that she's
+angered," said the lady's husband, who no doubt knew the lady well. "Of
+course she'll learn that the letter has been written, and then she'll
+throw it in our teeth. She wouldn't believe that it had gone astray in
+coming here. We should give her a sort of a whip-hand over us." So it
+was decided that Florence should have her letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+FLORENCE'S REQUEST.
+
+
+Thus it was arranged that Florence should be left in Mr. Anderson's way.
+Mr. Anderson, as Sir Magnus had said, was not always out riding. There
+were moments in which even he was off duty. And Sir Magnus contrived to
+ride a little earlier than usual so that he should get back while the
+carriage was still out on its rounds. Lady Mountjoy certainly did her
+duty, taking Mrs. Mountjoy with her daily, and generally Miss Abbott, so
+that Florence was, as it were, left to the mercies of Mr. Anderson. She
+could, of course, shut herself up in her bedroom, but things had not as
+yet become so bad as that. Mr. Anderson had not made himself terrible to
+her. She did not, in truth, fear Mr. Anderson at all, who was courteous
+in his manner and complimentary in his language, and she came at this
+time to the conclusion that if Mr. Anderson continued his pursuit of her
+she would tell him the exact truth of the case. As a gentleman, and as a
+young man, she thought that he would sympathize with her. The one enemy
+whom she did dread was Lady Mountjoy. She too had felt that her aunt
+could "take her skin off her," as Sir Magnus had said. She had not heard
+the words, but she knew that it was so, and her dislike to Lady Mountjoy
+was in proportion. It cannot be said that she was afraid. She did not
+intend to leave her skin in her aunt's hands. For every inch of skin
+taken she resolved to have an inch in return. She was not acquainted
+with the expressive mode of language which Sir Magnus had adopted, but
+she was prepared for all such attacks. For Sir Magnus himself, since he
+had given up the letter to her, she did feel some regard.
+
+Behind the British minister's house, which, though entitled to no such
+name, was generally called the Embassy, there was a large garden, which,
+though not much used by Sir Magnus or Lady Mountjoy, was regarded as a
+valuable adjunct to the establishment. Here Florence betook herself for
+exercise, and here Mr. Anderson, having put off the muddy marks of his
+riding, found her one afternoon. It must be understood that no young man
+was ever more in earnest than Mr. Anderson. He, too, looking through the
+glass which had been prepared for him by Sir Magnus, thought that he saw
+in the not very far distant future a Mrs. Hugh Anderson driving a pair
+of gray ponies along the boulevard and he was much pleased with the
+sight. It reached to the top of his ambition. Florence was to his eyes
+really the sort of a girl whom a man in his position ought to marry. A
+secretary of legation in a small foreign capital cannot do with a dowdy
+wife, as may a clerk, for instance, in the Foreign Office. A secretary
+of legation,--the second secretary, he told himself,--was bound, if he
+married at all, to have a pretty and _distinguee_ wife. He knew all
+about the intricacies which had fallen in a peculiar way into his own
+hand. Mr. Blow might have married a South Sea Islander, and would have
+been none the worse as regarded his official duties. Mr. Blow did not
+want the services of a wife in discovering and reporting all the secrets
+of the Belgium iron trade. There was no intricacy in that, no nicety.
+There was much of what, in his lighter moments, Mr. Anderson called
+"sweat." He did not pretend to much capacity for such duties; but in his
+own peculiar walk he thought that he was great. But it was very
+fatiguing, and he was sure that a wife was necessary to him. There were
+little niceties which none but a wife could perform. He had a great
+esteem for Sir Magnus. Sir Magnus was well thought of by all the court,
+and by the foreign minister at Brussels. But Lady Mountjoy was really of
+no use. The beginning and the end of it all with her was to show herself
+in a carriage. It was incumbent upon him, Anderson, to marry.
+
+He was loving enough, and very susceptible. He was too susceptible, and
+he knew his own fault, and he was always on guard against it,--as
+behooved a young man with such duties as his. He was always falling in
+love, and then using his diplomatic skill in avoiding the consequences.
+He had found out that though one girl had looked so well under waxlight
+she did not endure the wear and tear of the day. Another could not be
+always graceful, or, though she could talk well enough during a waltz,
+she had nothing to say for herself at three o'clock in the morning. And
+he was driven to calculate that he would be wrong to marry a girl
+without a shilling. "It is a kind of thing that a man cannot afford to
+do unless he's sure of his position," he had said on such an occasion to
+Montgomery Arbuthnot, alluding especially to his brother's state of
+health. When Mr. Anderson spoke of not being sure of his position he was
+always considered to allude to his brother's health. In this way he had
+nearly got his little boat on to the rocks more than once, and had given
+some trouble to Sir Magnus. But now he was quite sure. "It's all there
+all round," he had said to Arbuthnot more than once. Arbuthnot said that
+it was there--"all round, all round." Waxlight and daylight made no
+difference to her. She was always graceful. "Nobody with an eye in his
+head can doubt that," said Anderson. "I should think not, by Jove!"
+replied Arbuthnot. "And for talking,--you never catch her out; never." "I
+never did, certainly," said Arbuthnot, who, as third secretary, was
+obedient and kind-hearted. "And then look at her money. Of course a
+fellow wants something to help him on. My position is so uncertain that
+I cannot do without it." "Of course not." "Now, with some girls it's so
+deuced hard to find out. You hear that a girl has got money, but when
+the time comes it depends on the life of a father who doesn't think of
+dying;--damme, doesn't think of it."
+
+"Those fellows never do," said Arbuthnot. "But here, you see, I know all
+about it. When she's twenty-four,--only twenty-four,--she'll have ten
+thousand pounds of her own. I hate a mercenary fellow." "Oh yes; that's
+beastly." "Nobody can say that of me. Circumstanced as I am, I want
+something to help to keep the pot boiling. She has got it,--quite as much
+as I want,--quite, and I know all about it without the slightest doubt in
+the world." For the small loan of fifteen hundred pounds Sir Magnus paid
+the full value of the interest and deficient security. "Sir Magnus tells
+me that if I'll only stick to her I shall be sure to win. There's some
+fellow in England has just touched her heart,--just touched it, you
+know." "I understand," said Arbuthnot, looking very wise. "He is not a
+fellow of very much account," said Anderson; "one of those handsome
+fellows without conduct and without courage." "I've known lots of 'em,"
+said Arbuthnot. "His name is Annesley," said Anderson. "I never saw him
+in my life, but that's what Sir Magnus says. He has done something
+awfully disreputable. I don't quite understand what it is, but it's
+something which ought to make him unfit to be her husband. Nobody knows
+the world better than Sir Magnus, and he says that it is so." "Nobody
+does know the world better than Sir Magnus," said Arbuthnot. And so that
+conversation was brought to an end.
+
+One day soon after this he caught her walking in the garden. Her mother
+and Miss Abbot were still out with Lady Mountjoy in the carriage, and
+Sir Magnus had retired after the fatigue of his ride to sleep for half
+an hour before dinner. "All alone, Miss Mountjoy?" he said.
+
+"Yes, alone, Mr. Anderson. I'm never in better company."
+
+"So I think; but then if I were here you wouldn't be all alone, would
+you?"
+
+"Not if you were with me."
+
+"That's what I mean. But yet two people may be alone, as regards the
+world at large. Mayn't they?"
+
+"I don't understand the nicety of language well enough to say. We used
+to have a question among us when we were children whether a wild beast
+could howl in an empty cavern. It's the same sort of thing."
+
+"Why shouldn't he?"
+
+"Because the cavern would not be empty if the wild beast were in it.
+Did you ever see a girl bang an egg against a wall in a stocking, and
+then look awfully surprised because she had smashed it?"
+
+"I don't understand the joke."
+
+"She had been told she couldn't break an egg in an empty stocking. Then
+she was made to look in, and there was the broken egg for her pains. I
+don't know what made me tell you that story."
+
+"It's a very good story. I'll get Miss Abbott to do it to-night. She
+believes everything."
+
+"And everybody? Then she's a happy woman."
+
+"I wish you'd believe everybody."
+
+"So I do;--nearly everybody. There are some inveterate liars whom nobody
+can believe."
+
+"I hope I am not regarded as one."
+
+"You? certainly not. If anybody were to speak of you as such behind your
+back no one would take your part more loyally than I. But nobody would."
+
+"That's something, at any rate. Then you do believe that I love you?"
+
+"I believe that you think so."
+
+"And that I don't know my own heart?"
+
+"That's very common, Mr. Anderson. I wasn't quite sure of my own heart
+twelve months ago, but I know it now." He felt that his hopes ran very
+low when this was said. She had never before spoken to him of his rival,
+nor had he to her. He knew, or fancied that he knew, that "her heart had
+been touched," as he had said to Arbuthnot. But the "touch" must have
+been very deep if she felt herself constrained to speak to him on the
+subject. It had been his desire to pass over Mr. Annesley, and never to
+hear the name mentioned between them. "You were speaking of your own
+heart."
+
+"Well I was, no doubt. It is a silly thing to talk of, I dare say."
+
+"I'm going to tell you of my heart, and I hope you won't think it silly.
+I do so because I believe you to be a gentleman, and a man of honor." He
+blushed at the words and the tone in which they were spoken, but his
+heart fell still lower. "Mr. Anderson, I am engaged." Here she paused a
+moment, but he had nothing to say. "I am engaged to marry a gentleman
+whom I love with all my heart, and all my strength, and all my body. I
+love him so that nothing can ever separate me from him, or, at least,
+from the thoughts of him. As regards all the interests of life, I feel
+as though I were already his wife. If I ever marry any man I swear to
+you that it will be him." Then Mr. Anderson felt that all hope had
+utterly departed from him. She had said that she believed him to be a
+man of truth. He certainly believed her to be a true-speaking woman. He
+asked himself, and he found it to be quite impossible to doubt her word
+on this subject. "Now I will go on and tell you my troubles. My mother
+disapproves of the man. Sir Magnus has taken upon himself to disapprove,
+and Lady Mountjoy disapproves especially. I don't care two straws about
+Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy. As to Lady Mountjoy, it is simply an
+impertinence on her part, interfering with me." There was something in
+her face as she said this which made Mr. Anderson feel that if he could
+only succeed in having her and the pair of ponies he would be a prouder
+man than the ambassador at Paris. But he knew that it was hopeless. "As
+to my mother, that is indeed a sorrow. She has been to me the dearest
+mother, putting her only hopes of happiness in me. No mother was ever
+more devoted to a child, and of all children I should be the most
+ungrateful were I to turn against her. But from my early years she has
+wished me to marry a man whom I could not bring myself to love. You have
+heard of Captain Scarborough?"
+
+"The man who disappeared?"
+
+"He was and is my first cousin."
+
+"He is in some way connected with Sir Magnus."
+
+"Through mamma. Mamma is aunt to Captain Scarborough, and she married
+the brother of Sir Magnus. Well, he has disappeared and been
+disinherited. I cannot explain all about it, for I don't understand it;
+but he has come to great trouble. It was not on that account that I
+would not marry him. It was partly because I did not like him, and
+partly because of Harry Annesley. I will tell you everything because I
+want you to know my story. But my mother has disliked Mr. Annesley,
+because she has thought that he has interfered with my cousin."
+
+"I understand all that."
+
+"And she has been taught to think that Mr. Annesley has behaved very
+badly. I cannot quite explain it, because there is a brother of Captain
+Scarborough who has interfered. I never loved Captain Scarborough, but
+that man I hate. He has spread those stories. Captain Scarborough has
+disappeared, but before he went he thought it well to revenge himself on
+Mr. Annesley. He attacked him in the street late at night, and
+endeavored to beat him."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Why indeed. That such a trumpery cause as a girl's love should operate
+with such a man!"
+
+"I can understand it; oh yes,--I can understand it."
+
+"I believe he was tipsy, and he had been gambling, and had lost all his
+money--more than all his money. He was a ruined man, and reckless and
+wretched. I can forgive him, and so does Harry. But in the struggle
+Harry got the best of it, and left him there in the street. No weapons
+had been used, except that Captain Scarborough had a stick. There was no
+reason to suppose him hurt, nor was he much hurt. He had behaved very
+badly, and Harry left him. Had he gone for a policeman he could only
+have given him in charge. The man was not hurt, and seems to have walked
+away."
+
+"The papers were full of it."
+
+"Yes, the papers were full of it, because he was missing. I don't know
+yet what became of him, but I have my suspicions."
+
+"They say that he has been seen at Monaco."
+
+"Very likely. But I have nothing to do with that. Though he was my
+cousin, I am touched nearer in another place. Young Mr. Scarborough,
+who, I suspect, knows all about his brother, took upon himself to
+cross-question Mr. Annesley. Mr. Annesley did not care to tell anything
+of that struggle in the streets, and denied that he had seen him. In
+truth, he did not want to have my name mentioned. My belief is that
+Augustus Scarborough knew exactly what had taken place when he asked the
+question. It was he who really was false. But he is now the heir to
+Tretton and a great man in his way, and in order to injure Harry
+Annesley he has spread abroad the story which they all tell here."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"He does;--that is all I know. But I will not be a hypocrite. He chose to
+wish that I should not marry Harry Annesley. I cannot tell you farther
+than that. But he has persuaded mamma, and has told every one. He shall
+never persuade me."
+
+"Everybody seems to believe him," said Mr. Anderson, not as intending to
+say that he believed him now, but that he had done so.
+
+"Of course they do. He has simply ruined Harry. He too has been
+disinherited now. I don't know how they do these things, but it has been
+done. His uncle has been turned against him, and his whole income has
+been taken from him. But they will never persuade me. Nor, if they did,
+would I be untrue to him. It is a grand thing for a girl to have a
+perfect faith in the man she has to marry, as I have--as I have. I know
+my man, and will as soon disbelieve in Heaven as in him. But were he
+what they say he is, he would still have to become my husband. I should
+be broken-hearted, but I should still be true. Thank God, though,--thank
+God,--he has done nothing and will do nothing to make me ashamed of him.
+Now you know my story."
+
+"Yes; now I know it." The tears came very near the poor man's eyes as he
+answered.
+
+"And what will you do for me?"
+
+"What shall I do?"
+
+"Yes; what will you do? I have told you all my story, believing you to
+be a fine-tempered gentleman. You have entertained a fancy which has
+been encouraged by Sir Magnus. Will you promise me not to speak to me of
+it again? Will you relieve me of so much of my trouble? Will you;--will
+you?" Then, when he turned away, she followed him, and put both her
+hands upon his arm. "Will you do that little thing for me?"
+
+"A little thing!"
+
+"Is it not a little thing,--when I am so bound to that other man that
+nothing can move me? Whether it be little or whether it be much, will
+you not do it?" She still held him by the arm, but his face was turned
+from her so that she could not see it. The tears, absolute tears, were
+running down his cheeks. What did it behoove him as a man to do? Was he
+to believe her vows now and grant her request, and was she then to give
+herself to some third person and forget Harry Annesley altogether? How
+would it be with him then? A faint heart never won a fair lady. All is
+fair in love and war. You cannot catch cherries by holding your mouth
+open. A great amount of wisdom such as this came to him at the spur of
+the moment. But there was her hand upon his arm, and he could not elude
+her request. "Will you not do it for me?" she asked again.
+
+"I will," he said, still keeping his face turned away.
+
+"I knew it;--I knew you would. You are high-minded and honest, and cannot
+be cruel to a poor girl. And if in time to come, when I am Harry
+Annesley's wife, we shall chance to meet each other,--as we will,--he
+shall thank you."
+
+"I shall not want that. What will his thanks do for me? You do not think
+that I shall be silent to oblige him?" Then he walked forth from out of
+the garden, and she had never seen his tears. But she knew well that he
+was weeping, and she sympathized with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+MR. ANDERSON IS ILL.
+
+
+When they went down to dinner that day it became known that Mr. Anderson
+did not intend to dine with them. "He's got a headache," said Sir
+Magnus. "He says he's got a headache. I never knew such a thing in my
+life before." It was quite clear that Sir Magnus did not think that his
+lieutenant ought to have such a headache as would prevent his coming to
+dinner, and that he did not quite believe in the headache. There was a
+dinner ready, a very good dinner, which it was his business to provide.
+He always did provide it, and took a great deal of trouble to see that
+it was good. "There isn't a table so well kept in all Brussels," he used
+to boast. But when he had done his share he expected that Anderson and
+Arbuthnot should do theirs, especially Anderson. There had been
+sometimes a few words,--not quite a quarrel but nearly so,--on the subject
+of dining out. Sir Magnus only dined out with royalty, cabinet
+ministers, and other diplomats. Even then he rarely got a good
+dinner--what he called a good dinner. He often took Anderson with him.
+He was the _doyen_ among the diplomats in Brussels, and a little
+indulgence was shown to him. Therefore he thought that Anderson should
+be as true to him as was he to Anderson. It was not for Anderson's sake,
+indeed, who felt the bondage to be irksome;--and Sir Magnus knew that his
+subordinate sometimes groaned in spirit. But a good dinner is a good
+dinner,--especially the best dinner in Brussels,--and Sir Magnus felt that
+something ought to be given in return. He had not that perfect faith in
+mankind which is the surest evidence of a simple mind. Ideas crowded
+upon him. Had Anderson a snug little dinner-party, just two or three
+friends, in his own room? Sir Magnus would not have been very angry,--he
+was rarely very angry,--but he should like to show his cleverness by
+finding it out. Anderson had been quite well when he was out riding, and
+he did not remember him ever before to have had a headache. "Is he very
+bad, Arbuthnot?"
+
+"I haven't seen him, sir, since he was riding."
+
+"Who has seen him?"
+
+"He was in the garden with me," said Florence, boldly.
+
+"I suppose that did not give him a headache."
+
+"Not that I perceived."
+
+"It is very singular that he should have a headache just when dinner is
+ready," continued Sir Magnus.
+
+"You had better leave the young man alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+And one who knew the ways of living at the British Embassy would be sure
+that after this Sir Magnus would not leave the young man alone. His
+nature was not simple. It seemed to him again that there might be a
+little dinner-party, and that Lady Mountjoy knew all about it.
+"Richard," he said to the butler, "go into Mr. Anderson's room and see
+if he is very bad." Richard came back, and whispered to the great man
+that Anderson was not in his room. "This is very remarkable. A bad
+headache, and not in his room! Where is he? I insist on knowing where
+Mr. Anderson is!"
+
+"You had better leave him alone," said Lady Mountjoy.
+
+"Leave a man alone because he's ill! He might die."
+
+"Shall I go and see?" said Arbuthnot.
+
+"I wish you would, and bring him in here, if he's well enough to show. I
+don't approve of a young man going without his dinner. There's nothing
+so bad."
+
+"He'll be sure to get something, Sir Magnus," said Lady Mountjoy. But
+Sir Magnus insisted that Mr. Arbuthnot should go and look after his
+friend.
+
+It was now November, and at eight o'clock was quite dark, but the
+weather was fine, and something of the mildness of autumn remained.
+Arbuthnot was not long in discovering that Mr. Anderson was again
+walking in the garden. He had left Florence there and had gone to the
+house, but had found himself to be utterly desolate and miserable. She
+had exacted from him a promise which was not compatible with any kind of
+happiness to which he could now look forward. In the first place, all
+Brussels knew that he had been in love with Florence Mountjoy. He
+thought that all Brussels knew it. And they knew that he had been in
+earnest in this love. He did believe that all Brussels had given him
+credit for so much. And now they would know that he had suddenly ceased
+to make love. It might be that this should be attributed to gallantry on
+his part,--that it should be considered that the lady had been deserted.
+But he was conscious that he was not so good a hypocrite as not to show
+that he was broken-hearted. He was quite sure that it would be seen that
+he had got the worst of it. But when he asked himself questions as to
+his own condition he told himself that there was suffering in store for
+him more heavy to bear than these. There could be no ponies, with
+Florence driving them, and a boy in his own livery behind, seen upon the
+boulevards. That vision was gone, and forever. And then came upon him an
+idea that the absence of the girl from other portions of his life might
+touch him more nearly. He did feel something like actual love. And the
+more she had told him of her devotion to Harry Annesley, the more
+strongly he had felt the value of that devotion. Why should this man
+have it and not he? He had not been disinherited. He had not been
+knocked about in a street quarrel. He had not been driven to tell a lie
+as to his having not seen a man when he had, in truth, knocked him down.
+He had quite agreed with Florence that Harry was justified in the lie;
+but there was nothing in it to make the girl love him the better for it.
+
+And then, looking forward, he could perceive the possibility of an event
+which, if it should occur, would cover him with confusion and disgrace.
+If, after all, Florence were to take, not Harry Annesley, but somebody
+else? How foolish, how credulous, how vain would he have been then to
+have made the promise! Girls did such things every day. He had promised,
+and he thought that he must keep his promise; but she would be bound by
+no promise! As he thought of it, he reflected that he might even yet
+exact such a promise from her.
+
+But when the dinner-time came he really was sick with love,--or sick with
+disappointment. He felt that he could not eat his dinner under the
+battery of raillery which was always coming from Sir Magnus, and
+therefore he had told the servants that as the evening progressed he
+would have something to eat in his own room. And then he went out to
+wander in the dusk beneath the trees in the garden. Here he was
+encountered by Mr. Arbuthnot, with his dress boots and white cravat.
+"What the mischief are you doing here, old fellow?"
+
+"I'm not very well. I have an awfully bilious headache."
+
+"Sir Magnus is kicking up a deuce of a row because you're not there."
+
+"Sir Magnus be blowed! How am I to be there if I've got a bilious
+headache? I'm not dressed. I could not have dressed myself for a
+five-pound note."
+
+"Couldn't you, now? Shall I go back and tell him that? But you must have
+something to eat. I don't know what's up, but Sir Magnus is in a
+taking."
+
+"He's always in a taking. I sometimes think he's the biggest fool out."
+
+"And there's the place kept vacant next to Miss Mountjoy. Grascour
+wanted to sit there, but her ladyship wouldn't let him. And I sat next
+Miss Abbott because I didn't want to be in your way."
+
+"Tell Grascour to go and sit there, or you may do so. It's all nothing
+to me." This he said in the bitterness of his heart, by no means
+intending to tell his secret, but unable to keep it within his own
+bosom.
+
+"What's the matter, Anderson?" asked the other piteously.
+
+"I am clean broken-hearted. I don't mind telling you. I know you're a
+good fellow, and I'll tell you everything. It's all over."
+
+"All over--with Miss Mountjoy?" Then Anderson began to tell the whole
+story; but before he had got half through, or a quarter through, another
+message came from Sir Magnus. "Sir Magnus is becoming very angry
+indeed," whispered the butler. "He says that Mr. Arbuthnot is to go
+back."
+
+"I'd better go, or I shall catch it."
+
+"What's up with him, Richard?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Well, if you ask me, Mr. Anderson, I think he's--a-suspecting of
+something."
+
+"What does he suspect?"
+
+"I think he's a-thinking that perhaps you are having a jolly time of
+it." Richard had known his master many years, and could almost read his
+inmost thoughts. "I don't say as it so, but that's what I am thinking."
+
+"You tell him I ain't. You tell him I've a bad bilious headache, and
+that the air in the garden does it good. You tell him that I mean to
+have something to eat up-stairs when my head is better; and do you mind
+and let me have it, and a bottle of claret."
+
+With this the butler went back, and so did Arbuthnot, after asking one
+other question: "I'm so sorry it isn't all serene with Miss Mountjoy?"
+
+"It isn't then. Don't mind now, but it isn't serene. Don't say a word
+about her; but she has done me. I think I shall get leave of absence and
+go away for two months. You'll have to do all the riding, old fellow. I
+shall go,--but I don't know where I shall go. You return to them now, and
+tell them I've such a bilious headache I don't know which way to turn
+myself."
+
+Arbuthnot went back, and found Sir Magnus quarrelling grievously with
+the butler. "I don't think he's doing anything as he shouldn't," the
+butler whispered, having seen into his master's mind.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Do let the matter drop," said Lady Mountjoy, who had also seen into her
+husband's mind, and saw, moreover, that the butler had done so. "A young
+man's dinner isn't worth all this bother."
+
+"I won't let the matter drop. What does he mean when he says that he
+isn't doing anything that he shouldn't? I've never said anything about
+what he was doing."
+
+"He isn't dressed, Sir Magnus. He finds himself a little better now, and
+means to have something up-stairs." Then there came an awful silence,
+during which the dinner was eaten. Sir Magnus knew nothing of the truth,
+simply suspecting the headache to be a myth. Lady Mountjoy, with a
+woman's quickness, thought that there had been some words between
+Florence and her late lover, and, as she disliked Florence, was inclined
+to throw all the blame upon her. A word had been said to Mrs.
+Mountjoy,--"I don't think he'll trouble me any more, mamma,"--which Mrs.
+Mountjoy did not quite understand, but which she connected with the
+young man's absence. But Florence understood it all, and liked Mr.
+Anderson the better. Could it really be that for love of her he would
+lose his dinner? Could it be that he was so grievously afflicted at the
+loss of a girl's heart? There he was, walking out in the dark and the
+cold, half-famished, all because she loved Harry Annesley so well that
+there could be no chance for him! Girls believe so little in the truth
+of the love of men that any sign of its reality touches them to the
+core. Poor Hugh Anderson! A tear came into her eye as she thought that
+he was wandering there in the dark, and all for the love of her. The
+rest of the dinner passed away in silence, and Sir Magnus hardly became
+cordial and communicative with M. Grascour, even under the influence of
+his wine.
+
+On the next morning just before lunch Florence was waylaid by Mr.
+Anderson as she was passing along one of the passages in the back part
+of the house. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I want to ask from your great
+goodness the indulgence of a few words."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Could you come into the garden?"
+
+"If you will give me time to go and change my boots and get a shawl. We
+ladies are not ready to go out always, as are you gentlemen."
+
+"Anywhere will do. Come in here," and he led the way into a small parlor
+which was not often used.
+
+"I was so sorry to hear last night that you were unwell, Mr. Anderson."
+
+"I was not very well, certainly, after what I had heard before dinner."
+He did not tell her that he so far recovered as to be able to drink a
+bottle of claret and to smoke a couple of cigars in his bedroom. "Of
+course you remember what took place yesterday."
+
+"Remember! Oh yes. I shall not readily forget it."
+
+"I made you a promise--"
+
+"You did--very kindly."
+
+"And I mean to keep it."
+
+"I'm sure you do, because you're a gentleman."
+
+"I don't think I ought to have made it."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+
+"I don't think I ought. See what I am giving up."
+
+"Nothing, except the privilege of troubling me."
+
+"But if it should be something else? Do not be angry with me, but,
+loving you as I do, of course my mind is full of it. I have promised,
+and must be dumb."
+
+"And I shall be spared great vexation."
+
+"But suppose I were to hear that in six months' time you had married
+some one else?"
+
+"Mr. Annesley, you mean. Not in six months."
+
+"Somebody else. Not Mr. Annesley."
+
+"There is nobody else."
+
+"But there might be."
+
+"It is impossible. After all that I told you, do not you understand?"
+
+"But if there were?" The poor man, as he made the suggestion, looked
+very piteous. "If there were, I think you should promise me I shall be
+that somebody else. That would be no more than fair."
+
+She paused a moment to think, frowning the while. "Certainly not."
+
+"Certainly not?"
+
+"I can make no such promise, nor should you ask it. I am to promise that
+under certain circumstances I would become your wife, when I know that
+under no circumstances I would do so."
+
+"Under no circumstances?"
+
+"Under none. What would you have me say, Mr. Anderson? Supposing
+yourself engaged to marry a girl--"
+
+"I wish I were--to you."
+
+"To a girl who loved you, and whom you loved?"
+
+"There's no doubt about my loving her."
+
+"You can follow my meaning, and I wish that you would do so. What would
+you think if you were to hear that she had promised to marry some one
+else in the event of your deserting her? It is out of the question. I
+mean to be the wife of Harry Annesley. Say that it is not to be so, and
+you will simply destroy me. Of one thing I may be sure,--that I will
+marry him or nobody. You promised me, not because your promise was
+necessary for that, but to spare me from trouble till that time shall
+come. And I am grateful,--very grateful." Then she left him suffering
+from another headache.
+
+"Was there anything said between you and Mr. Anderson yesterday?" her
+aunt inquired, that afternoon.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because it is necessary that I should know."
+
+"I do not see the necessity. Mr. Anderson has, at any rate, your
+permission to say what he likes to me, but I am not on that account
+bound to tell you all that he does say. But I will tell you. He has
+promised to trouble me no farther. I told him that I was engaged to Mr.
+Annesley, and he, like a gentleman, has assured me that he will desist."
+
+"Just because you asked him?"
+
+"Yes, aunt; just because I asked him."
+
+"He will not be bound by such a promise for a moment. It is a thing not
+to be heard of. If that kind of thing is to go on, any young lady will
+be entitled to ask any young gentleman not to say a word of marriage,
+just at her request."
+
+"Some of the young ladies would not care for that, perhaps."
+
+"Don't be impertinent."
+
+"I should not, for one, aunt; only that I am already engaged."
+
+"And of course the young ladies would be bound to make such requests,
+which would go for nothing at all. I never heard of anything so
+monstrous. You are not only to have the liberty of refusing, but are to
+be allowed to bind a gentleman not to ask!"
+
+"He has promised."
+
+"Pshaw! It means nothing."
+
+"It is between him and me. I asked him because I wished to save myself
+from being troubled."
+
+"As for that other man, my dear, it is quite out of the question. From
+all that I hear, it is on the cards that he may be arrested and put into
+prison. I am quite sure that at any rate he deserves it. The letters
+which Sir Magnus gets about him are fearful. The things that he has
+done,--well, penal servitude for life would be the proper punishment. And
+it will come upon him sooner or later. I never knew a man of that kind
+escape. And you now to come and tell us that you intend to be his wife!"
+
+"I do," said Florence, bobbing her head.
+
+"And what your uncle says to you has no effect?"
+
+"Not the least in the world; nor what my aunt says. I believe that
+neither the one nor the other know what they are talking about. You have
+been defaming a gentleman of the highest character, a Fellow of a
+college, a fine-hearted, noble, high-spirited man, simply
+because--because--because--" Then she burst into tears and rushed out of
+the room; but she did not break down before she had looked at her aunt,
+and spoken to her aunt with a fierce indignation which had altogether
+served to silence Lady Mountjoy for the moment.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+MR. BARRY.
+
+
+"Good-bye, sir. You ought not to be angry with me. I am sure it will be
+better for us both to remain as we are." This was said by Miss Dorothy
+Grey, as a gentleman departed from her and made his way out of the
+front-door at the Fulham Manor-house. Miss Grey had received an offer of
+marriage, and had declined it. The offer had been made by a worthy man,
+he being no other than her father's partner, Mr. Barry.
+
+It may be remembered that, on discussing the affairs of the firm with
+her father, Dolly Grey had been accustomed to call this partner "the
+Devil." It was not that she had thought this partner to be specially
+devilish, nor was he so. It had ever been Miss Grey's object to have the
+affairs of the firm managed with an integrity which among lawyers might
+be called Quixotic. Her father she had dubbed "Reason," and herself
+"Conscience;" but in calling Mr. Barry "the Devil" she had not intended
+to signify any defalcation from honesty more than ordinary in lawyers'
+offices. She did, in fact, like Mr. Barry. He would occasionally come
+out and dine with her father. He was courteous and respectful, and
+performed his duties with diligence. He spent nobody's money but his
+own, and not all of that; nor did he look upon the world as a place to
+which men were sent that they might play. He was nearly forty years old,
+was clean, a little bald, and healthy in all his ways. There was nothing
+of a devil about him, except that his conscience was not peculiarly
+attentive to abstract honesty and abstract virtue. There must, according
+to him, be always a little "give and take" in the world; but in the
+pursuit of his profession he gave a great deal more than he took. He
+thought himself to be an honest practitioner, and yet in all domestic
+professional conferences with her father Mr. Barry had always been Miss
+Grey's "Devil."
+
+The possibility of such a request as had been now made had been already
+discussed between Dolly and her father. Dolly had said that the idea was
+absurd. Mr. Grey had not seen the absurdity. There had been nothing more
+common, he had said, than that a young partner should marry an old
+partner's daughter. "It's not put into the partnership deed?" Dolly had
+rejoined. But Dolly had never believed that the time would come. Now it
+had come.
+
+Mr. Barry had as yet possessed no more than a fourth of the business. He
+had come in without any capital, and had been contented with a fourth.
+He now suggested to Dolly that on their marriage the business should be
+equally divided. And he had named the house in which they would live.
+There was a pleasant, genteel residence on the other side of the water,
+at Putney. Miss Grey had suggested that the business might be divided in
+a manner that would be less burdensome to Mr. Barry. As for the house,
+she could not leave her father. Upon the whole, she had thought that it
+would be better for both of them that they should remain as they were.
+By that Miss Grey had not intended to signify that Mr. Barry was to
+remain single, but that he would have to do so in reference to Miss
+Grey.
+
+When he was gone Dolly Grey spent the remainder of the afternoon in
+contemplating what would have been her condition had she agreed to join
+her lot to that of Mr. Barry, and she came to the conclusion that it
+would have been simply unendurable. There was nothing of romance in her
+nature; but as she looked at matrimony, with all its blisses,--and Mr.
+Barry among them,--she told herself that death would be preferable. "I
+know myself," she said. "I should come to hate him with a miserable
+hatred. And then I should hate myself for having done him so great an
+evil." And as she continued thinking she assured herself that there was
+but one man with whom she could live, and that that was her father. And
+then other questions presented themselves to her, which were not so
+easily answered. What would become of her when he should go? He was now
+sixty-six, and she was only thirty-two. He was healthy for his age, but
+would complain of his work. She knew that he must in course of nature go
+much the first. Ten years he might live, while she might probably be
+called upon to endure for thirty more. "I shall have to do it all
+alone," she said; "all alone; without a companion, without one soul to
+whom I can open my own. But if I were to marry Mr. Barry," she
+continued, "I should at once be encumbered with a soul to whom I could
+not open my own. I suppose I shall be enabled to live through it, as do
+others." Then she began to prepare for her father's coming. As long as
+he did remain with her she would make the most of him.
+
+"Papa," she said, as she took him by the hand as he entered the house
+and led him into the dining-room,--"who do you think has been here?"
+
+"Mr. Barry."
+
+"Then he has told you?"
+
+"Not a word,--not even that he was coming. But I saw him as he left the
+chambers, and he had on a bright hat and a new coat."
+
+"And he thought that those could move me."
+
+"I have not known that he has wanted to move you. You asked me to guess,
+and I have guessed right, it seems."
+
+"Yes; you have guessed right."
+
+"And why did he come?"
+
+"Only to ask me to be his wife."
+
+"And what did you say to him, Dolly?"
+
+"What did I say to the Devil?" She still held him by the hand, and now
+she laughed lightly as she looked into his face. "Cannot you guess what
+I said to him?"
+
+"I am sorry for it;--that's all."
+
+"Sorry for it? Oh, papa, do not say that you are sorry. Do you want to
+lose me?"
+
+"I do not want to think that for my own selfish purposes I have retained
+you. So he has asked you?"
+
+"Yes; he has asked me."
+
+"And you have answered him positively?"
+
+"Most positively."
+
+"And for my sake?"
+
+"No, papa; I have not said that. I was joking when I asked whether you
+wished to lose me. Of course you do not want to lose me." Then she wound
+her arm round him, and put up her face to be kissed. "But now come and
+dress yourself, as you call it. The dinner is late. We will talk about
+it again after dinner."
+
+But immediately after dinner the conversation went away to Mr.
+Scarborough and the Scarborough matters. "I am to see Augustus, and he
+is to tell me something about Mountjoy and his affairs. They say that
+Mountjoy is now in Paris. The money can be given to them now, if he will
+consent and will sign the deed releasing the property. But the men have
+not all as yet agreed to accept the simple sums which they advanced.
+That fellow Hart stands out, and says that he would sooner lose it all."
+
+"Then he will lose it all," said Dolly.
+
+"But the squire will consent to pay nothing unless they all agree.
+Augustus is talking about his excessive generosity."
+
+"It is generous on his part," said Dolly.
+
+"He sees his own advantage, though I cannot quite understand where. He
+tells Tyrrwhit that as there is so great an increase to the property he
+is willing, for the sake of the good name of the family, to pay all that
+has been in truth advanced; but he is most anxious to do it now, while
+his father is alive. I think he fears that there will be lawsuits, and
+that they may succeed. I doubt whether he thanks his father."
+
+"But why should his father lie for his sake, since they are on such bad
+terms?"
+
+"Because his father was on worse terms with Mountjoy when he told the
+lie. That is what I think Augustus thinks. But his father told no lie at
+that time, and cannot now go back to falsehood. My belief is that if he
+were confident that such is the fact he would not surrender a shilling
+to pay these men their moneys. He may stop a lawsuit, which is like
+enough, though they could only lose it. And if Mountjoy should turn out
+to be the heir, which is impossible, he will be able to turn round and
+say that by his efforts he had saved so much of the property."
+
+"My head becomes so bewildered," said Dolly, "that I can hardly
+understand it yet."
+
+"I think I understand it; but I can only guess at his mind. But he has
+got Tyrrwhit to accept forty thousand pounds, which is the sum he, in
+truth, advanced. The stake is too great for the man to lose it without
+ruin. He can get it back now, and save himself. But Hart was the more
+determined blackguard. He, with two others, has a claim for thirty-five
+thousand pounds, for which he has given but ten thousand pounds in hard
+cash, and he thinks that he may get some profit out of Tyrrwhit's money,
+and holds out."
+
+"For how much?"
+
+"For the entire debt, he tells me; but I know that he is trying to deal
+with Tyrrwhit. Tyrrwhit would pay him five thousand, I think, so as to
+secure the immediate payment of his own money. Then there are a host of
+others who are contented to take what they have advanced, but not
+contented if Hart was to have more. There are other men in the background
+who advanced the money. All the rascaldom of London is let loose upon
+me. But Hart was the one man who holds his head the highest."
+
+"But if they will accept no terms they will get nothing," said Dolly.
+"If once they attempt to go to law all will be lost."
+
+"There are wheels within wheels. When the old man dies Mountjoy himself
+will probably put in a claim to the entire estate, and will get some
+lawyer to take up the case for him."
+
+"You would not?"
+
+"Certainly not, because I know that Augustus is the eldest legitimate
+son. As far as I can make it out, Augustus is at present allowing
+Mountjoy the money on which he lives. His father does not. But the old
+man must know that Augustus does, though he pretends to be ignorant."
+
+"But why is Hart to get money out of Tyrrwhit?"
+
+"To secure the payment of the remainder. Mr. Tyrrwhit would be very glad
+to get his forty thousand pounds back; would pay five thousand pounds to
+get the forty back. But nothing will be paid unless they all agree to
+join in freeing the property. Therefore Hart, who is the sharpest rascal
+of the lot, stands out for some share of his contemplated plunder."
+
+"And you must be joined in such an arrangement?"
+
+"Not at all. I cannot help surmising what is to be done. In dealing with
+the funds of the property I go to the men, and say to them so much, and
+so much, and so much you have actually lost. Agree among yourselves to
+accept that, and it shall be paid to you. That is honest?"
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"But I do. Every shilling that the son of my client has had from them my
+client is ready to pay. There is some hitch among them, and I make my
+surmises. But I have no dealings with them. It is for them to come to me
+now." Dolly only shook her head. "You cannot touch pitch and not be
+defiled." That was what Dolly said, but said it to herself. And then she
+went on and declared to herself still farther, that Mr. Barry was pitch.
+She knew that Mr. Barry had seen Hart, and had seen Tyrrwhit, and had
+been bargaining with them. She excused her father because he was her
+father; but according to her thinking there should have been no
+dealings with such men as these, except at the end of a pair of tongs.
+
+"And now, Dolly," said her father, after a long pause, "tell me about
+Mr. Barry."
+
+"There is nothing more to be told."
+
+"Not of what you said to him, but of the reasons which have made you so
+determined. Would it not be better for you to be married?"
+
+"If I could choose my husband."
+
+"Whom would you choose?"
+
+"You."
+
+"That is nonsense. I am your father."
+
+"You know what I mean. There is no one else among my circle of
+acquaintances with whom I should care to live. There is no one else with
+whom I should care to do more than die. When I look at it all round it
+seems to be absolutely impossible. That I should on a sudden entertain
+habits of the closest intimacy with such a one as Mr. Barry! What should
+I say to him when he went forth in the morning? How should I welcome him
+when he came back at night? What would be our breakfast, and what would
+be our dinner? Think what are yours and mine,--all the little
+solicitudes, all the free abuse, all the certainty of an affection which
+has grown through so many years; all the absolute assurance on the part
+of each that the one does really know the inner soul of the other."
+
+"It would come."
+
+"With Mr. Barry? That is your idea of my soul with which you have been
+in communion for so many years? In the first place, you think that I am
+a person likely to be able to transfer myself suddenly to the first man
+that comes my way?"
+
+"Gradually you might do so,--at any rate so as to make life possible. You
+will be all alone. Think what it will be to have to live all alone."
+
+"I have thought. I do know that it would be well that you should be able
+to take me with you."
+
+"But I cannot."
+
+"No. There is the hardship. You must leave me, and I must be alone. That
+is what we have to expect. But for her sake, and for mine, we may be
+left while we can be left. What would you be without me? Think of that."
+
+"I should bear it."
+
+"You couldn't. You'd break your heart and die. And if you can imagine my
+living there, and pouring out Mr. Barry's tea for him, you must imagine
+also what I should have to say to myself about you. 'He will die, of
+course. But then he has come to that sort of age at which it doesn't
+much signify.' Then I should go on with Mr. Barry's tea. He'd come to
+kiss me when he went away, and I--should plunge a knife into him."
+
+"Dolly!"
+
+"Or into myself, which would be more likely. Fancy that man calling me
+Dolly." Then she got up and stood behind his chair and put her arm round
+his neck. "Would you like to kiss him?--or any man, for the matter of
+that? There is no one else to whom my fancy strays, but I think that I
+should murder them all,--or commit suicide. In the first place, I should
+want my husband to be a gentleman. There are not a great many gentlemen
+about."
+
+"You are fastidious."
+
+"Come now;--be honest; is our Mr. Barry a gentleman?" Then there was a
+pause, during which she waited for a reply. "I will have an answer. I
+have a right to demand an answer to that question, since you have
+proposed the man to me as a husband."
+
+"Nay, I have not proposed him."
+
+"You have expressed a regret that I have not accepted him. Is he a
+gentleman?"
+
+"Well;--yes; I think he is."
+
+"Mind; we are sworn, and you are bound to speak the truth. What right
+has he to be a gentleman? Who was his father and who was his mother? Of
+what kind were his nursery belongings? He has become an attorney, and so
+have you. But has there been any one to whisper to him among his
+teachings that in that profession, as in all others, there should be a
+sense of high honor to guide him? He must not cheat, or do anything to
+cause him to be struck off the rolls; but is it not with him what his
+client wants, and not what honor demands? And in the daily intercourse
+of life would he satisfy what you call my fastidiousness?"
+
+"Nothing on earth will ever do that."
+
+"You do. I agree with you that nothing else on earth ever will. The man
+who might, won't come. Not that I can imagine such a man, because I know
+that I am spoiled. Of course there are gentlemen, though not a great
+many. But he mustn't be ugly and he mustn't be good-looking. He mustn't
+seem to be old, and certainly he mustn't seem to be young. I should not
+like a man to wear old clothes, but he mustn't wear new. He must be well
+read, but never show it. He must work hard, but he must come home to
+dinner at the proper time." Here she laughed, and gently shook her head.
+"He must never talk about his business at night. Though, dear, darling
+old father, he shall do that if he will talk like you. And then, which
+is the hardest thing of all, I must have known him intimately for at any
+rate, ten years. As for Mr. Barry, I never should know him intimately,
+though I were married to him for ten years."
+
+"And it has all been my doing?"
+
+"Just so. You have made the bed and you must lie on it. It hasn't been a
+bad bed."
+
+"Not for me. Heaven knows it has not been bad for me."
+
+"Nor for me, as things go; only that there will come an arousing before
+we shall be ready to get up together. Your time will probably be the
+first. I can better afford to lose you than you to lose me."
+
+"God send that it shall be so!"
+
+"It is nature," she said. "It is to be expected, and will on that
+account be the less grievous because it has been expected. I shall have
+to devote myself to those Carroll children. I sometimes think that the
+work of the world should not be made pleasant to us. What profit will it
+be to me to have done my duty by you? I think there will be some profit
+if I am good to my cousins."
+
+"At any rate, you won't have Mr. Barry?" said the father.
+
+"Not if I know it," said the daughter; "and you, I think, are a wicked
+old man to suggest it." Then she bade him good-night and went to bed,
+for they had been talking now till near twelve.
+
+But Mr. Barry, when he had gone home, told himself that he had
+progressed in his love-suit quite as far as he had expected on the first
+opportunity. He went over the bridge and looked at the genteel house,
+and resolved as to certain little changes which should be made. Thus one
+room should look here, and the nursery should look there. The walk to
+the railway would only take five minutes, and there would be five
+minutes again from the Temple Station in London. He thought it would do
+very well for domestic felicity. And as for a fortune, half the business
+would not be bad. And then the whole business would follow, and he in
+his turn would be enabled to let some young fellow in who should do the
+greater part of the work and take the smaller part of the pay, as had
+been the case with himself.
+
+But it had not occurred to him that the young lady had meant what she
+said when she refused him. It was the ordinary way with young ladies. Of
+course he had expected no enthusiasm of love;--nor had he wanted it. He
+would wait for three weeks and then he would go to Fulham again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+MR. JUNIPER.
+
+
+Though there was an air of badinage, almost of tomfoolery, about Dolly
+when she spoke of her matrimonial prospects to her father,--as when she
+said that she would "stick a knife" into Mr. Barry,--still there was a
+seriousness in all she said which was more than grave. She was pathetic
+and melancholy. She knew that there was nothing before her but to stay
+with her father, and then to devote herself to her cousins, from whom
+she was aware that she recoiled almost with hatred. And she knew that it
+would be a good thing to be married,--if only the right man would come.
+The right man would have to bear with her father, and live in the same
+house with him to the end. The right man must be a _preux chevalier sans
+peur et sans reproche_. The right man must be strong-minded and
+masterful, and must have a will of his own; but he must be strong-minded
+always for good. And where was she to find such a man as this? she who
+was only an attorney's daughter,--plain, too, and with many
+eccentricities. She was not intended to marry, and consequently the only
+man who came in her way was her father's partner, for whom, in regard to
+a share in the business, she might be desirable.
+
+Devotion to the Carroll cousins was manifestly her duty. The two eldest
+girls she absolutely did hate, and their father. To hate the father,
+because he was vicious beyond cure, might be very well; but she could
+not hate the girls without being aware that she was guilty of a grievous
+sin. Every taste possessed by them was antagonistic to her. Their
+amusements, their literature, their clothes, their manners,--especially
+in regard to men,--their gestures and color, were distasteful to her.
+"They hide their dirt with a thin veneer of cheap finery," said Dolly to
+her father. He had replied by telling her that she was nasty. "No; but,
+unfortunately, I cannot but see nastiness." Dolly herself was clean to
+fastidiousness. Take off her coarse frock, and there the well-dressed
+lady began. "Look at the heels of Sophie's boots! Give her a push, and
+she'd fall off her pins as though they were stilts. They're always
+asking to have a shoemaker's bill paid, and yet they won't wear stout
+boots." "I'll pay the man," she said to Amelia one day, "if you'll
+promise to wear what I'll buy you for the next six months." But Amelia
+had only turned up her nose. These were the relatives to whom it would
+become her duty to devote her life!
+
+The next morning she started off to call in Bolsover Terrace with an
+intention, not to begin her duty, but to make a struggle at the adequate
+performance of it. She took with her some article of clothing intended
+for one of the younger children, but which the child herself was to
+complete. But when she entered the parlor she was astounded at finding
+that Mr. Carroll was there. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and at that
+time Mr. Carroll never was there. He was either in bed, or at
+Tattersall's, or--Dolly did not care where. She had long since made up
+her mind that there must be a permanent quarrel between herself and her
+uncle, and her desire was generally respected. Now, unfortunately, he
+was present, and with him were his wife and two elder daughters. To be
+devoted, thought Dolly to herself, to such a family as this,--and without
+anybody else in the world to care for! She gave her aunt a kiss, and
+touched the girls' hands, and made a very distant bow to Mr. Carroll.
+Then she began about the parcel in her hands, and, having given her
+instructions, was preparing to depart.
+
+But her aunt stopped her. "I think you ought to know, Dorothea."
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Carroll. "It is quite right that your cousin
+should know."
+
+"If you think it proper, I'm sure I can't object," said Amelia.
+
+"She won't approve, I'm sure," said Sophie.
+
+"Her young man has come forward and spoken," said Mr. Carroll.
+
+"And quite in a proper spirit," said Amelia.
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Carroll, "we are not to expect too much. Though
+we are respectable in birth, and all that, we are poor. Mr. Carroll has
+got nothing to give her."
+
+"I've been the most unfortunate man in the world," said Mr. Carroll.
+
+"We won't talk about that now," continued Mrs. Carroll. "Here we are
+without anything."
+
+"You have decent blood," said Dolly; "at any rate on one side,"--for she
+did not believe in the Carrolls.
+
+"On both,--on both," said Mr. Carroll, rising up, and putting his hand
+upon his heart. "I can boast of royal blood among my ancestors."
+
+"But here we are without anything," said Mrs. Carroll again. "Mr.
+Juniper is a most respectable man."
+
+"He has been attached to some of the leading racing establishments in
+the kingdom," said Mr. Carroll. Dolly had heard of Mr. Juniper as a
+trainer, though she did not accurately know what a trainer meant.
+
+"He is almost as great a man as the owner, for the matter of that," said
+Amelia, standing up for her lover.
+
+"He is not to say young,--perhaps forty," said Mrs. Carroll, "and he has
+a very decent house of his own at Newmarket." Dolly immediately began to
+think whether this might be for the better or for the worse. Newmarket
+was a long way off, and the girl would be taken away; and it might be a
+good thing to dispose of one of such a string of daughters, even to Mr.
+Juniper. Of course there would be the disagreeable nature of the
+connection. But, as Dolly had once said to her father, their share of
+the world's burdens had to be borne, and this was one of them. Her first
+cousin must marry the trainer. She, who had spoken so enthusiastically
+about gentlemen, must put up with it. She knew that Mr. Juniper was but
+a small man in his own line, but she would never disown him by word of
+mouth. He should be her cousin Juniper. But she did hope that she might
+not be called upon to see him frequently. After all, he might be much
+more respectable than Mr. Carroll.
+
+"I am glad he has a house of his own," said Dolly.
+
+"It is a much better house than Fulham Manor," said Amelia.
+
+Dolly was angered, not at the comparison between the houses, but at the
+ingratitude and insolence of the girl. "Very well," said she, addressing
+herself to her aunt; "if her parents are contented, of course it is not
+for me or for papa to be discontented. The thing to think of is the
+honesty of the man and his industry,--not the excellence of the house."
+
+"But you seemed to think that we were to live in a pigsty," said Amelia.
+
+"Mr. Juniper stands very high on the turf," said Mr. Carroll. "Mr.
+Leadabit's horses have always run straight, and Mousetrap won the
+Two-year-old Trial Stakes last spring, giving two pounds to
+Box-and-Cox. A good-looking, tall fellow. You remember seeing him here
+once last summer." This was addressed to Miss Grey; but Miss Grey had
+made up her mind never to exchange a word with Mr. Carroll.
+
+"When is it to be, my dear?" said Miss Grey, turning to the ladies, but
+intending to address herself to Amelia. She had already made up her mind
+to forgive the girl for her insolence about the house. If the girl was
+to be taken away, there was so much the more reason for forgiving her
+that and other things.
+
+"Oh! I thought that you did not mean to speak to me at all," said
+Amelia. "I supposed the cut was to be extended from papa to me."
+
+"Amelia, how can you be so silly?" said the mother.
+
+"If you think I'm going to put up with that kind of thing, you're
+mistaken," said Amelia. She had got not only a lover but a husband in
+prospect, and was much superior to her cousin,--who had neither one or
+the other, as far as she was aware. "Mr. Juniper, with an excellent
+house and a plentiful income, is quite good enough for me, though he
+hasn't got any regal ancestors." She did not intend to laugh at her
+father, but was aware that something had been said about ancestors by
+her cousin. "A gentleman who has the management of horses is almost the
+same as owning them."
+
+"But when is it to be?" again asked Dolly.
+
+"That depends a little upon my brother," said Mrs. Carroll, in a voice
+hardly above a whisper. "Mr. Juniper has spoken about a day."
+
+"Then it will depend chiefly on himself and the young lady, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, Dorothea, there are money difficulties. There's no denying it."
+
+"I wish I could shower gold into her lap," said Mr. Carroll, "only for
+the accursed conventionalities of the world."
+
+"Bother, papa!" said Sophia.
+
+"It will be the last of it, as far as I am concerned," said Amelia.
+
+"Mr. Juniper has said something about a few hundred pounds," said Mrs.
+Carroll. "It isn't much that he wants."
+
+Then Miss Grey spoke in a severe tone. "You must speak to my father
+about that."
+
+"I am not to have your good word, I suppose," said Amelia. Human flesh
+and blood could not but remember all that had been done, and always with
+her consent. "Five hundred pounds is not a great deal for portioning off
+a girl when that is to be the last that she is ever to have." One of
+six nieces whose father and mother were maintained, and that without the
+slightest claim! It was so that Dorothy argued; but her arguments were
+kept to her own bosom. "But I must trust to my dear uncle. I see that I
+am not to have a word from you."
+
+The matter was now becoming serious. Here was the eldest girl, one of
+six daughters, putting in her claim for five hundred pounds portion.
+This would amount to three thousand pounds for the lot, and, as the
+process of marrying them went on, they would all have to be maintained
+as at present. What with their school expenses and their clothes, the
+necessary funds for the Carroll family amounted to six hundred pounds a
+year. That was the regular allowance, and there were others whenever Mr.
+Carroll wanted a pair of trousers. And Dolly's acerbation was aroused by
+a belief on her part that the money asked for trousers took him
+generally to race-courses. And now five hundred pounds was boldly
+demanded so as to induce a groom to make one of the girls his wife! She
+almost regretted that in former years she had promised to assist her
+father in befriending the Carroll relations. "Perhaps, Dorothea, you
+won't mind stepping into my bedroom with me, just for a moment." This
+was said by Mrs. Carroll, and Dolly most unwillingly followed her aunt
+up-stairs.
+
+"Of course I know all that you've got to say," began Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"Then, aunt, why bring me in here?"
+
+"Because I wish to explain things a little. Don't be ill-natured,
+Dorothea."
+
+"I won't if I can help it."
+
+"I know your nature, how good it is." Here Dorothy shook her head. "Only
+think of me and of my sufferings! I haven't come to this without
+suffering." Then the poor woman began to cry.
+
+"I feel for you through it all,--I do," said Dolly.
+
+"That poor man! To have to be always with him, and always doing my best
+to keep him out of mischief!"
+
+"A man who will do nothing else must do harm."
+
+"Of course he must. But what can he do now? And the children! I can
+see--of course I know that they are not all that they ought to be. But
+with six of them, and nobody but myself, how can I do it all? And they
+are his children as well as mine." Dolly's heart was filled with pity as
+she heard this, which she knew to be so true! "In answering you they
+have uppish, bad ways. They don't like to submit to one so near their
+own age."
+
+"Not a word that has come from the mouth of one of them addressed to
+myself has ever done them any harm with my father. That is what you
+mean?"
+
+"No,--but with yourself."
+
+"I do not take anger--against them--out of the room with me."
+
+"Now, about Mr. Juniper."
+
+"The question is one much too big for me. Am I to tell my father?"
+
+"I was thinking that--if you would do so!"
+
+"I cannot tell him that he ought to find five hundred pounds for Mr.
+Juniper."
+
+"Perhaps four would do."
+
+"Nor can I ask him to drive a bargain."
+
+"How much would he give her--to be married?"
+
+"Why should he give her anything? He feeds her and gives her clothes. It
+is only fit that the truth should be explained to you. Girls so
+circumstanced, when they are clothed and fed by their own fathers, must
+be married without fortunes or must remain unmarried. As Sophie, and
+Georgina, and Minna, and Brenda come up, the same requests will be
+made."
+
+"Poor Potsey!" said the mother. For Potsey was a plain girl.
+
+"If this be done for Amelia, must it not be done for all of them? Papa
+is not a rich man, but he has been very generous. Is it fair to ask him
+for five hundred pounds to give to--Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"A gentleman nowadays does not like not to get something."
+
+"Then a gentleman must go where something is to be got. The truth has to
+be told, Aunt Carroll. My father is willing enough to do what he can for
+you and the girls, but I do not think that he will give five hundred
+pounds to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"It is once for all. Four hundred pounds, perhaps, would do."
+
+"I do not think that he can make a bargain, nor that he will pay any sum
+to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"To get one of them off would be so much! What is to become of them? To
+have one married would be the way for others. Oh, Dorothy, if you would
+only think of my condition! I know your papa will do what you tell him."
+
+Dolly felt that her father would be more likely to do it if she were
+not to interfere at all; but she could not say that. She did feel the
+request to be altogether unreasonable. She struggled to avert from her
+own mind all feeling of dislike for the girl, and to look at it as she
+might have done if Amelia had been her special friend.
+
+"Aunt Carroll," she said, "you had better go up to London and see my
+father there--in his chambers. You will catch him if you go at once."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"Yes, alone. Tell him about the girl's marriage, and let him judge what
+he ought to do."
+
+"Could not you come with me?"
+
+"No. You don't understand. I have to think of his money. He can say what
+he will do with his own."
+
+"He will never give it without coming to you."
+
+"He never will if he does come to me. You may prevail with him. A man
+may throw away his own money as he pleases. I cannot tell him that he
+ought to do it. You may say that you have told me, and that I have sent
+you to him. And tell him, let him do what he will, that I shall find no
+fault with him. If you can understand me and him you will know that I
+can do nothing for you beyond that." Then Dolly took her leave and went
+home.
+
+The mother, turning it all over in her mind, did understand something of
+her niece, and went off to London as quick as the omnibus could take
+her. There she did see her brother, and he came back, in consequence, to
+dinner a little earlier than usual.
+
+"Why did you send my sister to me?" were the first words which he said to
+Dolly.
+
+"Because it was your business, and not mine."
+
+"How dare you separate my business and yours? What do you think I have
+done?"
+
+"Given the young lady five hundred pounds down on the nail."
+
+"Worse than that."
+
+"Worse?"
+
+"Much worse. But why did you send my sister to my chambers?"
+
+"But what have you done, papa? You don't mean that you have given the
+shark more than he demands?"
+
+"I don't know that he's a shark. Why shouldn't the man want five hundred
+pounds with his wife? Mr. Barry would want much more with you, and would
+be entitled to ask for much more."
+
+"You are my father."
+
+"Yes; but those poor girls have been taught to look upon me almost as
+their father."
+
+"But what have you done?"
+
+"I have promised them each three hundred and fifty pounds on their
+wedding day,--three hundred pounds to go to their husbands, and fifty
+pounds for wedding expenses,--on condition that they marry with my
+approval. I shall not be so hard to please for them as for you."
+
+"And you have approved of Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"I have already set on foot inquiries down at Newmarket; and I have made
+an exception in favor of Mr. Juniper. He is to have four hundred and
+fifty pounds. Jane only asked four hundred pounds to begin with. You are
+not to find fault with me."
+
+"No; that is part of the bargain. I wonder whether my aunt knew what a
+thoroughly good-natured thing I did. We must have no more puddings now,
+and you must come down by the omnibus."
+
+"It is not quite so bad as that, Dolly."
+
+"When one has given away one's money extravagantly one ought to be made
+to feel the pinch one's self. But dear, dear, darling old man! why
+shouldn't you give away your money as you please? I don't want it. I am
+not in the least afraid but what there will be plenty for me. But when
+the girl talks about her five hundred pounds so glibly, as though she
+had a right to expect it, and spoke of this jockey with such inward
+pride of heart--"
+
+"A girl ought to be proud of her husband."
+
+"Your niece ought not to be proud of marrying a groom. But she angered
+me, and so did my aunt,--though I pitied her. Then I reflected that they
+could get nothing from me in my anger,--not even a promise of a good
+word. So I sent her to you. It was, at any rate, the best thing I could
+do for them." Mr. Grey thought that it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+MR. BARRY AND MR. JUNIPER.
+
+
+The joy in Bolsover Terrace was intense when Mrs. Carroll returned home.
+"We are all to have three hundred and fifty pound fortunes when we get
+husbands!" said Georgina, anticipating at once the pleasures of
+matrimony.
+
+"I am to have four hundred and fifty," said Amelia. "I do think he might
+have made it five hundred pounds. If I had it to give away, I never
+would show the cloven foot about the last fifty pounds!"
+
+"But he's only to have four hundred pounds," said Sophia. "Your things
+are to be bought with the other fifty pounds."
+
+"I never can do it for fifty pounds," said Amelia. "I did not expect
+that I was to find my own trousseau out of my own fortune."
+
+"Girls, how can you be so ungrateful?" said their mother.
+
+"I'm not ungrateful, mamma," said Potsey. "I shall be very much obliged
+when I get my three hundred and fifty pounds. How long will it be?"
+
+"You've got to find the young man first, Potsey. I don't think you'll
+ever do that," said Georgina, who was rather proud of her own good
+looks.
+
+This took place on the evening of the day on which Mrs. Carroll had gone
+to London, where Mr. Carroll was about attending to some of those duties
+of conviviality in the performance of which he was so indefatigable. On
+the following morning at twelve o'clock he was still in bed. It was a
+well-known fact in the family that on such an occasion he would lie in
+bed, and that before twelve o'clock he would have managed to extract
+from his wife's little hoardings at any rate two bottles of soda-water
+and two glasses of some alcoholic mixture which was generally called
+brandy. "I'll have a gin-and-potash, Sophie," he had said on this
+occasion, with reference to the second dose, "and do make haste. I wish
+you'd go yourself, because that girl always drinks some of the
+sperrits."
+
+"What! go to the gin-shop?"
+
+"It's a most respectable publican's,--just round the corner."
+
+"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. You've no feeling about your
+daughters at all!" But Sophie went on her errand, and in order to
+protect her father's small modicum of "sperrits" she slipped on her
+cloak and walked out so as to be able to watch the girl. Still, I think
+that the maiden managed to get a sip as she left the bar. The father, in
+the mean-time with his head between his hands, was ruminating on the
+"cocked-up way which girls have who can't do a turn for their father."
+
+But with the gin-and-potash, and with Sophie, Mr. Juniper made his
+appearance. He was a well-featured, tall man, but he looked the stable
+and he smelled of it. His clothes, no doubt, were decent, but they were
+made by some tailor who must surely work for horsey men and no others.
+There is a class of men who always choose to show by their outward
+appearance that they belong to horses, and they succeed. Mr. Juniper was
+one of them. Though good-looking he was anything but young, verging by
+appearance on fifty years.
+
+"So he has been at it again, Miss Sophie," said Juniper. Sophie, who did
+not like being detected in the performance of her filial duties, led the
+way in silence into the house, and disappeared up-stairs with the
+gin-and-potash. Mr. Juniper turned into the parlor, where was Mrs.
+Carroll with the other girls. She was still angry, as angry as she could
+be, with her husband, who on being informed that morning of what his
+wife had done had called her brother "a beastly, stingy old beau,"
+because he had cut Amelia off with four hundred and fifty instead of
+five hundred pounds. Mr. Carroll probably knew that Mr. Juniper would
+not take his daughter without the entirety of the sum stipulated, and
+would allow no portion of it to be expended on wedding-dresses.
+
+"Oh, Dick, is this you?" said Amelia. "I suppose you've come for your
+news." (Mr. Juniper's Christian-name was Richard.) On this occasion he
+showed no affectionate desire to embrace his betrothed.
+
+"Yes, it's me," he said, and then gave his hand all round, first to Mrs.
+Carroll and then to the girls.
+
+"I've seen Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Carroll. But Dick Juniper held his
+tongue and sat down and twiddled his hat.
+
+"Where have you come from?" asked Georgina.
+
+"From the Brompton Road. I come down on a 'bus."
+
+"You've come from Tattersall's, young man!" said Amelia.
+
+"Then I just didn't!" But to tell the truth he had come from
+Tattersall's, and it might be difficult to follow up the workings of his
+mind and find out why he had told the lie. Of course it was known that
+when in London much of his business was done at Tattersall's. But the
+horsey man is generally on the alert to take care that no secret of his
+trade escapes from him unawares. And it may be that he was thus prepared
+for a gratuitous lie.
+
+"Uncle's gone a deal farther than ever I expected," said Amelia.
+
+"He's been most generous to all the girls," said Mrs. Carroll, moved
+nearly to tears.
+
+Mr. Juniper did not care very much about "all the girls," thinking that
+the uncle's affection at the present moment should be shown to the one
+girl who had found a husband, and thinking also that if the husband was
+to be secured, the proper way of doing so would be by liberality to him.
+Amelia had said that her uncle had gone farther than she expected. Mr.
+Juniper concluded from this that he had not gone as far as he had been
+asked, and boldly resolved, at the spur of the moment, to stand by his
+demand. "Five hundred pounds ain't much," he said.
+
+"Dick, don't make a beast of yourself!" said Amelia. Upon this Dick only
+smiled.
+
+He continually twiddled his hat for three or four minutes, and then rose
+up straight. "I suppose," said he, "I had better go up-stairs and talk
+to the old man. I seed Miss Sophie taking a pick-up to him, so I suppose
+he'll be able to talk."
+
+"Why shouldn't he talk?" said Mrs. Carroll. But she quite understood
+what Mr. Juniper's words were intended to imply.
+
+"It don't always follow," said Juniper, as he walked out of the room.
+
+"Now there'll be a row in the house;--you see if there isn't!" said
+Amelia. But Mrs. Carroll expressed her opinion that the man must be the
+most ungrateful of creatures if he kicked up a row on the present
+occasion. "I don't know so much about that, mamma," said Amelia.
+
+Mr. Juniper walked up-stairs with heavy, slow steps, and knocked at the
+door of the marital chamber. There are men who can't walk up-stairs as
+though to do so were an affair of ordinary life. They perform the task
+as though they walked up-stairs once in three years. It is to be
+presumed that such men always sleep on the ground-floor, though where
+they find their bed-rooms it is hard to say. Mr. Juniper was admitted by
+Sophie, who stepped out as he went in. "Well, old fellow! B.--and--S.,
+and plenty of it. That's the ticket, eh?"
+
+"I did have a little headache this morning. I think it was the cigars."
+
+"Very like,--and the stuff as washed 'em down. You haven't got any more
+of the same, have you?"
+
+"I'm uncommonly sorry," said the sick man, rising up on his elbow, "but
+I'm afraid there is not. To tell the truth, I had the deuce of a job to
+get this from the old woman."
+
+"It don't matter," said the impassive Mr. Juniper, "only I have been
+down among the 'orses at the yard till my throat is full of dust. So
+your lady has been and seen her brother?"
+
+"Yes; she's done that."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He ain't altogether a bad un--isn't old Grey. Of course he's an
+attorney."
+
+"I never think much of them chaps."
+
+"There's good and bad, Juniper. No doubt my brother-in-law has made a
+little money."
+
+"A pot of it,--if all they say's true."
+
+"But all they say isn't true. All they say never is true."
+
+"I suppose he's got something?"
+
+"Yes, he's got something."
+
+"And how is it to be?"
+
+"He's given the girl four hundred pounds on the nail,"--upon this Mr.
+Juniper turned up his nose,--"and fifty pounds for her wedding-clothes."
+
+"He'd better let me have that."
+
+"Girls think so much of it,"--Mr. Juniper only shook his head,--"and, upon
+my word, it's more than she had a right to expect."
+
+"It ain't what she had a right to expect; but I,"--here Mr. Carroll shook
+his head,--"I said five hundred pounds out, and I means to hold by it.
+That's about it. If he wants to get the girl married, why--he must open
+his pocket. It isn't very much that I'm asking. I'm that sort of a
+fellow that, if I didn't want it, I'd take her without a shilling."
+
+"But you are that sort of fellow that always does want it."
+
+"I wants it now. It's better to speak out, ain't it? I must have the five
+hundred pounds before I put my neck into the noose, and there must be no
+paring off for petticoats and pelisses."
+
+"And Mr. Grey says that he must make inquiries into character," said
+Carroll.
+
+"Into what?"
+
+"Into character. He isn't going to give his money without knowing
+something about the man."
+
+"I'm all straight at Newmarket. I ain't going to stand any inquiries
+into me, you know. I can stand inquiries better than some people. He's
+got a partner named Barry, ain't he?"
+
+"There is such a gentleman. I don't know much about the business ways of
+my respected brother-in-law. Mr. Barry is, I believe, a good sort of a
+man."
+
+"It's he as is acting for Captain Scarborough."
+
+"Is it, now? It may be, for anything I know."
+
+Then there came a long conversation, during which Mr. Juniper told some
+details of his former life, and expressed himself very freely upon
+certain points. It appeared that in the event of Mr. Scarborough having
+died, as was expected, in the course of the early summer, and of Captain
+Scarborough succeeding to the property in the accustomed manner, Mr.
+Juniper would have been one of those who would have come forward with a
+small claim upon the estate. He had lent, he said, a certain sum of
+money to help the captain in his embarrassment, and expected to get it
+back again. Now, latterly inquiries had been made very disagreeable in
+their nature to Mr. Juniper; but Mr. Juniper, seeing how the the land
+lay,--to use his own phrase,--consented only to accept so much as he had
+advanced. "It don't make much difference to me," he had said. "Let me
+have the three hundred and fifty pounds which the captain got in hard
+money." Then the inquiries were made by Mr. Barry,--that very Mr. Barry
+to whom subsequent inquiries were committed,--and Mr. Barry could not
+satisfy himself as to the three hundred and fifty pounds which the
+captain was said to have got in hard money. There had been words spoken
+which seemed to Mr. Juniper to make it very inexpedient,--and we may say
+very unfair,--that these farther inquiries into his character as a
+husband should be intrusted to the same person. He regarded Mr. Barry as
+an enemy to the human race, from whom, in the general confusion of
+things, no plunder was to be extracted. Mr Barry had asked for the check
+by which the three hundred and fifty pounds had been paid to Captain
+Scarborough in hard cash. There had been no check, Mr. Juniper had said.
+Such a small sum as that had been paid in notes at Newmarket. He said
+that he could not, or, rather, that he would not, produce any evidence
+as to the money. Mr. Barry had suggested that even so small a sum as
+three hundred and fifty pounds could not have come and could not have
+gone without leaving some trace. Mr. Juniper very indignantly had
+referred to an acknowledgment on a bill-stamp for six hundred pounds
+which he had filled in, and which the captain had undoubtedly signed.
+"It's not worth the paper it's written on," Mr. Barry had said.
+
+"We'll see about that," said Mr. Juniper. "As soon as the breath is out
+of the old squire's body we'll see whether his son is to repudiate his
+debts in that way. Ain't that the captain's signature?" and he slapped
+the bill with his hand.
+
+The old ceremony was gone through of explaining that the captain had no
+right to a shilling of the property. It had become an old ceremony now.
+"Mr. Augustus Scarborough is going to pay out of his own good will only
+those sums of the advance of which he has indisputable testimony."
+
+"Ain't he my testimony of this?" said Mr. Juniper.
+
+"This bill is for six hundred pounds."
+
+"In course it is."
+
+"Why don't you say you advanced him five hundred and fifty pounds
+instead of three hundred and fifty pounds?"
+
+"Because I didn't."
+
+"Why do you say three hundred and fifty pounds instead of one hundred
+and fifty pounds?"
+
+"Because I did."
+
+"Then we have only your bare word. We are not going to pay any one a
+shilling on such a testimony." Then Mr. Juniper had sworn an awful oath
+that he would have every man bearing the name of Scarborough hanged. But
+Mr. Barry's firm did not care much for any law proceedings which might
+be taken by Mr. Juniper alone. No law proceedings would be taken. The
+sum to be regained would not be worth the while of any lawyer to insure
+the hopeless expense of fighting such a battle. It would be shown in
+court, on Mr. Barry's side, that the existing owner of the estate, out
+of his own generosity, had repaid all sums of money as to which evidence
+existed that they had been advanced to the unfortunate illegitimate
+captain. They would appear with clean hands; but poor Mr. Juniper would
+receive the sympathy of none. Of this Mr. Juniper had by degrees become
+aware, and was already looking on his claim on the Scarborough property
+as lost. And now, on this other little affair of his, on this
+matrimonial venture, it was very hard that inquiries as to his character
+should be referred to the same Mr. Barry.
+
+"I'm d---- if I stand it!" he said, thumping his fist down on Mr.
+Carroll's bed, on which he was sitting.
+
+"It isn't any of my doing. I'm on the square with you."
+
+"I don't know so much about that."
+
+"What have I done? Didn't I send her to the girl's uncle, and didn't she
+get from him a very liberal promise?"
+
+"Promises! Why didn't he stump up the rhino? What's the good of
+promises? There's as much to do about a beggarly five hundred pounds as
+though it were fifty thousand pounds. Inquiries!" Of course he knew very
+well what that meant. "It's a most ungentlemanlike thing for one
+gentleman to take upon himself to make inquiries about another. He is
+not the girl's father. What right has he to make inquiries?"
+
+"I didn't put it into his head," said Carroll, almost sobbing.
+
+"He must be a low-bred, pettifogging lawyer."
+
+"He is a lawyer," said Carroll, on whose mind the memory of the great
+benefit he had received had made some impression. "I have admitted
+that."
+
+"Pshaw!"
+
+"But I don't think he's pettifogging; not Mr. Grey. Four hundred pounds
+down, with fifty pounds for dress, and the same, or most the same, to
+all the girls, isn't pettifogging. If you ever comes to have a family,
+Juniper--"
+
+"I ain't in the way."
+
+"But when you are, and there comes six of 'em, you won't find an uncle
+pettifogging when he speaks out like Mr. Grey."
+
+The conversation was carried on for some time farther, and then Mr.
+Juniper left the house without again visiting the ladies. His last word
+was that if inquiries were made into him they might all go to--Bath! If
+the money were forthcoming, they would know where to find him; but it
+must be five hundred pounds "square," with no parings made from it on
+behalf of petticoats and pelisses. With this last word Mr. Juniper
+stamped down the stairs and out of the house.
+
+"He's a brute, after all!" said Sophie.
+
+"No, he isn't. What do you know about brutes? Of course a gentleman has
+to make the best fight he can for his money." This was what Amelia said
+at the moment; but in the seclusion of their own room she wept bitterly.
+"Why didn't he come in to see me and just give me one word? I hadn't
+done anything amiss. It wasn't my fault if Uncle John is stingy."
+
+"And he isn't so very stingy, after all," said Sophie.
+
+"Of course papa hasn't got anything, and wouldn't have anything, though
+you were to pour golden rivers into his lap."
+
+"There are worse than papa," said Sophie.
+
+"But he knows all that, and that our uncle isn't any more than an uncle.
+And why should he be so particular just about a hundred pounds? I do
+think gentlemen are the meanest creatures when they are looking after
+money! Ladies ain't half so bad. He'd no business to expect five hundred
+pounds all out."
+
+This was very melancholy, and the house was kept in a state of silent
+sorrow for four or five days, till the result of the inquiries had
+come. Then there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mr. Barry came to
+Bolsover Terrace to communicate the result of the inquiry, and was shut
+up for half an hour with poor Mrs. Carroll. He was afraid that he could
+not recommend the match. "Oh, I'm sorry for that,--very sorry!" said Mrs.
+Carroll. "The young lady will be--disappointed." And her handkerchief
+went up to her eyes. Then there was silence for awhile, till she asked
+why an opinion so strongly condemnatory had been expressed.
+
+"The gentleman, ma'am,--is not what a gentleman should be. You may take
+my word for it. I must ask you not to repeat what I say to him."
+
+"Oh dear, no."
+
+"But perhaps the least said the soonest mended. He is not what a
+gentleman should be."
+
+"You mean a--fine gentleman."
+
+"He is not what a man should be. I cannot say more than that. It would
+not be for the young lady's happiness that she should select such a
+partner for her life."
+
+"She is very much attached to him."
+
+"I am sorry that it should be so. But it will be better that she
+should--live it down. At any rate, I am bound to communicate to you Mr.
+Grey's decision. Though he does not at all mean to withhold his bounty
+in regard to any other proposed marriage, he cannot bring himself to pay
+money to Mr. Juniper."
+
+"Nothing at all?" asked Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"He will make no payment that will go into the pocket of Mr. Juniper."
+
+Then Mr. Barry went, and there was weeping and wailing in the house in
+Bolsover Terrace. So cruel an uncle as Mr. Grey had never been heard of
+in history, or even in romance. "I know it's that old cat, Dolly," said
+Amelia. "Because she hasn't managed to get a husband for herself, she
+doesn't want any one else to get one."
+
+"My poor child," said Mr. Carroll, in a maudlin condition, "I pity thee
+from the bottom of my heart!"
+
+"I wish that Mr. Barry may be made to marry a hideous old maid past
+forty," said Georgina.
+
+"I shouldn't care what they said, but would take him straight off," said
+Sophie.
+
+Upon this Mrs. Carroll shook her head. "I don't suppose that he is quite
+all that he ought to be."
+
+"Who is, I should like to know?" said Amelia.
+
+"But my brother has to give his money according to his judgment." As
+she said this the poor woman thought of those other five who in process
+of time might become claimants. But here the whole family attacked her,
+and almost drove her to confess that her brother was a stingy old
+curmudgeon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+"GURNEY & MALCOLMSON'S."
+
+
+In Red Lion Square, on the first floor of a house which partakes of the
+general dinginess of the neighborhood, there are two rooms which bear on
+the outside door the well-sounding names of Gurney & Malcolmson; and on
+the front door to the street are the names of Gurney & Malcolmson,
+showing that the business transacted by Messrs. Gurney & Malcolmson
+outweighs in importance any others conducted in the same house. In the
+first room, which is the smaller of the two occupied, sits usually a
+lad, who passes most of his time in making up and directing circulars,
+so that a stranger might be led to suppose that the business of Gurney &
+Malcolmson was of an extended nature.
+
+But on the occasion to which we are about to allude the door of the
+premises was closed, and the boy was kept on the alert posting, or
+perhaps delivering, the circulars which were continually issued. This
+was the place of business affected by Mr. Tyrrwhit, or at any rate one
+of them. Who were Gurney & Malcolmson it is not necessary that our
+chronicle should tell. No Gurney or no Malcolmson was then visible; and
+though a part of the business of the firm in which it is to be supposed
+that Gurney & Malcolmson were engaged was greatly discussed, their name
+on the occasion was never mentioned.
+
+A meeting had been called at which the presiding genius was Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. You might almost be led to believe that, from the manner in
+which he made himself at home, Mr. Tyrrwhit was Gurney & Malcolmson. But
+there was another there who seemed to be almost as much at home as Mr.
+Tyrrwhit, and this was Mr. Samuel Hart, whom we last saw when he had
+unexpectedly made himself known to his friend the captain at Monaco. He
+had a good deal to say for himself; and as he sat during the meeting
+with his hat on, it is to be presumed that he was not in awe of his
+companions. Mr. Juniper also was there. He took a seat at one corner of
+the table, and did not say much. There was also a man who, in speaking
+of himself and his own affairs, always called himself Evans & Crooke.
+And there was one Spicer, who sat silent for the most part, and looked
+very fierce. In all matters, however, he appeared to agree with Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. He is especially named, as his interest in the matter
+discussed was large. There were three or four others, whose affairs were
+of less moment, though to them they were of intense interest. These
+gentlemen assembled were they who had advanced money to Captain
+Scarborough, and this was the meeting of the captain's creditors, at
+which they were to decide whether they were to give up their bonds on
+payment of the sums they had actually advanced, or whether they would
+stand out till the old squire's death, and then go to law with the owner
+of the estate.
+
+At the moment at which we may be presumed to be introduced, Mr. Tyrrwhit
+had explained the matter in a nervous, hesitating manner, but still in
+words sufficiently clear. "There's the money down now if you like to
+take it, and I'm for taking it." These were the words with which Mr.
+Tyrrwhit completed his address.
+
+"Circumstances is different," said the man with his hat on.
+
+"I don't know much about that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Circumstances is different. I can't 'elp whether you know it or not."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"They is different,--and that's all about it. It'll perhaps shuit you and
+them other shentlemen to take a pershentage."
+
+"It won't suit Evans & Crooke," said the man who represented that firm.
+
+"But perhaps Messrs. Evans & Crooke may be willing to save so much of
+their property," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"They'd like to have what's due to 'em."
+
+"We should all like that," said Spicer, and he gnashed his teeth and
+shook his head.
+
+"But we can't get it all," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Speak for yourself, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Hart. "I think I can get mine.
+This is the most almighty abandoned swindle I ever met in all my born
+days." The whole meeting, except Mr. Tyrrwhit, received this assertion
+with loudly expressed applause. "Such a blackguard, dirty, thieving job
+never was up before in my time. I don't know 'ow to talk of it in
+language as a man isn't ashamed to commit himself to. It's downright
+robbery."
+
+"I say so too," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"By George!" continued Mr. Hart, "we come forward to 'elp a shentleman
+in his trouble and to wait for our moneys till the father is dead, and
+then when 'e's 'ad our moneys the father turns round and says that 'is
+own son is a--Oh, it's too shocking! I 'aven't slept since I 'eard
+it,--not a regular night's rest. Now, it's my belief the captain 'as no
+'and in it."
+
+Here Mr. Juniper scratched his head and looked doubtful, and one or two
+of the other silent gentlemen scratched their heads. Messrs. Evans &
+Crooke scratched his head. "It's a matter on which I would not like to
+give an opinion one way or the other," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"No more wouldn't I," said Spicer.
+
+"Let every man speak as he finds," continued Hart. "That's my belief. I
+don't mind giving up a little of my claim, just a thousand or so, for
+ready cash. The old sinner ought to be dead, and can't last long. My
+belief is when 'e's gone I'm so circumstanced I shall get the whole.
+Whether or no, I've gone in for 'elping the captain with all my savings,
+and I mean to stick to them."
+
+"And lose everything," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Why don't we go and lug the old sinner into prison?" said Evans &
+Crooke.
+
+"Certainly that's the game," said Juniper, and there was another loud
+acclamation of applause from the entire room.
+
+"Gentlemen, you don't know what you're talking about, you don't indeed,"
+said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"I don't believe as we do," said Spicer.
+
+"You can't touch the old gentleman. He owes you nothing, nor have you a
+scratch of his pen. How are you to lug an old gentleman to prison when
+he's lying there cut up by the doctors almost to nothing? I don't know
+that anybody can touch him. The captain perhaps might, if the present
+story be false; and the younger son, if the other be true. And then
+they'd have to prove it. Mr. Grey says that no one can touch him."
+
+"He's in the swim as bad as any of 'em," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"Of course he is," said Hart. "But let everybody speak for himself. I've
+gone in to 'earn a 'eavy stake honestly."
+
+"That's all right," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"And I mean to 'ave it or nothing. Now, Mr. Tyrrwhit, you know a piece
+of my mind. It's a biggish lot of money."
+
+"We know what your claim is."
+
+"But no man knows what the captain got, and I don't mean 'em to know."
+
+"About fifteen thousand," came in a whisper from some one in the room.
+
+"That's a lie," said Mr. Hart; "so there's no getting out of that. If
+the shentleman will mind 'is own concerns I'll mind mine. Nobody
+knows,--barring the captain, and he like enough has forgot,--and nobody's
+going to know. What's written on these eight bits of paper everybody may
+know," and he pulled out of a large case or purse, which he carried in
+his breast coat-pocket, a fat sheaf of bills. "There are five thou'
+written on each of them, and for five thou' on each of them I means to
+stand out. 'It or miss. If any shentleman chooses to talk to me about
+ready money I'll take two thou' off. I like ready money as well as
+another."
+
+"We can all say the same as that, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"No doubt. And if you think you can get it, I advise you to stick to it.
+If you thought you could get it you would say the same. But I should
+like to get that old man's 'ead between my fists. Wouldn't I punch it!
+Thief! scoundrel! 'orrid old man! It ain't for myself that I'm speaking
+now, because I'm a-going to get it,--I think I'm a-going to get it;--it's
+for humanity at large. This kind of thing wiolates one's best feelings."
+
+"'Ear, 'ear, 'ear!" said one of the silent gentlemen.
+
+"Them's the sentiments of Evans & Crooke," said the representative of
+that firm.
+
+"They're all our sentiments, in course," said Spicer; "but what's the
+use?"
+
+"Not a ha'p'orth," said Mr. Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Asking your pardon, Mr. Tyrrwhit," said Mr. Hart, "but, as this is a
+meeting of creditors who 'ave a largish lot of money to deal with, I
+don't think they ought to part without expressing their opinions in the
+way of British commerce. I say crucifying 'd be too good for 'im."
+
+"You can't get at him to crucify him."
+
+"There's no knowing about that," said Mr. Hart.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, drawing out his watch, "I expect Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough to call upon us."
+
+"You can crucify _him_," said Evans & Crooke.
+
+"It is the old man, and neither of the sons, as have done it," said
+Hart.
+
+"Mr. Scarborough," continued Tyrrwhit, "will be here, and will expect to
+learn whether we have accepted his offer. He will be accompanied by Mr.
+Barry. If one rejects, all reject."
+
+"Not at all," said Hart.
+
+"He will not consent to pay anything unless he can make a clean hit of
+it. He is about to sacrifice a very large sum of money."
+
+"Sacrifice!" said Juniper.
+
+"Yes; sacrifice a very large sum of money. His father cannot pay it
+without his consent. The father may die any day, and then the money will
+belong altogether to the son. You have, none of you, any claim upon him.
+It is likely he may think you will have a claim on the estate, not
+trusting his own father."
+
+"I wouldn't trust him, not 'alf as far as I could see him, though he was
+twice my father." This again came from Mr. Hart.
+
+"I want to explain to these gentlemen how the matter stands."
+
+"They understand," said Hart.
+
+"I'm for securing my own money. It's very hard,--after all the risk. I
+quite agree with Mr. Hart in what he says about the squire. Such a piece
+of premeditated dishonesty for robbing gentlemen of their property I
+never before heard. It's awful."
+
+"'Orrid old man!" said Mr. Hart.
+
+"Just so. But half a loaf is better than no bread. Now, here is a list,
+prepared in Mr. Grey's chambers."
+
+"'E's another, nigh as 'orrid."
+
+"On this list we're all down, with the sums he says we advanced. Are we
+to take them? If so we must sign our names, each to his own figure."
+Then he passed the list down the table.
+
+The men there assembled all crowded to look at the list, and among
+others Mr. Juniper. He showed his anxiety by the eager way in which he
+nearly annihilated Messrs. Evans & Crooke, by leaning over him as he
+struggled to read the paper. "Your name ain't down at all," said Evans &
+Crooke. Then a tremendous oath, very bitter and very wicked, came from
+the mouth of Mr. Juniper, most unbefitting a young man engaged to marry
+a young lady. "I tell you it isn't here," said Evans & Crooke, trying to
+extricate himself.
+
+"I shall know how to right myself," said Juniper, with another oath.
+And he then walked out of the room.
+
+"The captain, when he was drunk one night, got a couple of ponies from
+him. It wasn't a couple all out. And Juniper made him write his name for
+five hundred pounds. It was thought then that the squire 'd have been
+dead next day, and Juniper 'd 've got a good thing."'
+
+"I 'ate them ways," said Mr. Hart. "I never deal with a shentleman if
+he's, to say--drunk. Of course it comes in my way, but I never does."
+
+Now there was heard a sound of steps on the stairs, and Mr. Tyrrwhit
+rose from his chair so as to perform the duty of master of the
+ceremonies to the gentlemen who were expected. Augustus Scarborough
+entered the room, followed by Mr. Barry. They were received with
+considerable respect, and seated on two chairs at Mr. Tyrrwhit's right
+hand. "Gentlemen, you most of you know these two gentlemen. They are Mr.
+Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry, junior partner in the firm of
+Messrs. Grey & Barry."
+
+"We knows 'em," said Hart.
+
+"My client has made a proposition to you," said Mr. Barry. "If you will
+give up your bonds against his brother, which are not worth the paper
+they are written on--"
+
+"Gammon!" said Mr. Hart.
+
+"I will sign checks paying to you the sums of money written on that
+list. But you must all agree to accept such sums in liquidation in full.
+I see you have not signed the paper yet. No time is to be lost. In fact,
+you must sign it now, or my client will withdraw from his offer."
+
+"Withdraw; will 'e?" said Hart. "Suppose we withdraw? 'O does your
+client think is the honestest man in this 'ere swim?"
+
+Mr. Barry seemed somewhat abashed by this question. "It isn't necessary
+to go into that, Mr. Hart," said he.
+
+Mr. Hart laughed long and loud, and all the gentlemen laughed. There was
+something to them extremely jocose in their occupying, as it were, the
+other side of the question, and appearing as the honest, injured party.
+They enjoyed it thoroughly, and Mr. Hart was disposed to make the most
+of it. "No; it ain't necessary; is it? There ain't no question of
+honesty to be asked in this 'ere business. We quite understand that."
+
+Then up and spoke Augustus Scarborough. He rose to his feet, and the
+very fact of his doing so quieted for a time the exuberant mirth of the
+party. "Gentlemen, Mr. Hart speaks to you of honesty. I am not going to
+boast of my own. I am here to consent to the expenditure of a very large
+sum of money, for which I am to get nothing, and which, if not paid to
+you, will all go into my own pocket;--unless you believed that you
+wouldn't be here to meet me."
+
+"We don't believe nothing," said Hart.
+
+"Mr. Hart, you should let Mr. Scarborough speak," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Vell, let 'im speak. Vat's the odds?"
+
+"I do not wish to delay you, nor to delay myself," continued Augustus.
+"I can go, and will go, at once. But I shall not come back. There is no
+good discussing this matter any longer."
+
+"Oh no; not the least. Ve don't like discussion; do ve, captain?" said
+Mr. Hart. "But you ain't the captain; is you?"
+
+"As there seems to be no intention of signing that document, I shall
+go," said Augustus. Then Mr. Tyrrwhit took the paper, and signed it on
+the first line with his own name at full length. He wrote his name to a
+very serious sum of money, but it was less than half what he and others
+had expected to receive when the sum was lent. Had that been realized
+there would have been no farther need for the formalities of Gurney &
+Malcolmson, and that young lad must have found other work to do than the
+posting of circulars. The whole matter, however, had been much
+considered, and he signed the document. Mr. Hart's name came next, but
+he passed it on. "I ain't made up my mind yet. Maybe I shall have to
+call on Mr. Barry. I ain't just consulted my partner." Then the document
+went down to Mr. Spicer, who signed it, grinning horribly; as did also
+Evans & Crooke and all the others. They did believe that was the only
+way in which they could get back the money they had advanced. It was a
+great misfortune, a serious blow. But in this way there was something
+short of ruin. They knew that Scarborough was about to pay the money, so
+that he might escape a lawsuit, which might go against him; but then
+they also wished to avoid the necessity of bringing the lawsuit. Looking
+at the matter all round, we may say that the lawyers were the persons
+most aggrieved by what was done on that morning. They all signed it as
+they sat there,--except Mr. Hart, who passed it on, and still wore his
+hat.
+
+"You won't agree, Mr. Hart?" said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"Not yet I von't," said Hart. "I ain't thought it out. I ain't in the
+same boat with the rest. I'm not afraid of my money. I shall get that
+all right."
+
+"Then I may as well go," said Augustus.
+
+"Don't be in a hurry, Mr. Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit. "Things of this
+kind can't be done just in a moment." But Augustus explained that they
+must be done in a very few moments, if they were to be done at all. It
+was not his intention to sit there in Gurney & Malcolmson's office
+discussing the matter with Mr. Hart. Notice of his intention had been
+given, and they might take his money or leave it.
+
+"Just so, captain," said Mr. Hart. "Only I believe you ain't the
+captain. Where's the captain now? I see him last at Monte Carlo, and he
+had won a pot of money. He was looking uncommon well after his little
+accident in the streets with young Annesley."
+
+Mr. Tyrrwhit contrived to get all the others out of the room, he
+remaining there with Hart and Augustus Scarborough and Mr. Barry. And
+then Hart did sign the document with altered figures: only that so much
+was added on to the sum which he agreed to accept, and a similar
+deduction made from that to which Mr. Tyrrwhit's name was signed. But
+this was not done without renewed expostulation from the latter
+gentleman. It was very hard, he said, that all the sacrifice should be
+made by him. He would be ruined, utterly ruined by the transaction. But
+he did sign for the altered sum, and Mr. Hart also signed the paper.
+"Now, Mr. Barry, as the matter is completed, I think I will withdraw,"
+said Augustus.
+
+"It's five thousand pounds clean gone out of my pocket," said Hart, "and
+I vas as sure of it as ever I vas in my life. There vas no better money
+than the captain's. Vell, vell! This vorld's a queer place." So saying,
+he followed Augustus and Mr. Barry out of the room, and left Mr.
+Tyrrwhit alone in his misery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+VICTORIA STREET.
+
+
+Lounging in an arm-chair in a small but luxuriously furnished room in
+Victoria Street sat Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, and opposite to him,
+equally comfortably placed, as far as externals were concerned, but
+without any of that lounging look which the captain affected, sat his
+brother. It was nearly eight o'clock, and the sound of the dinner-plates
+could be heard through the open doors from the next room. It was
+evident, or at any rate was the fact, that Augustus found his brother's
+presence a bore, and as evident that the captain intended to disregard
+the dissatisfaction evinced by the owner of the chambers. "Do shut the
+door, Mountjoy," said the younger. "I don't suppose we want the servant
+to hear everything that we say."
+
+"He's welcome for me," said Mountjoy, without moving. Then Augustus got
+up and banged the door. "Don't be angry because I sometimes forget that
+I am no longer considered to be your elder brother," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Bother about elder brothers! I suppose you can shut a door?"
+
+"A man is sometimes compelled by circumstances to think whether he can
+or not. I'd've shut the door for you readily enough the other day. I
+don't know that I can now. Ain't we going to have some dinner? It's
+eight o'clock."
+
+"I suppose they'll get dinner for you;--I'm not going to dine here." The
+two men were both dressed and after this they remained silent for the
+next five minutes. Then the servant came in and said that dinner was
+ready.
+
+All this happened in December. It must be explained that the captain had
+come to London at his brother's instance, and was there, in his rooms,
+at his invitation. Indeed, we may say that he had come at his brother's
+command. Augustus had during the last few months taken upon himself to
+direct the captain's movements; and though he had not always been
+obeyed, still, upon the whole, his purposes had been carried out as well
+as he could expect. He had offered to supply the money necessary for the
+captain's tour, and had absolutely sent a servant to accompany the
+traveller. When the traveller had won money at Monaco he had been
+unruly, but this had not happened very often. When we last saw him he
+had expressed his intention to Mr. Hart of making a return journey to
+the Caucasian provinces. But he got no farther than Genoa on his way to
+the Caucasus, and then, when he found that Mr. Hart was not at his back,
+he turned round and went back to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo, of all places
+on the world's surface, had now charms for him.
+
+There was no longer a club open to him, either in London or Paris, at
+which he could win or lose one hundred pounds. At Monte Carlo he could
+still do so readily; and, to do so, need not sink down into any
+peculiarly low depth of social gathering. At Monte Carlo the _ennui_ of
+the day was made to disappear. At Monte Carlo he could lie in bed till
+eleven, and then play till dinner-time. At Monte Carlo there was always
+some one who would drink a glass of wine with him without inquiring too
+closely as to his antecedents. He had begun by winning a large sum of
+money. He had got some sums from his brother, and when at last he was
+summoned home he was penniless. Had his pocket been still full of money
+it may be doubted whether he would have come, although he understood
+perfectly the importance of the matter on which he had been recalled.
+
+He had been sent for in order that he might receive from Mr. Grey a
+clear statement of what it was intended to do in reference to the
+payment of money to the creditors. Mr. Grey had, in the first place,
+endeavored to assure him that his co-operation was in no respect made
+necessary by the true circumstances of the case, but in order to satisfy
+the doubts of certain persons. The money to be paid was the joint
+property of his father and his brother,--of his father, as far as the use
+of it for his life was concerned, and of his brother, as to its
+continued and perpetual enjoyment. They were willing to pay so much for
+the redemption of the bonds given by him, the captain. As far as these
+bonds were concerned the captain would thus be a free man. There could
+be no doubt that nothing but benefit was intended for him,--as though he
+were himself the heir. "Though as to that I have no hesitation in
+telling you that, you will at your father's death have no right to a
+shilling of the property." The captain had said that he was quite
+willing, and had signed the deed. He was glad that these bonds should be
+recovered so cheaply. But as to the property,--and here he spoke with
+much spirit to Mr. Grey,--it was his purpose at his father's death to
+endeavor to regain his position. He would never believe, he said, that
+his mother was--Then he turned away, and, in spite of all that had come
+and gone, Mr. Grey respected him.
+
+But he had signed the deed, and the necessity for his presence was over.
+What should his brother do with him now? He could not keep him
+concealed,--or not concealed,--in his rooms. But something must be done.
+Some mode of living must be invented for him. Abroad! Augustus said to
+himself,--and to Septimus Jones, who was his confidential friend,--that
+Mountjoy must live "abroad."
+
+"Oh yes; he must go abroad. There's no doubt about that. It's the only
+place for him." So spoke Septimus Jones, who, though confidential
+friend, was not admitted to the post of confidential adviser. Augustus
+liked to have a depositary for his resolutions, but would admit no
+advice. And Septimus Jones had become so much his creature that he had
+to obey him in all things.
+
+We are apt to think that a man may be disposed of by being made to go
+abroad; or, if he is absolutely penniless and useless, by being sent to
+the colonies,--that he may become a shepherd and drink himself out of the
+world. To kill the man, so that he may be no longer a nuisance, is
+perhaps the chief object in both cases. But it was not easy to get the
+captain to go abroad unless, indeed, he was sent back to Monte Carlo.
+Some Monte Carlo, such as a club might be with stakes practically
+unlimited, was the first desire of his heart. But behind that, or
+together with it, was an anxious longing to remain near Tretton and "see
+it out," as he called it, when his father should die. His father must
+die very shortly, and he would like "to see it out," as he told Mr.
+Grey; and, with this wish, there was a longing also for the company of
+Florence Mountjoy.
+
+He used to tell himself, in those moments of sad thoughts,--thoughts
+serious as well as sad, which will come even to a gambler,--that if he
+could have Tretton and Florence Mountjoy he would never touch another
+card. And there was present to him an assurance that his aunt, Mrs.
+Mountjoy, would still be on his side. If he could talk over his
+circumstances with Mrs. Mountjoy, he thought that he might be encouraged
+to recover his position as an English gentleman. His debts at the club
+had already been paid, and he had met on the sly a former friend, who
+had given him some hope that he might be re-admitted. But at the present
+moment his mind turned to Brussels. He had learned that Florence and her
+mother were at the embassy there, and, though he hesitated, still he
+desired to go. But this was not the "abroad" contemplated by Augustus.
+Augustus did not think it well that his father's bastard son, who had
+been turned out of a London club for not paying his card debts, and had
+then disappeared in a mysterious way for six months, should show himself
+at the British embassy, and there claim admittance and relationship. Nor
+was he anxious that his brother should see Florence Mountjoy. He had
+suggested a prolonged tour in South America, which he had declared to be
+the most interesting country in the world. "I think I had rather go to
+Brussels," Mountjoy had answered, gallantly, keeping his seat in the
+arm-chair and picking his teeth the while. This occurred on the evening
+before that on which we found them just now. On the morning of that day
+Mountjoy had had his interview with Mr. Grey.
+
+Augustus had declared that he intended to dine out. This he had said in
+disgust at his brother's behavior. No doubt he could get his dinner at
+ten minutes' notice. He had not been expelled from his club. But he had
+ordered the dinner on that day with a view to eat it himself, and in
+effect he carried out his purpose. The captain got up, thinking to go
+alone when the dinner was announced, but expressed himself gratified
+when his brother said that he "had changed his mind." "You made yourself
+such an ass about shutting the door that I resolved to leave you to
+yourself. But come along." And he accompanied the captain into the other
+room.
+
+A very pretty little dinner was prepared,--quite such as one loving
+friend might give to another, when means are sufficient,--such a dinner
+as the heir of Tretton might have given to his younger brother. The
+champagne was excellent, and the bottle of Leoville. Mountjoy partook of
+all the good things with much gusto, thinking all the while that he
+ought to have been giving the dinner to his younger brother. When that
+conversation had sprung up about going to Brussels or South America,
+Mountjoy had suggested a loan. "I'll pay your fare to Rio, and give you
+an order on a banker there." Mountjoy had replied that that would not at
+all suit his purpose. Then Augustus had felt that it would be almost
+better to send his brother even to Brussels than to keep him concealed
+in London. He had been there now for three or four days, and, even in
+respect of his maintenance, had become a burden. The pretty little
+dinners had to be found every day, and were eaten by the captain alone,
+when left alone, without an attempt at an apology on his part. Augustus
+had begun with some intention of exhibiting his mode of life. He would
+let his brother know what it was to be the heir of Tretton. No doubt he
+did assume all the outward glitter of his position, expecting to fill
+his brother's heart with envy. But Mountjoy had seen and understood it
+all; and remembering the days, not long removed, when he had been the
+heir, he bethought himself that he had never shown off before his
+brother. And he was determined to express no gratitude or thankfulness.
+He would go on eating the little dinners exactly as though they had been
+furnished by himself. It certainly was dull. There was no occupation for
+him, and in the matter of pocket-money he was lamentably ill-supplied.
+But he was gradually becoming used to face the streets again and had
+already entered the shops of one or two of his old tradesmen. He had
+quite a confidential conversation with his boot-maker, and had ordered
+three or four new pairs of boots.
+
+Nobody could tell how the question of the property would be decided till
+his father should have died. His father had treated him most cruelly,
+and he would only wait for his death. He could assure the boot-maker
+that when that time came he should look for his rights. He knew that
+there was a suspicion abroad that he was in a conspiracy with his father
+and brother to cheat his creditors. No such thing. He himself was
+cheated. He pledged himself to the boot-maker that, to the best of his
+belief, his father was robbing him, and that he would undoubtedly assert
+his right to the Tretton property as soon as the breath should be out of
+his father's body. The truth of what he told the boot-maker he certainly
+did believe. There was some little garnishing added to his tale,--which,
+perhaps, under the circumstances, was to be forgiven. The blow had come
+upon him so suddenly, he said, that he was not able even to pay his card
+account, and had left town in dismay at the mine which had been exploded
+under his feet. The boot-maker believed him so far that he undertook to
+supply his orders.
+
+When the dinner had been eaten the two brothers lit their cigars and
+drew to the fire. "There must, unfortunately, come an end to this, you
+know," said Augustus.
+
+"I certainly can't stand it much longer," said Mountjoy.
+
+"You, at any rate, have had the best of it. I have endeavored to make my
+little crib comfortable for you."
+
+"The grub is good, and the wine. There's no doubt about that. Somebody
+says somewhere that nobody can live upon bread alone. That includes the
+whole _menu_, I suppose."
+
+"What do you suggest to do with yourself?"
+
+"You said, go abroad."
+
+"So I did--to Rio."
+
+"Rio is a long way off,--somewhere across the equator, isn't it?"
+
+"I believe it is."
+
+"I think we'd better have it out clearly between us, Augustus. It won't
+suit me to be at Rio Janeiro when our father dies."
+
+"What difference will his death make to you?"
+
+"A father's death generally does make a difference to his eldest son,
+particularly if there is any property concerned."
+
+"You mean to say that you intend to dispute the circumstances of your
+birth?"
+
+"Dispute them! Do you think that I will allow such a thing to be said of
+my mother without disputing it? Do you suppose that I will give up my
+claim to one of the finest properties in England without disputing it?"
+
+"Then I had better stop the payment of that money, and let the gentlemen
+know that you mean to raise the question on their behalf."
+
+"That's your affair. The arrangement is a very good one for me; but you
+made it."
+
+"You know very well that your present threat means nothing. Ask Mr.
+Grey. You can trust him."
+
+"But I can't trust him. After having been so wickedly deceived by my own
+father, I can trust no one. Why did not Mr. Grey find it out before, if
+it be true? I give you my word, Augustus, the lawyers will have to fight
+it out before you will be allowed to take possession."
+
+"And yet you do not scruple to come and live here at my cost."
+
+"Not in the least. At whose cost can I live with less scruple than at
+yours? You, at any rate, have not robbed our mother of her good name, as
+my father has done. The only one of the family with whom I could not
+stay is the governor. I could not sit at the table with a man who has so
+disgraced himself."
+
+"Upon my word I am very much obliged to you for the honor you do me."
+
+"That's my feeling. The chance of the game and his villany have given
+you for the moment the possession of all the good things. They are all
+mine by rights."
+
+"Cards have had nothing to do with it."
+
+"Yes; they have. But they have had nothing to do with my being the
+eldest legitimate son of my father. The cards have been against me, but
+they have not affected my mother. Then there came the blow from the
+governor, and where was I to look for my bread but to you? I suppose, if
+the truth be known, you get the money from the governor."
+
+"Of course I do. But not for your maintenance."
+
+"On what does he suppose that I have been living since last June? It
+mayn't be in the bond, but I suppose he has made allowance for my
+maintenance. Do you mean to say that I am not to have bread-and-cheese
+out of Tretton?"
+
+"If I were to turn you out of these rooms you'd find it very difficult
+to get it."
+
+"I don't think you'll do that."
+
+"I'm not so sure."
+
+"You're meditating it,--are you? I shouldn't go just at present, because
+I have not got a sovereign in the world. I was going to speak to you
+about money. You must let me have some."
+
+"Upon my word, I like your impudence!"
+
+"What the devil am I to do? The governor has asked me to go down to
+Tretton, and I can't go without a five-pound note in my pocket."
+
+"The governor has asked you to Tretton?"
+
+"Why not? I got a letter from him this morning." Then Augustus asked to
+see the letter, but Mountjoy refused to show it. From this there arose
+angry words, and Augustus told his brother that he did not believe him.
+"Not believe me? You do believe me! You know that what I say is the
+truth, He has asked me with all his usual soft soap. But I have refused
+to go. I told him that I could not go to the house of one who had
+injured my mother so seriously."
+
+All that Mountjoy said as to the proposed visit to Tretton was true. The
+squire had written to him without mentioning the name of Augustus, and
+had told him that, for the present, Tretton would be the best home for
+him. "I will do what I can to make you happy, but you will not see a
+card," the squire had said. It was not the want of cards which prevented
+Mountjoy, but a feeling on his part that for the future there could be
+nothing but war between him and his father. It was out of the question
+that he should accept his father's hospitality without telling him of
+his intention, and he did not know his father well enough to feel that
+such a declaration would not affect him at all. He had, therefore,
+declined.
+
+Then Harry Annesley's name was mentioned. "I think I've done for that
+fellow," said Augustus.
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+"I've cooked his goose. In the first place, his uncle has stopped his
+allowance, and in the second place the old fellow is going to marry a
+wife. At any rate, he has quarrelled with Master Harry _a outrance_.
+Master Harry has gone back to the parental parsonage, and is there
+eating the bread of affliction and drinking the waters of poverty.
+Flossy Mountjoy may marry him if she pleases. A girl may marry a man now
+without leave from anybody. But if she does my dear cousin will have
+nothing to eat."
+
+"And you have done this?"
+
+"'Alone I did it, boy.'"
+
+"Then it's an infernal shame. What harm had he ever done you? For me I
+had some ground of quarrel with him, but for you there was none."
+
+"I have my own quarrel with him also."
+
+"I quarrelled with him--with a cause. I do not care if I quarrel with
+him again. He shall never marry Florence Mountjoy if I can help it. But
+to rob a fellow of his property I think a very shabby thing." Then
+Augustus got up and walked out of the chambers into the street, and
+Mountjoy soon followed him.
+
+"I must make him understand that he must leave this at once," said
+Augustus to himself, "and if necessary I must order the supplies to be
+cut off."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+THE SCARBOROUGH CORRESPONDENCE.
+
+
+It was as Mountjoy had said. The squire had written to him a letter
+inviting him to Tretton, and telling him that it would be the best home
+for him till death should have put Tretton into other hands. Mountjoy
+had thought the matter over, sitting in the easy-chair in his brother's
+room, and had at last declined the invitation. As his letter was
+emblematic of the man, it may be as well to give it to the reader:
+
+"My dear father,--I don't think it will suit me to go down to Tretton at
+present. I don't mind the cards, and I don't doubt that you would make
+it better than this place. But, to tell the truth, I don't believe a
+word of what you have told to the world about my mother, and some of
+these days I mean to have it out with Augustus. I shall not sit quietly
+by and see Tretton taken out of my mouth. Therefore I think I had better
+not go to Tretton.
+
+"Yours truly,
+
+"MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH."
+
+This had not at all surprised the father, and had not in the least
+angered him. He rather liked his son for standing up for his mother, and
+was by no means offended at the expression of his son's incredulity. But
+what was there in the prospect of a future lawsuit to prevent his son
+coming to Tretton? There need be no word spoken as to the property.
+Tretton would be infinitely more comfortable than those rooms in
+Victoria Street, and he was aware that the hospitality of Victoria
+Street would not be given in an ungrudging spirit. "I shouldn't like
+it," said the old squire to himself as he lay quiet on his sofa. "I
+shouldn't like at all to be the humble guest of Augustus. Augustus would
+certainly say a nasty word or two."
+
+The old man knew his younger son well, and he had known, too, the
+character of his elder son; but he had not calculated enough on the
+change which must have been made by such a revelation as he, his father,
+had made to him. Mountjoy had felt that all the world was against him,
+and that, as best he might, he would make use of all the world,
+excepting only his father, who of all the world was the falsest and the
+most cruel. As for his brother, he would bleed his brother to the very
+last drop without any compunction. Every bottle of champagne that came
+into the house was, to Mountjoy's thinking, his own, bought with his
+money, and therefore fit to be enjoyed by him. But as for his father, he
+doubted whether he could remain with his father without flying at his
+throat.
+
+The old man decidedly preferred his elder son of the two. He had found
+that Augustus could not bear success, and had first come to dislike him,
+and then to hate him. What had he not done for Augustus? And with what a
+return! No doubt Augustus had, till the spring of this present year,
+been kept in the background; but no injury had come to him from that.
+His father, of his own good will, with infinite labor and successful
+ingenuity, had struggled to put him back in the place which had been
+taken from him. Augustus might, not unnaturally, have expressed himself
+as angry. He had not done so but had made himself persistently
+disagreeable, and had continued to show that he was waiting impatiently
+for his father's death. It had come to pass that at their last meeting
+he had hardly scrupled to tell his father that the world would be no
+world for him till his father had left it. This was the reward which the
+old man received for having struggled to provide handsomely and
+luxuriously for his son! He still made his son a sufficient allowance
+befitting the heir of a man of large property, but he had resolved never
+to see him again. It was true that he almost hated him, and thoroughly
+despised him.
+
+But since the departure and mysterious disappearance of his eldest son
+his regard for the sinner had returned. He had become apparently a
+hopeless gambler. His debts had been paid and repaid. At last the
+squire had learned that Mountjoy owed so much on post-obits that the
+farther payment of them was an impossibility. There was no way of saving
+him. To save the property he must undo the doings of his early youth,
+and prove that the elder son was illegitimate. He had still kept the
+proofs, and he did it.
+
+To the great disgust of Mr. Grey, to the dismay of creditors, to the
+incredulous wonder of Augustus, and almost to the annihilation of
+Mountjoy himself, he had done it. But there had been nothing in
+Mountjoy's conduct which had in truth wounded him. Mountjoy's vices had
+been dangerous, destructive, absurdly foolish, but not, to his father, a
+shame. He ridiculed gambling as a source of excitement. No man could win
+much without dishonest practices, and fraud at cards would certainly be
+detected. But he did not on that account hate cards. There was no reason
+why Mountjoy should not become to him as pleasant a companion as ever
+for the few days that might be left to him, if only he would come. But,
+when asked, he refused to come. When the squire received the letter
+above given he was not in the least angry with his son, but simply
+determined, if possible, that he should be brought to Tretton.
+Mountjoy's debts would now be paid, and something, if possible, should
+be done for him. He was so angry with Augustus that he would, if
+possible, revoke his last decision;--but that, alas! would be impossible.
+
+Sir William Brodrick had, when he last saw him, expressed some hope,--not
+of his recovery, which was by all admitted to be impossible,--but of his
+continuance in the land of the living for another three months, or
+perhaps six, as Sir William had finally suggested, opening out, as he
+himself seemed to think, indefinite hope. "The most wonderful
+constitution, Mr. Scarborough, I ever saw in my life. I've never known a
+dog even so cut about, and yet bear it." Mr. Scarborough bowed and
+smiled, and accepted the compliment. He would have taken the hat off his
+head, had it been his practice to wear a hat in his sitting-room. Mr.
+Merton had gone farther. Of course he did not mean, he said, to set up
+his opinion against Sir William's; but if Mr. Scarborough would live
+strictly by rule, Mr. Merton did not see why either three months or six
+should be the end of it. Mr. Scarborough had replied that he could not
+undertake to live precisely by rule, and Mr. Merton had shaken his head.
+But from that time forth Mr. Scarborough did endeavor to obey the
+injunctions given to him. He had something worth doing in the six months
+now offered to him.
+
+He had heard lately very much of the story of Harry Annesley, and had
+expressed great anger at the ill-usage to which that young man had been
+subjected. It had come to his ears that it was intended that Harry
+should lose the property he had expected, and that he had already lost
+his immediate income. This had come to him through Mr. Merton, between
+whom and Augustus Scarborough there was no close friendship. And the
+squire understood that Florence Mountjoy had been the cause of Harry's
+misfortune. He himself recognized it as a fact that his son Mountjoy was
+unfit to marry any young lady. Starvation would assuredly stare such
+young lady in the face. But not the less was he acerbated and disgusted
+at the idea that Augustus should endeavor to take the young lady to
+himself. "What!" he had exclaimed to Mr. Merton; "he wants both the
+property and the girl. There is nothing on earth that he does not want.
+The greater the impropriety in his craving, the stronger the craving."
+Then he picked up by degrees all the details of the midnight feud
+between Harry and Mountjoy, and set himself to work to undermine
+Augustus. But he had steadily carried out the plan for settling with the
+creditors, and, with the aid of Mr. Grey, had, as he thought, already
+concluded that business. Conjunction with Augustus had been necessary,
+but that had been obtained.
+
+It is not too much to say that, at the present moment of his life, the
+idea of doing some injury to Augustus was the one object which exercised
+Mr. Scarborough's mind. Since he had fallen into business relations with
+his younger son he had become convinced that a more detestable young man
+did not exist. The reader will, perhaps, agree with Mr. Scarborough, but
+it can hardly be hoped that he should entertain the opinion as strongly.
+
+Augustus was now the recognized eldest legitimate son of the squire; and
+as the property was entailed it must no doubt belong to him. But the
+squire was turning in his mind all means of depriving that condition as
+far as was possible of its glory. When he had first heard of the injury
+that had been done to Harry Annesley, he thought that he would leave to
+our hero all the furniture, all the gems, all the books, all the wine,
+all the cattle which were accumulated at Tretton. Augustus should have
+the bare acres, and still barer house, but nothing else. In thinking of
+this he had been actuated by a conviction that it would be useless for
+him to leave them to Mountjoy. Whatever might be left to Mountjoy would
+in fact be left to the creditors; and therefore Harry Annesley with his
+injuries had been felt to be a proper recipient, not of the squire's
+bounty, but of the results of his hatred for his son.
+
+To run counter to the law! That had ever been the chief object of the
+squire's ambition. To arrange everything so that it should be seen that
+he had set all laws at defiance! That had been his great pride. He had
+done so notably, and with astonishing astuteness, in reference to his
+wife and two sons. But now there had come up a condition of things in
+which he could again show his cleverness. Augustus had been most anxious
+to get up all the post-obit bonds which the creditors held, feeling, as
+his father well understood, that he would thus prevent them from making
+any farther inquiry when the squire should have died. Why should they
+stir in the matter by going to law when there would be nothing to be
+gained? Those bonds had now been redeemed, and were in the possession of
+Mr. Grey. They had been bought up nominally by himself, and must be
+given to him. Mr. Grey, at any rate, would have the proof that they had
+been satisfied. They could not be used again to gratify any spite that
+Augustus might entertain. The captain, therefore, could now enjoy any
+property which might be left to him. Of course, it would all go to the
+gaming-table. It might even yet be better to leave it to Harry Annesley.
+But blood was thicker than water,--though it were but the blood of a
+bastard. He would do a good turn for Harry in another way. All the
+furniture, and all the gems, and all the money, should again be the
+future property of Mountjoy.
+
+But in order that this might be effected before he died he must not let
+the grass grow under his feet. He thought of the promised three months,
+with a possible extension to six, as suggested by Sir William. "Sir
+William says three months," he said to Mr. Merton, speaking in the
+easiest way of the possibility of his living.
+
+"He said six."
+
+"Ah! that is, if I do what I'm told. But I shall not exactly do that.
+Three or six would be all the same, only for a little bit of business I
+want to get through. Sir William's orders would include the abandonment
+of my business."
+
+"The less done the better. Then I do not see why Sir William should
+limit you to six months."
+
+"I think that three will nearly suffice."
+
+"A man does not want to die, I suppose," said Merton.
+
+"There are various ways of looking at that question," replied the
+squire. "Many men desire the prolongation of life as a lengthened period
+of enjoyment. There is, perhaps, something of that feeling with me; but
+when you see how far I am crippled and curtailed, how my enjoyments are
+confined to breathing the air, to eating and drinking, and to the
+occasional reading of a few pages, you must admit that there cannot be
+much of that. A conversation with you is the best of it. Some want to
+live for the sake of their wives and children. In the ordinary
+acceptation of the words, that is all over with me. Many desire to live
+because they fear to die. There is nothing of that in me, I can assure
+you. I am not afraid to meet my Creator. But there are those who wish
+for life that their purposes of love, or stronger purposes of hatred,
+may be accomplished. I am among the number. But, on that account, I only
+wish it till those purposes have been completed. I think I'll go to
+sleep for an hour; but there are a couple of letters I want you to write
+before post-time." Then Mr. Scarborough turned himself round and thought
+of the letters he was to write. Mr. Merton went out, and as he wandered
+about the park in the dirt and slush of December tried to make up his
+mind whether he most admired his patron's philosophy or condemned his
+general lack of principle.
+
+At the proper hour he appeared again, and found Mr. Scarborough quite
+alert. "I don't know whether I shall have the three months, unless I
+behave better," he said. "I have been thinking about those letters, and
+very nearly made an attempt to write them. There are things about a son
+which a father doesn't wish to communicate to any one." Merton only
+shook his head. "I'm not a bit afraid of you, nor do I care for your
+knowing what I have to say. But there are words which it would be
+difficult even to write, and almost impossible to dictate." But he did
+make the attempt, though he did not find himself able to say all that he
+had intended. The first letter was to the lawyer:
+
+"My dear Mr. Grey,--You will be surprised at my writing to summon you
+once again to my bedside. I think there was some kind of a promise made
+that the request should not be repeated; but the circumstances are of
+such a nature that I do not well know how to avoid it. However, if you
+refuse to come, I will give you my instructions. It is my purpose to
+make another will, and to leave everything that I am capable of leaving
+to my son Mountjoy. You are aware that he is now free from debt, and
+capable of enjoying any property that he may possess. As circumstances
+are at present he would on my death be absolutely penniless, and Heaven
+help the man who should find himself dependent on the mercy of Augustus
+Scarborough.
+
+"What I possess would be the balance at the bank, the house in town, and
+everything contained in and about Tretton, as to which I should wish
+that the will should be very explicit in making it understood that every
+conceivable item of property is to belong to Mountjoy. I know the
+strength of an entail, and not for worlds would I venture to meddle with
+anything so holy." There came a grin of satisfaction over his face as he
+uttered these words, and his scribe was utterly unable to keep from
+laughing. "But as Augustus must have the acres, let him have them bare."
+
+"Underscore that word, if you please;" and the word was underscored. "If
+I had time I would have every tree about the place cut down."
+
+"I don't think you could under the entail," said Merton.
+
+"I would use up every stick in building the farmers' barns and mending
+the farmers' gates, and I would cover an acre just in front of the house
+with a huge conservatory. I respect the law, my boy, and they would find
+it difficult to prove that I had gone beyond it. But there is no time
+for that kind of finished revenge."
+
+Then he went on with the letter: "You will understand what I mean. I
+wish to divide my property so that Mountjoy may have everything that is
+not strictly entailed. You will of course say that it will all go to the
+gambling-table. It may go to the devil, so that Augustus does not have
+it. But it need not go to the gambling-table. If you would consent to
+come down to me once more we might possibly devise some scheme for
+saving it. But whether we can do so or not, it is my request that my
+last will may be prepared in accordance with these instructions.
+
+"Very faithfully yours,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"And now for the other," said Mr. Scarborough.
+
+"Had you not better rest a bit?" asked Merton.
+
+"No; this is a kind of work at which a man does not want to rest. He is
+carried on by his own solicitudes and his own eagerness. This will be
+very short, and when it is done then, perhaps, I may sleep."
+
+The second letter was as follows:
+
+"My dear Mountjoy,--I think you are foolish in allowing yourself to be
+prevented from coming here by a sentiment. But in truth, independently
+of the pleasure I should derive from your company, I wish you to be here
+on a matter of business which is of some importance to yourself. I am
+about to make a new will; and although I am bound to pay every respect
+to the entail, and would not for worlds do anything in opposition to the
+law, still I may be enabled to do something for your benefit. Your
+brother has kindly interfered for the payment of your creditors; and as
+all the outstanding bonds have been redeemed, you would now, by his
+generosity, be enabled to enjoy any property which might be left to you.
+There are a few tables and chairs at my disposal, and a gem or two, and
+some odd volumes which perhaps you might like to possess. I have written
+to Mr. Grey on the subject, and I would wish you to see him. This you
+might do, whether you come here or not. But I do not the less wish that
+you should come.
+
+"Your affectionate father,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"I think that the odd volumes will fetch him. He was always fond of
+literature."
+
+"I suppose it means the entire library?" replied Merton.
+
+"And he likes tables and chairs. I think he will come and look after the
+tables and chairs."
+
+"Why not beds and washhand-stands?" said Mr. Merton.
+
+"Well, yes; he may have the beds and washhand-stands. Mountjoy is not a
+fool, and will understand very well what I mean. I wonder whether I
+could scrape the paper off the drawing-room walls, and leave the scraps
+to his brother, without interfering with the entail? But now I am tired,
+and will rest."
+
+But he did not even then go to rest, but lay still scheming, scheming,
+scheming, about the property. There was now another letter to be
+written, for the writing of which he would not again summon Mr. Merton.
+He was half ashamed to do so, and at last sent for his sister. "Martha,"
+said he, "I want you to write a letter for me."
+
+"Mr. Merton has been writing letters for you all the morning."
+
+"That's just the reason why you should write one now. I am still in some
+slight degree afraid of his authority, but I am not at all afraid of
+yours."
+
+"You ought to be quiet, John; indeed you ought."
+
+"And, in order that I may be quiet, you must write this letter. It's
+nothing particular, or I should not have asked you to do it. It's only
+an invitation."
+
+"An invitation to ask somebody here?"
+
+"Yes; to ask somebody to come here. I don't know whether he'll come."
+
+"Do I know him?"
+
+"I hope you may, if he comes. He's a very good-looking young man, if
+that is anything."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, John."
+
+"But I believe he's engaged to another young lady, with whom I must beg
+you not to interfere. You remember Florence?"
+
+"Florence Mountjoy? Of course I remember my own niece."
+
+"The young man is engaged to her."
+
+"She was intended for poor Mountjoy."
+
+"Poor Mountjoy has put himself beyond all possibility of a wife."
+
+"Poor Mountjoy!"--and the soft-hearted aunt almost shed tears.
+
+"But we haven't to do with Mountjoy now. Sit down there and begin. 'Dear
+Mr. Annesley--'"
+
+"Oh! It's Mr. Annesley, is it?"
+
+"Yes, it is. Mr. Annesley is the handsome young man. Have you any
+objection?"
+
+"Only people do say--"
+
+"What do they say?"
+
+"Of course I don't know; only I have heard--"
+
+"That he is a scoundrel!"
+
+"Scoundrel is very strong," said the old lady, shocked.
+
+"A villain, a liar, a thief, and all the rest of it. That's what you
+have heard. And I'll tell you who has been your informant. Either first
+or second hand, it has come to you from Mr. Augustus Scarborough. Now
+we'll begin again. 'Dear Mr. Annesley--'" The old lady paused a moment,
+and then, setting herself firmly to the task, commenced and finished her
+letter, as follows:
+
+"Dear Mr. Annesley,--You spent a few days here on one occasion, and I
+want to renew the pleasure which your visit gave me. Will you extend
+your kindness so far as to come to Tretton for any time you may please
+to name beyond two or three days? I am sorry to say that your friend
+Augustus Scarborough cannot be here to meet you. My other son, Mountjoy,
+may be here. If you wish to escape him, I will endeavor so to fix the
+time when I shall have heard from you. But I think there need be no ill
+blood there. Neither of you did anything of which you are, probably,
+ashamed; though as an old man I am bound to express my disapproval."
+
+("Surely he must be ashamed," said Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Never you mind. Believe me, you know nothing about it." Then he went on
+with his letter.)
+
+"But it is not merely for the pleasure of your society that I ask you. I
+have a word to say to you which may be important. Yours faithfully,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+HOW THE LETTERS WERE RECEIVED.
+
+
+We must now describe the feelings of Mr. Scarborough's correspondents as
+they received his letters. When Mr. Grey begun to read that which was
+addressed to him he declared that on no consideration would he go down
+to Tretton. But when he came to inquire within himself as to his
+objection he found that it lay chiefly in his great dislike to Augustus
+Scarborough. For poor Mountjoy, as he called him, he entertained a
+feeling of deep pity,--and pity we know, is akin to love. And for the
+squire, he in his heart felt but little of that profound dislike which
+he was aware such conduct as the squire's ought to have generated. "He
+is the greatest rascal that I ever knew," he said again and again, both
+to Dolly and to Mr. Barry. But yet he did not regard him as an honest
+man regards a rascal, and was angry with himself in consequence. He knew
+that there remained with him even some spark of love for Mr.
+Scarborough, which to himself was inexplicable. From the moment in which
+he had first admitted the fact that Augustus Scarborough was the true
+heir-at-law, he had been most determined in taking care that that
+heirship should be established. It must be known to all men that
+Mountjoy was not the eldest son of his father, as the law required him
+to be for the inheritance of the property, and that Augustus was the
+eldest son; but in arranging that these truths should be notorious it
+had come to pass that he had learned to hate Augustus with an intensity
+that had redounded to the advantage both of Mountjoy and their father.
+It must be so. Augustus must become Augustus Scarborough, Esquire, of
+Tretton,--but the worse luck for Tretton and all connected with it. And
+Mr. Grey did resolve that, when that day should come, all relation
+between himself and Tretton should cease.
+
+It had never occurred to him that, by redeeming the post-obit bonds,
+Mountjoy would become capable of owning and enjoying any property that
+might be left to him. With Tretton, all the belongings of Tretton, in
+the old-fashioned way, would, of course, go to the heir. The belongings
+of Tretton, which were personal property, would, in themselves, amount
+to wealth for a younger son. That which Mr. Scarborough would in this
+way be able to bequeath might, probably, be worth thirty thousand
+pounds. Out of the proceeds of the real property the debts had been
+paid. And because Augustus had consented so to pay them he was now to be
+mulcted of those loose belongings which gave its charm to Tretton!
+Because Augustus had paid Mountjoy's debts Mountjoy was to be enabled to
+rob Augustus! There was a wickedness in this redolent of the old squire.
+But it was a wickedness in arranging which Mr. Grey hesitated to
+participate. As he thought of it, however, he could not but feel what a
+very clever man he had for a client.
+
+"It will all go to the gambling-table, of course," he said that night to
+Dolly.
+
+"It is no affair of ours."
+
+"No; but when a lawyer is consulted he has to think of the prudent or
+imprudent disposition of property."
+
+"Mr. Scarborough hasn't consulted you, papa."
+
+"I must look at it as though he had. He tells me what he intends to do,
+and I am bound to give him my advice. I cannot advise him to bestow all
+these things on Augustus, whom I regard as a long way the worst of the
+family."
+
+"You need not care about that."
+
+"And here, again," continued Mr. Grey, "comes up the question,--what is
+it that duty demands? Augustus is the eldest son, and is entitled to
+what the law allots him; but Mountjoy was brought up as the eldest son,
+and is certainly entitled to what provision the father can make him."
+
+"You cannot provide for such a gambler."
+
+"I don't know that that comes within my duty. It is not my fault that
+Mountjoy is a gambler, any more than that it is my fault that Augustus
+is a beast. Gambler and beast, there they are. And, moreover, nothing
+will turn the squire from his purpose. I am only a tool in his hands,--a
+trowel for the laying of his mortar and bricks. Of course I must draw
+his will, and shall do it with some pleasure, because it will dispossess
+Augustus."
+
+Then Mr. Grey went to bed, as did also Dolly; but she was not at all
+surprised at being summoned to his couch after she had been an hour in
+her own bed.
+
+"I think I shall go down to Tretton," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"You declared that you would never go there again."
+
+"So I did; but I did not know then how much I might come to hate
+Augustus Scarborough."
+
+"Would you go to Tretton merely to injure him?" said his daughter.
+
+"I have been thinking about that," said Mr. Grey. "I don't know that I
+would go simply to do him an injury; but I think that I would go to see
+that justice is properly done."
+
+"That can be arranged without your going to Tretton."
+
+"By putting our heads together I think we can contrive that the deed
+shall be more effectually performed. What we must attempt to do is to
+save this property from going to the gambling-table. There is only one
+way that occurs to me."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"It must be left to his wife."
+
+"He hasn't a wife."
+
+"It must be left to some woman whom he will consent to marry. There are
+three objects:--to keep it from Augustus; to give the enjoyment of it to
+Mountjoy; and to prevent Mountjoy from gambling with it. The only thing
+I can see is a wife."
+
+"There is a girl he wants to marry," said Dolly.
+
+"But she doesn't want to marry him, and I doubt whether he can be got to
+marry any one else. There is still a peck of difficulties."
+
+"Oh, papa, I wish you would wash your hands of the Scarboroughs."
+
+"I must go to Tretton first," said he. "And now, my dear, you are doing
+no good by sitting up here and talking to me." Then, with a smile, Dolly
+took herself off to her own chamber.
+
+Mountjoy, when he got his letter, was sitting over a late breakfast in
+Victoria Street. It was near twelve o'clock, and he was enjoying the
+delicious luxury of having his breakfast to eat, with a cigar after it,
+and nothing else that he need do. But the fruition of all these comforts
+was somewhat marred by the knowledge that he had no such dinner to
+expect. He must go out and look for a dinner among the eating-houses.
+The next morning would bring him no breakfast, and if he were to remain
+longer in Victoria Street he must do so in direct opposition to the
+owner of the establishment. He had that morning received notice to quit,
+and had been told that the following breakfast would be the last meal
+served to him. "Let it be good of its kind," Mountjoy had said.
+
+"I believe you care for nothing but eating and drinking."
+
+"There's little else that you can do for me." And so they had parted.
+
+Mountjoy had taken the precaution of having his letters addressed to the
+house of the friendly bootmaker; and now, as he was slowly pouring out
+his first cup of coffee, and thinking how nearly it must be his last,
+his father's letter was brought to him. The letter had been delayed one
+day, as he himself had omitted to call for it. It was necessarily a sad
+time for him. He was a man who fought hard against melancholy, taking it
+as a primary rule of life that, for such a one as he had become, the
+pleasures of the immediate moment should suffice. If one day, or better
+still, one night of excitement was in store for him, the next day should
+be regarded as the unlimited future, for which no man can be
+responsible. But such philosophy will too frequently be insufficient for
+the stoutest hearts. Mountjoy's heart would occasionally almost give
+way, and then his thoughts would be dreary enough. Hunger, absolute
+hunger, without the assured expectation of food, had never yet come upon
+him; but in order to put a stop to its cravings, if he should find it
+troublesome to bear, he had already provided himself with pistol and
+bullets.
+
+And now, with his cup of coffee before him, aromatic, creamy, and hot,
+with a filleted sole rolled up before him on a little dish, three or
+four plover's eggs, on which to finish, lying by, and, on the distance
+of the table, a chasse of brandy, of which he already well knew the
+virtues, he got his father's letter. He did not at first open it,
+disliking all thoughts as to his father. Then gradually he tore the
+envelope, and was slow in understanding the full meaning of the last
+lines. He did not at once perceive the irony of "his brother's kindly
+interference," and of the "generosity" which had enabled him, Mountjoy,
+to be a recipient of property. But his father purposed to do something
+for his benefit. Gradually it dawned upon him that his father could only
+do that something effectually because of his brother's dealings with the
+creditors.
+
+Then the chairs and the tables, and the gem or two, and the odd
+volumes, one by one, made themselves intelligible. That a father should
+write so to one son, and should so write of another, was marvellous. But
+then his father was a marvellous man, whose character he was only
+beginning to understand. His father, he told himself, had, fortunately,
+taken it into his head to hate Augustus, and intended, in consequence,
+to strip Tretton and the property generally of all their outside
+personal belongings.
+
+Yes; he thought that, with such an object before him, he would certainly
+go and see Mr. Grey. And if Mr. Grey should so advise him he would go
+down to Tretton. On such business as this he would consent to see his
+father. He did not think that just at present he need have recourse to
+his pistol for his devices. He could not on the very day go to Tretton,
+as it would be necessary that he should write to his father first. His
+brother would probably extend his hospitality for a couple of days when
+he should hear of the proposed journey, and, if not, would lend him
+money for his present purposes, or under existing circumstances he might
+probably be able to borrow it from Mr. Grey. With a heart elevated to
+almost absolute bliss he ate his breakfast, and drank his chasse, and
+smoked his cigar, and then rose slowly, that he might proceed to Mr.
+Grey's chambers. But at this moment Augustus came in. He had only
+breakfasted at his own club, much less comfortably than he would have
+done at home, in order that he might not sit at table with his brother.
+He had now returned so that he might see to Mountjoy's departure. "After
+all, Augustus, I am going down to Tretton," said the elder brother as he
+folded up his father's letter.
+
+"What argument has the old man used now?" Mountjoy did not think it well
+to tell his brother the exact nature of the arguments used, and
+therefore put the letter into his pocket.
+
+"He wishes to say something to me about property," said Mountjoy.
+
+Then some idea of the old squire's scheme fell with a crushing weight of
+anticipated sorrow on Augustus. In a moment it all occurred to him what
+his father might do, what injuries he might inflict; and,--saddest of all
+feelings,--there came the immediate reflection that it had all been
+rendered possible by his own doings. With the conviction that so much
+might be left away from him, there came also a farther feeling that,
+after all, there was a chance that his father had invented the story of
+his brother's illegitimacy, that Mountjoy was now free from debt, and
+that Tretton, with all its belongings, might now go back to him. That
+his father would do it if it were possible he did not doubt. From week
+to week he had waited impatiently for his father's demise, and had
+expected little or none of that mental activity which his father had
+exercised. "What a fool he had been," he said to himself, sitting
+opposite to Mountjoy, who in the vacancy of the moment had lighted
+another cigar; "what an ass!" Had he played his cards better, had he
+comforted and flattered and cosseted the old man, Mountjoy might have
+gone his own way to the dogs. Now, at the best, Tretton would come to
+him stripped of everything; and,--at the worst,--no Tretton would come to
+him at all. "Well, what are you going to do?" he said, roughly.
+
+"I think I shall, probably, go down and just see the governor."
+
+"All your feelings about your mother, then, are blown to the winds?"
+
+"My feelings about your mother are not blown to the winds at all; but to
+speak of her to you would be wasting breath."
+
+"I hadn't the pleasure of knowing her," said Augustus. "And I am not
+aware that she did me any great kindness in bringing me into the world.
+Do you go to Tretton this afternoon?"
+
+"Probably not."
+
+"Or to-morrow?"
+
+"Possibly to-morrow," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Because I shall find it convenient to have your room."
+
+"To-day, of course, I cannot stir. To-morrow morning I should, at any
+rate, like to have my breakfast." Here he paused for a reply, but none
+came from his brother. "I must have some money to go down to Tretton
+with; I suppose you can lend it me just for the present?"
+
+"Not a shilling," said Augustus, in thorough ill-humor.
+
+"I shall be able to pay you very shortly."
+
+"Not a shilling. The return I have had from you for all that I have done
+is not of a nature to make me do more."
+
+"If I had ever thought that you had expended a sovereign except for the
+object of furthering some plot of your own, I should have been grateful.
+As it is I do not know that we owe very much to each other." Then he
+left the room, and, getting into a cab, went away to Lincoln's Inn.
+
+Harry Annesley received Mr. Scarborough's letter down at Buston, and was
+much surprised by it. He had not spent the winter hitherto very
+pleasantly. His uncle he had never seen, though he had heard from day
+to day sundry stories of his wooing. He had soon given up his hunting,
+feeling himself ashamed, in his present nameless position, to ride
+Joshua Thoroughbung's horses. He had taken to hard reading, but the hard
+reading had failed, and he had been given up to the miseries of his
+position. The hard reading had been continued for a fortnight or three
+weeks, during which he had, at any rate, respected himself, but in an
+evil hour he had allowed it to escape from him, and now was again
+miserable. Then the invitation from Tretton had been received. "I have
+got a letter; 'tis from Mr. Scarborough of Tretton."
+
+"What does Mr. Scarborough say?"
+
+"He wants me to go down there."
+
+"Do you know Mr. Scarborough? I believe you have altogether quarrelled
+with his son?"
+
+"Oh yes; I have quarrelled with Augustus, and have had an encounter with
+Mountjoy not on the most friendly terms. But the father and Mountjoy
+seem to be reconciled. You can see his letter. I, at any rate, shall go
+there." To this Mr. Annesley senior had no objection to make.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+VISITORS AT TRETTON.
+
+
+It so happened that the three visitors who had been asked to Tretton all
+agreed to go on the same day. There was, indeed, no reason why Harry
+should delay his visit, and much why the other two should expedite
+theirs. Mr. Grey knew that the thing, if done at all, should be done at
+once; and Mountjoy, as he had agreed to accept his father's offer, could
+not put himself too quickly under the shelter of his father's roof. "You
+can have twenty pounds," Mr. Grey had said when the subject of the money
+was mooted. "Will that suffice?" Mountjoy had said that it would suffice
+amply, and then, returning to his brother's rooms, had waited there with
+what patience he possessed till he sallied forth to The Continental to
+get the best dinner which that restaurant could afford him. He was
+beginning to feel that his life was very sad in London, and to look
+forward to the glades of Tretton with some anticipation of rural
+delight.
+
+He went down by the same train with Mr. Grey,--"a great grind," as
+Mountjoy called it, when Mr. Grey proposed a departure at ten o'clock.
+Harry followed so as to reach Tretton only in time for dinner. "If I may
+venture to advise you," said Mr. Grey in the train, "I should do in this
+matter whatever my father asked me." Hereupon Mountjoy frowned. "He is
+anxious to make some provision for you."
+
+"I'm not grateful to my father, if you mean that."
+
+"It is hard to say whether you should be grateful. But, from the first,
+he has done the best he could for you, according to his lights."
+
+"You believe all this about my mother?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"I don't. That's the difference. And I don't think that Augustus
+believes it."
+
+"The story is undoubtedly true."
+
+"You must excuse me if I will not accept it."
+
+"At any rate, you had parted with your share in the property."
+
+"My share was the whole."
+
+"After your father's death," said Mr. Grey; "and that was gone."
+
+"We needn't discuss the property. What is it that he expects me to do
+now?"
+
+"Simply to be kind in your manner to him, and to agree to what he says
+about the personal property. It is his intention, as far as I understand
+it, to leave you everything."
+
+"He is very kind."
+
+"I think he is."
+
+"Only it would all have been mine if he had not cheated me of my
+birthright."
+
+"Or Mr. Tyrrwhit's, and Mr. Hart's, and Mr. Spicer's."
+
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit, and Mr. Hart, and Mr. Spicer could not have robbed me of
+my name. Let them have done what they would with their bonds, I should
+have been, at any rate, Scarborough of Tretton. My belief is that I need
+not blush for my mother. He has made it appear that I should do so. I
+can't forgive him because he gives me the chairs and tables."
+
+"They will be worth thirty thousand pounds," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"I can't forgive him."
+
+The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough's face as he said
+this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him. If something
+could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his
+mother,--who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his
+mother,--it would be a good thing to do. Augustus had entertained no
+such feeling. He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his
+brother, that "he had not known the lady." When the facts as to the
+distribution of the property had been made known to him he had cared
+nothing for the injury done by the story to his mother's name. The story
+was too true. Mr. Grey knew that it was true; but he could not on that
+account do other than feel an intense desire to confer some benefit on
+Mountjoy Scarborough. He put his hand out affectionately and laid it on
+the other man's knee. "Your father has not long to live, Captain
+Scarborough."
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"And he is at present anxious to make what reparation is in his power.
+What he can leave you will produce, let us say, fifteen hundred a year.
+Without a will from him you would have to live on your brother's
+bounty."
+
+"By Heaven, no!" said Mountjoy, thinking of the pistol and the bullets.
+
+"I see nothing else."
+
+"I see, but I cannot explain."
+
+"Do you not think that fifteen hundred a year would be better than
+nothing,--with a wife, let us say?" said Mr. Grey, beginning to introduce
+the one argument on which he believed so much must depend.
+
+"With a wife?"
+
+"Yes; with a wife."
+
+"With what wife? A wife may be very well, but a wife must depend on who
+it is. Is there any one that you mean?"
+
+"Not exactly any particular person," said the lawyer, lamely.
+
+"Pshaw! What do I want with a wife? Do you mean to say that my father
+has told you that he intends to clog his legacy with the burden of a
+wife? I would not accept it with such a burden,--unless I could choose
+the wife myself. To tell the truth, there is a girl--"
+
+"Your cousin?"
+
+"Yes; my cousin. When I was well-to-do in the world I was taught to
+believe that I could have her. If she will be mine, Mr. Grey, I will
+renounce gambling altogether. If my father can manage that I will
+forgive him,--or will endeavor to do so. The property which he can leave
+me shall be settled altogether upon her. I will endeavor to reform
+myself, and so to live that no misfortune shall come upon her. If that
+is what you mean, say so."
+
+"Well, not quite that."
+
+"To no other marriage will I agree. That has been the dream of my life
+through all those moments of hot excitement and assured despair which I
+have endured. Her mother has always told me that it should be so, and
+she herself in former days did not deny it. Now you know it all. If my
+father wishes to see me married, Florence Mountjoy must be my wife."
+Then he sunk back on his seat, and nothing more was said between them
+till they had reached Tretton.
+
+The father and son had not met each other since the day on which the
+former had told the latter the story of his birth. Since then Mountjoy
+had disappeared from the world, and for a few days his father had
+thought that he had been murdered. But now they met as they might have
+done had they seen each other a week ago. "Well, Mountjoy, how are you?"
+And, "How are you, sir?" Such were the greetings between them. And no
+others were spoken. In a few minutes the son was allowed to go and look
+after the rural joys he had anticipated, and the lawyer was left
+closeted with the squire.
+
+Mr. Grey soon explained his proposition. Let the property be left to
+trustees who should realize from it what money it should fetch, and keep
+the money in their own hands, paying Mountjoy the income. "There could,"
+he said, "be nothing better done, unless Mountjoy would agree to marry.
+He is attached, it seems, to his cousin," said Mr. Grey, "and he is
+unwilling at present to marry any one else."
+
+"He can't marry her," said the squire.
+
+"I do not know the circumstances."
+
+"He can't marry her. She is engaged to the young man who will be here
+just now. I told you,--did I not?--that Harry Annesley is coming here. My
+son knows that he will be here to-day."
+
+"Everybody knows the story of Mr. Annesley and the captain."
+
+"They are to sit down to dinner together, and I trust they may not
+quarrel. The lady of whom you are speaking is engaged to young Annesley,
+and Mountjoy's suit in that direction is hopeless."
+
+"Hopeless, you think?"
+
+"Utterly hopeless. Your plan of providing him with a wife would be very
+good if it were feasible. I should be very glad to see him settled. But
+if he will marry no one but Florence Mountjoy he must remain unmarried.
+Augustus has had his hand in that business, and don't let us dabble in
+it." Then the squire gave the lawyer full instructions as to the will
+which was to be made. Mr. Grey and Mr. Bullfist were to be named as
+trustees, with instructions to sell everything which it would be in the
+squire's legal power to bequeath. The books, the gems, the furniture,
+both at Tretton and in London, the plate, the stock, the farm-produce,
+the pictures on the walls, and the wine in the cellars, were all named.
+He endeavored to persuade Mr. Grey to consent to a cutting of the
+timber, so that the value of it might be taken out of the pocket of the
+younger brother and put into that of the elder. But to this Mr. Grey
+would not assent. "There would be an air of persecution about it," he
+said, "and it mustn't be done." But to the general stripping of Tretton
+for the benefit of Mountjoy he gave a cordial agreement.
+
+"I am not quite sure that I have done with Augustus as yet," said the
+squire. "I had made up my mind not to be put out by trifles; not to be
+vexed at a little. My treatment of my children has been such that,
+though I have ever intended to do them good, I must have seemed to each
+at different periods to have injured him. I have not, therefore,
+expected much from them. But I have received less than nothing from
+Augustus. It is possible that he may hear from me again." To this Mr.
+Grey said nothing, but he had taken his instructions about the drawing
+of the will.
+
+Harry came down by the train in time for dinner. On the journey down he
+had been perplexed in his mind, thinking of various things. He did not
+quite understand why Mr. Scarborough had sent for him. His former
+intimacy had been with Augustus, and though there had been some
+cordiality of friendship shown by the old man to the son's companion, it
+had amounted to no more than might be expected from one who was notably
+good-natured. A great injury had been done to Harry, and he supposed
+that his visit must have some reference to that injury. He had been told
+in so many words that, come when he might, he would not find Augustus at
+Tretton. From this and from other signs he almost saw that there existed
+a quarrel between the squire and his son. Therefore he felt that
+something was to be said as to the state of his affairs at Buston.
+
+But if, as the train drew near to Tretton, he was anxious as to his
+meeting with the squire, he was much more so as to the captain. The
+reader will remember all the circumstances under which they two had last
+seen each other Harry had been furiously attacked by Mountjoy, and had
+then left him sprawling,--dead, as some folks had said on the following
+day,--under the rail. His only crime had been that he was drunk. If the
+disinherited one would give him his hand and let by-gones be by-gones,
+he would do the same. He felt no personal animosity. But there was a
+difficulty.
+
+As he was driven up to the door in a cab belonging to the squire there
+was Mountjoy, standing before the house. He too had thought of the
+difficulties, and had made up his mind that it would not do for him to
+meet his late foe without some few words intended for the making of
+peace. "I hope you are well, Mr. Annesley," he said, offering his hand
+as the other got out of the cab. "It may be as well that I should
+apologize at once for my conduct. I was at that moment considerably
+distressed, as you may have heard. I had been declared to be penniless,
+and to be nobody. The news had a little unmanned me, and I was beside
+myself."
+
+"I quite understand it; quite understand it," said Annesley, giving his
+hand. "I am very glad to see you back again, and in your father's
+house." Then Mountjoy turned on his heel, and went through the hall,
+leaving Harry to the care of the butler. The captain thought that he had
+done enough, and that the affair in the street might now be regarded as
+a dream. Harry was taken up to shake hands with the old man, and in due
+time came down to dinner, where he met Mr. Grey and the young doctor.
+They were all very civil to him, and upon the whole, he spent a pleasant
+evening. On the next day, about noon, the squire sent for him. He had
+been told at breakfast that it was the squire's intention to see him in
+the middle of the day, and he had been unable, therefore, to join
+Mountjoy's shooting-party.
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Annesley," said the old man. "You were surprised, no
+doubt, when you got my invitation?"
+
+"Well, yes; perhaps so; but I thought it very kind."
+
+"I meant to be kind; but still, it requires some explanation. You see, I
+am such an old cripple that I cannot give invitations like anybody else.
+Now you are here I must not eat and drink with you, and in order to say
+a few words to you I am obliged to keep you in the house till the doctor
+tells me I am strong enough to talk."
+
+"I am glad to find you so much better than when I was here before."
+
+"I don't know much about that. There will never be a 'much better' in
+my case. The people about me talk with the utmost unconcern of whether I
+can live one month or possibly two. Anything beyond that is quite out of
+the question." The squire took a pride in making the worst of his case,
+so that the people to whom he talked should marvel the more at his
+vitality. "But we won't mind my health now. It is true, I fear, that you
+have quarrelled with your uncle."
+
+"It is quite true that he has quarrelled with me."
+
+"I am afraid that that is more important. He means, if he can, to cut
+you out of the entail."
+
+"He does not mean that I shall have the property if he can prevent it."
+
+"I don't think very much of entails myself," said the squire. "If a man
+has a property he should be able to leave it as he pleases; or--or else
+he doesn't have it."
+
+"That is what the law intends, I suppose," said Harry.
+
+"Just so; but the law is such an old woman that she never knows how to
+express herself to any purpose. I haven't allowed the law to bind me. I
+dare say you know the story."
+
+"About your two sons,--and the property? I think all the world knows the
+story."
+
+"I suppose it has been talked about a little," said the squire, with a
+chuckle. "My object has been to prevent the law from handing over my
+property to the fraudulent claims which my son's creditors were enabled
+to make, and I have succeeded fairly well. On that head I have nothing
+to regret. Now your uncle is going to take other means."
+
+"Yes; he is going to take means which, are, at any rate, lawful."
+
+"But which will be tedious, and may not, perhaps, succeed. He is
+intending to have an heir of his own."
+
+"That I believe is his purpose," said Harry.
+
+"There is no reason why he shouldn't;--but he mayn't, you know."
+
+"He is not married yet."
+
+"No;--he is not married yet. And then he has also stopped the allowance
+he used to make you." Harry nodded assent. "Now, all this is a great
+shame."
+
+"I think so."
+
+"The poor gentleman has been awfully bamboozled."
+
+"He is not so very old," said Harry, "I don't think he is more than
+fifty."
+
+"But he is an old goose. You'll excuse me, I know. Augustus Scarborough
+got him up to London, and filled him full of lies."
+
+"I am aware of it."
+
+"And so am I aware of it. He has told him stories as to your conduct
+with Mountjoy which, added to some youthful indiscretions of your own--"
+
+"It was simply because I didn't like to hear him read sermons."
+
+"That was an indiscretion, as he had the power in his hands to do you an
+injury. Most men have got some little bit of petty tyranny in their
+hearts. I have had none." To this Harry could only bow. "I let my two
+boys do as they pleased, only wishing that they should lead happy lives.
+I never made them listen to sermons, or even to lectures. Probably I was
+wrong. Had I tyrannized over them, they would not have tyrannized over
+me as they have done. Now I'll tell you what it is that I propose to do.
+I will write to your uncle, or will get Mr. Merton to write for me, and
+will explain to him, as well as I can, the depth, and the blackness, and
+the cruelty,--the unfathomable, heathen cruelty, together with the
+falsehoods, the premeditated lies, and the general rascality on all
+subjects,--of my son Augustus. I will explain to him that, of all men I
+know, he is the least trustworthy. I will explain to him that, if led in
+a matter of such importance by Augustus Scarborough, he will be surely
+led astray. And I think that between us,--between Merton and me, that
+is,--we can concoct a letter that shall be efficacious. But I will get
+Mountjoy also to go and see him, and explain to him out of his own mouth
+what in truth occurred that night when he and you fell out in the
+streets. Mr. Prosper must be a more vindictive man than I take him to be
+in regard to sermons if he will hold out after that." Then Mr.
+Scarborough allowed him to go out, and if possible find the shooters
+somewhere about the park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+MOUNTJOY SCARBOROUGH GOES TO BUSTON.
+
+
+Mr. Grey returned to London after staying but one night, having received
+fresh instructions as to the will. The will was to be prepared at once,
+and Mr. Barry was to bring it down for execution. "Shall I not inform
+Augustus?" asked Mr. Grey.
+
+But this did not suit with Mr. Scarborough's views of revenge. "I think
+not. I would do by him whatever honesty requires; but I have never told
+him that I mean to leave him anything. Of course he knows that he is to
+have the estate. He is revelling in the future poverty of poor Mountjoy.
+He turned him out of his house just now because Mountjoy would not obey
+him by going to--Brazil. He would turn him out of this house if he could
+because I won't at once go--to the devil. He is something overmasterful,
+is Master Augustus, and a rub or two will do him good. I'd rather you
+wouldn't tell him, if you please." Then Mr. Grey departed, without
+making any promise, but he determined that he would be guided by the
+squire's wishes. Augustus Scarborough was not of a nature to excite very
+warmly the charity of any man.
+
+Harry remained for two or three days' shooting with Mountjoy, and once
+or twice he saw the squire again. "Merton and I have managed to concoct
+that letter," said the squire. "I'm afraid your uncle will find it
+rather long. Is he impatient of long letters?"
+
+"He likes long sermons."
+
+"If anybody will listen to his reading. I think you have a deal to
+answer for yourself, when you could not make so small a sacrifice to the
+man to whom you were to owe everything. But he ought to look for a wife
+in consequence of that crime, and not falsely allege another. If, as I
+fear, he finds the wife-plan troublesome, our letter may perhaps move
+him, and Mountjoy is to go down and open his eyes. Mountjoy hasn't made
+any difficulty about it."
+
+"I shall be greatly distressed--" Harry begun.
+
+"Not at all. He must go. I like to have my own way in these little
+matters. He owes you as much reparation as that, and we shall be able to
+see what members of the Scarborough family you would trust the most."
+
+Harry, during the two days, shot some hares in company with Mountjoy,
+but not a word more was said about the adventure in London. Nor was the
+name of Florence Mountjoy ever mentioned between the two suitors. "I'm
+going to Buston, you know," Mountjoy said once.
+
+"So your father told me."
+
+"What sort of a fellow shall I find your uncle?"
+
+"He's a gentleman, but not very wise." No more was said between them on
+that head, but Mountjoy spoke at great length about his own brother and
+his father's will.
+
+"My father is the most singular man you ever came across."
+
+"I think he is."
+
+"I am not going to say a good word for him. I wouldn't let him think
+that I had said a good word for him. In order to save the property he
+has maligned my mother, and has cheated me and the creditors most
+horribly--most infernally. That's my conviction, though Grey thinks
+otherwise. I can't forgive him,--and won't; and he knows it. But after
+that he is going to do the best thing he can for me. And he has begun by
+making me a decent allowance again as his son. But I'm to have that only
+as long as I remain here at Tretton. Of course I have been fond of
+cards."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Not a doubt of it. But I haven't touched a card now for a month nearly.
+And then he is going to leave me what property he has to leave. And he
+and my brother have paid off those Jews among them. I'm not a bit
+obliged to my brother. He's got some game of his own which I don't quite
+clearly see, and my father is doing this for me simply to spite my
+brother. He'd cut down every tree upon the place if Grey would allow it.
+And yet, to give Augustus the property, my father has done this gross
+injustice."
+
+"I suppose the money-lenders would have had the best of it had he not."
+
+"That's true. They would have had it all. They had measured every yard
+of it, and had got my name down for the full value. Now they're paid."
+
+"That's a comfort."
+
+"Nothing's a comfort. I know that they're right, and that if I got the
+money into my own hand it would be gone to-morrow. I should be off to
+Monte Carlo like a shot; and, of course it would go after the other.
+There is but one thing would redeem me."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Never mind. We won't talk of it." Then he was silent, but Harry
+Annesley knew very well that he had alluded to Florence Mountjoy.
+
+Then Harry went, and Mountjoy was left to the companionship of Mr.
+Merton, and such pleasure as he could find in a daily visit to his
+father. He was, at any rate, courteous in his manner to the old man, and
+abstained from those irritating speeches which Augustus had always
+chosen to make. He had on one occasion during this visit told his father
+what he thought about him, but this the squire had taken quite as a
+compliment.
+
+"I believe, you know, that you've done a monstrous injustice to
+everybody concerned."
+
+"I rather like doing what you call injustices."
+
+"You have set the law at defiance."
+
+"Well, yes; I think I have done that."
+
+"According to my belief, it's all untrue."
+
+"You mean about your mother. I like you for that; I do, indeed. I like
+you for sticking up for your poor mother. Well, now you shall have fifty
+pounds a month,--say twelve pounds ten a week,--as long as you remain at
+Tretton, and you may have whom you like here, as long as they bring no
+cards with them. And if you want to hunt there are horses, and if they
+ain't good enough you can get others. But if you go away from Tretton
+there's an end of it. It will all be stopped the next day."
+Nevertheless, he did make arrangements by which Mountjoy should proceed
+to Buston, stopping two nights as he went to London. "There isn't a club
+he can enter," said the squire, comforting himself, "nor a Jew that will
+lend him a five-pound note."
+
+Mountjoy had told the truth when he had said that nothing was a comfort.
+Though it seemed to his father and to the people around him at Tretton
+that he had everything that a man could want, he had, in fact,
+nothing,--nothing to satisfy him. In the first place, he was quite alive
+to the misery of that decision given by the world against him, which had
+been of such comfort to his father. Not a club in London would admit
+him. He had been proclaimed a defaulter after such a fashion that all
+his clubs had sent to him for some explanation; and as he had given
+none, and had not answered their letters, his name had been crossed out
+in the books of them all. He knew himself to be a man disgraced, and
+when he had fled from London he had gone under the conviction that he
+would certainly never return. There were the pistol and bullet as his
+last assured resource; but a certain amount of good-fortune had awaited
+him,--enough to save him from having recourse to their aid. His brother
+had supplied him with small sums of money, and from time to time a
+morsel of good luck had enabled him to gamble, not to his heart's
+content, but still in some manner so as to make his life bearable. But
+now he was back in his own country, and he could gamble not at all, and
+hardly even see those old companions with whom he had lived. It was not
+only for the card-tables that he sighed, but for the companions of the
+card-table. And though he knew that he had been scratched out from the
+lists of all clubs as a dishonest man, he knew also, or thought that he
+knew, that he had been as honest as the best of those companions. As
+long as he could by any possibility raise money he had paid it away,
+and by no false trick had he ever endeavored to get it back again.
+
+Had a little time been allowed him all would have been paid; and all had
+been paid. He knew that by the rules of such institutions time could not
+be granted; but still he did not feel himself to have been a dishonest
+man. Yet he had been so disgraced that he could hardly venture to walk
+about the streets of London in the daylight. And then there came upon
+him, when he found himself alone at Tretton, an irrepressible desire for
+gambling. It was as though his throat were parched with an implacable
+thirst. He walked about ever meditating certain fortunate turns of the
+cards; and when he had worked himself up to some realization of his old
+excitement he would remember that it was all a vain and empty bubble. He
+had money in his pocket, and could rush up to London if he would, and if
+he did so he could, no doubt, find some coarse hell at which he could
+stake it till it would be all gone; but the gates of the A---- and the
+B---- and the C---- would be closed against him; and he would then be
+driven to feel that he had indeed fallen into the nethermost pit. Were
+he once to play at such places as his mind painted to him he could never
+play at any other; and yet when the day drew nigh on which he was to go
+to London, on his way to Buston, he did bethink himself where these
+places were to be found. His throat was parched, and the thirst upon him
+was extreme. Cards were the weapons he had used. He had played ecarte,
+piquet, whist, and baccarat, with an occasional night of some foolish
+game such as cribbage or vingt-et-un. Though he had always lost, he had
+always played with men who had played honestly. There is much that is,
+in truth, dishonest even in honest play. A man who can keep himself
+sober after dinner plays with one who flusters himself with drink. The
+man with a trained memory plays with him who cannot remember a card. The
+cool man plays with the impetuous; the man who can hold his tongue with
+him who cannot but talk; the man whose practised face will tell no
+secrets with him who loses a point every rubber by his uncontrolled
+grimaces. And then there is the man who knows the game, and plays with
+him who knows it not at all. Of course, the cool, the collected, the
+thoughtful, the practised,--they who have given up their whole souls to
+the study of cards,--will play at a great advantage, which in their
+calculations they do not fail to recognize. See the man standing by and
+watching the table, and leaving all the bets he can on A and B as against
+C and D; and, however ignorant you may be, you will soon become sure
+that A and B know the game, whereas C and D are simply infants. That is
+all fair and acknowledged; but looking at it from a distance, as you lie
+under your apple-trees in your orchard, far from the shout of "Two by
+honors," you will come to doubt the honesty of making your income after
+such a fashion.
+
+Such as it is, Mountjoy sighed for it bitterly,--sighed for it, but could
+not see where it was to be found. He had a gentleman's horror of those
+resorts in gin-shops, or kept by the disciples of gin-shops, where he
+would surely be robbed,--which did not appal him,--but robbed in bad
+company. Thinking of all this, he went up to London late in the
+afternoon, and spent an uncomfortable evening in town. It was absolutely
+innocent as regarded the doings of the night itself, but was terrible to
+him. There was a slow drizzling rain; but not the less after dinner at
+his hotel he started off to wander through the streets. With his
+great-coat and his umbrella he was almost hidden; and as he passed
+through Pall Mall, up St. James's Street, and along Piccadilly, he could
+pause and look in at the accustomed door. He saw men entering whom he
+knew, and knew that within five minutes they could be seated at their
+tables. "I had an awfully heavy time of it last night," one said to
+another as he went up the steps; and Mountjoy, as he heard the words,
+envied the speaker. Then he passed back and went again a tour of all the
+clubs. What had he done that he, like a poor Peri, should be unable to
+enter the gates of all these paradises? He had now in his pocket fifty
+pounds. Could he have been made absolutely certain that he would have
+lost it, he would have gone into any paradise and have staked his money
+with that certainty.
+
+At last, having turned up Waterloo Place, he saw a man standing in the
+door-way of one of these palaces, and he was aware at once that the man
+had seen him. He was a man of such a nature that it would be impossible
+that he should have seen a worse. He was a small, dry, good-looking
+little fellow, with a carefully preserved mustache, and a head from the
+top of which age was beginning to move the hair. He lived by cards, and
+lived well. He was called Captain Vignolles, but it was only known of
+him that he was a professional gambler. He probably never cheated. Men
+who play at the clubs scarcely ever cheat,--there are so many with whom
+they play sharp enough to discover them; and with the discovered gambler
+all in this world is over. Captain Vignolles never cheated; but he found
+that an obedience to those little rules which I have named above stood
+him well in lieu of cheating. He was not known to have any particular
+income, but he was known to live on the best of everything as far as
+club life was concerned.
+
+He immediately followed Mountjoy down into the street and greeted him.
+"Captain Scarborough as I am a living man!"
+
+"Well, Vignolles; how are you?"
+
+"And so you have come back once more to the land of the living! I was
+awfully sorry for you, and think that they treated you uncommon harshly.
+As you've paid your money, of course they'll let you in again." In
+answer to this, Mountjoy had very little to say: but the interview ended
+by his accepting an invitation from Captain Vignolles to supper for the
+following evening. If Captain Scarborough would come at eleven o'clock
+Captain Vignolles would ask a few fellows to meet him, and they would
+have--just a little rubber of whist. Mountjoy knew well the nature of
+the man who asked him, and understood perfectly what would be the
+result; but there thrilled through his bosom, as he accepted the
+invitation, a sense of joy which he could himself hardly understand.
+
+On the following morning Mountjoy was up, for him, very early, and
+taking a return ticket went down to Buston. He had written to Mr.
+Prosper, sending his compliments, and saying that he would do himself
+the honor of calling at a certain hour.
+
+At the hour named he drew up at Buston Hall in a fly from Buntingford
+Station, and was told by Matthew, the old butler, that his master was at
+home. If Captain Mountjoy would step into the drawing-room Mr. Prosper
+should be informed. Mountjoy did as he was bidden, and after half an
+hour he was joined by Mr. Prosper. "You have received a letter from my
+father," he began by saying.
+
+"A very long letter," said the Squire of Buston.
+
+"I dare say; I did not see it, and have in fact very little to say as to
+its contents. I do not know, indeed, what they were."
+
+"The letter refers to my nephew, Mr. Henry Annesley."
+
+"I suppose so. What I have to say refers to Mr. Henry Annesley also."
+
+"You are kind,--very kind."
+
+"I don't know about that; but I have come altogether at my father's
+instance, and I think, indeed, that, in fairness, I ought to tell you
+the truth as to what took place between me and your nephew."
+
+"You are very good; but your father has already given me his
+account,--and I suppose yours."
+
+"I don't know what my father may have done, but I think that you ought
+to desire to hear from my lips an account of the transaction. An untrue
+account has been told to you."
+
+"I have heard it all from your own brother."
+
+"An untrue account has been told to you. I attacked your nephew."
+
+"What made you do that?" asked the squire.
+
+"That has nothing to do with it; but I did."
+
+"I understood all that before."
+
+"But you didn't understand that Mr. Annesley behaved perfectly well in
+all that occurred."
+
+"Did he tell a lie about it afterward?"
+
+"My brother no doubt lured him on to make an untrue statement."
+
+"A lie!"
+
+"You may call it so if you will. If you think that Augustus was to have
+it all his own way, I disagree with you altogether. In point of fact,
+your nephew behaved through the whole of that matter as well as a man
+could do. Practically, he told no lie at all. He did just what a man
+ought to do, and anything that you have heard to the contrary is
+calumnious and false. As I am told that you have been led by my
+brother's statement to disinherit your nephew--"
+
+"I have done nothing of the kind."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. He has not, at any rate, deserved it; and I
+have felt it to be my duty to come and tell you."
+
+Then Mountjoy retired, not without hospitality having been coldly
+offered by Mr. Prosper, and went back to Buntingford and to London. Now
+at last would come, he said to himself through the whole afternoon, now
+at last would come a repetition of those joys for which his very soul
+had sighed so eagerly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS.
+
+
+Mountjoy, when he reached Captain Vignolles's rooms, was received
+apparently with great indifference. "I didn't feel at all sure you
+would come. But there is a bit of supper, if you like to stay. I saw
+Moody this morning, and he said he would look in if he was passing this
+way. Now sit down and tell me what you have been doing since you
+disappeared in that remarkable manner." This was not at all what
+Mountjoy had expected, but he could only sit down and say that he had
+done nothing in particular. Of all club men, Captain Vignolles would be
+the worst with whom to play alone during the entire evening. And
+Mountjoy remembered now that he had never been inside four walls with
+Vignolles except at a club. Vignolles regarded him simply as a piece of
+prey whom chance had thrown up on the shore. And Moody, who would no
+doubt show himself before long, was another bird of the same covey,
+though less rapacious. Mountjoy put his hand up to his breast-pocket,
+and knew that the fifty pounds was there, but he knew also that it would
+soon be gone.
+
+Even to him it seemed to be expedient to get up and at once to go. What
+delight would there be to him in playing piquet with such a face
+opposite to him as that of Captain Vignolles, or with such a one as that
+of old Moody? There could be none of the brilliance of the room, no
+pleasant hum of the voices of companions, no sense of his own equality
+with others. There would be none to sympathize with him when he cursed
+his ill-luck, there would be no chance of contending with an innocent
+who would be as reckless as was he himself. He looked round. The room
+was gloomy and uncomfortable. Captain Vignolles watched him, and was
+afraid that his prey was about to escape. "Won't you light a cigar?"
+Mountjoy took the cigar, and then felt that he could not go quite at
+once. "I suppose you went to Monaco?"
+
+"I was there for a short time."
+
+"Monaco isn't bad,--though there is, of course, the pull which the tables
+have against you. But it's a grand thing to think that skill can be of
+no avail. I often think that I ought to play nothing but rouge et noir."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; I. I don't deny that I'm the luckiest fellow going; but I never
+can remember cards. Of course I know my trade. Every fellow knows his
+trade, and I'm up pretty nearly in all that the books tell you."
+
+"That's a great deal."
+
+"Not when you come to play with men who know what play is. Look at
+Grossengrannel. I'd sooner bet on him than any man in London.
+Grossengrannel never forgets a card. I'll bet a hundred pounds that he
+knows the best card in every suit throughout the entire day's play.
+That's his secret. He gives his mind to it,--which I can't. Hang it! I'm
+always thinking of something quite different,--of what I'm going to eat,
+or that sort of thing. Grossengrannel is always looking at the cards,
+and he wins the odd rubber out of every eleven by his attention. Shall
+we have a game of piquet?"
+
+Now on the moment, in spite of all that he had felt during the entire
+day, in the teeth of all his longings, in opposition to all his thirst,
+Mountjoy for a minute or two did think that he could rise and go. His
+father was about to put him on his legs again,--if only he would abstain.
+But Vignolles had the card-table open, with clean packs, and chairs at
+the corners, before he could decide. "What is it to be? Twos on the game
+I suppose." But Mountjoy would not play piquet. He named ecarte, and
+asked that it might be only ten shillings a game. It was many months now
+since he had played a game of ecarte. "Oh, hang it!" said Vignolles,
+still holding the pack in his hands. When thus appealed to Mountjoy
+relented, and agreed that a pound should be staked on each game. When
+they had played seven games Vignolles had won but one pound, and
+expressed an opinion that that kind of thing wouldn't suit them at all.
+"School-girls would do better," he said. Then Mountjoy pushed back his
+chair as though to go, when the door opened and Major Moody entered the
+room. "Now we'll have a rubber at dummy," said Captain Vignolles.
+
+Major Moody was a gray-headed old man of about sixty, who played his
+cards with great attention, and never spoke a word,--either then or at
+any other period of his life. He was the most taciturn of men, and was
+known not at all to any of his companions. It was rumored of him that he
+had a wife at home, whom he kept in moderate comfort on his winnings. It
+seemed to be the sole desire of his heart to play with reckless, foolish
+young men, who up to a certain point did not care what they lost. He was
+popular, as being always ready to oblige every one, and, as was
+frequently said of him, was the very soul of honor. He certainly got no
+amusement from the play, working at it very hard,--and very constantly.
+No one ever saw him anywhere but at the club. At eight o'clock he went
+home to dinner, let us hope to the wife of his bosom, and at eleven he
+returned, and remained as long as there were men to play with. A tedious
+and unsatisfactory life he had, and it would have been well for him
+could his friends have procured on his behoof the comparative ease of a
+stool in a counting-house. But, as no such Elysium was opened to him,
+the major went on accepting the smaller profits and the harder work of
+club life. In what regiment he had been a major no one knew or cared to
+inquire. He had been received as Major Moody for twenty years or more,
+and twenty years is surely time enough to settle a man's claim to a
+majority without reference to the Army List.
+
+"How are you, Major Moody?" asked Mountjoy.
+
+"Not much to boast of. I hope you're pretty well, Captain Scarborough."
+Beyond that there was no word of salutation, and no reference to
+Mountjoy's wonderful absence.
+
+"What's it to be:--twos and tens?" said Captain Vignolles, arranging the
+cards and the chairs.
+
+"Not for me," said Mountjoy, who seemed to have been enveloped by a most
+unusual prudence.
+
+"What! are you afraid,--you who used to fear neither man nor devil?"
+
+"There is so much in not being accustomed to it," said Mountjoy. "I
+haven't played a game of whist since I don't knew when."
+
+"Twos and tens is heavy against dummy," said Major Moody.
+
+"I'll take dummy, if you like it," said Vignolles. Moody only looked at
+him.
+
+"We'll each have our own dummy, of course," said Mountjoy.
+
+"Just as you please," said Vignolles. "I'm host here, and of course will
+give way to anything you may propose. What's it to be, Scarborough?"
+
+"Pounds and fives. I shan't play higher than that." There came across
+Mountjoy's mind, as he stated the stakes for which he consented to play,
+a remembrance that in the old days he had always been called Captain
+Scarborough by this man who now left out the captain. Of course he had
+fallen since that,--fallen very low. He ought to feel obliged to any man,
+who had in the old days been a member of the same club with him, who
+would now greet him with the familiarity of his unadorned name. But the
+remembrance of the old sounds came back upon his ear; and the
+consciousness that, before his father's treatment of him, he had been
+known to the world at large as Captain Scarborough, of Tretton.
+
+"Well, well; pounds and fives," said Vignolles. "It's better than
+pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game. Of course a man could win
+something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate
+so quickly it amounts to nothing. You've got the first dummy,
+Scarborough. Where will you sit? Which cards will you take? I do believe
+that at whist everything depends upon the cards,--or else on the hinges.
+I've known eleven rubbers running to follow the hinges. People laugh at
+me because I believe in luck. I speak as I find it; that's all. You've
+turned up an honor already. When a man begins with an honor he'll always
+go on with honors; that's my observation. I know you're pretty good at
+this game, Moody, so I'll leave it to you to arrange the play, and will
+follow up as well as I can. You lead up to the weak, of course." This
+was not said till the card was out of his partner's hand. "But when your
+adversary has got ace, king, queen in his own hand there is no weak.
+Well, we've saved that, and it's as much as we can expect. If I'd begun
+by leading a trump it would have been all over with us. Won't you light
+a cigar, Moody?"
+
+"I never smoke at cards."
+
+"That's all very well for the club, but you might relax a little here.
+Scarborough will take another cigar." But even Mountjoy was too prudent.
+He did not take the cigar, but he did win the rubber. "You're in for a
+good thing to-night, I feel as certain of it as though the money were in
+your pocket."
+
+Mountjoy, though he would not smoke, did drink. What would they have,
+asked Vignolles. There was champagne, and whiskey, and brandy. He was
+afraid there was no other wine. He opened a bottle of champagne, and
+Mountjoy took the tumbler that was filled for him. He always drank
+whiskey-and-water himself,--so he said, and filled for himself a glass in
+which he poured a very small allowance of alcohol. Major Moody asked for
+barley-water. As there was none, he contented himself with sipping
+Apollinaris.
+
+A close record of the events of that evening would make but a tedious
+tale for readers. Mountjoy of course lost his fifty pounds. Alas! he
+lost much more than his fifty pounds. The old spirit soon came upon him,
+and the remembrance of what his father was to do for him passed away
+from him, and all thoughts of his adversaries,--who and what they were.
+The major pertinaciously refused to increase his stakes, and, worse
+again, refused to play for anything but ready money. "It's a kind of
+thing I never do. You may think me very odd, but it's a kind of thing I
+never do." It was the longest speech he made through the entire evening.
+Vignolles reminded him that he did in fact play on credit at the club.
+"The committee look to that," he murmured, and shook his head. Then
+Vignolles offered again to take the dummy, so that there should be no
+necessity for Moody and Scarborough to play against each other, and
+offered to give one point every other rubber as the price to be paid for
+the advantage. But Moody, whose success for the night was assured by the
+thirty pounds which he had in his pocket, would come to no terms. "You
+mean to say you're going to break us up," said Vignolles. "That'll be
+hard on Scarborough."
+
+"I'll go on for money," said the immovable major.
+
+"I suppose you won't have it out with me at double dummy?" said
+Vignolles to his victim. "But double dummy is a terrible grind at this
+time of night." And he pushed all the cards up together, so as to show
+that the amusement for the night was over. He too saw the difficulty
+which Moody so pertinaciously avoided. He had been told wondrous things
+of the old squire's intentions toward his eldest son, but he had been
+told them only by that eldest son himself. No doubt he could go on
+winning. Unless in the teeth of a most obstinate run of cards, he would
+be sure to win against Scarborough's apparent forgetfulness of all
+rules, and ignorance of the peculiarities of the game he was playing.
+But he would more probably obtain payment of the two hundred and thirty
+pounds now due to him,--that or nearly that,--than of a larger sum. He
+already had in his possession the other twenty pounds which poor
+Mountjoy had brought with him. So he let the victim go. Moody went
+first, and Vignolles then demanded the performance of a small ceremony.
+"Just put your name to that," said Vignolles. It was a written promise
+to pay to Captain Vignolles the exact sum of two hundred and
+twenty-seven pounds on or before that day week. "You'll be punctual,
+won't you?"
+
+"Of course I'll be punctual," said Mountjoy, scowling.
+
+"Well, yes; no doubt. But there have been mistakes."
+
+"I tell you you'll be paid. Why the devil did you win it of me if you
+doubt it?"
+
+"I saw you just roaming about, and I meant to be good-natured."
+
+"You know as well as any man what chances you should run, and when to
+hold your hand. If you tell me about mistakes, I shall make it
+personal."
+
+"I didn't say anything, Scarborough, that ought to be taken up in that
+way."
+
+"Hang your Scarborough! When one gentleman talks another about mistakes
+he means something." Then he smashed down his hat upon his head and left
+the room.
+
+Vignolles emptied the bottle of champagne, in which one glass was left,
+and sat himself down with the document in his hand. "Just the same
+fellow," he said to himself; "overbearing, reckless, pig-headed, and a
+bully. He'd lose the Bank of England if he had it. But then he don't
+pay! He hasn't a scruple about that. If I lose I have to pay. By Jove,
+yes! Never didn't pay a shilling I lost in my life! It's deuced hard,
+when a fellow is on the square like that, to make two ends meet when he
+comes across defaulters. Those fellows should be hung. They're the very
+scum of the earth. Talk of welchers! They're worse than any welcher.
+Welcher is a thing you needn't have to do with if you're careful. But
+when a fellow turns round upon you as a defaulter at cards, there is no
+getting rid of him. Where the play is all straightforward and honorable,
+a defaulter when he shows himself ought to be well-nigh murdered."
+
+Such were Captain Vignolles's plaints to himself, as he sat there
+looking at the suspicious document which Mountjoy had left in his hands.
+To him it was a fact that he had been cruelly used in having such a bit
+of paper thrust upon him instead of being paid by a check which on the
+morning would be honored. And as he thought of his own career; his
+ready-money payments; his obedience to certain rules of the game,--rules,
+I mean, against cheating; as he thought of his hands, which in his own
+estimation were beautifully clean; his diligence in his profession,
+which to him was honorable; his hard work; his late hours; his devotion
+to a task which was often tedious; his many periods of heart-rending
+loss, which when they occurred would drive him nearly mad; his small
+customary gains; his inability to put by anything for old age; of the
+narrow edge by which he himself was occasionally divided from
+defalcation, he spoke to himself of himself as of an honest,
+hard-working professional man upon whom the world was peculiarly hard.
+
+But Major Moody went home to his wife quite content with the thirty
+pounds which he had won.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+MR. PROSPER IS VISITED BY HIS LAWYERS.
+
+
+Mr. Prosper had not been in good spirits at the time at which Mountjoy
+Scarborough had visited him. He had received some time previously a
+letter from Mr. Grey, as described in a previous chapter, and had also
+known exactly what proposal had been made by Mr. Grey to Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson. An equal division of the lady's income, one half to go to the
+lady herself, and the other half to Mr. Prosper, with an annuity of two
+hundred and fifty pounds out of the estate for the lady if Mr. Prosper
+should die first: these were the terms which had been offered to Miss
+Thoroughbung with the object of inducing her to become the wife of Mr.
+Prosper. But to these terms Miss Thoroughbung had declined to accede,
+and had gone about the arrangement of her money-matters in a most
+precise and business-like manner. A third of her income she would give
+up, since Mr. Prosper desired it; but more than that she "would owe it
+to herself and her friends to decline to abandon." The payment for the
+fish and the champagne must be omitted from any agreement on her part.
+As to the ponies, and their harness, and the pony-carriage, she would
+supply them. The ponies and the carriage would be indispensable to her
+happiness. But the maintenance of the ponies must be left to Mr.
+Prosper. As for the dower, she could not consent to accept less than
+four hundred--or five hundred, if no house was to be provided. She
+thought that seven hundred and fifty would be little enough if there
+were no children, as in that case there was no heir for whom Mr. Prosper
+was especially anxious. But as there probably would be children, Miss
+Thoroughbung thought that this was a matter to which Mr. Prosper would
+not give much consideration. Throughout it all she maintained a
+beautiful equanimity, and made two or three efforts to induce Mr.
+Prosper to repeat his visit to Marmaduke Lodge. She herself wrote to him
+saying that she thought it odd that, considering their near alliance, he
+should not come and see her. Once she said that she had heard that he
+was ill, and offered to go to Buston Hall to visit him.
+
+All this was extremely distressing to a gentleman of Mr. Prosper's
+delicate feelings. As to the proposals in regard to money, the letters
+from Soames & Simpson to Grey & Barry, all of which came down to Buston
+Hall, seemed to be innumerable.
+
+With Soames & Simpson Mr. Prosper declined to have any personal
+communication. But every letter from the Buntingford attorneys was
+accompanied by a farther letter from the London attorneys, till the
+correspondence became insupportable. Mr. Prosper was not strong enough
+to stick firmly to his guns as planted for him by Messrs. Grey & Barry.
+He did give way in some matters, and hence arose renewed letters which
+nearly drove him mad. Messrs. Soames & Simpson's client was willing to
+accept four hundred pounds as the amount of the dower without reference
+to the house, and to this Mr. Prosper yielded. He did not much care
+about any heir as yet unborn, and felt by no means so certain in regard
+to children as did the lady. But he fought hard about the ponies. He
+could not undertake that his wife should have ponies. That must be left
+to him as master of the house. He thought that a pair of carriage-horses
+for her use would be sufficient. He had always kept a carriage, and
+intended to do so. She might bring her ponies if she pleased, but if he
+thought well to part with them he would sell them. He found himself
+getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire, till he began to doubt
+whether he should be able to extricate himself unmarried if he were
+anxious to do so. And all the while there came affectionate little notes
+from Miss Thoroughbung asking after his health, and recommending him
+what to take, till he entertained serious thoughts of going to Cairo for
+the winter.
+
+Then Mr. Barry came down to see him after Mountjoy had made his visit.
+It was now January, and the bargaining about the marriage had gone on
+for more than two months. The letter which he had received from the
+Squire of Tretton had moved him; but he had told himself that the
+property was his own, and that he had a right to enjoy it as he liked
+best.
+
+Whatever might have been Harry's faults in regard to that midnight
+affair, it had certainly been true that he had declined to hear the
+sermons. Mr. Prosper did not exactly mention the sermons to himself, but
+there was present to him a feeling that his heir had been wilfully
+disobedient, and the sermons no doubt had been the cause. When he had
+read the old squire's letter he did not as yet wish to forgive his
+nephew. He was becoming very tired of his courtship, but in his
+estimation the wife would be better than the nephew. Though he had been
+much put out by the precocity of that embrace, there was nevertheless a
+sweetness about it which lingered on his lips. Then Mountjoy had come
+down, and he had answered Mountjoy very stoutly: "A lie!" he had
+exclaimed. "Did he tell a lie?" he had asked, as though all must be over
+with a young man who had once allowed himself to depart from the rigid
+truth. Mountjoy had made what excuse he could, but Mr. Prosper had been
+very stern.
+
+On the very day after Mountjoy's coming Mr. Barry came. His visit had
+been arranged, and Mr. Prosper was, with great care, prepared to
+encounter him. He was wrapped in his best dressing-gown, and Matthew had
+shaved him with the greatest care. The girls over at the parsonage
+declared that their uncle had sent into Buntingford for a special pot of
+pomatum. The story was told to Joe Thoroughbung in order that it might
+be passed on to his aunt, and no doubt it did travel as it was intended.
+But Miss Thoroughbung cared nothing for the pomatum with which the
+lawyer from London was to be received. It would be very hard to laugh
+her out of her lover while the title-deeds to Buston held good. But Mr.
+Prosper had felt that it would be necessary to look his best, so that
+his marriage might be justified in the eyes of the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Barry was shown into the book-room at Buston, in which Mr. Prosper
+was seated ready to receive him. The two gentlemen had never before met
+each other, and Mr. Prosper did no doubt assume something of the manner
+of an aristocratic owner of land. He would not have done so had Mr. Grey
+come in his partner's place. But there was a humility about Mr. Barry on
+an occasion such as the present, which justified a little pride on the
+part of the client. "I am sorry to give you the trouble to come down,
+Mr. Barry," he said. "I hope the servant has shown you your room."
+
+"I shall be back in London to-day, Mr. Prosper, thank you. I must see
+these lawyers here, and when I have received your final instructions I
+will return to Buntingford." Then Mr. Prosper pressed him much to stay.
+He had quite expected, he said, that Mr. Barry would have done him the
+pleasure of remaining at any rate one night at Buston. But Mr. Barry
+settled the question by saying that he had not brought a dress-coat. Mr.
+Prosper did not care to sit down to dinner with guests who did not bring
+their dress-coats. "And now," continued Mr. Barry, "what final
+instructions are we to give to Soames & Simpson?"
+
+"I don't think much of Messrs. Soames & Simpson."
+
+"I believe they have the name of being honest practitioners."
+
+"I dare say; I do not in the least doubt it. But they are people to whom
+I am not at all desirous of intrusting my own private affairs. Messrs.
+Soames & Simpson have not, I think, a large county business. I had no
+idea that Miss Thoroughbung would have put this affair into their
+hands."
+
+"Just so, Mr. Prosper. But I suppose it was necessary for her to employ
+somebody. There has been a good deal of correspondence."
+
+"Indeed there has, Mr. Barry."
+
+"It has not been our fault, Mr. Prosper. Now what we have got to decide
+is this: What are the final terms which you mean to propose? I think,
+sir, the time has come when some final terms should be suggested."
+
+"Just so. Final terms--must be what you call--the very last. That is,
+when they have once been offered, you must--must--"
+
+"Just stick to them, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"Exactly, Mr. Barry. That is what I intend. There is nothing I dislike
+so much as this haggling about money, especially with a lady. Miss
+Thoroughbung is a lady for whom I have the highest possible esteem."
+
+"That's of course."
+
+"For whom, I repeat, I have the highest possible esteem. But she has
+friends who have their own ideas as to money. The brewery in Buntingford
+belongs to them, and they are very worthy people. I should explain to
+you, Mr. Barry, as you are my confidential adviser, that were I about to
+form a matrimonial alliance in the heyday of my youth, I should probably
+not have thought of connecting myself with the Thoroughbungs. As I have
+said before, they are most respectable people; but they do not exactly
+belong to that class in which I should, under those circumstances, have
+looked for a wife. I might probably have ventured to ask for the hand of
+the daughter of some county family. But years have slipped by me, and
+now wishing in middle life to procure for myself the comfort of wedded
+happiness, I have looked about, and have found no one more likely to
+give it me, than Miss Thoroughbung. Her temper is excellent, and her
+person pleasing." Mr. Prosper, as he said this, thought of the kiss
+which had been bestowed upon him. "Her wit is vivacious, and I think
+that upon the whole she will be desirable as a companion. She will not
+come to this house empty-handed; but of her pecuniary affairs you
+already know so much that I need, perhaps, tell you nothing farther.
+But though I am exceedingly desirous to make this lady my wife, and am,
+I may say, warmly attached to her, there are certain points which I
+cannot sacrifice. Now about the ponies--"
+
+"I think I understand about the ponies. She may bring them on trial."
+
+"I'm not to be bound to keep any ponies at all. There are a pair of
+carriage-horses which must suffice. On second thoughts, she had better
+not bring the ponies." This decision had at last come from some little
+doubt on his mind as to whether he was treating Harry justly.
+
+"And four hundred pounds is the sum fixed on for her jointure."
+
+"She is to have her own money for her own life," said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"That's a matter of course."
+
+"Don't you think that, under these circumstances, four hundred will be
+quite enough?"
+
+"Quite enough, if you ask me. But we must decide."
+
+"Four hundred it shall be."
+
+"And she is to have two-thirds of her own money for her own expenses
+during your life?" asked Mr. Barry.
+
+"I don't see why she should want six hundred a year for herself; I don't
+indeed. I am afraid it will only lead to extravagance!" Barry assumed a
+look of despair. "Of course, as I have said so, I will not go back from
+my word. She shall have two-thirds. But about the ponies my mind is
+quite made up. There shall be no ponies at Buston. I hope you understand
+that, Mr. Barry?" Mr. Barry said that he did understand it well, and
+then, folding up his papers, prepared to go, congratulating himself that
+he would not have to pass a long evening at Buston Hall.
+
+But before he went, and when he had already put on his great-coat in the
+hall, Mr. Prosper called him back to ask him one farther question; and
+for that purpose he shut the door carefully, and uttered his words in a
+whisper. Did Mr. Barry know anything of the life and recent adventures
+of Mr. Henry Annesley? Mr. Barry knew nothing; but he thought that his
+partner, Mr. Grey, knew something. He had heard Mr. Grey mention the
+name of Mr. Henry Annesley. Then as he stood there, enveloped in his
+great-coat, with his horse standing in the cold, Mr. Prosper told him
+much of the story of Harry Annesley, and asked him to induce Mr. Grey to
+write and tell him what he thought of Harry's conduct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+MR. PROSPER'S TROUBLES.
+
+
+As Mr. Prosper sunk into his arm-chair after the fatigue of the
+interview with his lawyer, he reflected that, when all was considered,
+Harry Annesley was an ungrateful pig,--it was thus he called him,--and
+that Miss Thoroughbung had many attractions. Miss Thoroughbung had
+probably done well to kiss him, though the enterprise had not been
+without its peculiar dangers. He often thought of it when alone, and, as
+"distance lent enchantment to the view," he longed to have the
+experiment repeated. Perhaps she had been right. And it would be a good
+thing, certainly, to have dear little children of his own. Miss
+Thoroughbung felt very certain on the subject, and it would be foolish
+for him to doubt. Then he thought of the difference between a pretty
+fair haired little boy and that ungrateful pig, Harry Annesley. He told
+himself that he was very fond of children. The girls over at the
+parsonage would not have said so, but they probably did not know his
+character.
+
+When Harry had come back with his fellowship, his uncle had for a few
+weeks been very proud of him,--had declared that he should never be
+called upon to earn his bread, and had allowed him two hundred and fifty
+pounds a year to begin with: but no return had been made to this favor.
+Harry had walked in and out of the Hall as though it had already
+belonged to him,--as many a father delights to see his eldest son doing.
+But the uncle in this instance had not taken any delight in seeing it.
+An uncle is different from a father,--an uncle who has never had a child
+of his own. He wanted deference,--what he would have called respect;
+while Harry was at first prepared to give him a familiar affection based
+on equality,--on an equality in money matters and worldly
+interests,--though I fear that Harry allowed to be seen his own
+intellectual superiority. Mr. Prosper, though an ignorant man, and by no
+means clever, was not such a fool as not to see all this. Then had come
+the persistent refusal to hear the sermons, and Mr. Prosper had
+sorrowfully declared to himself that his heir was not the young man that
+he should have been.
+
+He did not then think of marrying, nor did he stop the allowance; but he
+did feel that his heir was not what he should have been. But then the
+terrible disgrace of that night in London had occurred, and his eyes
+had been altogether opened by that excellent young man, Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough; then he began to look about him. Then dim ideas of the
+charms and immediate wealth of Miss Thoroughbung flitted before his
+eyes, and he told himself again and again of the prospects and undoubted
+good birth of Miss Puffle. Miss Puffle had disgraced herself, and
+therefore he had thrown Buston Hall at the feet of Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+But now he had heard stories about that "excellent young man, Augustus
+Scarborough," which had shaken his faith. He had been able to exclaim
+indignantly that Harry Annesley had told a lie. "A lie!" He had been
+surprised to find that a young man who had lived so much in the
+fashionable world as Captain Scarborough had cared nothing for this. And
+as Miss Thoroughbung became more and more exacting in regard to money,
+he thought, himself, less and less of the lie. It might be well that
+Harry should ultimately have the property, though he should never again
+be taken into favor, and there should be no farther question of the
+allowance. As Miss Thoroughbung reiterated her demands for the ponies,
+he began to feel that the acres of Buston would not be disgraced forever
+by the telling of that lie. But the sermons remained, and he would never
+willingly again see his nephew. As he turned all this in his mind, the
+idea of spending what was left of the winter at Cairo returned to him.
+He would go to Cairo for the winter, and to the Italian lakes for the
+spring, and to Switzerland for the summer. Then he might return to
+Cairo. At the present moment Buston Hall and the neighborhood of
+Buntingford had few charms for him. He was afraid that Miss Thoroughbung
+would not give way about the ponies; and against the ponies he was
+resolved.
+
+He was sitting in this state with a map before him, and with the
+squire's letter upon the map, when Matthew, the butler, opened the door
+and announced a visitor. As soon as Mr. Barry had gone, he had supported
+nature by a mutton-chop and a glass of sherry, and the debris were now
+lying on the side-table. His first idea was to bid Matthew at once
+remove the glass and the bone, and the unfinished potato and the crust
+of bread. To be taken with such remnants by any visitor would be bad,
+but by this visitor would be dreadful. Lunch should be eaten in the
+dining-room, where chop bones and dirty glasses would be in their place.
+But here in his book-room they would be disgraceful. But then, as
+Matthew was hurriedly collecting the two plates and the salt-cellar, his
+master began to doubt whether this visitor should be received at all.
+It was no other than Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+Mr. Prosper, in order to excuse his slackness in calling on the lady,
+had let it be known that he was not quite well, and Miss Thoroughbung
+had responded to this move by offering her services as nurse to her
+lover. He had then written to herself that, though he had been a little
+unwell, "suffering from a cold in the chest, to which at this inclement
+season of the year it was peculiarly liable," he was not in need of
+anything beyond a little personal attention, and would not trouble her
+for those services, for the offer of which he was bound to be peculiarly
+grateful. Thus he had thought to keep Miss Thoroughbung at a distance;
+but here she was with those hated ponies at his very door. "Matthew," he
+said, making a confidant, in the distress of the moment of his butler,
+"I don't think I can see her."
+
+"You must, sir; indeed you must."
+
+"Must!"
+
+"Well, yes; I'm afraid so. Considering all things,--the matrimonial
+prospects and the rest of it,--I think you must, sir."
+
+"She hasn't a right to come here, you know,--as yet." It will be
+understood that Mr. Prosper was considerably discomposed when he spoke
+with such familiar confidence to his servant. "She needn't come in here,
+at any rate."
+
+"In the drawing-room, if I might be allowed to suggest, sir."
+
+"Show Miss Thoroughbung into the drawing-room," said he with all his
+dignity. Then Matthew retired, and the Squire of Buston felt that five
+minutes might be allowed to collect himself, and the mutton-chop bone
+need not be removed.
+
+When the five minutes were over, with slow steps he walked across the
+intervening billiard-room, and slowly opened the drawing-room door.
+Would she rush into his arms, and kiss him again as he entered? He
+sincerely hoped that there would be no such attempt; but if there were,
+he was sternly resolved to repudiate it. There should be nothing of the
+kind till she had clearly declared, and had put it under writing by
+herself and her lawyers, that she would consent to come to Buston
+without the ponies. But there was no such attempt. "How do you do, Mr.
+Prosper?" she said, in a loud voice, standing up in the middle of the
+room. "Why don't you ever come and see me? I take it very ill of you;
+and so does Miss Tickle. There is no one more partial to you than Miss
+Tickle. We were talking of you only last night over a despatched crab
+that we had for supper." Did they have despatched crabs for supper every
+night? thought Mr. Prosper to himself. It was certainly a strong reason
+against his marriage. "I told her that you had a cold in your head."
+
+"In my chest," said Mr. Prosper, meekly.
+
+"'Bother colds!' said Miss Tickle. 'When people are keeping company
+together they ought to see each other.' Those were Miss Tickle's very
+words."
+
+That it should be said of him, Mr. Prosper, of Buston, that he was
+"keeping company" with any woman! He almost resolved, on the spur of the
+moment, that under no circumstances could he now marry Miss
+Thoroughbung. But unfortunately his offer had been made, and the terms
+of the settlement, as suggested by himself, placed in the hands of his
+lawyer. If Miss Thoroughbung chose to hold him to his offer, he must
+marry her. It was not that he feared an action for breach of promise,
+but that, as a gentleman, it would behoove him to be true to his word.
+He need not, however, marry Miss Tickle. He had offered no terms in
+respect to Miss Tickle. With great presence of mind he resolved at once
+that Miss Tickle should never find a permanent resting-place for her
+foot at Buston Hall. "I am extremely indebted to Miss Tickle," said he.
+
+"Why haven't you come over just to have a little chat in a friendly way?
+It's all because of those stupid lawyers, I suppose. What need you and I
+care for the lawyers? They can do their work without troubling us,
+except that they will be sure to send in their bills fast enough."
+
+"I have had Mr. Barry, from the firm of Messrs. Grey & Barry, of
+Lincoln's Inn, with me this morning."
+
+"I know you have. I saw the little man at Soames & Simpson's, and drove
+out here immediately, after five minutes' conversation. Now, Mr.
+Prosper, you must let me have those ponies."
+
+That was the very thing which he was determined not to do. The ponies
+grew in imagination, and became enormous horses capable of consuming any
+amount of oats. Mr. Prosper was not of a stingy nature, but he had
+already perceived that his escape, if it were effected, must be made
+good by means of those ponies. A steady old pair of carriage-horses had
+been kept by him, and by his father before him, and he was not going to
+be driven out of the old family ways by a brewer's daughter. And he had,
+but that morning, instructed his lawyer to stand out against the ponies.
+He felt that this was the moment for firmness. Now, this instant, he
+must be staunch, or he would be saddled with this woman,--and with Miss
+Tickle,--for the whole of his life. She had left him no time for
+consideration, but had come upon him as soon almost as the words spoken
+to the lawyer had been out of his mouth. But he would be firm. Miss
+Thoroughbung opened out instantly about the ponies, and he at once
+resolved that he would be firm. But was it not very indelicate on her
+part to come to him and to press him in this manner? He began to hope
+that she also would be firm about the ponies, and that in this way the
+separation might be effected. At the present moment he stood dumb.
+Silence would not in this case be considered as giving consent. "Now,
+like a good man, do say that I shall have the ponies," she continued. "I
+can keep 'em out of my own money, you know, if that's all." He perceived
+at once that the offer amounted to a certain yielding on her part, but
+he was no longer anxious that she should give way. "Do'ee now say yes,
+like a dear old boy." She came closer to him, and took hold of his arm,
+as though she were going to perform that other ceremony. But he was
+fully aware of the danger. If there came to be kissing between them it
+would be impossible for him to go back afterward in such a manner but
+that the blame of the kiss should rest with him. When he should desire
+to be "off," he could not plead that the kissing had been all her doing.
+A man in Mr. Prosper's position has difficulties among which he must be
+very wary. And then the ridicule of the world is so strong a weapon, and
+is always used on the side of the women! He gave a little start, but he
+did not at once shake her off. "What's the objection to the ponies,
+dear?"
+
+"Two pair of horses! It's more than we ought to keep." He should not
+have said "we." He felt, when it was too late, that he should not have
+said "we."
+
+"They aren't horses."
+
+"It's the same, as far as the stables are concerned."
+
+"But there's room enough, Lord bless you! I've been in to look. I can
+assure you that Dr. Stubbs says they are required for my health. You ask
+him else. It's just what I'm up to--is driving. I've only taken to them
+lately, and I cannot bring myself to give 'em up. Do'ee love. You're not
+going to throw over your own Matilda for a couple of little beasts like
+that!"
+
+Every word that came out of her mouth was an offence. But he could not
+tell her so; nor could he reject her on that score. He should have
+thought beforehand what kind of words might probably come out of her
+mouth. Was her name Matilda? Of course he knew the fact. Had any one
+asked him he could have said, with two minutes' consideration, that her
+name was Matilda. But it had never become familiar to his ears, and now
+she spoke of it as though he had called her Matilda since their earliest
+youth. And to be called "Love!" It might be very nice when he had first
+called her "Love" a dozen times; but now it sounded extravagant--and
+almost indelicate. And he was about to throw her over for a couple of
+little beasts. He felt that that was his intention, and he blushed
+because it was so. He was a true gentleman, who would not willingly
+depart from his word. If he must go on with the ponies he must. But he
+had never yet yielded about the ponies. He felt now that they were his
+only hope. But as the difficulties of his position pressed upon him the
+sweat stood out upon his brow. She saw it all and understood it all, and
+deliberately determined to take advantage of his weakness. "I don't
+think that there is anything else astray between us. We've settled about
+the jointure,--four hundred a year. It's too little, Soames & Simpson
+say; but I'm soft, and in love, you know." Here she leered at him, and
+he began to hate her. "You oughtn't to want a third of my income, you
+know. But you're to be lord and master, and you must have your own way.
+All that's settled."
+
+"There is Miss Tickle," he said, in a voice that was almost cadaverous.
+
+"Miss Tickle is of course to come. You said that from the very first
+moment when you made the offer."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Oh, Peter, how can you say so!" He shrunk visibly from the sound of his
+own Christian name. But she determined to persevere. The time must come
+when she should call him Peter, and why not commence the practice now,
+at once? Lovers always do call each other Peter and Matilda. She wasn't
+going to stand any nonsense, and if he intended to marry her and use a
+large proportion of her fortune, Peter he should be to her. "You did,
+Peter. You know you told me how much attached you were to her."
+
+"I didn't say anything about her coming with you."
+
+"Oh, Peter, how can you be so cruel? Do you mean to say that you will
+deprive me of the friend of my youth?"
+
+"At any rate, there shall never be a pony come into my yard!" He knew
+when he made this assertion that he was abandoning his objection to Miss
+Tickle. She had called him cruel, and his conscience told him that if he
+received Miss Thoroughbung and refused admission to Miss Tickle he
+would be cruel. Miss Tickle, for aught that he knew, might have been a
+friend of her youth. At any rate, they had been constant companions for
+many years. Therefore, as he had another solid ground on which to stand,
+he could afford to yield as to Miss Tickle. But as he did so, he
+remembered that Miss Tickle had accused him of "keeping company," and he
+declared to himself that it would be impossible to live in the same
+house with her.
+
+"But Miss Tickle may come?" said Miss Thoroughbung. Was the solid
+ground--the rock, as he believed it to be, of the ponies, about to sink
+beneath his feet? "Say that Miss Tickle may come. I should be nothing
+without Miss Tickle. You cannot be so hard-hearted as that."
+
+"I don't see what is the good of talking about Miss Tickle till we have
+come to some settlement about the ponies. You say that you must have the
+ponies. To tell you the truth, Miss Thoroughbung, I don't like any such
+word as 'must.' And a good many things have occurred to me."
+
+"What kind of things, deary?"
+
+"I think you are inclined to be--gay--"
+
+"Me! gay!"
+
+"While I am sober, and perhaps a little grave in my manners of life. I
+am thinking only of domestic happiness, while your mind is intent upon
+social circles. I fear that you would look for your bliss abroad."
+
+"In France or Germany?"
+
+"When I say abroad, I mean out of your own house. There is perhaps some
+discrepancy of taste of which I ought earlier to have taken cognizance."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," said Miss Thoroughbung. "I am quite content to
+live at home and do not want to go abroad, either to France nor yet to
+any other English county. I should never ask for anything, unless it be
+for a single month in London."
+
+Here was a ground upon which he perhaps could make his stand. "Quite
+impossible!" said Mr. Prosper.
+
+"Or for a fortnight," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I never go up to London except on business."
+
+"But I might go alone, you know--with Miss Tickle. I shouldn't want to
+drag you away. I have always been in the habit of having a few weeks in
+London about the Exhibition time."
+
+"I shouldn't wish to be left by my wife."
+
+"Of course we could manage all that. We're not to settle every little
+thing beforehand, and put it into the deeds. A precious sum we should
+have to pay the lawyers!"
+
+"It's as well we should understand each other."
+
+"I think it pretty nearly is all settled that has to go into the deeds.
+I thought I'd just run over, after seeing Mr. Barry, and give the final
+touch. If you'll give way, dear, about Miss Tickle and the ponies, I'll
+yield in everything else. Nothing, surely, can be fairer than that."
+
+He knew that he was playing the hypocrite, and he knew also that it did
+not become him as a gentleman to be false to a woman. He was aware that
+from minute to minute, and almost from word to word, he was becoming
+ever more and more averse to this match which he had proposed to
+himself. And he knew that in honesty he ought to tell her that it was
+so. It was not honest in him to endeavor to get rid of her by a
+side-blow, as it were. And yet this was the attempt which he had
+hitherto been making. But how was he to tell her the truth? Even Mr.
+Barry had not understood the state of his mind. Indeed, his mind had
+altered since he had seen Mr. Barry.
+
+He had heard within the last half hour many words spoken by Miss
+Thoroughbung which proved that she was altogether unfit to be his wife.
+It was a dreadful misfortune that he should have rushed into such peril;
+but was he not bound as a gentleman to tell her the truth? "Say that I
+shall have Jemima Tickle!" The added horrors of the Christian name
+operated upon him with additional force. Was he to be doomed to have the
+word Jemima hallooed about his rooms and staircases for the rest of his
+life? And she had given up the ponies, and was taking her stand upon
+Miss Tickle, as to whom at last he would be bound to give way. He could
+see now that he should have demanded her whole income, and have allowed
+her little or no jointure. That would have been grasping, monstrous,
+altogether impracticable, but it would not have been ungentleman-like.
+This chaffering about little things was altogether at variance with his
+tastes,--and it would be futile. He must summon courage to tell her that
+he no longer wished for the match; but he could not do it on this
+morning. Then,--for that morning,--some benign god preserved him.
+
+Matthew came into the room and whispered into his ear that a gentleman
+wished to see him. "What gentleman?" Matthew again whispered that it was
+his brother-in-law. "Show him in," said Mr. Prosper, with a sudden
+courage. He had not seen Mr. Annesley since the day of his actual
+quarrel with Harry. "I shall have the ponies?" said Miss Thoroughbung
+during the moment that was allowed to her.
+
+"We are interrupted now. I am afraid that the rest of this interview
+must be postponed." It should never be renewed, though he might have to
+leave the country forever. Of that he gave himself assurance. Then the
+parson was shown into the room.
+
+The constrained introduction was very painful to Mr. Prosper, but was
+not at all disagreeable to the lady. "Mr. Annesley knows me very well.
+We are quite old friends. Joe is going to marry his eldest girl. I hope
+Molly is quite well." The rector said that Molly was quite well. When he
+had come away from home just now he had left Joe at the parsonage.
+"You'll find him there a deal oftener than at the brewery," said Miss
+Thoroughbung. "You know what we're going to do, Mr. Annesley. There are
+no fools like old fools." A thunder-black cloud came across Mr.
+Prosper's face. That this woman should dare to call him an old fool! "We
+were discussing a few of our future arrangements. We've arranged
+everything about money in the most amicable manner, and now there is
+merely a question of a pair of ponies."
+
+"We need not trouble Mr. Annesley about that, I think."
+
+"And Miss Tickle! I'm sure the rector will agree with me that old
+friends like me and Miss Tickle ought not to be separated. And it isn't
+as though there was any dislike between them, because he has already
+said that he finds Miss Tickle charming."
+
+"D---- Miss Tickle!" he said; whereupon the rector looked astonished, and
+Miss Thoroughbung jumped a foot from off the ground. "I beg the lady's
+pardon," said Mr. Prosper, piteously, "and yours, Miss Thoroughbung,--and
+yours, Mr. Annesley." It was as though a new revelation of character had
+been given. No one except Matthew had ever heard the Squire of Buston
+swear. And with Matthew the cursings had been by no means frequent, and
+had been addressed generally to some article of his clothing, or to some
+morsel of food prepared with less than the usual care. But now the oath
+had been directed against a female, and the chosen friend of his
+betrothed. And it had been uttered in the presence of a clergyman, his
+brother-in-law, and the rector of his parish. Mr. Prosper felt that he
+was disgraced forever. Could he have overheard them laughing over his
+ebullition in the drawing-room half an hour afterward, and almost
+praising his violence, some part of the pain might have been removed.
+As it was he felt at the time that he was disgraced forever.
+
+"We will return to the subject when next we meet," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"I am very sorry that I should so far have forgotten myself," said Mr.
+Prosper, "but--"
+
+"It does not signify,--not as far as I am concerned;" and she made a
+little motion to the clergyman, half bow and half courtesy. Mr. Annesley
+bowed in return, as though declaring that neither did it signify very
+much as far as he was concerned. Then she left the room, and Matthew
+handed her into the carriage, when she took the ponies in hand with
+quite as much composure as though her friend had not been sworn at.
+
+"Upon my word, sir," said Prosper, as soon as the door was shut, "I beg
+your pardon. But I was so moved by certain things which have occurred
+that I was carried much beyond my usual habits."
+
+"Don't mention it."
+
+"It is peculiarly distressing to me that I should have been induced to
+forget myself in the presence of a clergyman of the parish and my
+brother-in-law. But I must beg you to forget it."
+
+"Oh, certainly. I will tell you now why I have come over."
+
+"I can assure you that such is not my habit," continued Mr. Prosper, who
+was thinking much more of the unaccustomed oath which he had sworn than
+of his brother-in-law's visit, strange as it was. "No one, as a rule, is
+more guarded in his expressions than I am. How it should have come to
+pass that I was so stirred I can hardly tell. But Miss Thoroughbung had
+said certain words which had moved me very much." She had called him
+"Peter" and "deary," and had spoken of him as "keeping company" with
+her. All these disgusting terms of endearment he could not repeat to his
+brother-in-law, but felt it necessary to allude to them.
+
+"I trust that you may be happy with her when she is your wife."
+
+"I can't say. I really don't know. It's a very important step to take at
+my age, and I'm not quite sure that I should be doing wisely."
+
+"It's not too late," said Mr. Annesley.
+
+"I don't know. I can't quite say." Then Mr. Prosper drew himself up,
+remembering that it would not become him to discuss the matter of his
+marriage with the father of his heir.
+
+"I have come over here," said Mr. Annesley, "to say a few words about
+Harry." Mr. Prosper again drew himself up. "Of course you're aware that
+Harry is at present living with us." Here Mr. Prosper bowed. "Of course,
+in his altered circumstances, it will not do that he shall be idle, and
+yet he does not like to take a final step without letting you know what
+it is." Here Mr. Prosper bowed twice. "There is a gentleman of fortune
+going out to the United States on a mission which will probably occupy
+him for three or four years. I am not exactly warranted in mentioning
+his name, but he has taken in hand a political project of much
+importance." Again Mr. Prosper bowed. "Now he has offered Harry the
+place of private secretary, on condition that Harry will undertake to
+stay the entire term. He is to have a salary of three hundred a year,
+and his travelling expenses will of course be paid for him. If he goes,
+poor boy! he will in all probability remain in his new home and become a
+citizen of the United States. Under these circumstances I have thought
+it best to step up and tell you in a friendly manner what his plans
+are." Then he had told his tale, and Mr. Prosper again bowed.
+
+The rector had been very crafty. There was no doubt about the wealthy
+gentleman with the American project, and the salary had been offered.
+But in other respects there had been some exaggeration. It was well
+known to the rector that Mr. Prosper regarded America and all her
+institutions with a religious hatred. An American was to him an
+ignorant, impudent, foul-mouthed, fraudulent creature, to have any
+acquaintance with whom was a disgrace. Could he have had his way, he
+would have reconstituted the United States as British Colonies at a
+moment's notice. Were he to die without having begotten another heir,
+Buston must become the property of Harry Annesley; and it would be
+dreadful to him to think that Buston should be owned by an American
+citizen. "The salary offered is too good to be abandoned," said Mr.
+Annesley, when he saw the effect which his story had produced.
+
+"Everything is going against me!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper.
+
+"Well: I will not talk about that. I did not come here to discuss Harry
+or his sins,--nor, for the matter of that, his virtues. But I felt it
+would be improper to let him go upon his journey without communicating
+with you." So saying, he took his departure and walked back to the
+rectory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+A DETERMINED YOUNG LADY.
+
+
+When this offer had been made to Harry Annesley he found it to be
+absolutely necessary that he should write a farther letter to Florence.
+He was quite aware that he had been forbidden to write. He had written
+one letter since that order had been given to him, and no reply had come
+to him. He had not expected a reply; but still her silence had been
+grievous to him. It might be that she was angry with him, really angry.
+But let that be as it might, he could not go to America, and be absent
+for so long a period, without telling her. She and her mother were still
+at Brussels when January came. Mrs. Mountjoy had gone there, as he had
+understood, for a month, and was still at the embassy when three months
+had passed. "I think I shall stay here the winter," Mrs. Mountjoy had
+said to Sir Magnus, "but we will take lodgings. I see that very nice
+sets of apartments are to be let." But Sir Magnus would not hear of
+this. He said, and said truly, that the ministerial house was large; and
+at last he declared the honest truth. His sister-in-law had been very
+kind to him about money, and had said not a word on that troubled
+subject since her arrival. Mrs. Mountjoy, with that delicacy which still
+belongs to some English ladies, would have suffered extreme poverty
+rather than have spoken on such a matter. In truth she suffered nothing,
+and hardly thought about it. But Sir Magnus was grateful, and told her
+that if she went to look for lodgings he should go to the lodgings and
+say that they were not wanted. Therefore Mrs. Mountjoy remained where
+she was, entertaining a feeling of increased good-will toward Sir
+Magnus.
+
+Life went on rather sadly with Florence. Anderson was as good as his
+word. He pleaded his own cause no farther, telling both Sir Magnus and
+Lady Mountjoy of the pledge he had made. He did in fact tell two or
+three other persons, regarding himself as a martyr to chivalry. All this
+time he went about his business looking very wretched. But though he did
+not speak for himself, he could not hinder others from speaking for him.
+Sir Magnus took occasion to say a word on the subject once daily to his
+niece. Her mother was constant in her attacks. But Lady Mountjoy was the
+severest of the three, and was accounted by Florence as her bitterest
+enemy. The words which passed between them were not the most
+affectionate in the world. Lady Mountjoy would call her 'miss,' to which
+Florence would reply by addressing her aunt as 'my lady.' "Why do you
+call me 'my lady?' It isn't usual in common conversation." "Why do you
+call me 'miss?' If you cease to call me 'miss,' I'll cease to call you
+'my lady.'" But no reverence was paid by the girl to the wife of the
+British Minister. It was this that Lady Mountjoy specially felt,--as she
+complained to her companion, Miss Abbott. Then another cause for trouble
+sprang up during the winter, of which mention must be made farther on.
+The result was that Florence was instant with her mother to take her
+back to England.
+
+We will return, however, to Harry Annesley, and give the letter,
+verbatim, which he wrote to Florence:
+
+"DEAR FLORENCE,--I wonder whether you ever think of me or ever remember
+that I exist? I know you do. I cannot have been forgotten like that. And
+you yourself are the truest girl that ever owned to loving a man. But
+there comes a chill across my heart when I think how long it is since I
+wrote to you, and that I have not had a line even to acknowledge my
+letter. You bade me not to write, and you have not even forgiven me for
+disobeying your order. I cannot but get stupid ideas into my mind, which
+one word from you would dissipate.
+
+"Now, however, I must write again, order or no order. Between a man and
+a woman circumstanced as you and I, things will arise which make it
+incumbent on one or the other to write. It is absolutely necessary that
+you should now know what are my intentions, and understand the reasons
+which have actuated me. I have found myself left in a most unfortunate
+condition by my uncle's folly. He is going on with a stupid marriage for
+the purpose of disinheriting me, and has in the mean time stopped the
+allowance which he had made me since I left college. Of course I have no
+absolute claim on him. But I cannot understand how he can reconcile
+himself to do so, when he himself prevented my going to the Bar, saying
+that it would be unnecessary.
+
+"But so it is, I am driven to look about for myself. It is very hard at
+my time of life to find an opening in any profession. I think I told you
+before that I had ideas of going to Cambridge and endeavoring to get
+pupils, trusting to my fellowship rather than to my acquirements. But
+this I have always looked upon with great dislike, and would only have
+taken to it if nothing else was to be had. Now there has come forward
+an old college acquaintance, a man who is three or four years my senior,
+who has offered to take me to America as his private secretary. He
+proposes to remain there for three years. I of course shall not bind
+myself to stay as long; but I may not improbably do so. He is to pay my
+expenses and to give me a salary of three hundred a year. This will,
+perhaps, lead to nothing else, but will for the present be better than
+nothing. I am to start in just a month from the present time.
+
+"Now you know it all except that the man's name is Sir William Crook. He
+is a decent sort of a fellow, and has got a wife who is to go with him.
+He is the hardest working man I know, but, between you and me, will
+never set the Thames on fire. If the Thames is to be illumined at all, I
+rather think that I shall be expected to do it.
+
+"Now, my own one, what am I to say about you, and of myself, as your
+husband that is to be? Will you wait, at any rate, for three years with
+the conviction that the three years will too probably end in your having
+to wait again?
+
+"I do feel that in my altered position I ought to give you back your
+troth, and tell you that things shall be as they used to be before that
+happy night at Mrs. Armitage's party. I do not know but that it is
+clearly my duty. I almost think that it is. But I am sure of this,--that
+it is the one thing in the world that I cannot do. I don't think that a
+man ought to be asked to tear himself altogether in pieces because some
+one has ill-treated him. At any rate I cannot. If you say that it must
+be so, you shall say it. I don't suppose it will kill me, but it will go
+a long way.
+
+"In writing so far I have not said a word of love, because, as far as I
+understand you, that is a subject on which you expect me to be silent.
+When you order me not to write, I suppose you intend that I am to write
+no love-letters. This, therefore, you will take simply as a matter of
+business, and as such, I suppose, you will acknowledge it. In this way I
+shall at any rate see your handwriting.
+
+"Yours affectionately,
+
+"HARRY ANNESLEY."
+
+Harry, when he had written this letter, considered that it had been
+cold, calm, and philosophical. He could not go to America for three
+years without telling her of his purpose; nor could he mention that
+purpose, as he thought, in any language less glowing. But Florence, when
+she received it, did not regard it in the same light.
+
+To her thinking the letter was full of love, and of love expressed in
+the warmest possible language. "Sir William Crook!" she said to herself.
+"What can he want of Harry in America for three years? I am sure he is a
+stupid man. Will I wait? Of course I will wait. What are three years?
+And why should I not wait? But, for the matter of that--" Then thoughts
+came into her mind which even to herself she could not express in words.
+Sir William Crook had got a wife, and why should not Harry take a wife
+also? She did not see why a private secretary should not be a married
+man; and as for money, there would be plenty for such a style of life as
+they would live. She could not exactly propose this, but she thought
+that if she were to see Harry just for one short interview before he
+started, that he might probably then propose it himself.
+
+"Things be as they used to be!" she exclaimed to herself. "Never! Things
+cannot be as they used to be. I know what is his duty. It is his duty
+not to think of anything of the kind. Remember that he exists," she
+said, turning back to the earlier words of the letter. "That of course
+is his joke. I wonder whether he knows that every moment of my life is
+devoted to him. Of course I bade him not to write. But I can tell him
+now that I have never gone to bed without his letter beneath my pillow."
+This and much more of the same kind was uttered in soliloquies, but need
+not be repeated at length to the reader.
+
+But she had to think what steps she must first take. She must tell her
+mother of Harry's intention. She had never for an instant allowed her
+mother to think that her affection had dwindled, or her purpose failed
+her. She was engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and marry him some day she
+would. That her mother should be sure of that was the immediate purpose
+of her life. And in carrying out that purpose she must acquaint her
+mother with the news which this letter had brought to her. "Mamma, I
+have got something to tell you."
+
+"Well, my dear?"
+
+"Harry Annesley is going to America!" There was something pleasing to
+Mrs. Mountjoy in the sound of these words. If Harry Annesley went to
+America he might be drowned, or it might more probably be that he would
+never come back. America was, to her imagination, a long way off. Lovers
+did not go to America except with the intention of deserting their
+ladyloves. Such were her ideas. She felt at the moment that Florence
+would be more easily approached in reference either to her cousin
+Mountjoy or to Mr. Anderson. Another lover had sprung up, too, in
+Brussels, of whom a word shall be said by-and-by. If her Harry, the
+pernicious Harry, should have taken himself to America, the chances of
+all these three gentlemen would be improved. Any one of them would now
+be accepted by Mrs. Mountjoy as a bar fatal to Harry Annesley. Mountjoy
+was again the favorite with her. She had heard that he had returned to
+Tretton, and was living amicably with his father. She knew, even, of the
+income allotted to him for the present,--of the six hundred pounds a
+year,--and had told Florence that as a preliminary income it was more
+than double that two hundred and fifty pounds which had been taken away
+from Harry,--taken away never to be restored. There was not much in this
+argument, but still she thought well to use it. The captain was living
+with his father, and she did not believe a word about the entail having
+been done away with. It was certain that Harry's uncle had quarrelled
+with him, and she did understand that a baby at Buston would altogether
+rob Harry of his chance. And then look at the difference in the
+properties! It was thus that she argued the matter. But in truth her
+word had been pledged to Mountjoy Scarborough, and Mountjoy Scarborough
+had ever been a favorite with her. Though she could talk about the
+money, it was not the money that touched her feelings. "Well;--he may go
+to America. It is a dreadful destiny for a young man, but in his case it
+may be the best thing that he can do."
+
+"Of course he intends to come back again."
+
+"That is as it may be."
+
+"I do not understand what you mean by a dreadful destiny, mamma. I don't
+see that it is a destiny at all. He is getting a very good offer for a
+year or two, and thinks it best to take it. I might go with him, for
+that matter."
+
+A thunder-bolt had fallen at Mrs. Mountjoy's feet! Florence go with him
+to America! Among all the trials which had come upon her with reference
+to this young man there had been nothing so bad as this proposal. Go
+with him! The young man was to start in a month! Then she began to think
+whether it would be within her power to stop her daughter. What would
+all the world be to her with one daughter, and she in America, married
+to Harry Annesley? Her quarrel with Florence was not at all as was the
+quarrel of Lady Mountjoy. Lady Mountjoy would be glad to get rid of the
+girl, whom she thought to be impertinent and believed to be false. But
+to her mother Florence was the very apple of her eye. It was because she
+thought that Mountjoy Scarborough was a grand fellow, and because she
+thought all manner of evil of Harry Annesley, that she wished Florence
+to marry her cousin, and to separate herself forever from the other.
+When she had heard that Harry was to go to America she had rejoiced, as
+though he was to be transported to Botany Bay. Her ideas were
+old-fashioned. But when it was hinted that Florence was to go with him
+she nearly fell to the ground.
+
+Florence certainly had behaved badly in making the suggestion. She had
+not intended to make it,--had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her
+mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come
+upon him,--as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be
+hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,--then her spirit rose
+within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never
+asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to
+share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her
+only child in the hands of those American savages. She threw herself on
+to a sofa, buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.
+
+"I don't say that I am going, mamma."
+
+"My darling--my dearest--my child!"
+
+"Only that there is no reason why I shouldn't, except that it would not
+suit him. At least I suppose it would not."
+
+"Has he said so?"
+
+"He has said nothing about it."
+
+"Thank Heaven for that! He does not intend to rob me of my child."
+
+"But, mamma, I am to be his wife."
+
+"No, no, no!"
+
+"It is that that I want to make you understand. You know nothing of his
+character;--nothing."
+
+"I do know that he told a base falsehood."
+
+"Nothing of the kind! I will not admit it. It is of no use going into
+that again, but there was nothing base about it. He has got an
+appointment in the United States, and is going out to do the work. He
+has not asked me to go with him. The two things would probably not be
+compatible." Here Mrs. Mountjoy rose from the sofa and embraced her
+child, as though liberated from her deepest grief. "But, mamma, you must
+remember this:--that I have given him my word, and will never be induced
+to abandon it." Here her mother threw up her hands and again began to
+weep. "Either to-day or to-morrow, or ten years hence,--if he will wait
+as long, I will,--we shall be married. As far as I can see we need not
+wait ten years, or perhaps more than one or two. My money will suffice
+for us."
+
+"He proposes to live upon you?"
+
+"He proposes nothing of the kind. He is going to America because he will
+not propose it. Nor am I proposing it,--just at present."
+
+"At any rate I am glad of that."
+
+"And now, mamma, you must take me back home as soon as possible."
+
+"When he has started."
+
+"No, mamma. I must be there before he starts. I cannot let him go
+without seeing him. If I am to remain here, here he must come."
+
+"Your uncle would never receive him."
+
+"I should receive him."
+
+This was dreadful--this flying into actual disobedience. Whatever did
+she mean? Where was she to receive him? "How could you receive a young
+man in opposition to the wishes, and indeed to the commands, of all your
+friends?"
+
+"I'm not going to be at all shamefaced about it, mamma. I am the woman
+he has selected to be his wife, and he is the man I have selected to be
+my husband. If he were coming I should go to my uncle and ask to have
+him received."
+
+"Think of your aunt."
+
+"Yes; I do think of her. My aunt would make herself very disagreeable.
+Upon the whole, mamma, I think it would be best that you should take me
+back to England. There is this M. Grascour here, who is a great trouble,
+and you may be sure of this, that I intend to see Harry Annesley before
+he starts for America."
+
+So the interview was ended; but Mrs. Mountjoy was left greatly in doubt
+as to what she might best do. She felt sure that were Annesley to come
+to Brussels, Florence would see him,--would see him in spite of all that
+her uncle and aunt, and Mr. Anderson, and M. Grascour could do to
+prevent it. That reprobate young man would force his way into the
+embassy, or Florence would force her way out. In either case there would
+be a terrible scene. But if she were to take Florence back to
+Cheltenham, interviews to any extent would be arranged for her at the
+house of Mrs. Armitage. As she thought of all this, the idea came across
+her that when a young girl is determined to be married nothing can
+prevent it.
+
+Florence in the mean time wrote an immediate answer to her lover, as
+follows:
+
+"DEAR HARRY,--Of course you were entitled to write when there was
+something to be said which it was necessary that I should know. When you
+have simply to say that you love me, I know that well enough without any
+farther telling.
+
+"Go to America for three years! It is very, very serious. But of course
+you must know best, and I shall not attempt to interfere. What are three
+years to you and me? If we were rich people, of course we should not
+wait; but as we are poor, of course we must act as do other people who
+are poor. I have about four hundred a year; and it is for you to say how
+far that may be sufficient. If you think so, you will not find that I
+shall want more.
+
+"But there is one thing necessary before you start. I must see you.
+There is no reason on earth for our remaining here, except that mamma
+has not made up her mind. If she will consent to go back before you
+start, it will be best so. Otherwise, you must take the trouble to come
+here,--where, I am afraid, you will not be received as a welcome guest. I
+have told mamma that if I cannot see you here in a manner that is
+becoming, I shall go out and meet you in the streets, in a manner that
+is unbecoming.
+
+"Your affectionate--wife that is to be,
+
+"FLORENCE MOUNTJOY."
+
+This letter she took to her mother, and read aloud to her in her own
+room. Mrs. Mountjoy could only implore that it might not be sent, but
+prevailed not at all. "There is not a word in it about love," said
+Florence. "It is simply a matter of business, and as such I must send
+it. I do not suppose my uncle will go to the length of attempting to
+lock me up. He would, I think, find it difficult to do so." There was a
+look in Florence's face as she said this which altogether silenced her
+mother. She did not think that Sir Magnus would consent to lock Florence
+up, and she did think that were he to attempt to do so he would find the
+task very difficult.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+M. GRASCOUR.
+
+
+M. Grascour was a Belgian, about forty years old, who looked as though
+he were no more than thirty, except that his hair was in patches
+beginning to be a little gray. He was in the government service of his
+country, well educated, and thoroughly a gentleman. As is the case with
+many Belgians, he would have been taken to be an Englishman were his
+country not known. He had dressed himself in English mirrors, living
+mostly with the English. He spoke English so well that he would only be
+known to be a foreigner by the correctness of his language. He was a man
+of singularly good temper, and there was running through all that he did
+somewhat of a chivalric spirit, which came from study rather than
+nature. He had looked into things and seen whether they were good, or at
+any rate popular, and endeavored to grasp and to make his own whatever
+he found to be so. He was hitherto unmarried, and was regarded generally
+by his friends as a non-marrying man. But Florence Mountjoy was powerful
+over him, and he set to work to make her his wife. He was intimate at
+the house of Sir Magnus, and saw, no doubt, that Anderson was doing the
+same thing. But he saw also that Anderson did not succeed. He had told
+himself from the first that if Anderson did succeed he would not wish to
+do so. The girl who would be satisfied with Anderson would hardly
+content him. He remained therefore quiet till he saw that Anderson had
+failed. The young man at once took to an altered mode of life which was
+sufficiently marked. He went, like Sir Proteus, ungartered. Everything
+about him had of late "demonstrated a careless desolation." All this M.
+Grascour observed, and when he saw it he felt that his own time had
+come.
+
+He took occasion at first to wait upon Lady Mountjoy. He believed that
+to be the proper way of going to work. He was very intimate with the
+Mountjoys, and was aware that his circumstances were known to them.
+There was no reason, on the score of money, why he should not marry the
+niece of Sir Magnus. He had already shown some attention to Florence,
+which, though it had excited no suspicion in her mind, had been seen and
+understood by her aunt; and it had been understood also by Mr. Anderson.
+"That accursed Belgian! If, after all, she should take up with him! I
+shall tell her a bit of my mind if anything of that kind should occur."
+
+"My niece, M. Grascour!"
+
+"Yes, my lady." M. Grascour had not quite got over the way of calling
+Lady Mountjoy "my lady." "It is presumption, I know."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"I have not spoken to her. Nor would I do so till I had first addressed
+myself to you or to her mother. May I speak to Mrs. Mountjoy?"
+
+"Oh, certainly. I do not in the least know what the young lady's ideas
+are. She has been much admired here and elsewhere, and that may have
+turned her head."
+
+"I think not."
+
+"You may be the better judge, M. Grascour."
+
+"I think that Miss Mountjoy's head has not been turned by any
+admiration. She does not appear to be a young lady whose head would
+easily be turned. It is her heart of which I am thinking." The interview
+ended by Lady Mountjoy passing the Belgian lover on to Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Florence!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Mountjoy;--I have the great honor of asking your permission. I
+am well known to Sir Magnus and Lady Mountjoy, and they can tell what
+are my circumstances. I am forty years of age."
+
+"Oh yes; everything is, I am sure, quite as it should be. But my
+daughter thinks about these things for herself." Then there was a pause,
+and M. Grascour was about to leave the room, having obtained the
+permission he desired, when Mrs. Mountjoy thought it well to acquaint
+him with something of her daughter's condition. "I ought to tell you
+that my daughter has been engaged."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes; and I hardly know how to explain the circumstances. I should say
+that she had been promised to her cousin, Captain Scarborough; but to
+this she will not give her assent. She has since met a gentleman, Mr.
+Annesley, for whom she professes an attachment. Neither can I, nor can
+her uncle and aunt, hear of Mr. Annesley as a husband for Florence. She
+is therefore at present disengaged. If you can gain her affections, you
+have my leave." With this permission M. Grascour departed, professing
+himself to be contented.
+
+He did not see Florence for two or three days, no doubt leaving the
+matter to be discussed with her by her mother and her aunt. To him it
+was quite indifferent what might be the fate of Captain Scarborough, or
+of Mr. Annesley, or indeed of Mr. Anderson. And, to tell the truth, he
+was not under any violent fear or hope as to his own fate. He admired
+Miss Mountjoy, and thought it would be well to secure for a wife such a
+girl, with such a fortune as would belong to her. But he did not intend
+to go "ungartered," nor yet to assume an air of "desolation." If she
+would come to him, it would be well; if she would not, why, it would
+still be well. The only outward difference made by his love was that he
+brushed his clothes and his hair a little more carefully, and had his
+boots brought to a higher state of polish than was usual.
+
+Her mother spoke to her first. "My dear, M. Grascour is a most excellent
+man."
+
+"I am sure he is, mamma."
+
+"And he is a great friend to your uncle and Lady Mountjoy."
+
+"Why do you say this, mamma? What can it matter to me?"
+
+"My dear, M. Grascour wishes you to--to--to become his wife."
+
+"Oh, mamma, why didn't you tell him that it is impossible?"
+
+"How was I to know, my dear?"
+
+"Mamma, I am engaged to marry Harry Annesley, and no word shall ever
+turn me from that purpose, unless it be spoken by himself. The crier may
+say that all round the town if he wishes. You must know that it is so.
+What can be the use of sending M. Grascour or any other gentleman to me?
+It is only giving me pain and him too. I wish, mamma, you could be got
+to understand this." But Mrs. Mountjoy could not altogether be got as
+yet to understand the obstinacy of her daughter's character.
+
+There was one point on which Florence received information from these
+two suitors who had come to her at Brussels. They were both favored, one
+after the other, by her mother; and would not have been so favored had
+her mother absolutely believed in Captain Mountjoy. It seemed to her as
+though her mother would be willing that she should marry any one, so
+long as it was not Harry Annesley. "It is a pity that there should be
+such a difference," she said to herself. "But we will see what firmness
+can do."
+
+Then Lady Mountjoy spoke to her. "You have heard of M. Grascour, my
+dear?"
+
+"Yes; I have heard of him, aunt."
+
+"He intends to do you the honor of asking you to be his wife."
+
+"So mamma tells me."
+
+"I have only to say that he is a man most highly esteemed here. He is
+well known at the court, and is at the royal parties. Should you become
+his wife, you would have all the society of Brussels at your feet."
+
+"All the society of Brussels would do no good."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"Nor the court and the royal parties."
+
+"If you choose to be impertinent when I tell you what are his advantages
+and condition in life, I cannot help it."
+
+"I do not mean to be impertinent."
+
+"What you say about the royal parties and the court is intended for
+impertinence, knowing as you do know your uncle's position."
+
+"Not at all. You know my position. I am engaged to marry another man,
+and cannot therefore marry M. Grascour. Why should he be sent to me,
+except that you won't believe me when I tell you that I am engaged?"
+Then she marched out of the room, and considered within her own bosom
+what answer she would give to this new Belgian suitor.
+
+She was made perfectly aware when the Belgian suitor was about to
+arrive. On the day but one after the interview with her aunt she was
+left alone when the other ladies went out, and suspected that even the
+footmen knew what was to happen, when M. Grascour was shown into the
+drawing-room. There was a simple mode of dealing with the matter on his
+part,--very different from that state of agitation into which Harry had
+been thrown when he had made his proposition. She was quite prepared to
+admit that M. Grascour's plan might be the wisest; but Harry's manner
+had been full of real love, and had charmed her. M. Grascour was not in
+the least flustered, whereas poor Harry had been hardly able to speak
+his mind. But it had not mattered much whether Harry spoke his mind or
+not, whereas all the eloquence in the world could have done no good for
+M. Grascour. Florence had known that Harry did love her, whereas of M.
+Grascour she only knew that he wanted to make her his wife.
+
+"Miss Mountjoy," he said, "I am charmed to find you here. Allow me to
+add that I am charmed to find you alone." Florence, who knew all about
+it, only bowed. She had to go through it, and thought that she would be
+able to do so with equanimity. "I do not know whether your aunt or your
+mother have done me the honor of mentioning my name to you."
+
+"They have both spoken to me."
+
+"I thought it best that they should have the opportunity of doing so. In
+our country these things are arranged chiefly by the lady's friends.
+With your people I know it is different. Perhaps it is much better that
+it should be so in a matter in which the heart has to be concerned."
+
+"It would come to the same thing with me. I must decide for myself."
+
+"I am sure of it. May I venture to feel a hope that ultimately that
+decision may not go against me?" M. Grascour, as he said this, did throw
+some look of passion into his face. "But I have spoken nothing as yet of
+my own feelings."
+
+"It is unnecessary."
+
+This might be taken in either one of two senses; but the gentleman was
+not sufficiently vain to think that the lady had intended to signify to
+him that she would accept his love as a thing of which she could have no
+doubt. "Ah, Miss Mountjoy," he continued, "if you would allow me to say
+that since you have been at Brussels not a day has passed in which
+mingled love and respect have not grown within my bosom. I have sat by
+and watched while my excellent young friend Mr. Anderson has endeavored
+to express his feelings. I have said to myself that I would bide my
+time. If you could give yourself to him, why then the aspiration should
+be quenched within my own breast. But you have not done so, though, as I
+am aware, he has been assisted by my friend Sir Magnus. I have seen, and
+have heard, and have said to myself at last, 'Now, too, my turn may
+come.' I have loved much, but I have been very patient. Can it be that
+my turn should have come at last?" Though he had spoken of Mr. Anderson,
+he had not thought it expedient to say a word either of Captain
+Scarborough or of Mr. Annesley. He knew quite as much of them as he did
+of Mr. Anderson. He was clever, and had put together with absolute
+correctness what Mrs. Mountjoy had told him, with other little facts
+which had reached his ears.
+
+"M. Grascour, I suppose I am very much obliged to you. I ought to be."
+Here he bowed his head. "But my only way of being grateful is to tell
+you the truth." Again he bowed his head. "I am in love with another man.
+That's the truth." Here he shook his head with the smallest possible
+shake, as though deprecating her love, but not doing so with any
+harshness. "I engaged to marry him, too." There was another shake of the
+head, somewhat more powerful. "And I intend to marry him." This she said
+with much bold assurance. "All my old friends know that it is so, and
+ought not to have sent you to me. I have given a promise to Harry
+Annesley, and Harry Annesley alone can make me depart from it." This she
+said in a low voice, but almost with violence, because there had come
+another shake of the head in reply to her assurance that she meant to
+marry Annesley. "And though he were to make me depart from it,--which he
+will never do,--I should be just the same as regards anybody else. Can't
+you understand that when a girl has given herself, heart and soul, to a
+man, she won't change?"
+
+"Girls do change--sometimes."
+
+"You may know them; I don't,--not girls that are worth anything."
+
+"But when all your friends are hostile?"
+
+"What can they do? They can't make me marry another person. They may
+hinder my happiness; but they can't hand me over, like a parcel of
+goods, to any one else. Do you mean to say that you would accept such a
+parcel?"
+
+"Oh yes--such a parcel!"
+
+"You would accept a girl who would come to you telling you that she
+loved another man? I don't believe it of you."
+
+"I should know that my tenderness would beget tenderness in you."
+
+"It wouldn't do anything of the kind. It would be all horror,--horror. I
+should kill myself, or else you, or perhaps both."
+
+"Is your aversion so strong?"
+
+"No, not at all;--not at present. I like you very much. I do indeed. I'd
+do anything for you--in the way of friendship. I believe you to be a
+real gentleman."
+
+"But you would kill me!"
+
+"You make me talk of a condition of things which is quite, quite
+impossible. When I say that I like you, I am talking of the present
+condition of things. I have not the least desire to kill you, or myself,
+or anybody. I want to be taken back to England, and there to be allowed
+to marry Mr. Henry Annesley. That's what I want. But I intend to remain
+engaged to him. That's my purpose, and no man and no woman shall stir me
+from it." He smiled, and again shook his head, and she began to doubt
+whether she did like him so much. "Now I've told you all about myself,"
+she said, rising to her feet. "You may believe me or not, as you please;
+but, as I have believed you, I have told you all." Then she walked out
+of the room.
+
+M. Grascour, as soon as he was alone, left the room and the house, and,
+making his way into the park, walked round it twice, turning in his mind
+his success and his want of success. For, in truth, he was not at all
+dispirited by what had occurred. With her other Belgian lover,--that is,
+with Mr. Anderson,--Florence had at any rate succeeded in making the
+truth appear to be the truth. He did believe that she had taken such a
+fancy to that "fellow Harry Annesley" that there would be no overcoming
+it. He had got a glimpse into the firmness of her character which was
+denied to M. Grascour. M. Grascour, as he walked up and down the shady
+paths of the park, told himself that such events as this so-called love
+on the part of Florence were very common in the lives of English young
+ladies. "They are the best in the world," he said to himself, "and they
+make the most charming wives; but their education is such that there is
+no preventing these accidents." The passion displayed in the young
+lady's words he attributed solely to her power of expression. One girl
+would use language such as had been hers, and such a girl would be
+clever, eloquent, and brave; another girl would hum and haw, with half a
+"yes" and a quarter of a "no," and would mean just the same thing. He
+did not doubt but that she had engaged herself to Harry Annesley; nor
+did he doubt that she had been brought to Brussels to break off that
+engagement; and he thought it most probable that her friends would
+prevail. Under these circumstances, why should he despair?--or why,
+rather, as he was a man not given to despair, should he not think that
+there was for him a reasonable chance of success? He must show himself
+to be devoted, true, and not easily repressed.
+
+She had used, he did not doubt, the same sort of language in silencing
+Anderson. Mr. Anderson had accepted her words, but he knew too well the
+value of words coming from a young lady's mouth to take them at their
+true meaning. He had at this interview affected a certain amount of
+intimacy with Florence of which he thought that he appreciated the
+value. She had told him that she would kill him,--of course in joke; and
+a joke from a girl on such an occasion was worth much. No Belgian girl
+would have joked. But then he was anxious to marry Florence because
+Florence was English. Therefore, when he went back to his own home he
+directed that the system of the high polish should be continued with his
+boots.
+
+"I don't suppose he will come again," Florence had said to her mother,
+misunderstanding the character of her latest lover quite as widely as he
+misunderstood hers. But M. Grascour, though he did not absolutely renew
+his offer at once, gave it to be understood that he did not at all
+withdraw from the contest. He obtained permission from Lady Mountjoy to
+be constantly at the Embassy, and succeeded even in obtaining a promise
+of support from Sir Magnus. "You're quite up a tree," Sir Magnus had
+said to his Secretary of Legation. "It's clear she won't look at you."
+
+"I have pledged myself to abstain," said poor Anderson, in a tone which
+seemed to confess that all chance was over with him.
+
+"I suppose she must marry some one, and I don't see why Grascour should
+not have as good a chance as another." Anderson had stalked away,
+brooding over the injustice of his position, and declaring to himself
+that this Belgian should never be allowed to marry Florence Mountjoy in
+peace.
+
+But M. Grascour continued his attentions; and this it was which had
+induced Florence to tell her mother that the Belgian was "a great
+trouble," which ought to be avoided by a return to England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+FLORENCE BIDS FAREWELL TO HER LOVERS.
+
+
+"Mamma, had you not better take me back to Cheltenham at once?"
+
+"Has that unfortunate young man written to you?"
+
+"Yes. The young man whom you call unfortunate has written. Of course I
+cannot agree to have him so called. And, to tell the truth, I don't
+think he is so very unfortunate. He has got a girl who really loves him,
+and that, I think, is a step to happiness."
+
+Every word of this was said by Florence as though with the purpose of
+provoking her mother; and so did Mrs. Mountjoy feel it. But behind this
+purpose there was that other fixed resolution to get Harry at last
+accepted as her husband, and perhaps the means taken were the best. Mrs
+Mountjoy was already beginning to feel that there would be nothing for
+her but to give up the battle, and to open her motherly arms to Harry
+Annesley. Sir Magnus had told her that M. Grascour would probably
+prevail. M. Grascour was said to be exactly the man likely to be
+effective with such a girl as Florence. That had been the last opinion
+expressed by Sir Magnus. But Mrs. Mountjoy had found no comfort in it.
+Florence was going to have her own way. Her mother knew that it was so,
+and was very unhappy. But she was still anxious to continue a weak,
+ineffective battle. "It was very impertinent of him writing," she said.
+
+"When he was going to America for years! Dear mamma, do put yourself in
+my place. How was it possible that he should not write?"
+
+"A young man has no business to come and insinuate himself into a family
+in that way; and then, when he knows he is not welcome, to open a
+correspondence."
+
+"But, mamma, he knows that he is welcome. If he had gone to America
+without writing to me--Oh, it would have been impossible! I should have
+gone after him."
+
+"No,--no;--never!"
+
+"I am quite in earnest, mamma. But it is no good talking about what
+could not have taken place."
+
+"We ought to have prevented you from receiving or sending letters." Here
+Mrs. Mountjoy touched on a subject on which the practice of the English
+world has been much altered during the last thirty or forty
+years;--perhaps we may say fifty or sixty years. Fifty years ago young
+ladies were certainly not allowed to receive letters as they chose, and
+to write them, and to demand that this practice should be carried on
+without any supervision from their elder friends. It is now usually the
+case that they do so. A young lady, before she falls into a
+correspondence with a young man, is expected to let it be understood
+that she does so. But she does not expect that his letters, either
+coming or going, shall be subject to any espial, and she generally feels
+that the option of obeying or disobeying the instructions given to her
+rests with herself. Practically the use of the post-office is in her own
+hands. And, as this spirit of self-conduct has grown up, the morals and
+habits of our young ladies have certainly not deteriorated. In America
+they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young
+gentlemen walk about with each other. In America the young ladies are as
+well-behaved as with us,--as well-behaved as they are in some Continental
+countries in which they are still watched close till they are given up
+as brides to husbands with whom they have had no means of becoming
+acquainted. Whether the latch-key system, or that of free
+correspondence, may not rob the flowers of some of that delicate aroma
+which we used to appreciate, may be a question; but then it is also a
+question whether there does not come something in place of it which in
+the long-run is found to be more valuable. Florence, when this remark
+was made as to her own power of sending and receiving letters, remained
+silent, but looked very firm. She thought that it would have been
+difficult to silence her after this fashion. "Sir Magnus could have done
+it, at any rate, if I had not been able."
+
+"Sir Magnus could have done nothing, I think, which would not have been
+within your power. But it is useless talking of this. Will you not take
+me back to England, so as to prevent the necessity of Harry coming
+here?"
+
+"Why should he come?"
+
+"Because, mamma, I intend to see my future husband before he goes from
+me for so great a distance, and for so long a time. Don't you feel any
+pity for me, mamma?"
+
+"Do you feel pity for me?"
+
+"Because one day you wish me to marry my cousin Scarborough, and the
+next Mr. Anderson, and then the next M. Grascour? How can I pity you for
+that? It is all done because you have taken it in your head to think ill
+of one whom I believe to be especially worthy. You began by disliking
+him, because he interfered with your plans about Mountjoy. I never would
+have married my cousin Mountjoy. He is not to my taste, and he is a
+gambler. But you have thought that you could do what you liked with me."
+
+"It has always been for your own happiness."
+
+"But I must be the judge of that. How could I be happy with any of these
+men, seeing that I do not care for them in the least? It would be
+utterly impossible for me to have myself married to either of them. To
+Harry Annesley I have given myself altogether; but you, because you are
+my mother, are able to keep us apart. Do you not pity me for the sorrow
+and trouble which I must suffer?"
+
+"I suppose a mother always pities the sufferings of a child."
+
+"And removes them when she can do so. But now, mamma, is he to come
+here, or will you take me back to England?"
+
+This was a question which Mrs. Mountjoy found it very difficult to
+answer. On the spur of the moment she could not answer it, as it would
+be necessary that she should first consult Sir Magnus. Could Sir Magnus
+undertake to confine her daughter within the precincts of the Embassy,
+and to exclude the lover during such time as Harry Annesley night remain
+in Brussels?
+
+As she thought of the matter in her own room she conceived that there
+would be a great difficulty. All the world of Brussels would become
+aware of what was going on. The young lady would endeavor to get out,
+and could only be constrained by the co-operation of the servants; and
+the young gentleman, in his endeavors to get in, could only be prevented
+by the assistance of the police. Dim ideas presented themselves to her
+mind of farther travel. But wherever she went there would be a
+post-office, and she was aware that the young man could pursue her much
+quicker than she could fly. How good it would be that in such an
+emergency she might have the privilege of locking her daughter up in
+some convent! And yet it must be a Protestant convent, as all things
+savoring of the Roman Catholic religion were abhorrent to her.
+Altogether, as she thought of her own condition and that of her
+daughter, she felt that the world was sadly out of joint.
+
+"Coming here, is he?" said Sir Magnus. "Then he will just have to go
+back again as wise as he came."
+
+"But can you shut your doors against him?"
+
+"Shut my doors! Of course I can. He'll never be able to get his nose in
+here if once an order has been given for his exclusion. Who's Mr.
+Annesley? I don't suppose he knows an Englishman in Brussels."
+
+"But she will go out to meet him."
+
+"What! in the streets?" said Sir Magnus, in horror.
+
+"I fear she would."
+
+"By George! she must be a stiff-necked one if she'll do that." Then Mrs.
+Mountjoy, with tears in her eyes, began to explain with very many
+epithets that her daughter was the best girl in all the world. She was
+entirely worthy of confidence. Those who knew her were aware that no
+better behaved young woman could exist. She was conscientious,
+religious, and high-principled. "But she'll go out in the streets and
+walk with a young man when all her friends tell her not. Is that her
+idea of religion?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy, with some touch of anger in the
+tone of her voice, said that she would return to England, and carry her
+daughter with her. "What the deuce can I do, Sarah, when the young lady
+is so unruly? I can give orders to have him shut out, and can take care
+that they are obeyed; but I cannot give orders to have her shut in. I
+should be making her a prisoner, and everybody would talk about it. In
+that matter you must give her the orders;--only you say that she would
+not comply with them."
+
+On the following day Mrs. Mountjoy informed her daughter that they would
+go back to Cheltenham. She did not name an immediate day, because it
+would be well, she thought, to stave off the evil hour. Nor did she name
+a distant day, because, were she to do so, the terrible evil of Harry
+Annesley's arrival in Brussels would not be prevented. At first she
+wished to name no day, thinking that it would be a good thing to cross
+Harry on the road. But here Florence was too strong for her, and at last
+a day was fixed. In a week's time they would take their departure and go
+home by slow stages. With this arrangement Florence expressed herself
+well pleased, and of course made Harry acquainted with the probable time
+of their arrival.
+
+M. Grascour, when he heard that the day had been suddenly fixed for the
+departure of Mrs. Mountjoy and her daughter, not unnaturally conceived
+that he himself was the cause of the ladies' departure. Nor did he on
+that account resign all hope. The young lady's mother was certainly on
+his side, and he thought it quite possible that were he to appear in
+England he might be successful. But when he had heard of her coming
+departure of course it was necessary that he should say some special
+farewell. He dined one evening at the British Embassy, and took an
+opportunity during the evening of finding himself alone with Florence.
+"And so, Miss Florence," he said, "you and your estimable mamma are
+about to return to England?"
+
+"We have been here a very long time, and are going home at last."
+
+"It seems to me but the other day when you came." said M. Grascour, with
+all a lover's eagerness.
+
+"It was in autumn, and the weather was quite mild and soft. Now we are
+in the middle of January."
+
+"I suppose so. But still the time has gone only too rapidly. The heart
+can hardly take account of days and weeks." As this was decidedly
+lover's talk, and was made in terms which even a young lady cannot
+pretend to misunderstand, Florence was obliged to answer it in some
+manner equally direct. And now she was angry with him. She had informed
+him that she was in love with another man. In doing so she had done much
+more than the necessity of the case demanded, and had told him, as the
+best way of silencing him, that which she might have been expected to
+keep as her own secret. And yet here he was talking to her about his
+heart! She made him no immediate answer, but frowned at him and looked
+stern. It was clear to her intelligence that he had no right to talk to
+her about his heart after the information she had given him. "I hope,
+Miss Mountjoy, that I may look forward to the pleasure of seeing you
+when I go over to England."
+
+"But we don't live in London, or near it. We live down in the
+country--at Cheltenham."
+
+"Distance would be nothing."
+
+This was very bad, and must be stopped, thought Florence. "I suppose I
+shall be married by that time. I don't know where we may live, but I
+shall be happy to see you if you call."
+
+She had here made a bold assertion, and one which M. Grascour did not at
+all believe. He was speaking of a visit which he might make, perhaps, in
+a month or six weeks, and the young lady told him that he would find her
+married! And yet, as he knew very well, her mother and her uncle and her
+aunt were all opposed to this marriage. And she spoke of it without a
+blush,--without any reticence! Young ladies were much emancipated, but he
+did not think that they generally carried their emancipation so far as
+this. "I hope not that," he said.
+
+"I don't know why you should be so ill-natured as to hope it. The fact
+is, M. Grascour, you don't believe what I told you the other day.
+Perhaps as a young lady I ought not to have alluded to it, but I did so
+in order to set the matter at rest altogether. Of course I can't tell
+when you may come. If you come quite at once I shall not be married."
+
+"No;--not married."
+
+"But I shall be as much engaged as is possible for a girl to be. I have
+given my word, and nothing will make me false to it. I don't suppose you
+will come on my account."
+
+"Solely on your account."
+
+"Then stay at home. I am quite in earnest. And now I must say good-bye."
+
+She departed, and left him seated alone on the sofa. He at first told
+himself that she was unfeminine. There was a hard way with her of
+talking about herself which he almost pronounced to be unladylike. An
+unmarried girl should, he thought, under no circumstances speak of the
+gentleman to whom her affections had been given as Miss Mountjoy spoke
+of Mr. Annesley. But nevertheless he would sooner possess her as his own
+wife than any other girl he had ever met. Something of the real passion
+of unsatisfied love made him feel chill at his heart. Who was this Harry
+Annesley, for whom she professed so warm a feeling? Her mother declared
+Harry Annesley to be a scapegrace, and something of the story of a
+discreditable midnight street quarrel between him and the young lady's
+cousin had reached his ears. He did not suppose it to be possible that
+the young lady could actually get married without her mother's
+co-operation, and therefore he thought that he still would go to
+England. In one respect he was altogether untouched. If he could
+ultimately succeed in marrying the young lady, she would not be a bit
+the worse as his wife because she had been attached to Harry Annesley.
+That was a kind of folly which a girl could very quickly get over when
+she had not been allowed to have her own way. Therefore, upon the whole,
+he thought that he would go to England.
+
+But the parting with Anderson had also to be endured, and must
+necessarily be more difficult. She owed him a debt for having abstained,
+and she could not go without paying the debt by some expression of
+gratitude. That she would have done so had he kept aloof was a matter of
+course; but equally a matter of course was it that he would not keep
+aloof. "I shall want to see you for just five minutes to-morrow morning
+before you take your departure," he said, in a lugubrious voice, during
+her last evening.
+
+He had kept his promise to the very letter, mooning about in his
+desolate manner very conspicuously. The desolation had been notorious,
+and very painful to Florence,--but the promise had been kept, and she was
+grateful. "Oh, certainly, if you wish it," she said.
+
+"I do wish it." Then he made an appointment and she promised to keep it.
+
+It was in the ball-room, a huge chamber, very convenient for its
+intended purpose, and always handsome at night-time, but looking as
+desolate in the morning as did poor Anderson himself. He was stalking up
+and down the long room when she entered it, and being at the farther
+end, stalked up to her and addressed her with words which he had chosen
+for the purpose. "Miss Mountjoy," he said, "you found me here a happy,
+light-hearted young man."
+
+"I hope I leave you soon to be the same, in spite of this little
+accident."
+
+He did not say that he was a blighted being, because the word had, he
+thought, become ridiculous; but he would have used it had he dared, as
+expressing most accurately his condition.
+
+"A cloud has passed over me, and its darkness will never be effaced. It
+has certainly been your doing."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! what can I say?"
+
+"I have loved before,--but never like this."
+
+"And so you will again."
+
+"Never! When I declare that, I expect my word to be respected," He
+paused for an answer, but what could she say? She did not at all respect
+his word on such a subject, but she did respect his conduct. "Yes; I
+call upon you to believe me when I say that for me all that is over. But
+it can be nothing to you."
+
+"It will be very much to me."
+
+"I shall go on in the same disconsolate, miserable way, I suppose I
+shall stay here, because I shall be as well here as anywhere else. I
+might move to Lisbon,--but what good would that do me? Your image would
+follow me to whatever capital I might direct my steps. But there is one
+thing you can do." Here he brightened up, putting on quite an altered
+face.
+
+"I will do anything, Mr. Anderson--in my power."
+
+"If--if--if you should change--"
+
+"I shall never change!" she said, with an angry look.
+
+"If you should change, I think you should remember the promise you
+exacted and the fidelity with which it has been kept."
+
+"I do remember it."
+
+"And then I should be allowed to come again and have my chance. Wherever
+I may be, at the court of the Shah of Persia or at the Chinese capital,
+I will instantly come. I promised you when you asked me. Will you not
+now promise me?"
+
+"I cannot promise anything--so impossible."
+
+"It will bind you to nothing but to let me know that Mr. Annesley has
+gone his way." But she had to explain to him that it was impossible she
+should make any promise founded on the idea that Mr. Henry Annesley
+should ever go any way in which she would not accompany him. With that
+he had to be as well satisfied as the circumstances of the case would
+admit, and he left her with an assurance, not intended to be quite
+audible, that he was and ever should be a blighted individual.
+
+When the carriage was at the door Sir Magnus came down into the hall,
+full of smiles and good-humor; but at that moment Lady Mountjoy was
+saying a last word of farewell to her relatives in her own chamber.
+"Good-bye, my dear; I hope you will get well through all your troubles."
+This was addressed to Mrs. Mountjoy. "And as for you, my dear," she
+said, turning to Florence, "if you would only contrive to be a little
+less stiff-necked, I think the world would go easier with you."
+
+"I think my stiff neck, aunt, as you call it, is what I have chiefly to
+depend upon,--I mean in reference to other advice than mamma's. Good-bye,
+aunt."
+
+"Good-bye, Florence." And the two parted, hating each other as only
+female enemies can hate. But Florence, when she was in the carriage,
+threw herself on to her mother's neck and kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+MR. PROSPER CHANGES HIS MIND.
+
+
+When Florence with her mother reached Cheltenham she found a letter
+lying for her, which surprised her much. The the letter was from Harry,
+and seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had lately
+displayed. But it was very short:
+
+"DEAREST FLORENCE,--When can I come down? It is absolutely necessary
+that I should see you. All my plans are likely to be changed in the most
+extraordinary manner.
+
+"Nobody can say that this is a love-letter.
+
+"Yours affectionately, H. A."
+
+Florence, of course, showed the letter to her mother, who was much
+frightened by its contents. "What am I to say to him when he comes?" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"If you will be so very, very good as to see him you must not say
+anything unkind."
+
+"Unkind! How can I say anything else than what you would call unkind? I
+disapprove of him altogether. And he is coming here with the express
+object of taking you away from me."
+
+"Oh no;--not at once."
+
+"But at some day,--which I trust may be very distant. How can I speak to
+him kindly when I feel that he is my enemy?" But the matter was at last
+set at rest by a promise from Florence that she would not marry her
+lover in less than three years without her mother's express consent.
+Three years is a long time, was Mrs. Mountjoy's thought, and many things
+might occur within that term. Harry, of whom she thought all manner of
+unnatural things, might probably in that time have proved himself to be
+utterly unworthy. And Mountjoy Scarborough might again have come forward
+in the light of the world. She had heard of late that Mountjoy had been
+received once more into his father's full favor. And the old man had
+become so enormously rich through the building of mills which had been
+going on at Tretton, that, as Mrs. Mountjoy thought, he would be able to
+make any number of elder sons. On the subject of entail her ideas were
+misty; but she felt sure that Mountjoy Scarborough would even yet become
+a rich man. That Florence should be made to change on that account she
+did not expect. But she did think that when she should have learned that
+Harry was a murderer, or a midnight thief, or a wicked conspirator, she
+would give him up. Therefore she agreed to receive him with not actually
+expressed hostility when he should call at Montpelier Place.
+
+But now, in the proper telling of our story, we must go back to Harry
+Annesley himself. It will be remembered that his father had called upon
+Mr. Prosper, to inform him of Harry's projected journey to America; that
+Mountjoy Scarborough had also called at Buston Hall; and that previous
+to these two visits old Mr. Scarborough had himself written a long
+letter giving a detailed account of the conflict which had taken place
+in the London streets. These three events had operated strongly on Mr.
+Prosper's mind; but not so strongly as the conduct of Miss Thoroughbung
+and Messrs. Soames & Simpson. It had been made evident to him, from the
+joint usage which he had received from these persons, that he was simply
+"made use of," with the object of obtaining from him the best possible
+establishment for the lady in question.
+
+After that interview, at which the lady, having obtained in way of
+jointure much more than was due to her, demanded also for Miss Tickle a
+life-long home, and for herself a pair of ponies, he received a farther
+letter from the lawyers. This offended him greatly. Nothing on earth
+should induce him to write a line to Messrs. Soames & Simpson. Nor did
+he see his way to writing again to Messrs. Grey & Barry about such
+trifles as those contained in the letter from the Buntingford lawyers.
+Trifles to him they were not; but trifles they must become, if put into
+a letter addressed to a London firm. "Our client is anxious to know
+specifically that she is to be allowed to bring Miss Tickle with her,
+when she removes to Buston Hall. Her happiness depends greatly on the
+company of Miss Tickle, to which she had been used now for many years.
+Our client wishes to be assured also that she shall be allowed to keep a
+pair of ponies in addition to the carriage-horses, which will be
+maintained, no doubt, chiefly for your own purposes." These were the
+demands as made by Messrs. Soames & Simpson, and felt by Mr. Prosper to
+be altogether impossible. He recollected the passionate explosion of
+wrath to which the name of Miss Tickle had already brought him in
+presence of the clergyman of his parish. He would endure no farther
+disgrace on behalf of Miss Tickle. Miss Tickle should never be an inmate
+of his house, and as for the ponies, no pony should ever be stabled in
+his stalls. A pony was an animal which of its very nature was
+objectionable to him. There was a want of dignity in a pony to which
+Buston Hall should never be subjected. "And also," he said to himself at
+last, "there is a lack of dignity about Miss Thoroughbung herself which
+would do me an irreparable injury."
+
+But how should he make known his decision to the lady herself? and how
+should he escape from the marriage in such a manner as to leave no stain
+on his character as a gentleman? If he could have offered her a sum of
+money, he would have done so at once; but that he thought would not be
+gentleman-like,--and would be a confession on his own part that he had
+behaved wrongly.
+
+At last he determined to take no notice of the lawyers' letter, and
+himself to write to Miss Thoroughbung, telling her that the objects
+which they proposed to themselves by marriage were not compatible, and
+that therefore their matrimonial intentions must be allowed to subside.
+He thought it well over, and felt assured that very much of the success
+of such a measure must depend upon the wording of the letter. There need
+be no immediate haste. Miss Thoroughbung would not come to Buston again
+quite at once to disturb him by a farther visit. Before she would come
+he would have flown to Italy. The letter must be courteous, and somewhat
+tender, but it must be absolutely decisive. There must be no loop-hole
+left by which she could again entangle him, no crevice by which she
+could creep into Buston. The letter should be a work of time. He would
+give himself a week or ten days for composing it. And then, when it
+should have been sent, he would be off to Italy.
+
+But before he could allow himself to go upon his travels he must settle
+the question about his nephew, which now lay heavy upon his conscience.
+He did feel that he had ill treated the young man. He had been so told
+in very strong language by Mr. Scarborough of Tretton, and Mr.
+Scarborough of Tretton was a man of very large property, and much talked
+about in the world. Very wonderful things were said about Mr.
+Scarborough, but they all tended to make Mr. Prosper believe that he was
+a man of distinction. And he had also heard lately about Mr.
+Scarborough's younger son,--or, indeed, his only son, according to the
+new way of speaking of him,--tidings which were not much in that young
+man's favor. It was from Augustus Scarborough that he had heard those
+evil stories about his own nephew. Therefore his belief was shaken; and
+it was by no means clear to him that there could be any other heir for
+their property.
+
+Miss Thoroughbung had proved herself to be altogether unfit for the high
+honor he had intended her. Miss Puffle had gone off with Farmer
+Tazlehurst's son. Mr. Prosper did not think that he had energy enough to
+look for a third lady who might be fit at all points to become his wife.
+And now another evil had been added to all these. His nephew had
+declared his purpose of emigrating to the United States and becoming an
+American. It might be true that he should be driven to do so by absolute
+want. He, Mr. Prosper, had stopped his allowance, and had done so after
+deterring him from following any profession by which he might have
+earned his bread. He had looked into the law, and, as far as he could
+understand it, Buston must become the property of his nephew, even
+though his nephew should become an American citizen. His conscience
+pricked him sorely as he thought of the evil which might thus accrue,
+and of the disgrace which would be attached to his own name. He
+therefore wrote the following letter to his nephew, and sent it across
+to the parsonage, done up in a large envelope, and sealed carefully with
+the Buston arms. And on the corner of the envelope "Peter Prosper" was
+written very legibly:
+
+"MY DEAR NEPHEW, HENRY ANNESLEY,--
+
+"Under existing circumstances you will, I think, be surprised at a
+letter written in my handwriting; but facts have arisen which make it
+expedient that I should address you.
+
+"You are about, I am informed, to proceed to the United States, a
+country against which I acknowledge I entertain a serious antipathy.
+They are not a gentlemanlike people, and I am given to understand that
+they are generally dishonest in all their dealings. Their President is a
+low person, and all their ideas of government are pettifogging. Their
+ladies, I am told, are very vulgar, though I have never had the pleasure
+of knowing one of them. They are an irreligious nation, and have no
+respect for the Established Church of England and her bishops. I should
+be very sorry that my heir should go among them.
+
+"With reference to my stopping the income which I have hitherto allowed
+you, it was a step I took upon the best advice, nor can I allow it to be
+thought that there is any legal claim upon me for a continuance of the
+payment. But I am willing for the present to continue it, on the full
+understanding that you at once give up your American project.
+
+"But there is a subject on which it is essentially necessary that I
+should receive from you, as my heir, a full and complete explanation.
+Under what circumstances did you beat Captain Scarborough in the streets
+late on the night of the 3d of June last? And how did it come to pass
+that you left him bleeding, speechless, and motionless on that occasion?
+
+"As I am about to continue the payment of the sum hitherto allowed, I
+think it only fitting that I should receive this explanation under your
+own hand.--I am your affectionate uncle,
+
+"PETER PROSPER.
+
+"P.S.--A rumor may probably have reached you of a projected alliance
+between me and a young lady belonging to a family with which your sister
+is about to connect herself. It is right that I should tell you that
+there is no truth in this report."
+
+This letter, which was much easier to write than the one intended for
+Miss Thoroughbung, was unfortunately sent off a little before the
+completion of the other. A day's interval had been intended. But the
+missive to Miss Thoroughbung was, under the press of difficulties,
+delayed longer than was intended.
+
+There was, we grieve to say, much of joy but more of laughter at the
+rectory when this letter was received. As usual, Joe Thoroughbung was
+there, and it was found impossible to keep the letter from him. The
+postscript burst upon them all as a surprise, and was welcomed by no one
+with more vociferous joy than by the lady's nephew. "So there is an end
+forever to the hope that a child of the Buntingford Brewery should sit
+upon the throne of the Prospers." It was thus that Joe expressed
+himself.
+
+"Why shouldn't he have sat there?" said Polly. "A Thoroughbung is as
+good as a Prosper any day." But this was not said in the presence of
+Mrs. Annesley, who on that subject entertained views very different from
+her daughter.
+
+"I wonder what his idea is of the Church of England?" said Mr.
+Annesley. "Does he think that the Archbishop of Canterbury is supreme in
+all religious matters in America?"
+
+"How on earth he knows that the women are all vulgar, when he has never
+seen one of them, is a mystery," said Harry.
+
+"And that they are dishonest in all their dealings," said Joe. "I
+suppose he got that out of some of the radical news papers." For Joe,
+after the manner of brewers, was a staunch Tory.
+
+"And their President, too, is vulgar as well as the ladies," said Mr.
+Annesley. "And this is the opinion of an educated Englishman, who is not
+ashamed to own that he entertains serious antipathies against a whole
+nation!"
+
+But at the parsonage they soon returned to a more serious consideration
+of the matter. Did Uncle Prosper intend to forgive the sinner
+altogether? And was he coerced into doing so by a conviction that he had
+been told lies, or by the uncommon difficulties which presented
+themselves to him in reference to another heir? At any rate, it was
+agreed by them all that Harry must meet his uncle half-way, and write
+the "full and complete explanation," as desired. "'Bleeding, speechless,
+and motionless!'" said Harry. "I can't deny that he was bleeding; he
+certainly was speechless, and for a few moments may have been
+motionless. What am I to say?" But the letter was not a difficult one to
+write, and was sent across on the same day to the Hall. There Mr.
+Prosper gave up a day to its consideration,--a day which would have been
+much better devoted to applying the final touch to his own letter to
+Miss Thoroughbung. And he found at last that his nephew's letter
+required no rejoinder.
+
+But Harry had much to do. It was first necessary that he should see his
+friend, and explain to him that causes over which he had no control
+forbade him to go to America. "Of course, you know, I can't fly in my
+uncle's face. I was going because he intended to disinherit me; but he
+finds that more troublesome than letting me alone, and therefore I must
+remain. You see what he says about the Americans." The gentleman, whose
+opinion about our friends on the other side of the Atlantic was very
+different from Mr. Prosper's, fell into a long argument on the subject.
+But he was obliged at last to give up his companion.
+
+Then came the necessity of explaining the change in all his plans to
+Florence Mountjoy, and with this view he wrote the short letter given at
+the beginning of the chapter, following it down in person to
+Cheltenham. "Mamma, Harry is here," said Florence to her mother.
+
+"Well, my dear? I did not bring him."
+
+"But what am I to say to him?"
+
+"How can I tell? Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Of course he must come and see me," said Florence. "He has sent a note
+to say that he will be here in ten minutes."
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"Do you mean to be present, mamma? That is what I want to know." But
+that was the question which at the moment Mrs. Mountjoy could not
+answer. She had pledged herself not to be unkind, on condition that no
+marriage should take place for three years. But she could not begin by
+being kind, as otherwise she would immediately have been pressed to
+abandon that very condition. "Perhaps, mamma, it would be less painful
+if you would not see him."
+
+"But he is not to make repeated visits."
+
+"No, not at present; I think not."
+
+"He must come only once," said Mrs. Mountjoy, firmly. "He was to have
+come because he was going to America. But now he has changed all his
+plans. It isn't fair, Florence."
+
+"What can I do? I cannot send him to America because you thought he was
+to go there. I thought so too; and so did he. I don't know what has
+changed him; but it wasn't likely that he'd write and say he wouldn't
+come because he had altered his plans. Of course he wants to see me; and
+so do I want to see him--very much. Here he is!"
+
+There was a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Mountjoy was driven to resolve
+what she would do at the moment. "You mustn't be above a quarter of an
+hour. I won't have you together for above a quarter of an hour,--or
+twenty minutes at the farthest." So saying, Mrs. Mountjoy escaped from
+the room, and within a minute or two Florence found herself in Harry
+Annesley's arms.
+
+The twenty minutes had become forty before Harry had thought of
+stirring, although he had been admonished fully a dozen times that he
+must at that moment take his departure. Then the maid knocked at the
+door, and brought word "that missus wanted to see Miss Florence in her
+bedroom."
+
+"Now, Harry, you must go. You really shall go,--or I will. I am very,
+very happy to hear what you have told me."
+
+"But three years!"
+
+"Unless mamma will agree."
+
+"It is quite out of the question. I never heard of anything so absurd."
+
+"Then you must get mamma to consent. I have promised her for three
+years, and you ought to know that I will keep my word. Harry, I always
+keep my word; do I not? If she will consent, I will. Now, sir, I really
+must go." Then there was a little form of farewell which need not be
+especially explained, and Florence went up stairs to her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES GETS HIS MONEY.
+
+
+When we last left Captain Scarborough, he had just lost an additional
+sum of two hundred and twenty-seven pounds to Captain Vignolles, which
+he was not able to pay, besides the sum of fifty pounds which he had
+received the day before, as the first instalment of his new allowance.
+This was but a bad beginning of the new life he was expected to lead
+under the renewed fortunes which his father was preparing for him. He
+had given his promissory note for the money at a week's date, and had
+been extremely angry with Captain Vignolles because that gentleman had,
+under the circumstances, been a little anxious about it. It certainly
+was not singular that he should have been so, as Captain Scarborough had
+been turned out of more than one club in consequence of his inability to
+pay his card debts. As he went home to his lodgings, with Captain
+Vignolles's champagne in his head, he felt very much as he had done that
+night when he attacked Harry Annesley. But he met no one whom he could
+consider as an enemy, and therefore got himself to bed, and slept off
+the fumes of the drink.
+
+On that day he was to return to Tretton; but, when he awoke, he felt
+that before he did so he must endeavor to make some arrangements for
+paying the amount due at the end of the week. He had already borrowed
+twenty pounds from Mr. Grey, and had intended to repay him out of the
+sum which his father had given him; but that sum now was gone, and he
+was again nearly penniless. In this emergency there was nothing left to
+him but again to go to Mr. Grey.
+
+As he was shown up the stairs to the lawyer's room he did feel
+thoroughly ashamed of himself. Mr. Grey knew all the circumstances of
+his career, and it would be necessary now to tell him of this last
+adventure. He did tell himself, as he dragged himself up the stairs,
+that for such a one as he was there could be no redemption. "It would be
+better that I should go back," he said, "and throw myself from the
+Monument." But yet he felt that if Florence Mountjoy could still be his,
+there might yet be a hope that things would go well with him.
+
+Mr. Grey began by expressing surprise at seeing Captain Scarborough in
+town. "Oh yes, I have come up. It does not matter why, because, as
+usual, I have put my foot in it. It was at my father's bidding; but that
+does not matter."
+
+"How have you put your foot in it?" said the attorney. There was one way
+in which the captain was always "putting" both his "feet in it;" but,
+since he had been turned out of his clubs, Mr. Grey did not think that
+that way was open to him.
+
+"The old story."
+
+"Do you mean that you have been gambling again?"
+
+"Yes;--I met a friend last night and he asked me to his rooms."
+
+"And he had the cards ready?"
+
+"Of course he had. What else would any one have ready for me?"
+
+"And he won that remnant of the twenty pounds which you borrowed from
+me, and therefore you want another?" Hereupon the captain shook his
+head. "What is it, then, that you do want?"
+
+"Such a man as I met," said the captain, "would not be content with the
+remnant of twenty pounds. I had received fifty from my father, and had
+intended to call here and pay you."
+
+"That has all gone too?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. And in addition to that I have given him a note for two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, which I must take up in a week's time.
+Otherwise I must disappear again,--and this time forever."
+
+"It is a bottomless gulf," said the attorney. Captain Scarborough sat
+silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but
+his heart within him certainly was not smiling. "A bottomless gulf,"
+repeated the attorney. Upon this the captain frowned. "What is it that
+you wish me to do for you? I have no money of your father's in my hands,
+nor could I give it you if I had it."
+
+"I suppose not. I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so."
+Then it was the lawyer's turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of
+it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go.
+"I won't trouble you any more Mr. Grey," he said.
+
+"Sit down," said Mr. Grey. But the captain still remained standing. "Sit
+down. Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this
+sum of money;--nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in
+explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would
+repay me. And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy
+about my money, whether he did so or not. But would it be wise? On your
+own account would it be wise?"
+
+"I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,--unless you could
+cut my throat."
+
+"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father,
+the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew--"
+
+"I shall never believe all this about my mother."
+
+"Never mind that now. We will pass that by for the present. He has
+disinherited you."
+
+"That will be a question some day for the lawyers--should I live."
+
+"But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you
+another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I
+sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for
+your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all
+things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months
+longer."
+
+"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."
+
+"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges
+him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make
+you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the
+captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all
+the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going
+to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk
+will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for
+life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or
+in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"
+
+"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."
+
+"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you
+have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."
+
+"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."
+
+"This man who had your money last;--does he not live on it as a
+profession? Why should he win always, and you lose?"
+
+"It is my luck."
+
+"Luck! There is no such thing as luck. Toss up, right hand against left
+for an hour together, and the result will be the same. If not for an
+hour, then do it for six hours. Take the average, and your cards will be
+the same as another man's."
+
+"Another man has his skill," said Mountjoy.
+
+"And uses it against the unskillful to earn his daily bread. That is the
+same as cheating. But what is the use of all this? You must have thought
+of it all before."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"And thinking of it, you are determined to persevere. You are impetuous,
+not thoughtless, with your brain clouded with drink, and for the mere
+excitement of the thing, you are determined to risk all in a contest for
+which there is no chance for you,--and by which you acknowledge you will
+be driven to self-destruction, as the only natural end."
+
+"I fear it is so," said the captain.
+
+"How much shall I draw it for?" said the attorney, taking out his
+check-book,--"and to whom shall I make it payable? I suppose I may date
+it to-day, so that the swindler who gets it may think that there is
+plenty more behind for him to get."
+
+"Do you mean that you are going to lend it me?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"And how do you mean to get it again?"
+
+"I must wait, I suppose, till you have won it back among your friends.
+If you will tell me that you do not intend to look for it in that
+fashion, then I shall have no doubt as to your making me a legitimate
+payment in a very short time. Two hundred and twenty pounds won't ruin
+you, unless you are determined to ruin yourself." Mr. Grey the meanwhile
+went on writing the check. "Here is provided for you a large sum of
+money," and he laid his hand upon the will, "out of which you will be
+able to pay me without the slightest difficulty. It is for you to say
+whether you will or not."
+
+"I will."
+
+"You need not say it in that fashion;--that's easy. You must say it at
+some moment when the itch of play is on you; when there shall be no one
+by to hear: when the resolution if held, shall have some meaning in it.
+Then say, 'there's that money which I had from old Grey. I am bound to
+pay it. But if I go in there I know what will be the result. The very
+coin that should go into his coffers will become a part of the prey on
+which those harpies will feed.' There's the check for the two hundred
+and twenty-seven pounds. I have drawn it exact, so that you may send the
+identical bit of paper to your friend. He will suppose that I am some
+money-lender who has engaged to supply your needs while your recovered
+fortune lasts. Tell your father he shall have the will to-morrow. I
+don't suppose I can send Smith with it to-day."
+
+Then it became necessary that Scarborough should go; but it would be
+becoming that he should first utter some words of thanks. "I think you
+will get it back, Mr. Grey."
+
+"I dare say."
+
+"I think you will. It may be that the having to pay you will keep me for
+a while from the gambling-table."
+
+"You don't look for more than that?"
+
+"I am an unfortunate man, Mr. Grey. There is one thing that would cure
+me, but that one thing is beyond my reach."
+
+"Some woman?"
+
+"Well;--it is a woman. I think I could keep my money for the sake of her
+comfort. But never mind. Good-bye, Mr. Grey. I think I shall remember
+what you have done for me." Then he went and sent the identical check to
+Captain Vignolles, with the shortest and most uncourteous epistle:
+
+"DEAR SIR,--I send you your money. Send back the note.
+
+"Yours. M. SCARBOROUGH."
+
+"I hardly expected this," said the captain to himself as he pocketed the
+check,--"at any rate not so soon. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.' That
+Moody is a slow coach, and will never do anything. I thought there'd be
+a little money about with him for a time." Then the captain turned over
+in his mind that night's good work with the self-satisfied air of an
+industrious professional worker.
+
+But Mr. Grey was not so well satisfied with himself, and determined for
+a while to say nothing to Dolly of the two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds which he had undoubtedly risked by the loan. But his mind misgave
+him before he went to sleep, and he felt that he could not be
+comfortable till he had made a clean breast of it. During the evening
+Dolly had been talking to him of all the troubles of all the
+Carrolls,--how Amelia would hardly speak to her father or her mother
+because of her injured lover, and was absolutely insolent to her, Dolly,
+whenever they met; how Sophia had declared that promises ought to be
+kept, and that Amelia should be got rid of; and how Mrs. Carroll had
+told her in confidence that Carroll _pere_ had come home the night
+before drunker than usual, and had behaved most abominably. But Mr. Grey
+had attended very little to all this, having his mind preoccupied with
+the secret of the money which he had lent.
+
+Therefore Dolly did not put out her candle, and arrayed herself for bed
+in the costume with which she was wont to make her nocturnal visits. She
+had perceived that her father had something on his mind which it would
+be necessary that he should tell. She was soon summoned, and having
+seated herself on the bed, began the conversation: "I knew you would
+want me to-night."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because you've got something to tell. It's about Mr. Barry."
+
+"No indeed."
+
+"That's well. Just at this moment I seem to care about Mr. Barry more
+than any other trouble. But I fear that he has forgotten me
+altogether,--which is not complimentary."
+
+"Mr. Barry will turn up all in proper time," said her father. "I have
+got nothing to say about Mr. Barry just at present, so if you are
+love-lorn you had better go to bed."
+
+"Very well. When I am love-lorn I will. Now, what have you got to tell
+me?"
+
+"I have lent a man a large sum of money,--two hundred and twenty-seven
+pounds!"
+
+"You are always lending people large sums of money."
+
+"I generally get it back again."
+
+"From Mr. Carroll, for instance,--when he borrows it for a pair of
+breeches and spends it in gin-and-water."
+
+"I never lent him a shilling. He is a burr, and has to be pacified, not
+by loans but gifts. It is too late now for me to prevent the
+brother-in-lawship of poor Carroll."
+
+"Who has got this money?"
+
+"A professed gambler, who never wins anything, and constantly loses more
+than he is able to pay. Yet I do think this man will pay me some day."
+
+"It is Captain Scarborough," said Dolly. "Seeing that his father is a
+very rich man indeed, and as far as I can understand gives you a great
+deal more trouble than he is worth, I don't see why you should lend a
+large sum of money to his son."
+
+"Simply because he wanted it."
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!"
+
+"He wanted it very much. He had gone away a ruined man because of his
+gambling; and now, when he had come back and was to be put upon his legs
+again, I could not see him again ruined for the need of such a sum. It
+was very foolish."
+
+"Perhaps a little rash, papa."
+
+"But now I have told you; and so there may be an end of it. But I'll
+tell you what, Dolly: I'll bet you a new straw hat he pays me within a
+month of his father's death." Then Dolly was allowed to escape and
+betake herself to her bed.
+
+On that same day Mountjoy Scarborough went down to Tretton, and was at
+once closeted with his father. Mr. Scarborough had questions to ask
+about Mr. Prosper, and was anxious to know how his son had succeeded in
+his mission. But the conversation was soon turned from Mr. Prosper to
+Captain Vignolles and Mr. Grey. Mountjoy had determined, as soon as he
+had got the check from Mr. Grey, to say nothing about it to his father.
+He had told Mr. Grey in order that he need not tell his father,--if the
+money were forthcoming. But he had not been five minutes in his father's
+room before he rushed to the subject. "You got among those birds of prey
+again?" said his father.
+
+"There was only one bird,--or at least two. A big bird and a small one."
+
+"And you lost how much?" Then the captain told the precise sum. "And
+Grey has lent it you?" The captain nodded his head. "Then you must ride
+into Tretton and catch the mail to-night with a check to repay him. That
+you should have been able in so short a time to have found a man willing
+to fleece you! I suppose it's hopeless?"
+
+"I cannot tell."
+
+"Altogether hopeless."
+
+"What am I to say, sir? If I make a promise it will go for nothing."
+
+"For absolutely nothing."
+
+"Then what would be the use of my promising?"
+
+"You are quite logical, and look upon the matter in altogether a proper
+light. As you have ruined yourself so often, and done your best to ruin
+those that belong to you, what hope can there be? About this money that
+I have left you, I do not know that anything farther can be said,--unless
+I leave it all to an hospital. It is better that you should have it and
+throw it away among the gamblers, than that it should fall into the
+hands of Augustus. Besides, the demand is moderate. No doubt it is only
+a beginning, but we will see."
+
+Then he got out his check-book, and made Mountjoy himself write the
+check, including the two sums which had been borrowed. And he dictated
+the letter to Mr. Grey:
+
+"MY DEAR GREY,--I return the money which Mountjoy has had from you,--two
+hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and twenty. That, I think, is right.
+You are the most foolish man I know with your money. To have given it to
+such a scapegrace as my son Mountjoy! But you are the sweetest and
+finest gentleman I ever came across. You have got your money now, which
+is a great deal more than you can have expected or ought to have
+obtained. However, on this occasion you have been in great luck.
+
+"Yours faithfully,
+
+"JOHN SCARBOROUGH."
+
+This letter his son himself was forced to write, though it dealt
+altogether with his own delinquencies; and yet, as he told himself, he
+was not sorry to write it, as it would declare to Mr. Grey that he had
+himself acknowledged at once his own sin. The only farther punishment
+which his father exacted was that his son should himself ride into
+Tretton and post the letter before he ate his dinner.
+
+"I've got my money," said Mr. Grey, waving the check as he went into his
+dressing-room, with Dolly at his heels.
+
+"Who has paid it?"
+
+"Old Scarborough; and he made Mountjoy write the letter himself, calling
+me an old fool for lending it. I don't think I was such a fool at all.
+However, I've got my money, and you may pay the bet and not say anything
+more about it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+THE LAST OF MISS THOROUGHBUNG.
+
+
+Mr. Prosper, with that kind of energy which was distinctively his own,
+had sent off his letter to Harry Annesley, with his postscript in it
+about his blighted matrimonial prospects,--a letter easy to be
+written,--before he had completed his grand epistle to Miss Thoroughbung.
+The epistle to Miss Thoroughbung was one requiring great consideration.
+It had to be studied in every word, and re-written again and again with
+the profoundest care. He was afraid that he might commit himself by an
+epithet. He dreaded even an adverb too much. He found that a full stop
+expressed his feelings too violently, and wrote the letter again, for
+the fifth time, because of the big initial which followed the full stop.
+The consequence of all this long delay was, that Miss Thoroughbung had
+heard the news, through the brewery, before it reached her in its
+legitimate course. Mr. Prosper had written his postscript by accident,
+and, in writing it, had forgotten the intercourse between his
+brother-in-law's house and the Buntingford people. He had known well of
+the proposed marriage; but he was a man who could not think of two
+things at the same time, and thus had committed the blunder.
+
+Perhaps it was better for him as it was; and the blow came to him with a
+rapidity which created less of suffering than might have followed the
+slower mode of proceeding which he had intended. He was actually making
+the fifth copy of the letter, rendered necessary by that violent full
+stop, when Matthew came to him and announced that Miss Thoroughbung was
+in the drawing-room. "In the house!" ejaculated Mr. Prosper.
+
+"She would come into the hall; and then where was I to put her?"
+
+"Matthew Pike, you will not do for my service." This had been said about
+once every three months throughout the long course of years in which
+Matthew had lived with his master.
+
+"Very well, sir. I am to take it for a month's warning, of course."
+Matthew understood well enough that this was merely an expression of his
+master's displeasure, and, being anxious for his master's welfare, knew
+that it was decorous that some decision should be come to at once as to
+Miss Thoroughbung, and that time should not be lost in his own little
+personal quarrel. "She is waiting, you know, sir, and she looks uncommon
+irascible. There is the other lady left outside in the carriage."
+
+"Miss Tickle! Don't let her in, whatever you do. She is the worst. Oh
+dear! oh dear! Where are my coat and waistcoat, and my braces? And I
+haven't brushed my hair. And these slippers won't do. What business has
+she to come at this time of day, without saying a word to anybody?" Then
+Matthew went to work, and got his master into decent apparel, with as
+little delay as possible. "After all," said Mr. Prosper, "I don't think
+I'll see her. Why should I see her?"
+
+"She knows you are at home, sir."
+
+"Why does she know I'm at home? That's your fault. She oughtn't to know
+anything about it. Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!" These last ejaculations
+arose from his having just then remembered the nature of his postscript
+to Harry Annesley, and the engagement of Joe Thoroughbung to his niece.
+He made up his mind at the moment,--or thought that he had made up his
+mind,--that Harry Annesley should not have a shilling as long as he
+lived. "I am quite out of breath. I cannot see her yet. Go and offer the
+lady cake and wine, and tell her that you had found me very much
+indisposed. I think you will have to tell her that I am not well enough
+to receive her to-day."
+
+"Get it over, sir, and have done with it."
+
+"It's all very well to say have done with it. I shall never have done
+with it. Because you have let her in to-day she'll think that she can
+come always. Good Lord! There she is on the stairs! Pick up my
+slippers." Then the door was opened, and Miss Thoroughbung herself
+entered the room. It was an up-stairs chamber, known as Mr. Prosper's
+own: and from it was the door into his bedroom. How Miss Thoroughbung
+had learned her way to it he never could guess. But she had come up the
+stairs as though she had been acquainted with all the intricacies of the
+house from her childhood.
+
+"Mr. Prosper," she said, "I hope I see you quite well this morning, and
+that I have not disturbed you at your toilet." That she had done so was
+evident, from the fact that Matthew, with the dressing-gown and
+slippers, was seen disappearing into the bedroom.
+
+"I am not very well, thank you," said Mr. Prosper, rising from his
+chair, and offering her his hand with the coldest possible salutation.
+
+"I am sorry for that,--very. I hope it is not your indisposition which
+has prevented you from coming to see me. I have been expecting you every
+day since Soames wrote his last letter. But it's no use pretending any
+longer. Oh, Peter, Peter!" This use of his Christian name struck him
+absolutely dumb, so that he was unable to utter a syllable. He should,
+first of all, have told her that any excuse she had before for calling
+him by his Christian name was now at an end. But there was no opening
+for speech such as that. "Well," she continued, "have you got nothing to
+say to me? You can write flippant letters to other people, and turn me
+into ridicule glibly enough."
+
+"I have never done so."
+
+"Did you not write to Joe Thoroughbung, and tell him you had given up
+all thoughts of having me?"
+
+"Joe!" he exclaimed. His very surprise did not permit him to go farther,
+at the moment, than this utterance of the young man's Christian name.
+
+"Yes, Joe,--Joe Thoroughbung, my nephew, and yours that is to be. Did you
+not write and tell him that everything was over?"
+
+"I never wrote to young Mr. Thoroughbung in my life. I should not have
+dreamed of such a correspondence on such a subject."
+
+"Well, he says you did. Or, if you didn't write to Joe himself, you
+wrote to somebody."
+
+"I may have written to somebody, certainly."
+
+"And told them that you didn't mean to have anything farther to say to
+me?" That traitor Harry had now committed a sin worse that knocking a
+man down in the middle of the night and leaving him bleeding,
+speechless, and motionless; worse than telling a lie about it;--worse
+even than declining to listen to sermons read by his uncle. Harry had
+committed such a sin that no shilling of allowance should evermore be
+paid to him. Even at this moment there went through Mr. Prosper's brain
+an idea that there might be some unmarried female in England besides
+Miss Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung. "Peter Prosper, why don't you answer
+like a man, and tell me the honest truth?" He had never before been
+called Peter Prosper in his whole life.
+
+"Perhaps you had better let me make a communication by letter," he said.
+At that very moment the all but completed epistle was lying on the table
+before him, where even her eyes might reach it. In the flurry of the
+moment he covered it up.
+
+"Perhaps that is the letter which has taken you so long to write?" she
+said.
+
+"It is the letter."
+
+"Then hand it me over, and save yourself the penny stamp." In his
+confusion he gave her the letter, and threw himself down on the sofa
+while she read it. "You have been very careful in choosing your
+language, Mr. Prosper: 'It will be expedient that I should make known to
+you the entire truth.' Certainly, Mr. Prosper, certainly. The entire
+truth is the best thing,--next to entire beer, my brother would say."
+"The horrid vulgar woman!" Mr. Prosper ejaculated to himself. "'There
+seems to have been a complete misunderstanding with regard to that
+amiable lady, Miss Tickle.' No misunderstanding at all. You said you
+liked her, and I supposed you did. And when I had been living for twenty
+years with a female companion, who hasn't sixpence in the world to buy a
+rag with but what she gets from me, was it to be expected that I should
+turn her out for any man?"
+
+"An annuity might have been arranged, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Bother an annuity! That's all you think about feelings! Was she to go
+and live alone and desolate because you wanted some one to nurse you?
+And then those wretched ponies. I tell you, Peter Prosper, that let me
+marry whom I will, I mean to drive a pair of ponies, and am able to do
+so out of my own money. Ponies, indeed! It's an excuse. Your heart has
+failed you. You've come to know a woman of spirit, and now you are
+afraid that she'll be too much for you. I shall keep this letter, though
+it has not been sent."
+
+"You can do as you please about that, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Oh yes; of course I shall keep it, and shall give it to Messrs. Soames
+& Simpson. They are most gentlemanlike men, and will be shocked at such
+conduct as this from the Squire of Buston. The letter will be published
+in the newspapers, of course. It will be very painful to me, no doubt,
+but I shall owe it to my sex to punish you. When all the county are
+talking of your conduct to a lady, and saying that no man could have
+done it, let alone no gentleman, then you will feel it. Miss Tickle,--and
+a pair of ponies! You expected to get my money and nothing to give for
+it. Oh, you mean man!"
+
+She must have been aware that every word she spoke was a dagger. There
+was a careful analysis of his peculiar character displayed in every word
+of reproach which she uttered. Nothing could have wounded him more than
+the comparison between himself and Soames & Simpson. They were
+gentlemen! "The vulgarest men in all Buntingford!" he declared to
+himself, and always ready for any sharp practice. Whereas he was no man,
+Miss Thoroughbung said,--a mean creature, altogether unworthy to be
+regarded as a gentleman. He knew himself to be Mr. Prosper of Buston
+Hall, with centuries of Prospers for his ancestors; whereas Soames was
+the son of a tax-gatherer, and Simpson had come down from London as a
+clerk from a solicitor's office in the City. And yet it was true that
+people would talk of him as did Miss Thoroughbung! His cruelty would be
+in every lady's mouth. And then his stinginess about the ponies would be
+the gossip of the county for twelve months. And, as he found out what
+Miss Thoroughbung was, the disgrace of even having wished to marry her
+loomed terribly large before him.
+
+But there was a twinkle of jest in the lady's eyes all the while which
+he did not perceive, and which, had he perceived it, he could not have
+understood. Her anger was but simulated wrath. She, too, had thought
+that it might be well, under circumstances, if she were to marry Mr.
+Prosper, but had quite understood that those circumstances might not be
+forthcoming. "I don't think it will do at all, my dear," she had said to
+Miss Tickle. "Of course an old bachelor like that won't want to have
+you."
+
+"I beg you won't think of me for a moment," Miss Tickle had answered,
+with solemnity.
+
+"Bother! why can't you tell the truth? I'm not going to throw you over,
+and of course you'd be just nowhere if I did. I shan't break my heart
+for Mr. Prosper. I know I should be an old fool if I were to marry him;
+and he is more of an old fool for wanting to marry me. But I did think
+he wouldn't cut up so rough about the ponies." And then, when no answer
+came to the last letter from Soames & Simpson, and the tidings reached
+her, round from the brewery, that Mr. Prosper intended to be off, she
+was not in the least surprised. But the information, she thought, had
+come to her in an unworthy manner. So she determined to punish the
+gentleman, and went out to Buston Hall and called him Peter Prosper. We
+may doubt, however, whether she had ever realized how terribly her
+scourges would wale him.
+
+"And to think that you would let it come round to me in that way,
+through the young people,--writing about it just as a joke!"
+
+"I never wrote about it like a joke," said Mr. Prosper, almost crying.
+
+"I remember now. It was to your nephew; and of course everybody at the
+rectory saw it. Of course they were all laughing at you." There was one
+thing now written in the book of fate, and sealed as certainly as the
+crack of doom: no shilling of allowance should ever be paid to Harry
+Annesley. He would go abroad. He said so to himself as he thought of
+this, and said also that, if he could find a healthy young woman
+anywhere, he would marry her, sacrificing every idea of his own
+happiness to his desire of revenge upon his nephew. This, however, was
+only the passionate feeling of the moment. Matrimony had become
+altogether so distasteful to him, since he had become intimately
+acquainted with Miss Thoroughbung, as to make any release in that manner
+quite impossible to him. "Do you propose to make me any amends?" asked
+Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"Money?" said he.
+
+"Yes; money. Why shouldn't you pay me money? I should like to keep three
+ponies, and to have Miss Tickle's sister to come and live with me."
+
+"I do not know whether you are in earnest, Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Quite in earnest, Peter Prosper. But perhaps I had better leave that
+matter in the hands of Soames & Simpson,--very gentleman-like men,--and
+they'll be sure to let you know how much you ought to pay. Ten thousand
+pounds wouldn't be too much, considering the distress to my wounded
+feelings." Here Miss Thoroughbung put her handkerchief up to her eyes.
+
+There was nothing that he could say. Whether she were laughing at him,
+as he thought to be most probable, or whether there was some grain of
+truth in the demand which she made, he found it equally impossible to
+make any reply. There was nothing that he could say; nor could he
+absolutely turn her out of the room. But after ten minutes' farther
+continuation of these amenities, during which it did at last come home
+to his brain that she was merely laughing at him, he began to think that
+he might possibly escape, and leave her there in possession of his
+chamber.
+
+"If you will excuse me, Miss Thoroughbung, I will retire," he said,
+rising from the sofa.
+
+"Regularly chaffed out of your own den!" she said, laughing.
+
+"I do not like this interchange of wit on subjects that are so serious."
+
+"Interchange! There is very little interchange, according to my idea.
+You haven't said anything witty. What an idea of interchange the man
+has!"
+
+"At any rate I will escape from your rudeness."
+
+"Now, Peter Prosper, before you go let me ask you one question. Which of
+the two has been the rudest to the other? You have come and asked me to
+marry you, and have evidently wished to back out of it from the moment
+in which you found that I had ideas of my own about money. And now you
+call me rude, because I have my little revenge. I have called you Peter
+Prosper, and you can't stand it. You haven't spirit enough to call me
+Matty Thoroughbung in reply. But good-bye, Mr. Prosper,--for I never will
+call you Peter again. As to what I said to you about money, that, of
+course, is all bosh. I'll pay Soames's bill, and will never trouble you.
+There's your letter, which, however, would be of no use, because it is
+not signed. A very stupid letter it is. If you want to write naturally
+you should never copy a letter. Good-bye, Mr. Prosper--Peter that never
+shall be." Then she got up and walked out of the room.
+
+Mr. Prosper, when he was left alone, remained for a while nearly
+paralyzed. That he should have ever entertained the idea of making that
+woman his wife! Such was his first thought. Then he reflected that he
+had, in truth, escaped from her more easily than he had hoped, and that
+she had certainly displayed some good qualities in spite of her
+vulgarity and impudence. She did not, at any rate, intend to trouble him
+any farther. He would never again hear himself called Peter by that
+terribly loud voice. But his anger became very fierce against the whole
+family at the rectory. They had ventured to laugh at him, and he could
+understand that, in their eyes, he had become very ridiculous.
+
+He could see it all,--the manner in which they had made fun of him, and
+had been jocose over his intended marriage. He certainly had not
+intended to be funny in their eyes. But, while he had been exercising
+the duty of a stern master over them, and had been aware of his own
+extreme generosity in his efforts to forgive his nephew, that very
+nephew had been laughing at him, in conjunction with the nephew of her
+whom he had intended to make his wife! Not a shilling, again, should
+ever be allowed to Harry Annesley. If it could be so arranged, by any
+change of circumstances, he might even yet become the father of a family
+of his own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+MR. PROSPER IS TAKEN ILL.
+
+
+When Harry Annesley returned from Cheltenham, which he did about the
+beginning of February, he was a very happy man. It may be said, indeed,
+that within his own heart he was more exalted than is fitting for a man
+mortal,--for a human creature who may be cut off from his joys to-morrow,
+or may have the very source of his joy turned into sorrow. He walked
+like a god, not showing it by his outward gesture, not declaring that it
+was so by any assumed grace or arrogant carriage of himself; but knowing
+within himself that that had happened down at Cheltenham which had all
+but divested him of humanity, and made a star of him. To no one else had
+it been given to have such feelings, such an assurance of heavenly
+bliss, together with the certainty that, under any circumstances, it
+must be altogether his own, for ever and ever. It was thus he thought of
+himself and what had happened to him. He had succeeded in getting
+himself kissed by a young woman.
+
+Harry Annesley was in truth very proud of Florence, and altogether
+believed in her. He thought the better of himself because Florence loved
+him,--not with the vulgar self-applause of a man who fancies himself to
+be a lady-killer and therefore a grand sort of fellow, but in conceiving
+himself to be something better than he had hitherto believed, simply
+because he had won the heart of this one special girl. During that
+half-hour at Cheltenham she had so talked to him, and managed in her own
+pretty way so to express herself, as to make him understand that of all
+that there was of her he was the only lord and master. "May God do so to
+me, and more also, if to the end I do not treat her not only with all
+affection, but also with all delicacy of observance." It was thus that
+he spoke to himself of her, as he walked away from the door of Mrs.
+Mountjoy's house in Cheltenham.
+
+From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with
+all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much
+about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and
+he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or
+two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his
+Florence.
+
+"But you will have to know her--well."
+
+"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able
+to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that
+they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.
+
+There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken
+place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe
+who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars
+leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very
+discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first
+place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew
+was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow."
+That had been Matthew's assurance, made with much sorrow to the
+house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared
+that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had
+been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but
+be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of
+ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either
+directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem
+that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly,
+and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of
+Harry.
+
+"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and
+has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind
+leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant
+hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her
+money."
+
+"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.
+
+"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would
+be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."
+
+"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.
+
+"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the
+whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at
+the appellation.
+
+"Nobody calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.
+
+"I should not dream of calling him Uncle Peter," said Molly. "Do you
+mean to say that Miss Thoroughbung called him Peter? Where could she
+have got the courage?" To this Joe replied that he believed his aunt had
+courage for anything under the sun. "I don't think that she ought to
+have called him Peter," continued Molly. "Of course after that there
+couldn't be a marriage."
+
+"I don't quite see why not," said Joe. "I call you Molly, and I expect
+you to marry me."
+
+"And I call you Joe, and I expect you to marry me; but we ain't quite
+the same."
+
+"The Squire of Buston," said Joe, "considers himself Squire of Buston. I
+suppose that the old Queen of Heaven didn't call Jupiter Jove till
+they'd been married at any rate some centuries."
+
+"Well done, Joe," said Harry.
+
+"He'll become fellow of a college yet," said Molly.
+
+"If you'll let me alone I will," said Joe. "But only conceive the kind
+of scene there must have been at the house up there when Aunt Matty had
+forced her way in among your uncle's slippers and dressing-gowns. I'd
+have given a five-pound note to have seen and heard it."
+
+"I'd have given two if it had never occurred. He had written me a letter
+which I had taken as a pardon in full for all my offences. He had
+assured me that he had no intention of marrying, and had offered to give
+me back my old allowance. Now I am told that he has quarrelled with me
+again altogether, because of some light word as to me and my concerns
+spoken by this vivacious old aunt of yours. I wish your vivacious old
+aunt had remained at Buntingford."
+
+"And we had wished that your vivacious old uncle had remained at Buston
+when he came love-making to Marmaduke Lodge."
+
+"He was an old fool! and, among ourselves, always has been," said Molly,
+who on the occasion thought it incumbent upon her to take the
+Thoroughbung rather than the Prosper side of the quarrel.
+
+But, in truth, this renewed quarrel between the Hall and the rectory was
+likely to prove extremely deleterious to Harry Annesley's interests. For
+his welfare depended not solely on the fact that he was at present heir
+presumptive to his uncle, nor yet on the small allowance of two hundred
+and fifty pounds made to him by his uncle, and capable of being
+withdrawn at any moment, but also on the fact, supposed to be known to
+all the world,--which was known to all the world before the affair in the
+streets with Mountjoy Scarborough,--that Harry was his uncle's heir. His
+position had been that of eldest son, and indeed that of only child to a
+man of acres and squire of a parish. He had been made to hope that this
+might be restored to him, and at this moment absolutely had in his
+pocket the check for sixty-two pounds ten which had been sent to him by
+his uncle's agent in payment of the quarter's income which had been
+stopped. But he also had a farther letter, written on the next day,
+telling him that he was not to expect any repetition of the payment.
+Under these circumstances, what should he do?
+
+Two or three things occurred to him. But he resolved at last to keep the
+check without cashing it for some weeks, and then to write to his uncle
+when the fury of his wrath might be supposed to have passed by, offering
+to restore it. His uncle was undoubtedly a very silly man; but he was
+not one who could acknowledge to himself that he had done an unjust act
+without suffering for it. At the present moment, while his wrath was
+hot, there would be no sense of contrition. His ears would still tingle
+with the sound of the laughter of which he had supposed himself to have
+been the subject at the rectory. But that sound in a few weeks might die
+away, and some feeling of the propriety of justice would come back upon
+the poor man's mind. Such was the state of things upon which Harry
+resolved to wait for a few weeks.
+
+But in the mean time tidings came across from the Hall that Mr. Prosper
+was ill. He had remained in the house for two or three days after Miss
+Thoroughbung's visit. This had given rise to no special remarks, because
+it was well known that Mr. Prosper was a man whose feelings were often
+too many for him. When he was annoyed it would be long before he would
+get the better of the annoyance; and during such periods he would remain
+silent and alone. There could be no question that Miss Thoroughbung had
+annoyed him most excessively. And Matthew had been aware that it would
+be better that he should abstain from all questions. He would take the
+daily newspaper in to his master, and ask for orders as to the daily
+dinner, and that would be all. Mr. Prosper, when in a fairly good humor,
+would see the cook every morning, and would discuss with her the
+propriety of either roasting or boiling the fowl, and the expediency
+either of the pudding or the pie. His idiosyncrasies were well known,
+and the cook might always have her own way by recommending the contrary
+to that which she wanted,--because it was a point of honor with Mr.
+Prosper not to be led by his servants. But during these days he simply
+said, "Let me have dinner and do not trouble me." This went on for a day
+or two without exciting much comment at the rectory. But when it went on
+beyond a day or two it was surmised that Mr. Prosper was ill.
+
+At the end of a week he had not been seen outside the house, and then
+alarm began to be felt. The rumor had got abroad that he intended to go
+to Italy, and it was expected that he would start, but no sign came of
+his intended movements; not a word more had been said to Matthew on the
+subject. He had been ordered to admit no visitor into the house at all,
+unless it were some one from the firm of Grey & Barry. From the moment
+in which he had got rid of Miss Thoroughbung he had been subject to some
+dread lest she should return. Or if not she herself, she might, he
+thought, send Soames & Simpson, or some denizen from the brewery. And he
+was conscious that not only all Buston, but all Buntingford was aware of
+what he had attempted to do. Every one whom he chanced to meet would, as
+he thought, be talking of him, and therefore he feared to be seen by the
+eye of man, woman, or child. There was a self-consciousness about him
+which altogether overpowered him. That cook with whom he used to have
+the arguments about the boiled chicken was now an enemy, a domestic
+enemy, because he was sure that she talked about his projected marriage
+in the kitchen. He would not see his coachman or his groom, because some
+tidings would have reached them about that pair of ponies. Consequently
+he shut himself up altogether, and the disease became worse with him
+because of his seclusion.
+
+And now from day to day, or, it may be more properly said, from hour to
+hour, news came across to the rectory of the poor squire's health.
+Matthew, to whom alone was given free intercourse with his master,
+became very gloomy. Mr. Prosper was no doubt gloomy, and the feeling was
+contagious. "I think he's going off his head; that's what I do think,"
+he said, in confidential intercourse with the cook.
+
+That conversation resulted in Matthew's walking across to the rectory,
+and asking advice from the rector; and in the rector paying a visit to
+the Hall. He had again consulted with his wife, and she had recommended
+him to endeavor to see her brother. "Of course, what we hear about his
+anger only comes from Joe, or through the servants. If he is angry, what
+will it matter?"
+
+"Not in the least to me," said the rector; "only I would not willingly
+trouble him."
+
+"I would go," said the rector's wife, "only I know he would require me
+to agree with him about Harry. That, of course, I cannot do."
+
+Then the rector walked across to the Hall, and sent up word by Matthew
+that he was there, and would be glad to see Mr. Prosper, if Mr. Prosper
+were disengaged. But Matthew, after an interval of a quarter of an hour,
+came back with merely a note: "I am not very well, and an interview at
+the present moment would only be depressing. But I would be glad to see
+my sister, if she would come across to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I think
+it would be well that I should see some one, and she is now the
+nearest.--P.P." Then there arose a great discussion at the rectory as to
+what this note indicated. "She is now the nearest!" He might have so
+written had the doctor who attended him told him that death was
+imminent. Of course she was the nearest. What did the "now" mean? Was it
+not intended to signify that Harry had been his heir, and therefore the
+nearest; but that now he had been repudiated? But it was of course
+resolved that Mrs. Annesley should go to the Hall at the hour indicated
+on the morrow.
+
+"Oh yes; I'm up here; where else should I be,--unless you expected to
+find me in my bed?" It was thus that he answered his sister's first
+inquiry as to his condition.
+
+"In bed? Oh no! Why should any one expect to find you in bed, Peter?"
+
+"Never call me by that name again!" he said, rising up from his chair,
+and standing erect, with one arm stretched out. She called him Peter,
+simply because it had been her custom so to do during the period of
+nearly fifty years in which they had lived in the same parish as brother
+and sister. She could, therefore, only stare at him and his tragic
+humor, as he stood there before her. "Though of course it is madness on
+my part to object to it! My godfather and godmother christened me Peter,
+and our father was Peter before me, and his father too was Peter
+Prosper. But that woman has made the name sound abominable in my ears."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung, you mean?"
+
+"She came here, and so be-Petered me in my own house,--nay, up in this
+very room,--that I hardly knew whether I was on my head or my heels."
+
+"I would not mind what she said. They all know that she is a little
+flighty."
+
+"Nobody told me so. Why couldn't you let me know that she was flighty
+beforehand? I thought that she was a person whom it would have done to
+marry."
+
+"If you will only think of it, Peter--" Here he shuddered visibly. "I
+beg your pardon, I will not call you so again. But it is unreasonable to
+blame us for not telling you about Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"Of course it is. I am unreasonable, I know it."
+
+"Let us hope that it is all over now."
+
+"Cart-ropes wouldn't drag me up to the hymeneal altar,--at least not with
+that woman."
+
+"You have sent for me, Peter--I beg pardon. I was so glad when you sent.
+I would have come before, only I was afraid that you would be annoyed.
+Is there anything that we can do for you?"
+
+"Nothing at all that you can do, I fear."
+
+"Somebody told us that you were thinking of going abroad." Here he shook
+his head. "I think it was Harry." Here he shook his head and frowned.
+"Had you not some idea of going abroad?"
+
+"That is all gone," he said, solemnly.
+
+"It would have enabled you to get over this disappointment without
+feeling it so acutely."
+
+"I do feel it; but not exactly the disappointment. There I think I have
+been saved from a misfortune which would certainly have driven me mad.
+That woman's voice daily in my ear could have had no other effect. I
+have at any rate been saved from that."
+
+"What is it, then, that troubles you?"
+
+"Everybody knows that I intended it. All the country has heard of it.
+But yet was not my purpose a good one? Why should not a gentleman marry
+if he wants to leave his estate to his own son?"
+
+"Of course he must marry before he can do that."
+
+"Where was I to get a young lady--just outside of my own class? There
+was Miss Puffle. I did think of her. But just at the moment she went off
+with young Tazlehurst. That was another misfortune. Why should Miss
+Puffle have descended so low just before I had thought of her? And I
+couldn't marry quite a young girl. How could I expect such a one to live
+here with me at Buston, where it is rather dull? When I looked about
+there was nobody except that horrid Miss Thoroughbung. You just look
+about and tell me if there was any one else. Of course my circle is
+circumscribed. I have been very careful whom I have admitted to my
+intimacy, and the result is that I know almost nobody. I may say that I
+was driven to ask Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+"But why marry at all unless you're fond of somebody to be attached to?"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Why marry at all? I say. I ask the question knowing very well why you
+intended to do it."
+
+"Then why do you ask?" he said, angrily.
+
+"Because it is so difficult to talk of Harry to you. Of course I cannot
+help feeling that you have injured him."
+
+"It is he that has injured me. It is he that has brought me to this
+condition. Don't you know that you've all been laughing at me down at
+the rectory since this affair of that terrible woman?" While he paused
+for an answer to his question Mrs. Annesley sat silent. "You know it is
+true. He and that man whom Molly means to marry, and the other girls,
+and their father and you, have all been laughing at me."
+
+"I have never laughed."
+
+"But the others?" And again he waited for a reply. But the no reply
+which came did as well as any other answer. There was the fact that he
+had been ridiculed by the very young man whom it was intended that he
+should support by his liberality. It was impossible to tell him that a
+man who had made himself so absurd must expect to be laughed at by his
+juniors. There was running through his mind an idea that very much was
+due to him from Harry; but there was also an idea that something too was
+due from him. There was present, even to him, a noble feeling that he
+should bear all the ignominy with which he was treated, and still be
+generous. But he had sworn to himself, and had sworn to Matthew, that he
+would never forgive his nephew. "Of course you all wish me to be out of
+the way?"
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because it is true. How happy you would all be if I were dead, and
+Harry were living here in my place."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes, I do. Of course you would all go into mourning, and there would be
+some grimace of sorrow among you for a few weeks, but the sorrow would
+soon be turned into joy. I shall not last long, and then his time will
+come. There! you may tell him that his allowance shall be continued, in
+spite of all his laughing. It was for that purpose that I sent for you.
+And, now you know it, you can go and leave me." Then Mrs. Annesley did
+go, and rejoiced them all up at the rectory by these latest tidings from
+the Hall. But now the feeling was, how could they show their gratitude
+and kindness to poor Uncle Prosper?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+MR. BARRY AGAIN.
+
+
+"Mr. Barry has given me to understand that he means to come down
+to-morrow." This was said by Mr. Grey to his daughter.
+
+"What does he want to come here for?"
+
+"I suppose you know why he wants to come here?" Then the father was
+silent, and for some time Dolly remained silent also. "He is coming to
+ask you to consent to be his wife."
+
+"Why do you let him come, papa?"
+
+"I cannot hinder him. That, in the first place. And then I don't want to
+prevent his coming."
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+"I do not want to prevent his coming. And I do not wish you now at this
+instant to pledge yourself to anything."
+
+"I cannot but pledge myself."
+
+"You can at any rate remain silent while I speak to you." There was a
+solemnity in his manner which almost awed her, so that she could only
+come nearer to him and sit close to him, holding his hand in hers. "I
+wish you to hear what I have got to say to you, and to make no answer
+till you shall make it to-morrow to him, after having fully considered
+the whole matter. In the first place, he is an honest and good man, and
+certainly will not ill-treat you."
+
+"Is that so much?"
+
+"It is a great deal, as men go. It would be a great deal to me to be
+sure that I had left you in the hands of one who is, of his nature,
+tender and affectionate."
+
+"That is something; but not enough."
+
+"And then he is a careful man, who will certainly screen you from all
+want; and he is prudent, walking about the world with his eyes
+open,--much wider than your father has ever done." Here she only pressed
+his hand. "There is nothing to be said against him, except that
+something which you spotted at once when you said that he was not a
+gentleman. According to your ideas, and to mine, he is not quite a
+gentleman; but we are both fastidious."
+
+"We must pay the penalty of our tastes in that respect."
+
+"You are paying the penalty now by your present doubts. But it is not
+yet too late for you to get the better of it. Though I have acknowledged
+that he is not quite a gentleman, he is by no means the reverse. You are
+quite a lady."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"But you are not particularly good-looking."
+
+"Papa, you are not complimentary."
+
+"My dear, I do not intend to be so. To me your face, such as it is, is
+the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+
+"Oh, papa;--dear papa!" and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed
+him.
+
+"But having lived so long with me you have acquired my habits and
+thoughts, and have learned to disregard utterly your outward
+appearance."
+
+"I would be decent and clean and womanly."
+
+"That is not enough to attract the eyes of men in general. But he has
+seen deeper than most men do."
+
+"Into the value of the business, you mean?" said she.
+
+"No, Dolly; I will not have that! that is ill-natured, and, as I
+believe, altogether untrue. I think of Mr. Barry that he would not marry
+any girl for the sake of the business, unless he loved her."
+
+"That is nonsense, papa. How can Mr. Barry love me? Did he and I ever
+have five minutes of free conversation together?"
+
+"Unless he meant to love, would be nearer the mark; and knew that he
+could do so. You will be quite safe in his hands."
+
+"Safe, papa!"
+
+"So much for yourself; and now I must say a few words as to myself. You
+are not bound to marry him, or any one else, to do me a good turn; but I
+think you are bound to remember what my feelings would be if on my
+death-bed I were leaving you quite alone in the world. As far as money
+is concerned, you would have enough for all your wants; but that is all
+that you would have. You have become so thoroughly my friend, that you
+have hardly another real friend in the world."
+
+"That is my disposition."
+
+"Yes; but I must guard against the ill-effects of that disposition. I
+know that if some man came the way, whom you could in truth love, you
+would make the sweetest wife that ever a man possessed."
+
+"Oh, papa, how you talk! No such man will come the way, and there's an
+end of it."
+
+"Mr. Barry has come the way,--and, as things go, is deserving of your
+regard. My advice to you is to accept him. Now you will have twenty-four
+hours to think of that advice, and to think of your own future
+condition. How will life go with you if you should be left living in
+this house all alone?"
+
+"Why do you speak as though we were to be parted to-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow or next day," he said very solemnly. "The day will surely
+come before long. Mr. Barry may not be all that your fancy has
+imagined."
+
+"Decidedly not."
+
+"But he has those good qualities which your reason should appreciate.
+Think it over, my darling. And now we will say nothing more about Mr.
+Barry till he shall have been here and pleaded his own cause."
+
+Then there was not another word said on the subject between them, and on
+the next morning Mr. Grey went away to his chambers as usual.
+
+Though she had strenuously opposed her father through the whole of the
+conversation above given, still, as it had gone on, she had resolved to
+do as he would her; not indeed, that is, to marry this suitor, but to
+turn him over in her mind yet once again, and find out whether it would
+be possible that she should do so. She had dismissed him on that former
+occasion, and had not since given a thought to him, except as to a
+nuisance of which she had so far ridded herself. Now the nuisance had
+come again, and she was to endeavor to ascertain how far she could
+accustom herself to its perpetual presence without incurring perpetual
+misery. But it has to be acknowledged that she did not begin the inquiry
+in a fair frame of mind. She declared to herself that she would think
+about it all the night and all the morning without a prejudice, so that
+she might be able to accept him if she found it possible.
+
+But at the same time there was present to her a high, black stone wall,
+at one side of which stood she herself while Mr. Barry was on the other.
+That there should be any clambering over that wall by either of them she
+felt to be quite impossible, though at the same time she acknowledged
+that a miracle might occur by which the wall would be removed,
+
+So she began her thinking, and used all her father's arguments. Mr.
+Barry was honest and good, and would not ill-treat her. She knew nothing
+about him, but would take all that for granted as though it were
+gospel,--because her father had said so. And then it was to her a fact
+that she was by no means good-looking,--the meaning of which was that no
+other man would probably want her. Then she remembered her father's
+words,--"To me your face is the sweetest thing on earth to look upon."
+This she did believe. Her plainness did not come against her there. Why
+should she rob her father of the one thing which to him was sweet in the
+world? And to her, her father was the one noble human being whom she had
+ever known. Why should she rob herself of his daily presence? Then she
+told herself,--as she had told him,--that she had never had five minutes
+free conversation with Mr. Barry in her life. That certainly was no
+reason why free conversation should not be commenced. But then she did
+not believe that free conversation was within the capacity of Mr. Barry.
+It would never come, though she might be married to him for twenty
+years. He too might, perhaps, talk about his business; but there would
+be none of those considerations as to radical good or evil which made
+the nucleus of all such conversations with her father. There would be a
+flatness about it all which would make any such interchange of words
+impossible. It would be as though she had been married to a log of wood,
+or rather a beast of the field, as regarded all sentiment. How much
+money would be coming to him? Now her father had never told her how much
+money was coming to him. There had been no allusion to that branch of
+the subject.
+
+And then there came other thoughts as to that interior life which it
+would be her destiny to lead with Mr. Barry. Then came a black cloud
+upon her face as she sat thinking of it. "Never," at last she said,
+"never, never! He is very foolish not to know that it is impossible."
+The "he" of whom she then spoke was her father, and not Mr. Barry. "If I
+have to be left alone, I shall not be the first. Others have been left
+alone before me. I shall at any rate be left alone." Then the wall
+became higher and more black than ever, and there was no coming of that
+miracle by which it was to be removed. It was clearer to her than ever
+that neither of them could climb it. "And, after all," she said to
+herself, "to know that your husband is not a gentleman! Ought that not
+to be enough? Of course a woman has to pay for her fastidiousness. Like
+other luxuries, it is costly; but then, like other luxuries, it cannot
+be laid aside." So, before that morning was gone, she made up her mind
+steadily that Mr. Barry should never be her lord and master.
+
+How could she best make him understand that it was so, so that she might
+be quickly rid of him? When the first hour of thinking was done after
+breakfast, it was that which filled her mind. She was sure that he would
+not take an answer easily and go. He would have been prepared by her
+father to persevere,--not by his absolute words, but by his mode of
+speaking. Her father would have given him to understand that she was
+still in doubt, and therefore might possibly be talked over. She must
+teach him at once, as well as she could, that such was not her
+character, and that she had come to a resolution which left him no
+chance. And she was guilty of one weakness which was almost unworthy of
+her. When the time came she changed her dress, and put on an old shabby
+frock, in which she was wont to call upon the Carrolls. Her best dresses
+were all kept for her father,--and, perhaps, accounted for that opinion
+that to his eyes her face was the sweetest thing on earth to look upon.
+As she sat there waiting for Mr. Barry, she certainly did look ten years
+older than her age.
+
+In truth both Mr. Grey and Dolly had been somewhat mistaken in their
+reading of Mr. Barry's character. There was more of intellect and merit
+in him than he had obtained credit for from either of them. He did care
+very much for the income of the business, and perhaps his first idea in
+looking for Dolly's hand had been the probability that he would thus
+obtain the whole of that income for himself. But, while wanting money,
+he wanted also some of the good things which ought to accompany it. A
+superior intellect,--an intellect slightly superior to his own, of which
+he did not think meanly, a power of conversation which he might imitate,
+and that fineness of thought which, he flattered himself, he might be
+able to achieve while living with the daughter of a gentleman,--these
+were the treasures which Mr. Barry hoped to gain by his marriage with
+Dorothy Grey. And there had been something in her personal appearance
+which, to his eyes, had not been distasteful. He did not think her face
+the sweetest thing in the world to look at, as her father had done, but
+he saw in it the index of that intellect which he had desired to obtain
+for himself. As for her dress, that, of course, should all be altered.
+He imagined that he could easily become so far master of his wife as to
+make her wear fine clothes without difficulty. But then he did not know
+Dolly Grey.
+
+He had studied deeply his manner of attacking her. He would be very
+humble at first, but after a while his humility should be discontinued,
+whether she accepted or rejected him. He knew well that it did not
+become a husband to be humble; and as regarded a lover, he thought that
+humility was merely the outside gloss of love-making. He had been
+humble enough on the former occasion, and would begin now in the same
+strain. But after a while he would stir himself, and assume the manner
+of a man. "Miss Grey," he said, as soon as they were alone, "you see
+that I have been as good as my word, and have come again." He had
+already observed her old frock and her mode of dressing up her hair, and
+had guessed the truth.
+
+"I knew that you were to come, Mr. Barry."
+
+"Your father has told you so."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he has spoken a good word in my favor?"
+
+"Yes, he has."
+
+"Which I trust will be effective."
+
+"Not at all. He knows that it is the only subject on which I cannot take
+his advice. I would burn my hand off for my father, but I cannot afford
+to give it to any one at his instance. It must be exclusively my
+own,--unless some one should come very different from those who are
+likely to ask for it."
+
+There was something, Mr. Barry thought, of offence in this, but he could
+not altogether throw off his humility as yet. "I quite admit the value
+of the treasure," he said.
+
+"There need not be any nonsense between us, Mr. Barry. It has no special
+value to any one,--except to myself; but to myself I mean to keep it. At
+my father's instance I had thought over the proposition you have made me
+much more seriously than I had thought it possible that I should do."
+
+"That is not flattering," he said.
+
+"There is no need for flattery, either on the one side or on the other.
+You had better take that as established. You have done me the honor of
+wishing, for certain reasons, that I should be your wife."
+
+"The common reason:--that I love you."
+
+"But I am not able to return the feeling, and do not therefore wish that
+you should be my husband. That sounds to be uncivil."
+
+"Rather."
+
+"But I say it in order to make you understand the exact truth. A woman
+cannot love a man because she feels for him even the most profound
+respect. She will often do so when there is neither respect nor esteem.
+My father has so spoken of you to me that I do esteem you; but that has
+no effect in touching my heart, therefore I cannot become your wife."
+
+Now, as Mr. Barry thought, had come the time in which he must assert
+himself. "Miss Grey," he said, "you have probably a long life before
+you."
+
+"Long or short, it can make no difference."
+
+"If I understood you aright, you are one who lives very much to
+yourself."
+
+"To myself and my father."
+
+"He is growing in years."
+
+"So am I, for the matter of that. We are all growing in years."
+
+"Have you looked out for yourself, and thought what manner of home yours
+will be when he shall have been dead and buried?" He paused, but she
+remained silent, and assumed a special cast of countenance, as though
+she might say a word, if he pressed her, which it would be disagreeable
+for him to hear. "When he has gone will you not be very solitary without
+a husband?"
+
+"No doubt I shall."
+
+"Had you not better accept one when one comes your way who is not, as he
+tells you, quite unworthy of you?"
+
+"In spite of such worth solitude would be preferable."
+
+"You certainly have a knack, Miss Grey, of making the most unpalatable
+assertions."
+
+"I will make another more unpalatable. Solitude I could bear,--and
+death,--but not such a marriage. You force me to tell you the whole truth
+because half a truth will not suffice."
+
+"I have endeavored to be at any rate civil to you," he said.
+
+"And I have endeavored to save you what trouble I could by being
+straightforward." Still he paused, sitting in his chair uneasily, but
+looking as though he had no intention of going. "If you will only take
+me at my word and have done with it!" Still he did not move. "I suppose
+there are young ladies who like this kind of thing, but I have become
+old enough to hate it. I have had very little experience of it, but it
+is odious to me. I can conceive nothing more disagreeable than to have
+to sit still and hear a gentleman declare that he wants to make me his
+wife, when I am quite sure that I do not intend to make him my husband."
+
+"Then, Miss Grey," he said, rising from his chair suddenly, "I shall bid
+you adieu."
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Barry."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Grey. Farewell!" And so he went.
+
+"Oh, papa, we have had such a scene!" she said, the moment she felt
+herself alone with her father.
+
+"You have not accepted him?"
+
+"Accepted him! Oh dear no! I am sure at this moment he is only thinking
+how he would cut my throat if he could get hold of me."
+
+"You must have offended him then very greatly."
+
+"Oh, mortally! I said everything I possibly could to offend him. But
+then he would have been here still had I not done so. There was no other
+way to get rid of him,--or indeed to make him believe that I was in
+earnest."
+
+"I am sorry that you should have been so ungracious."
+
+"Of course I am ungracious. But how can you stand bandying compliments
+with a man when it is your object to make him know the very truth that
+is in you? It was your fault, papa. You ought to have understood how
+very impossible it is that I should marry Mr. Barry."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE LAST PLOT.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough had written the check and sent it to Mr. Grey, he
+did not utter another word on the subject of gambling. "Let us make
+another beginning," he said, as he told his son to make out another
+check for sixty pounds as his first instalment of the allowance.
+
+"I do not like to take it," said the son.
+
+"I don't think you need be scrupulous now with me." That was early in
+the morning, at their first interview, about ten o'clock. Later on in
+the day Mr. Scarborough saw his son again, and on this occasion kept him
+in the room some time. "I don't suppose I shall last much longer now,"
+he said.
+
+"Your voice is as strong as I ever heard it."
+
+"But unfortunately my body does not keep pace with my voice. From what
+Merton says, I don't suppose there is above a month left."
+
+"I don't see why Merton is to know."
+
+"Merton is a good fellow; and if you can do anything for him, do it for
+my sake."
+
+"I will." Then he added, after a pause, "If things go as we expect,
+Augustus can do more for him than I. Why don't you leave him a sum of
+money?"
+
+Then Miss Scarborough came into the room, and hovered about her brother,
+and fed him, and entreated him to be silent; but when she had gone he
+went back to the subject. "I will tell you why, Mountjoy. I have not
+wished to load my will with other considerations,--so that it might be
+seen that solicitude for you has been in my last moments my only
+thought. Of course I have done you a deep injury."
+
+"I think you have."
+
+"And because you tell me so I like you all the better. As for
+Augustus--But I will not burden my spirit now, at the last, with
+uttering curses against my own son."
+
+"He is not worth it."
+
+"No, he is not worth it. What a fool he has been not to have understood
+me better! Now, you are not half as clever a fellow as he is."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"You never read a book, I suppose?"
+
+"I don't pretend to read them, which he does."
+
+"I don't know anything about that;--but he has been utterly unable to
+read me. I have poured out my money with open hands for both of you."
+
+"That is true, sir, certainly, as regards me."
+
+"And have thought nothing of it. Till it was quite hopeless with you I
+went on, and would have gone on. As things were then, I was bound to do
+something to save the property."
+
+"These poor devils have put themselves out of the running now," said
+Mountjoy.
+
+"Yes; Augustus with his suspicions has enabled us to do that. After all,
+he was quite right with his suspicions."
+
+"What do you mean by that, sir?"
+
+"Well, it was natural enough that he should not trust me. I think, too,
+that perhaps he saw a screw loose where old Grey did not; but he was
+such an ass that he could not bring himself to keep on good terms with
+me for the few months that were left. And then he brought that brute
+Jones down here, without saying a word to me as to asking my leave. And
+here he used to remain, hardly ever coming to see me, but waiting for my
+death from day to day. He is a cold-blooded, selfish brute. He certainly
+takes after neither his father nor his mother. But he will find yet,
+perhaps, that I am even with him before all is over."
+
+"I shall try it on with him, sir. I have told you so from the beginning;
+and now if I have this money it will give me the means of doing so. You
+ought to know for what purpose I shall use it."
+
+"That is all settled," said the father. "The document, properly
+completed, has gone back with the clerk. Were I to die this minute you
+would find that everything inside the house is your own,--and everything
+outside except the bare acres. There is a lot of plate with the banker
+which I have not wanted of late years. And there are a lot of trinkets
+too,--things which I used to fancy, though I have not cared so much about
+them lately. And there are a few pictures which are worth money. But the
+books are the most valuable; only you do not care for them."
+
+"I shall not have a house to put them in."
+
+"There is no saying. What an idiot, what a fool, what a blind,
+unthinking ass Augustus has been!"
+
+"Do you regret it, sir,--that he should not have them and the house too?"
+
+"I regret that my son should have been such a fool! I did not expect
+that he should love me. I did not even want him to be kind to me. Had he
+remained away and been silent, that would have been sufficient. But he
+came here to enjoy himself, as he looked about the park which he thought
+to be his own, and insulted me because I would not die at once and leave
+him in possession. And then he was fool enough to make way for you
+again, and did not perceive that by getting rid of your creditors he
+once again put you into a position to be his rival. I don't know whether
+I hate him most for the hardness of his heart, or despise him for the
+slowness of his intellect."
+
+During the time that these words had been spoken Miss Scarborough had
+once or twice come into the room, and besought her brother to take some
+refreshment which she offered him, and then give himself up to rest. But
+he had refused to be guided by her till he had come to a point in the
+conversation at which he had found himself thoroughly exhausted. Now she
+came for the third time, and that period had arrived, so that Mountjoy
+was told to go about his business, and shoot birds or hunt foxes, in
+accordance with his natural proclivities. It was then three o'clock on a
+gloomy December afternoon, and was too late for the shooting of birds;
+and as for the hunting of foxes, the hounds were not in the
+neighborhood. So he resolved to go through the house, and look at all
+those properties which were so soon to become his own. And he at once
+strolled into the library. This was a long, gloomy room, which contained
+perhaps ten thousand volumes, the greater number of which had, in the
+days of Mountjoy's early youth, been brought together by his own father;
+and they had been bound in the bindings of modern times, so that the
+shelves were bright, although the room itself was gloomy. He took out
+book after book, and told himself, with something of sadness in his
+heart, that they were all "caviare" to him. Then he reminded himself
+that he was not yet thirty years of age, and that there was surely time
+enough left for him to make them his companions.
+
+He took one at random, and found it to be a volume of Clarendon's
+"History of the Rebellion." He pitched upon a sentence in which he
+counted that there were sixteen lines, and when he began to read it, it
+became to him utterly confused and unintelligible. So he put it back,
+and went to another portion of the room and took down Wittier's
+"Hallelujah;" and of this he could make neither head nor tail. He was
+informed, by a heading in the book itself, that a piece of poetry was to
+be sung "as the ten commandments." He could not do that, and put the
+book back again, and declared to himself that farther search would be
+useless. He looked round the room and tried to price the books, and told
+himself that three or four days at the club might see an end of it all.
+Then he wandered on into the state drawing-room,--an apartment which he
+had not entered for years,--and found that all the furniture was
+carefully covered. Of what use could it all be to him,--unless that it,
+too, might be sent to the melting-pot and brought into some short-lived
+use at the club?
+
+But as he was about to leave the room he stood for a moment on the rug
+before the fireplace and looked into the huge mirror which stood there.
+If the walls might be his, as well as the garnishing of them, and if
+Florence Mountjoy could come and reign there, then he fancied that they
+all might be put to a better purpose than that of which he had thought.
+In earlier days, two or three years ago, at a time which now seemed to
+him to be very distant, he had regarded Florence as his own, and as such
+had demanded her hand. In the pride of his birth, and position, and
+fashion, he had had no thought of her feelings, and had been imperious.
+He told himself that it had been so with much self-condemnation. At any
+rate, he had learned, during those months of solitary wandering, the
+power of condemning himself. And now he told him that if she would yet
+come he might still learn to sing that song of the old-fashioned poet
+"as to the ten commandments." At any rate, he would endeavor to sing it,
+as she bade him.
+
+He went on through all the bedrooms, remembering, but hardly more than
+remembering, them as he entered them. "Oh, Florence,--my Florence!" he
+said, as he passed on. He had done it all for himself,--brought down
+upon his own head this infinite ruin,--and for what? He had scarcely ever
+won, and Tretton was gone from him forever. But still there might yet be
+a chance if he could abstain from gambling.
+
+And then, when it was dusk within the house, he went out, and passed
+through the stables and roamed about the gardens till the evening had
+altogether set in, and black night had come upon him. Two years ago he
+had known that he was the heir to it all, though even then that habit
+was so strong upon him he had felt that his tenure of it would be but
+slight. But he had then always to tell himself that when his marriage
+had taken place a great change would be effected. His marriage had not
+taken place, and the next fatal year had fallen upon him. As long as the
+inheritance of the estate was certainly his, he could assuredly raise
+money,--at a certain cost. It was well known that the property was rising
+in value, and the money had always been forthcoming,--at a tremendous
+sacrifice. He had excused to himself his recklessness on the ground of
+his delayed marriage, but still always treating her, on the few
+occasions on which they had met, with an imperiousness which had been
+natural to him. Then the final crash had come, and the estate was as
+good as gone. But the crash, which had been in truth final, had come
+afterward, almost as soon as his father had learned what was to be the
+fate of Tretton; and he had found himself to be a bastard with a
+dishonored mother,--just a nobody in the eyes of the world. And he
+learned at the same time that Harry Annesley was the lover whom Florence
+Mountjoy really loved. What had followed has been told already,--perhaps
+too often.
+
+But at this moment, as he stood in the gloom of the night, below the
+porch in the front of the house, swinging his stick at the top of the
+big steps, an acknowledgment of contrition was very heavy upon him.
+
+Though he was prepared to go to law the moment that Augustus put himself
+forward as the eldest son, he did recognize how long-suffering his
+father had been, and how much had been done for him in order, if
+possible, to preserve him. And he knew, whatever might be the result of
+his lawsuit, that his father's only purpose had been to save the
+property for one of them. As it was, legacies which might be valued at
+perhaps thirty thousand pounds would be his. He would expend it all on
+the lawsuit, if he could find lawyers to undertake his suit. His anger,
+too, against his brother was quite as hot as was that of his father.
+When he had been obliterated and obliged to vanish, from the joint
+effects of his violence in the streets and his inability to pay his
+gambling debts at the club, he had, in an evil moment, submitted himself
+to Augustus; and from that hour Augustus had become to him the most
+cruel of tyrants. And this tyranny had come to an end with his absolute
+banishment from his brother's house. Though he had been subdued to
+obedience in the lowest moment of his fall, he was not the man who could
+bear such tyranny well. "I can forgive my father," he said, "but
+Augustus I will never forgive." Then he went into the house, and in a
+short time was sitting at dinner with Merton, the young doctor and
+secretary. Miss Scarborough seldom came to table at that hour, but
+remained in a room up-stairs, close to her brother, so that she might be
+within call should she be wanted. "Upon the whole, Merton," he said,
+"what do you think of my father?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+"Will he live or will he die?"
+
+"He will die, certainly."
+
+"Do not joke with me. But I know you would not joke on such a subject.
+And my question did not merely go to the state of his health. What do
+you think of him as a man generally? Do you call him an honest man?"
+
+"How am I to answer you?"
+
+"Just the truth."
+
+"If you will have an answer, I do not consider him an honest man. All
+this story about your brother is true or is not true. In neither case
+can one look upon him as honest."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"But I think that he has within him a capacity for love, and an
+unselfishness, which almost atones for his dishonesty; and there is
+about him a strange dislike to conventionality and to law which is so
+interesting as to make up the balance. I have always regarded your
+father as a most excellent man, but thoroughly dishonest. He would rob
+any one,--but always to eke out his own gifts to other people. He has,
+therefore, to my eyes been most romantic."
+
+"And as to his health?"
+
+"Ah, as to that I cannot answer so decidedly. He will do nothing because
+I tell him."
+
+"Do you mean that you could prolong his life?"
+
+"Certainly I think that I could. He has exerted himself this morning,
+whereas I have advised him not to exert himself. He could have given
+himself the same counsel, and would certainly live longer by obeying it
+than the reverse. As there is no difficulty in the matter, there need
+be no conceit on my part in saying that so far my advice might be of
+service to him."
+
+"How long will he live?"
+
+"Who can say? Sir William Brodrick, when that fearful operation was
+performed in London, thought that a month would see the end of it. That
+is eight months ago, and he has more vitality now than he had then. For
+myself, I do not think that he can live another month."
+
+Later on in the evening Mountjoy Scarborough began again. "The governor
+thinks that you have behaved uncommonly well to him."
+
+"I am paid for it all."
+
+"But he has not left you anything by his will."
+
+"I have certainly expected nothing, and there could be no reason why he
+should."
+
+"He has entertained an idea of late that he wishes to make what
+reparation may be possible to me; and therefore, as he says, he does not
+choose to burden his will with legacies. There is some provision made
+for my aunt, who, however, has her own fortune. He has told me to look
+after you."
+
+"It will be quite unnecessary," said Mr. Merton.
+
+"If you choose to cut up rough you can do so. I would propose that we
+should fix upon some sum which shall be yours at his death,--just as
+though he had left it to you. Indeed, he shall fix the sum himself."
+
+Merton, of course, said that nothing of the kind would be necessary; but
+with this understanding Mountjoy Scarborough went that night to bed.
+
+Early on the following morning his father again sent for him.
+"Mountjoy," he said, "I have thought much about it, and I have changed
+my mind."
+
+"About your will?"
+
+"No, not about my will at all. That shall remain as it is. I do not
+think I should have strength to make another will, nor do I wish to do
+so."
+
+"You mean about Merton?"
+
+"I don't mean about Merton at all. Give him five hundred pounds, and he
+ought to be satisfied. This is a matter of more importance than Mr.
+Merton--or even than my will."
+
+"What is it?" said Mountjoy, in a tone of much surprise.
+
+"I don't think I can tell you now. But it is right that you should know
+that Merton wrote, by my instructions, to Mr. Grey early this morning,
+and has implored him to come to Tretton once again. There! I cannot say
+more than that now." Then he turned round on his couch, as was his
+custom, and was unassailable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+RUMMELSBURG.
+
+
+Mr. Scarborough again sent for Mr. Grey, but a couple of weeks passed
+before he came. At first he refused to come, saying that he would send
+his clerk down if any work were wanted such as the clerk might do. And
+the clerk did come and was very useful. But Mr. Scarborough persevered,
+using arguments which Mr. Grey found himself unable at last to resist.
+He was dying, and there would soon be an end of it. That was his
+strongest argument. Then it was alleged that a lawyer of experience was
+certainly needed, and that Mr. Scarborough could not very well put his
+affairs into the hands of a stranger. And old friendship was brought up.
+And, then, at last, the squire alleged that there were other secrets to
+be divulged respecting his family, of which Mr. Scarborough thought that
+Mr. Grey would approve. What could be the "other secrets?" But it ended
+in Mr. Grey assenting to go, in opposition to his daughter's advice. "I
+would have nothing more to do with him or his secrets," Dolly had said.
+
+"You do not know him."
+
+"I know as much about him as a woman can know of a man she doesn't
+know,--and all from yourself. You have said over and over again that he
+is a 'rascal!'"
+
+"Not a rascal. I don't think I said he was a rascal."
+
+"I believe you used that very word."
+
+"Then I unsay it. A rascal has something mean about him. Juniper's a
+rascal!"
+
+"He cares nothing for his word."
+
+"Nothing at all,--when the law is concerned."
+
+"And he has defamed his own wife."
+
+"That was done many years ago."
+
+"For a fixed purpose, and not from passion," Dolly continued. "He is a
+thoroughly bad man. You have made his will for him, and now I would
+leave him." After that Mr. Grey declined for a second time to go. But at
+last he was persuaded.
+
+On the evening of his arrival he dined with Mountjoy and Merton, and on
+that occasion Miss Scarborough joined them. Of course there was much
+surmise as to the cause of this farther visit. Merton declared that, as
+he had acted as the sick man's private secretary, he was bound to keep
+his secret as far as he knew it. He only surmised what he believed to be
+the truth, but of that he could say nothing. Miss Scarborough was
+altogether in the dark. She, and she alone, spoke of her brother with
+respect, but in that she knew nothing.
+
+"I cannot tell what it is," said Mountjoy; "but I suspect it to be
+something intended for my benefit and for the utter ruin of Augustus."
+Miss Scarborough had now retired. "If it could be possible, I should
+think that he intended to declare that all he had said before was
+false." To this, however, Mr. Grey would not listen. He was very stout
+in denying the possibility of any reversion of the decision to which
+they had all come. Augustus was, undoubtedly, by law his father's eldest
+son. He had seen with his own eyes copies of the registry of the
+marriage, which Mr. Barry had gone across the Continent to make. And in
+that book his wife had signed her maiden name, according to the custom
+of the country. This had been done in the presence of the clergyman and
+of a gentleman,--a German, then residing on the spot, who had himself
+been examined, and had stated that the wedding, as a wedding, had been
+regular in all respects. He was since dead, but the clergyman who had
+married them was still alive. Within twelve months of that time Mr.
+Scarborough and his bride had arrived in England, and Augustus had been
+born. "Nothing but the most indisputable evidence would have sufficed to
+prove a fact by which you were so cruelly wronged," he said, addressing
+himself to Mountjoy. "And when your father told me that no wrong could
+be done to you, as the property was hopelessly in the hands of the Jews,
+I told him that, for all purposes of the law, the Jews were as dear to
+me as you were. I do say that nothing but the most certain facts would
+have convinced me. Such facts, when made certain, are immovable. If your
+father has any plot for robbing Augustus, he will find me as staunch a
+friend to Augustus as ever I have been to you." When he had so spoken
+they separated for the night, and his words had been so strong that they
+had altogether affected Mountjoy. If such were his father's intentions,
+it must be by some farther plot that he endeavored to carry it out: and
+in his father's plots he would put no trust whatever.
+
+And yet he declared his own purpose as he discussed the matter, late
+into the night, with Merton. "I cannot trust Grey at all, nor my father
+either, because I do not believe, as Grey believes, this story of the
+marriage. My father is so clever, and so resolute in his purpose to set
+aside all control over the property as arranged by law, that to my mind
+it has all been contrived by himself. Either Mr. Barry has been squared,
+or the German parson, or the foreign gentleman, or more probably all of
+them. Mr. Grey himself may have been squared, for all I know, though he
+is the kindest-hearted gentleman I ever came across. Anything shall be
+more probable to me than that I am not my father's eldest son." To all
+this Mr. Merton said very little, though no doubt he had his own ideas.
+
+The next morning the three gentlemen, with Mr. Grey's clerk, sat down to
+breakfast, solemn and silent. The clerk had been especially entreated to
+say nothing of what he had learned, and was therefore not questioned by
+his master. But in truth he had learned but little, having spent his
+time in the sorting and copying of letters which, though they all bore
+upon the subject in hand, told nothing of the real tale. Farther
+surmises were useless now, as at eleven o'clock Mr. Grey and Mr. Merton
+were to go up together to the squire's room. The clerk was to remain
+within call, but there would be no need of Mountjoy. "I suppose I may as
+well go to bed," said he, "or up to London, or anywhere." Mr. Grey very
+sententiously advised him at any rate not to go up to London.
+
+The hour came, and Mr. Grey, with Merton and the clerk, disappeared
+up-stairs. They were summoned by Miss Scarborough, who seemed to feel
+heavily the awful solemnity of the occasion. "I am sure he is going to
+do something very dreadful this time," she whispered to Mr. Grey, who
+seemed himself to be a little awe-struck, and did not answer her.
+
+At two o'clock they all met again at lunch and Mr. Grey was silent, and
+in truth very unhappy. Merton and the clerk were also silent, as was
+Miss Scarborough,--silent as death. She, indeed, knew nothing, but the
+other three knew as much as Mr. Scarborough could or would tell them.
+Mountjoy was there also, and in the middle of the meal broke out
+violently: "Why the mischief don't you tell me what it is that my father
+has said to you?"
+
+"Because I do not believe a word of his story," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Oh, Mr Grey!" ejaculated Miss Scarborough.
+
+"I do not believe a word of his story," repeated Mr. Grey. "Your
+father's intelligence is so high, and his principles so low, that there
+is no scheme which he does not think that he cannot carry out against
+the established laws of his country. His present tale is a made-up
+fable."
+
+"What do you say, Merton?" asked Mountjoy.
+
+"It looks to me to be true," said Merton. "But I am no lawyer."
+
+"Why don't you tell me what it is?" said Mountjoy.
+
+"I cannot tell you," said Grey, "though he commissioned me to do so.
+Greenwood there will tell you." Greenwood was the name of the clerk.
+"But I advise you to take him with you to your own room. And Mr. Merton
+would, I am sure, go with you. As for me, it would be impossible that I
+should do credit in the telling of it to a story of which I do not
+believe a single word."
+
+"Am I not to know?" asked Miss Scarborough, plaintively.
+
+"Your nephew will tell you," said Mr. Grey,--"or Mr. Merton; or Mr.
+Greenwood can do so, if he has permission from Mr. Scarborough. I would
+rather tell no one. It is to me incredible." With that he got up and
+walked away.
+
+"Now then, Merton," said Mountjoy, rising from his chair.
+
+"Upon my word I hardly know what to do," said Merton.
+
+"You must come and tell me this wonderful tale. I suppose that in some
+way it does affect my interests?"
+
+"It affects your interests very much."
+
+"Then I think I may say that I certainly shall believe it. My father at
+present would not wish to do me an injury. It must be told, so come
+along. Mr. Greenwood had better come also." Then he left the room, and
+the two men followed him. They went away to the smoking-room, leaving
+Mr. Grey with Miss Scarborough. "Am I to know nothing about it?" said
+Miss Scarborough.
+
+"Not from me, Miss Scarborough. You can understand, that I cannot tell
+you a story which will require at every word that I should explain my
+thorough disbelief in your brother. I have been very angry with him, and
+he has been more energetic than can have been good for him."
+
+"Ah me! you will have killed him among you!"
+
+"It has been his own doing. You, however, had better go to him. I must
+return to town this evening."
+
+"You will stay for dinner?"
+
+"No. I cannot stay for dinner. I cannot sit down with Mountjoy,--who has
+done nothing in the least wrong,--because I feel myself to be altogether
+opposed to his interests. I would rather be out of the house." So
+saying he did leave the house, and went back to London by train that
+afternoon.
+
+The meeting that morning, which had been very stormy, cannot be given
+word by word. From the moment in which the squire had declared his
+purpose, the lawyer had expressed his disbelief in all that was said to
+him. This Mr. Scarborough had at first taken very kindly; but Mr. Grey
+clung to his purpose with a pertinacity which had at last beaten down
+the squire's good-humor, and had called for the interference of Mr.
+Merton. "How can I be quiet?" the squire had said, "when he tells me
+everything I say is a lie?"
+
+"It is a lie!" said Mr. Grey, who had lost all control of himself.
+
+"You should not say that, Mr. Grey," said Merton.
+
+"He should spare a man on his death-bed, who is endeavoring to do his
+duty by his children," said the man who thus declared himself to be
+dying.
+
+"I will go away," said Mr. Grey, rising. "He has forced me to come here
+against my will, and has known,--must have known,--that I should tell him
+what I thought. Even though a man be dying, a man cannot accept what he
+says on a matter of business such as this unless he believe him. I must
+tell him that I believe him or that I do not. I disbelieve the whole
+story, and will not act upon it as though I believed it." But even after
+this the meeting was continued, Mr. Grey consenting to sit there and to
+hear what was said to the end.
+
+The purport of Mr. Scarborough's story will probably have been
+understood by our readers. It was Mr. Scarborough's present intention to
+make it understood that the scheme intended for the disinheritance of
+Mountjoy had been false from the beginning to the end, and had been
+arranged, not for the injury of Mountjoy, but for the salvation of the
+estate from the hands of the Jews. Mountjoy would have lost nothing, as
+the property would have gone entirely to the Jews had Mr. Scarborough
+then died, and Mountjoy been taken as his legitimate heir. He was not
+anxious, he had declared, to say anything on the present occasion in
+defence of his conduct in that respect. He would soon be gone, and he
+would leave men to judge him who might do so the more honestly when they
+should have found that he had succeeded in paying even the Jews in full
+the moneys which they had actually advanced. But now things were again
+changed, and he was bound to go back to the correct order of things.
+
+"No!" shouted Mr. Grey.
+
+"To the correct order of things," he went on. Mountjoy Scarborough was,
+he declared, undoubtedly legitimate. And then he made Merton and the
+clerk bring forth all the papers, as though he had never brought forth
+any papers to prove the other statement to Mr. Grey. And he did expect
+Mr. Grey to believe them. Mr. Grey simply put them all back,
+metaphorically, with his hand. There had been two marriages, absolutely
+prepared with the intent of enabling him at some future time to upset
+the law altogether, if it should seem good to him to do so.
+
+"And your wife?" shouted Mr. Grey.
+
+"Dear woman! She would have done anything that I told her,--unless I had
+told her to do what was absolutely wrong."
+
+"Not wrong!"
+
+"Well, you know what I mean. She was the purest and best of women." Then
+he went on with his tale. There had been two marriages, and he now
+brought forth all the evidence of the former marriage. It had taken
+place in a remote town, a village in the northern part of Prussia,
+whither she had been taken by her mother to join him. The two ladies had
+both been since long dead. He had been laid up at the little Prussian
+town under the plea of a bad leg. He did not scruple to say now that the
+bad leg had been pretence, and a portion of his scheme. The law, he
+thought, in endeavoring to make arrangements for his property,--the
+property which should have been his own,--had sinned so greatly as to
+drive a wise man to much scheming. He had begun scheming early in the
+business. But for his bad leg the old lady would not have brought her
+daughter to be married at so out-of-the-way a place as Rummelsburg, in
+Pomerania. He had travelled about and found Rummelsburg peculiarly
+fitted for his enterprise. There was a most civil old Lutheran clergyman
+there, to whom he had made himself peculiarly acceptable. He had now
+certified copies of the registry at Rummelsburg, which left no loop-hole
+for doubt. But he had felt that probably no inquiry would have been made
+about what had been done thirty years ago at Rummelsburg, had he himself
+desired to be silent on the subject. "There will be no difficulty," he
+said, "in making the Rummelsburg marriage known to all the world."
+
+"I think there will;--very great difficulty," Mr. Grey had said.
+
+"Not the least. But when I had to be married in the light of day, after
+Mountjoy's birth, at Nice, in Italy, then there was the difficulty. It
+had to be done in the light of day; and that little traveller with his
+nurse were with us. Nice was in Italy then, and some contrivance was, I
+assure you, necessary. But it was done, and I have always had with me
+the double sets of certificates. As things have turned up, I have had to
+keep Mr. Grey altogether in the dark as regards Rummelsburg. It was very
+difficult; but I have succeeded."
+
+That Mr. Grey should have been almost driven to madness by such an
+outrage as this was a matter of course. But he preferred to believe that
+Rummelsburg, and not Nice, was the myth. "How did your wife travel with
+you during the whole of that year?" he had asked.
+
+"As Mrs. Scarborough, no doubt. But we had been very little in society,
+and the world at large seemed willing to believe almost anything of me
+that was wrong. However, there's the Rummelsburg marriage, and if you
+send to Rummelsburg you'll find that it's all right,--a little white
+church up a corner, with a crooked spire. The old clergyman is, no
+doubt, dead, but I should imagine that they would keep their registers."
+Then he explained how he had travelled about the world with the two sets
+of certificates, and had made the second public when his object had been
+to convert Augustus into his eldest son. Many people then had been found
+who had remembered something of the marriage at Nice, and remembered to
+have remembered something at the time of having been in possession of
+some secret as to the lady. But Rummelsburg had been kept quite in the
+dark. Now it was necessary that a strong light should be thrown on the
+absolute legality of the Rummelsburg marriage.
+
+He declared that he had more than once made up his mind to destroy those
+Rummelsburg documents, but had always been deterred by the reflection
+that, when they were once gone, they could not be brought back again. "I
+had always intended," he had said, "to burn the papers the last thing
+before my death. But as I learned Augustus's character, I made quite
+certain by causing them to be sealed up in a parcel addressed to him, so
+that if I had died by accident they might have fallen into proper hands.
+But I see now the wickedness of my project, and, therefore, I give them
+over to Mr. Grey." So saying he tendered the parcel to the attorney.
+
+Mr. Grey, of course, refused to take, or even to touch, the Rummelsburg
+parcel. He then prepared to leave the room, declaring it would be his
+duty to act on the part of Augustus, should Augustus be pleased to
+accept his services. But Mr. Scarborough, almost with tears, implored
+him to change his purpose. "Why should you set two brothers by the
+ears?" At this Mr. Grey only shook his head incredulously. "And why ruin
+the property without an object?"
+
+"The property will come to ruin."
+
+"Not if you will take the matter up in the proper spirit. But if you
+determine to drive one brother to hostility against the other, and
+promote unnecessary litigation, of course the lawyers will get it all."
+Then Mr. Grey left the room, boiling with anger in that he, with his
+legal knowledge and determination to do right, had been so utterly
+thrown aside; while Mr. Scarborough sank exhausted by the effort he had
+gone through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+MR. GREY'S REMORSE.
+
+
+Mr. Grey's feeling, as he returned home, was chiefly one of
+self-reproach; so that, though he persisted in not believing the story
+which had been told to him, he did, in truth, believe it. He believed,
+at any rate, in Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough had determined that the
+property should go hither and thither according to his will, without
+reference to the established laws of the land, and had carried, and
+would carry his purpose. His object had been to save his estate from the
+hands of those harpies, the money-lenders; and as far as he was
+concerned he would have saved it.
+
+He had, in fact, forced the money-lenders to lend their money without
+interest and without security, and then to consent to accept their
+principal when it was offered to them. No one could say but that the
+deed when done was a good deed. But this man in doing it had driven his
+coach and horses through all the laws, which were to Mr. Grey as Holy
+Writ; and, in thus driving his coach and horses, he had forced Mr. Grey
+to sit upon the box and hold the reins. Mr. Grey had thought himself to
+be a clever man,--at least a well-instructed man; but Mr. Scarborough had
+turned him round his finger, this way and that way, just as he had
+pleased.
+
+Mr. Grey when, in his rage, he had given the lie to Mr. Scarborough had,
+no doubt, spoken as he had believed at that moment. To him the new
+story must have sounded like a lie, as he had been driven to accept the
+veritable lie as real truth. He had looked into all the circumstances of
+the marriage at Nice, and had accepted it. He had sent his partner over,
+and had picked up many incidental confirmations. That there had been a
+marriage at Nice between Mr. Scarborough and the mother of Augustus was
+certain. He had traced back Mr. Scarborough's movements before the
+marriage, and could not learn where the lady had joined him who
+afterward became his wife; but it had become manifest to him that she
+had travelled with him, bearing his name. But in Vienna Mr. Barry had
+learned that Mr. Scarborough had called the lady by her maiden name. He
+might have learned that he had done so very often at other places; but
+it had all been done in preparation for the plot in hand,--as had scores
+of other little tricks which have not cropped up to the surface in this
+narrative.
+
+Mr. Scarborough's whole life had been passed in arranging tricks for the
+defeat of the law; and it had been his great glory so to arrange them as
+to make it impossible that the law should touch him. Mountjoy had
+declared that he had been defrauded. The creditors swore, with many
+oaths, that they had been horribly cheated by this man. Augustus, no
+doubt, would so swear very loudly. No man could swear more loudly
+than did Mr. Grey as he left the squire's chamber after this last
+revelation. But there was no one who could punish him. The money-lenders
+had no writing under his hand. Had Mountjoy been born without a
+marriage-ceremony it would have been very wicked, but the vengeance of
+the law would not have reached him. If you deceive your attorney with
+false facts he cannot bring you before the magistrates. Augustus had
+been the most injured of all; but a son, though he may bring an action
+against his father for bigamy, cannot summon him before any tribunal
+because he has married his mother twice over. These were Mr.
+Scarborough's death-bed triumphs; but they were very sore upon Mr. Grey.
+
+On his journey back to town, as he turned the facts over more coolly in
+his mind, he began to fear that he saw a glimmer of the truth. Before he
+reached London he almost thought that Mountjoy would be the heir. He had
+not brought a scrap of paper away with him, having absolutely refused to
+touch the documents offered to him. He certainly would not be employed
+again either by Mr. Scarborough or on behalf of his estate or his
+executors. He had threatened that he would take up the cudgels on
+behalf of Augustus, and had felt at the moment that he was bound to do
+so, because, as he had then thought, Augustus had the right cause. But
+as that idea crumbled away from him, Augustus and his affairs became
+more and more distasteful to him. After all, it ought to be wished that
+Mountjoy should become the elder son,--even Mountjoy, the incurable
+gambler. It was terrible to Mr. Grey that the old, fixed arrangement
+should be unfixed, and certainly there was nothing in the character of
+Augustus to reconcile him to such a change.
+
+But he was a very unhappy man when he put himself into a cab to be
+carried down to Fulham. How much better would it have been for him had
+he taken his daughter's advice, and persistently refused to make this
+last journey to Tretton! He would have to acknowledge to his daughter
+that Mr. Scarborough had altogether got the better of him, and his
+unhappiness would consist in the bitterness of that acknowledgment.
+
+But when he reached the Manor House his daughter met him with news of
+her own which for the moment kept his news in abeyance. "Oh, papa," she
+said, "I am so glad you've come!" He had sent her a telegram to say that
+he was coming. "Just when I got your message I was frightened out of my
+life. Who do you think was here with me?"
+
+"How am I to think, my dear?"
+
+"Mr. Juniper."
+
+"Who on earth is Mr. Juniper?" he asked. "Oh, I remember;--Amelia's
+lover."
+
+"Do you mean to say you forgot Mr. Juniper? I never shall forget him.
+What a horrid man he is!"
+
+"I never saw Mr. Juniper in my life. What did he want of you?"
+
+"He says you have ruined him utterly. He came here about two o'clock,
+and found me at work in the garden. He made his way in through the open
+gate, and would not be sent back though one of the girls told him that
+there was nobody at home. He had seen me, and I could not turn him out,
+of course."
+
+"What did he say to you? Was he impudent?"
+
+"He did not insult me, if you mean that; but he was impudent in not
+going away, and I could not get rid of him for an hour. He says that you
+have doubly ruined him."
+
+"As how?"
+
+"You would not let Amelia have the fortune that you promised her; and I
+think his object now was to get the fortune without the girl. And he
+said, also, that he had lent five hundred pounds to your Captain
+Scarborough."
+
+"He is not my Captain Scarborough."
+
+"And that when you were settling the captain's debts his was the only
+one you would not pay in full."
+
+"He is a rogue,--an arrant rogue!"
+
+"But he says that he's got the captain's name to the five hundred
+pounds; and he means to get it some of these days, now that the captain
+and his father are friends again. The long and the short of it is, that
+he wants five hundred pounds by hook or by crook, and that he thinks you
+ought to let him have it."
+
+"He'll get it, or the greater part of it. There's no doubt he'll get it
+if he has got the captain's name. If I remember right, the captain did
+sign a note for him to that amount,--and he'll get the money if he has
+stuck to it."
+
+"Do you mean that Captain Scarborough would pay all his debts?"
+
+"He will have to pay that one, because it was not included in the
+schedule. What do you think has turned up now?"
+
+"Some other scheme?"
+
+"It is all scheming,--base, false scheming,--to have been concerned with
+which will be a disgrace to my name forever!"
+
+"Oh, papa!"
+
+"Yes; forever! He has told me, now, that Mountjoy is his true,
+legitimate, eldest son. He declares that that story which I have
+believed for the last eight months has been altogether false, and made
+out of his own brain to suit his own purposes. In order to enable him to
+defraud these money-lenders he used a plot which he had concocted long
+since, and boldly declared Augustus to be his heir. He made me believe
+it; and because I believed it, even those greedy, grasping men, who
+would not have given up a tithe of their prey to save the whole family,
+even they believed it too. Now, at the very point of death, he comes
+forward with perfect coolness, and tells me that the whole story was a
+plot made out of his own head."
+
+"Do you believe him now?"
+
+"I became very wroth, and said that it was a lie! I did think that it
+was a lie. I did flatter myself that in a matter concerning my own
+business, and in which I was bound to look after the welfare of others,
+he could not have so deceived me; but I find myself as a child--as a
+baby--in his hands."
+
+"Then you do believe him now?"
+
+"I am afraid so. I will never see him again, if it be possible for me to
+avoid him. He has treated me as no one should have treated his enemy,
+let alone a faithful friend. He must have scoffed and scorned at me
+merely because I had faith in his word. Who could have thought of a man
+laying his plots so deeply,--arranging for twenty years past the frauds
+which he has now executed? For thirty years, or nearly, his mind has
+been busy on these schemes, and on others, no doubt, which he has not
+thought it necessary to execute, and has used me in them simply as a
+machine. It is impossible that I should forgive him."
+
+"And what will be the end of it?" she asked.
+
+"Who can say? But this is clear. He has utterly destroyed my character
+as a lawyer."
+
+"No. Nothing of the kind."
+
+"And it will be well if he have not done so as a man. Do you think that
+when people hear that these changes have been made with my assistance
+they will stop to unravel it all, and to see that I have been only a
+fool and not a knave? Can I explain under what stress of entreaty I went
+down there on this last occasion?"
+
+"Papa, you were quite right to go. He was your old friend, and he was
+dying."
+
+Even for this he was grateful. "Who will judge me as you do,--you who
+persuaded me that I should not have gone? See how the world will use my
+name! He has made me a party to each of his frauds. He disinherited
+Mountjoy, and he forced me to believe the evidence he brought. Then,
+when Mountjoy was nobody, he half paid the creditors by means of my
+assistance."
+
+"They got all they were entitled to get."
+
+"No; till the law had decided against them, they were entitled to their
+bonds. But they, ruffians though they are, had advanced so much hard
+money, and I was anxious that they should get their hard money back
+again. But unless Mountjoy had been illegitimate,--so as to be capable of
+inheriting nothing,--they would have been cheated; and they have been
+cheated. Will it be possible that I should make them or make others
+think that I have had nothing to do with it? And Augustus, who will be
+open-mouthed,--what will he say against me? In every turn and double of
+the man's crafty mind I shall be supposed to have turned and doubled
+with him. I do not mind telling the truth about myself to you."
+
+"I should hope not."
+
+"The light that has guided me through my professional life has been a
+love of the law. As far as my small powers have gone, I have wished to
+preserve it intact. I am sure that the Law and Justice may be made to
+run on all-fours. I have been so proud of my country as to make that the
+rule of my life. The chance has brought me into the position of having
+for a client a man the passion of whose life has been the very reverse.
+Who would not say that for an attorney to have such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough, of Tretton, for his client, was not a feather in his cap?
+But I have found him to be not only fraudulent, but too clever for me.
+In opposition to myself he has carried me into his paths."
+
+"He has never induced you to do anything that was wrong."
+
+"'Nil conscire sibi;' that ought to be enough for a simple man. But it
+is not enough for me. It cannot be enough for a man who intends to act
+as an attorney for others. Others must know it as well as I myself. You
+know it. But can I remain an attorney for you only? There are some of
+whom just the other thing is known; but then they look for work of the
+other kind. I have never put up a shop-board for sharp practice. After
+this the sharpest kind of practice will be all that I shall seem to be
+fit for. It isn't the money. I can retire with enough for your wants and
+for mine. If I could retire amid the good words of men I should be
+happy. But, even if I retire, men will say that I have filled my pockets
+with plunder from Tretton."
+
+"That will never be said."
+
+"Were I to publish an account of the whole affair,--which I am bound in
+honor not to do,--explaining it all from beginning to end, people would
+only say that I was endeavoring to lay the whole weight of the guilt
+upon my confederate who was dead. Why did he pick me out for such
+usage,--me who have been so true to him?"
+
+There was something almost weak, almost feminine in the tone of Mr.
+Grey's complaints. But to Dolly they were neither feminine nor weak. To
+her her father's grief was true and well-founded; but for herself in her
+own heart there was some joy to be drawn from it. How would it have been
+with her if the sharp practice had been his, and the success? What would
+have been her state of mind had she known her father to have conceived
+these base tricks? Or what would have been her condition had her father
+been of such a kind as to have taught her that the doing of such tricks
+should be indifferent to her? To have been high above them all,--for him
+and for her,--was not that everything? And was she not sure that the
+truth would come to light at last? And if not here, would not the truth
+come to light elsewhere where light would be of more avail than here?
+Such was the consolation with which Dolly consoled herself.
+
+On the next two days Mr. Grey went to his chambers and returned, without
+any new word as to Mr. Scarborough and his affairs. One day he did bring
+back some tidings as to Juniper. "Juniper has got into some row about a
+horse," he said, "and is, I fear, in prison. All the same, he'll get his
+five hundred pounds; and if he knew that fact it would help him."
+
+"I can't tell him, papa. I don't know where he lives."
+
+"Perhaps Carroll could do so."
+
+"I never speak to Mr. Carroll. And I would not willingly mention
+Juniper's name to my aunt or to either of the girls. It will be better
+to let Juniper go on in his row."
+
+"With all my heart," said Mr. Grey. And then there was an end of that.
+
+On the next morning, the fourth after his return from Tretton, Mr. Grey
+received a letter from Mountjoy Scarborough. "He was sure," he said,
+"that Mr. Grey would be sorry to hear that his father had been very weak
+since Mr. Grey had gone, and unable even to see him, Mountjoy, for more
+than two or three minutes at a time. He was afraid that all would soon
+be over; but he and everybody around the squire had been surprised to
+find how cheerful and high-spirited he was. It seems," wrote Mountjoy,
+"as though he had nothing to regret, either as regards this world or the
+next. He has no remorse, and certainly no fear. Nothing, I think, could
+make him angry, unless the word repentance were mentioned to him. To me
+and to his sister he is unwontedly affectionate; but Augustus's name has
+not crossed his lips since you left the house." Then he went on to the
+matter as to which his letter had been written. "What am I to do when
+all is over with him? It is natural that I should come to you for
+advice. I will promise nothing about myself, but I trust that I may not
+return to the gambling-table. If I have this property to manage, I may
+be able to remain down here without going up to London. But shall I have
+the property to manage? and what steps am I to take with the view of
+getting it? Of course I shall have to encounter opposition, but I do
+not think that you will be one of those to oppose me. I presume that I
+shall be left here in possession, and that, they say, is nine points of
+the law. In the usual way I ought, I presume, simply to do nothing, but
+merely to take possession. The double story about the two marriages
+ought to count for nothing,--and I should be as though no such plots had
+ever been hatched. But they have been hatched, and other people know of
+them. The creditors, I presume, can do nothing. You have all the bonds
+in your possession. They may curse and swear, but will, I imagine, have
+no power. I doubt whether they have a morsel of ground on which to raise
+a lawsuit; for whether I or Augustus be the eldest son, their claims
+have been satisfied in full. But I presume that Augustus will not sit
+quiet. What ought I to do in regard to him? As matters stand at present
+he will not get a shilling. I fear my father is too ill to make another
+will. But at any rate he will make none in favor of Augustus. Pray tell
+me what I ought to do; and tell me whether you can send any one down to
+assist me when my father shall have gone."
+
+"I will meddle no farther with anything in which the name of Scarborough
+is concerned." Such had been Mr. Grey's first assertion when he received
+Mountjoy's letter. He would write to him and tell him that, after what
+had passed, there could be nothing of business transacted between him
+and his father's estate. Nor was he in the position to give any advice
+on the subjects mooted. He would wash his hands of it altogether. But,
+as he went home, he thought over the matter and told himself that it
+would be impossible for him thus to repudiate the name. He would
+undertake no lawsuit either on behalf of Augustus or of Mountjoy. But he
+must answer Mountjoy's letter, and tender him some advice.
+
+During the long hours of the subsequent night he discussed the whole
+matter with his daughter, and the upshot of his discussion was
+this:--that he would withdraw his name from the business, and leave Mr.
+Barry to manage it. Mr. Barry might then act for either party as he
+pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+SCARBOROUGH'S REVENGE.
+
+
+All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus
+Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first
+perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to
+the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so
+that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him,
+his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now
+intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the
+house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon
+it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
+
+He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence,
+and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and
+therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been
+right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the
+possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible
+impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right
+then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long.
+However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make
+up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would
+have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would
+take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he
+consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
+
+How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were
+probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire
+was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some
+confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The
+tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His
+belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been
+unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief
+as the creditors had taken their money,--less than a third of what would
+have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their
+full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a
+people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation.
+But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own
+father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out
+to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
+
+But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such
+event he would be altogether ruined,--a penniless adventurer with his
+profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got
+together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,--a sprat thrown out to
+catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left
+to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against
+him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected
+that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been
+capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so
+inveterate as his father's for him.
+
+He received news also from Tretton that his father was not now expected
+by any one to live long.
+
+"It may be a week, the doctors say, and it is hardly possible that he
+should remain alive for another month." Such was the news which reached
+him from his own emissary at Tretton. What had he better do in the
+emergency of the moment?
+
+There was only one possibly effective step that he could take. He might,
+of course, remain tranquil, and accept what chance might give him, when
+his father should have died. But he might at once go down to Tretton and
+demand an interview with the dying man. He did not think that his
+father, even on his death-bed, would refuse to see him. His father's
+pluck was indomitable, and he thought that he could depend on his own
+pluck. At any rate he resolved that he would immediately go to Tretton
+and take his chance. He reached the house about the middle of the day,
+and at once sent his name up to his father. Miss Scarborough was sitting
+by her brother's bedside, and from time to time was reading to him a few
+words. "Augustus!" he said, as soon as the servant had left the room.
+"What does Augustus want with me? The last time he saw me he bade me die
+out of hand if I wished to retrieve the injury I had done him."
+
+"Do not think of that now, John," his sister said.
+
+"As God is my judge, I will think of it to the last moment. Words such
+as those spoken, by a son to his father, demand a little thought. Were I
+to tell you that I did not think of them, would you not know that I was
+a hypocrite?"
+
+"You need not speak of them, John."
+
+"Not unless he came here to harass my last moments. I strove to do very
+much for him;--you know with what return. Mountjoy has been, at any rate,
+honest and straightforward; and, considering all things, not lacking in
+respect. I shall, at any rate, have some pleasure in letting Augustus
+know the state of my mind."
+
+"What shall I say to him?" his sister asked.
+
+"Tell him that he had better go back to London. I have tried them both,
+as few sons can be tried by their father, and I know them now. Tell him,
+with my compliments, that it will be better for him not to see me. There
+can be nothing pleasant said between us. I have no communication to make
+to him which could in the least interest him."
+
+But before night came the squire had been talked over, and had agreed to
+see his son. "The interview will be easy enough for me," he had said,
+"but I cannot imagine what he will get from me. But let him come as he
+will."
+
+Augustus spent much of the intervening time in discussing the matter
+with his aunt. But not a word on the subject was spoken by him to
+Mountjoy, whom he met at dinner, and with whom he spent the evening in
+company with Mr. Merton. The two hours after dinner were melancholy
+enough. The three adjourned to the smoking-room, and sat there almost
+without conversation. A few words were said about the hunting, but
+Mountjoy had not hunted this winter. There were a few also of greater
+interest about the shooting. The shooting was of course still the
+property of the old man, and in the early months had, without many words
+spoken, become, as it were, an appanage of the condition of life to
+which Augustus aspired; but of late Mountjoy had assumed the command.
+"You found plenty of pheasants here, I suppose," Augustus remarked.
+
+"Well, yes; not too many. I didn't trouble myself much about it. When I
+saw a pheasant I shot it. I've been a little troubled in spirit, you
+know."
+
+"Gambling again, I heard."
+
+"That didn't trouble me much. Merton can tell you that we've had a
+sick-house."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Merton. "It hasn't seemed to be a time in which a
+man would think very much of his pheasants."
+
+"I don't know why," said Augustus, who was determined not to put up with
+the rebuke implied in the doctor's words. After that there was nothing
+more said between them till they all went to their separate apartments.
+"Don't contradict him," his aunt said to him the next morning, "and if
+he reprimands you, acknowledge that you have been wrong."
+
+"That's hard, when I haven't been wrong."
+
+"But so much depends upon it; and he is so stern. Of course, I wish well
+for both of you. There is plenty enough,--plenty; if only you could agree
+together."
+
+"But the injustice of his treatment. Is it true that he now declares
+Mountjoy to be the eldest son?"
+
+"I believe so. I do not know, but I believe it."
+
+"Think of what his conduct has been to me. And then you tell me that I
+am to own that I have been wrong! In what have I been wrong?"
+
+"He is your father, and I suppose you have said hard words to him."
+
+"Did I rebuke him because he had fraudulently kept me for so many years
+in the position of a younger son? Did I not forgive him that iniquity?"
+
+"But he says you are a younger son."
+
+"This last move," he said, with great passion, "has only been made in an
+attempt to punish me, because I would not tell him that I was under a
+world of obligations to him for simply declaring the truth as to my
+birth. We cannot both be his eldest son."
+
+"No, certainly, not both."
+
+"At last he declared that I was his heir. If I did say hard words to
+him, were they not justified?"
+
+"Not to your father," said Miss Scarborough, shaking her head.
+
+"That is your idea? How was I to abstain? Think what had been done to
+me. Through my whole life he had deceived me, and had attempted to rob
+me."
+
+"But he says that he had intended to get the property for you."
+
+"To get it! It was mine. According to what he said it was my own. He had
+robbed me to give it to Mountjoy. Now he intends to rob me again in
+order that Mountjoy may have it. He will leave such a kettle of fish
+behind him, with all his manoeuvring, that neither of us will be the
+better of Tretton."
+
+Then he went to the squire. In spite of what had passed between him and
+his aunt, he had thought deeply of his conduct to his father in the
+past, and of the manner in which he would now carry himself. He was
+aware that he had behaved,--not badly, for that he esteemed nothing,--but
+most unwisely. When he had found himself to be the heir to Tretton he
+had fancied himself to be almost the possessor, and had acted on the
+instincts which on such a case would have been natural to him. To have
+pardoned the man because he was his father, and then to have treated him
+with insolent disdain, as some dying old man, almost entirely beneath
+his notice, was what he felt the nature of the circumstances demanded.
+And whether the story was true or false it would have been the same. He
+had come at last to believe it to be true, and had therefore been the
+more resolute; but, whether it were true or false, the old man had
+struck his blow, and he must abide by it. Till the moment came in which
+he had received that communication from Tretton, the idea had never
+occurred to him that another disposition of the property might still be
+within his father's power. But he had little known the old man's power,
+or the fertility of his resources, or the extent of his malice. "After
+what you have done you should cease to stay and disturb us," he had once
+said, when his father had jokingly alluded to his own death. He had at
+once repented, and had felt that such a speech had been iniquitous as
+coming from a son. But his father had, at the moment, expressed no deep
+animosity. Some sarcastic words had fallen from him of which Augustus
+had not understood the bitterness. But he had remembered it since, and
+was now not so much surprised at his father's wish to injure him as at
+his power.
+
+But could he have any such power? Mr. Grey, he knew, was on his side,
+and Mr. Grey was a thorough lawyer. All the world was on his side,--all
+the world having been instructed to think and to believe that Mr.
+Scarborough had not been married till after Mountjoy was born. All the
+world had been much surprised, and would be unwilling to encounter
+another blow. Should he go into his father's room altogether penitent,
+or should he hold up his head and justify himself?
+
+One thing was brought home to him, by thinking, as a matter of which he
+might be convinced. No penitence could now avail him anything. He had at
+any rate by this time looked sufficiently into his father's character to
+be sure that he would not forgive such an offence as had been his. Any
+vice, any extravagance, almost any personal neglect, would have been
+pardoned. "I have so brought him up," the father would have said, "and
+the fault must be counted as my own." But his son had deliberately
+expressed a wish for his father's death, and had expressed it in his
+father's presence. He had shown not only neglect, which may arise at a
+distance, and may not be absolutely intentional; but these words had
+been said with the purpose of wounding, and were, and would be,
+unpardonable. Augustus, as he went along the corridor to his father's
+room, determined that he would at any rate not be penitent.
+
+"Well, sir, how do you find yourself?" he said, walking in briskly and
+putting out his hand to his father. The old man languidly gave his hand,
+but only smiled. "I hear of you, though not from you, and they tell me
+that you have not been quite so strong of late."
+
+"I shall soon cease to stay and trouble you," said the squire, with
+affected weakness, in a voice hardly above a whisper, using the very
+words which Augustus had spoken.
+
+"There have been some moments between us, sir, which have been,
+unfortunately, unpleasant."
+
+"And yet I have done so much to make them pleasant to you! I should have
+thought that the offer of all Tretton would have gone for much with
+you."
+
+Augustus was again taken in. There was a piteous whine about his
+father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
+depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
+it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
+the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
+spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
+truer insight to his father's character.
+
+"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
+much."
+
+"Circumstances?"
+
+"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."
+
+"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."
+
+"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
+feeling, I regret it."
+
+"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
+hypocrisy, at any rate."
+
+"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."
+
+"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."
+
+"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
+driven to say what I did not feel."
+
+"Certainly not to me."
+
+"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite
+know of what I am accused."
+
+"Of nothing. There is no accusation at all."
+
+"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to
+Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."
+
+"Yes, poor boy!--when I found that you had turned him out."
+
+"I never turned him out,--not till your house was open to receive him."
+
+"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"
+
+"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one
+else to give him a shilling."
+
+"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have
+done him good."
+
+"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He
+was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."
+
+"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place.
+As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the
+sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his
+son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of
+victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You
+wouldn't have them separated, would you?"
+
+"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."
+
+"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr.
+Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere
+with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil. Mountjoy is the
+eldest son, you know."
+
+"I know nothing of the kind."
+
+"Oh dear, no! there is no question at all as to the date of my marriage
+with your mother. We were married in quite a straightforward way at
+Rummelsburg. When I wanted to save the property from those harpies, I
+was surprised to find how easily I managed it. Grey was a little soft
+there: an excellent man, but too credulous for a lawyer."
+
+"I do not believe a word of it."
+
+"You'll find it all go as naturally as possible when I have ceased to
+stay and be troublesome. But one thing I must say in your favor."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I never could have managed it all unless you had consented to that
+payment of the creditors. Indeed, I must say, that was chiefly your own
+doing. When you first suggested it, I saw what a fine thing you were
+contriving for your brother. I should think, after that, of leaving it
+all so that you need not find out the truth when I am dead. I do think
+I had so managed it that you would have had the property. Mountjoy, who
+has some foolish feeling about his mother, and who is obstinate as a
+pig, would have fought it out; but I had so contrived that you would
+have had it. I had sealed up every document referring to the Rummelsburg
+marriage, and had addressed them all to you. I couldn't have made it
+safer, could I?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean."
+
+"You would have been enabled to destroy every scrap of the evidence
+which will be wanted to prove your brother's legitimacy. Had I burned
+the papers I could not have put them more beyond poor Mountjoy's reach.
+Now they are quite safe in Mr. Grey's office; his clerk took them away
+with him. I would not leave them here with Mountjoy because,--well,--you
+might come, and he might be murdered!" Now Mr. Scarborough had had his
+revenge.
+
+"You think you have done your duty," said Augustus.
+
+"I do not care two straws about doing my duty, young man." Here Mr.
+Scarborough raised himself in part, and spoke in that strong voice which
+was supposed to be so deleterious to him. "Or rather, in seeking my
+duty, I look beyond the conventionalities of the world. I think that you
+have behaved damnably, and that I have punished you. Because of
+Mountjoy's weakness, because he had been knocked off his legs, I
+endeavored to put you upon yours. You at once turned upon me, when you
+thought the deed was done, and bade me go--and bury myself. You were a
+little too quick in your desire to become the owner of Tretton Park at
+once. I have stayed long enough to give some farther trouble. You will
+not say, after this, that I am _non compos_, and unable to make a will.
+You will find that, under mine, not one penny-piece, not one scrap of
+property, will become yours. Mountjoy will take care of you, I do not
+doubt. He must hate you, but will recognize you as his brother. I am not
+so soft-hearted and will not recognize you as my son. Now you may go
+away." So saying, he turned himself round to the wall, and refused to be
+induced to utter another word. Augustus began to speak, but when he had
+commenced his second sentence the old man rung his bell. "Mary," said he
+to his sister, "will you have the goodness to get Augustus to go away? I
+am very weak, and if he remains he will be the death of me. He can't get
+anything by killing me at once; it is too late for that."
+
+Then Augustus did leave the room, and before the night came had left
+Tretton also. He presumed there was nothing for him to do there. One
+word he did say to Mountjoy,--"You will understand, Mountjoy, that when
+our father is dead Tretton will not become your property."
+
+"I shall understand nothing of the kind," said Mountjoy "but I suppose
+Mr. Grey will tell me what I am to do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+MR. PROSPER SHOWS HIS GOOD-NATURE.
+
+
+While these things were going on at Tretton, and while Mr. Scarborough
+was making all arrangements for the adequate disposition of his
+property,--in doing which he had happily come to the conclusion that
+there was no necessity for interfering with what the law had
+settled,--Mr. Prosper was lying very ill at Buston, and was endeavoring
+on his sick-bed to reconcile himself to what the entail had done for
+him. There could be no other heir to him but Harry Annesley. As he
+thought of the unmarried ladies of his acquaintance, he found that there
+was no one who would have done for him but Miss Puffle and Matilda
+Thoroughbung. All others were too young or too old, or chiefly
+penniless. Miss Puffle would have been the exact thing--only for that
+intruding farmer's son.
+
+As he lay there alone in his bedroom his mind used to wander a little,
+and he would send for Matthew, his butler, and hold confidential
+discussions with him. "I never did think, sir, that Miss Thoroughbung
+was exactly the lady," said Matthew.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, sir, there is a saying--But you'll excuse me."
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"There is a saying as how 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's
+ear.'"
+
+"I've heard that."
+
+"Just so, sir. Now, Miss Thoroughbung is a very nice lady."
+
+"I don't think she's a nice lady at all."
+
+"But--Of course it's not becoming in me to speak against my betters, and
+as a menial servant I never would."
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung is--"
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Well;--she is a sow's ear. Ain't she, now? The servants here never
+would have looked upon her as a silk purse."
+
+"Wouldn't they?"
+
+"Never! She has a way with her just as though she didn't care for silk
+purses. And it's my mind, sir, that she don't. She wishes, however, to
+be uppermost, and if she had come here she'd have said so."
+
+"That can never be. Thank God, that can never be!"
+
+"Oh, no! Brewers is brewers, and must be. There's Mr. Joe--He's very
+well, no doubt."
+
+"I haven't the pleasure of his acquaintance."
+
+"Him as is to marry Miss Molly. But Miss Molly ain't the head of the
+family; is she, sir?" Here the squire shook his head. "You're the head
+of the family, sir."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And is--I might make so bold as to speak?"
+
+"Go on, Matthew."
+
+"Miss Thoroughbung would be a little out of place at Buston Hall. Now,
+as to Miss Puffle--"
+
+"Miss Puffle is a lady,--or was."
+
+"No doubt, sir. The Puffles is not quite equal to the Prospers, as I can
+hear. But the Puffles is ladies--and gentlemen. The servants below all
+give it up to them that they're real gentlefolk. But--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She demeaned herself terribly with young Tazlehurst. They all said as
+there were more where that came from."
+
+"What should they mean by that?"
+
+"She'd indulge in low 'abits,--such as never would have been put up with
+at Buston Hall,--a-cursing and a-swearing--"
+
+"Miss Puffle!"
+
+"Not herself,--I don't say that; but it's like enough if you 'ad heard
+all. But them as lets others do it almost does it themselves. And them
+as lets others drink sperrrits o' mornings come nigh to having a dram
+down their own throats."
+
+"Oh laws!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper, thinking of the escape he had had.
+
+"You wouldn't have liked it, sir, if there had been a bottle of gin in
+the bedroom!" Here Mr. Prosper hid his face among the bedclothes. "It
+ain't all that comes silk out of the skein that does to make a purse
+of."
+
+There were difficulties in the pursuit of matrimony of which Mr. Prosper
+had not thought. His imagination at once pictured to himself a bride
+with a bottle of gin under her pillow, and he went on shivering till
+Matthew almost thought that he had been attacked by an ague-fit.
+
+"I shall give it up, at any rate," he said, after a pause.
+
+"Of course you're a young man, sir."
+
+"No, I'm not."
+
+"That is, not exactly young,"
+
+"You're an old fool to tell such lies!"
+
+"Of course I'm an old fool; but I endeavor to be veracious. I never
+didn't take a shilling as were yours, nor a shilling's worth, all the
+years I have known you, Mr. Prosper."
+
+"What has that to do with it? I'm not a young man."
+
+"What am I to say, sir? Shall I say as you are middle-aged?"
+
+"The truth is, Matthew, I'm worn out."
+
+"Then I wouldn't think of taking a wife."
+
+"Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear. I don't think I was
+intended to bear trouble."
+
+"'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,'" said Matthew.
+
+"I suppose so. But one man's luck is harder than another's. They've been
+too many for me, and I feel that I'm sinking under them. It's no good my
+thinking of marrying now."
+
+"That's what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool. Of course
+I am an old fool."
+
+"Do have done with it! Mr. Harry hasn't been exactly what he ought to
+have been to me."
+
+"He's a very comely young gentleman."
+
+"What has comely to do with it?"
+
+"Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet.
+You couldn't expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear
+sermons."
+
+"I don't expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at
+midnight."
+
+"It ain't that, sir."
+
+"I say it is that!"
+
+"Very well, sir. Only we've all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn't
+him as struck the first blow. It was all about a young lady."
+
+"I know what it was about."
+
+"A young lady as is a young lady."--This was felt to the quick by Mr.
+Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred
+Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the
+continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage
+which Harry might make, he passed over the slur upon himself for the
+sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.--"And
+when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he's not going
+to be braggydoshoed out of it."
+
+"Captain Scarborough knew her first."
+
+"First come first served isn't always the way with lovers. Mr. Harry was
+the conquering hero. 'Weni, widi, wici.'"
+
+"Halloo, Matthew!"
+
+"Them's the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he's
+got the better of a young lady's affections; and I dare say they're the
+very words as put the captain into such a towering passion. I can
+understand how it happened, just as if I saw it."
+
+"But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless."
+
+"He'd knocked his _weni, widi, wici_ out of him, I guess! I think, Mr.
+Prosper, you should forgive him." Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but
+had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger.
+But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one
+near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler,
+Matthew. "Suppose you was to send for him, sir."
+
+"He wouldn't come."
+
+"Let him alone for coming! They tell me, sir--"
+
+"Who tells you?"
+
+"Why, sir, the servants now at the rectory. Of course, sir, where two
+families is so near connected, the servants are just as near: it's no
+more than natural. They tell me now that since you were so kind about
+the allowance, their talk of you is all changed." Then the squire's
+anger was heated hot again. Their talk had all been against him till he
+had opened his hand in regard to the allowance. And now when there was
+something again to be got they could be civil. There was none of that
+love of him for himself for which an old man is always hankering,--for
+which the sick man breaks his heart,--but which the old and sick find it
+so difficult to get from the young and healthy. It is in nature that the
+old man should keep the purse in his own pocket, or otherwise he will
+have so little to attract. He is weak, querulous, ugly to look at, apt
+to be greedy, cross, and untidy. Though he himself can love, what is his
+love to any one? Duty demands that one shall smooth his pillow, and some
+one does smooth it,--as a duty. But the old man feels the difference, and
+remembers the time when there was one who was anxious to share it.
+
+Mr. Prosper was not in years an old man, and had not as yet passed that
+time of life at which many a man is regarded by his children as the best
+of their playfellows. But he was weak in body, self-conscious, and
+jealous in spirit. He had the heart to lay out for himself a generous
+line of conduct, but not the purpose to stick to it steadily. His nephew
+had ever been a trouble to him, because he had expected from his nephew
+a kind of worship to which he had felt that he was entitled as the head
+of the family. All good things were to come from him, and therefore good
+things should be given to him. Harry had told himself that his uncle was
+not his father, and that it had not been his fault that he was his
+uncle's heir. He had not asked his uncle for an allowance. He had grown
+up with the feeling that Buston Hall was to be his own, and had not
+regarded his uncle as the donor. His father, with his large family, had
+never exacted much,--had wanted no special attention from him. And if not
+his father, then why his uncle? But his inattention, his absence of
+gratitude for peculiar gifts, had sunk deep into Mr. Prosper's bosom.
+Hence had come Miss Thoroughbung as his last resource, and Miss
+Thoroughbung had--called him Peter. Hence his mind had wandered to Miss
+Puffle, and Miss Puffle had gone off with the farmer's son, and, as he
+was now informed, had taken to drinking gin. Therefore he turned his
+face to the wall and prepared himself to die.
+
+On the next day he sent for Matthew again. Matthew first came to him
+always in the morning, but on that occasion very little conversation
+ever took place. In the middle of the day he had a bowl of soup brought
+to him, and by that time had managed to drag himself out of bed, and to
+clothe himself in his dressing-gown, and to seat himself in his
+arm-chair. Then when the soup had been slowly eaten, he would ring his
+bell, and the conversation would begin. "I have been thinking over what
+I was saying yesterday, Matthew." Matthew simply assented, but he knew
+in his heart that his master had been thinking over what he himself had
+said.
+
+"Is Mr. Harry at the rectory?"
+
+"Oh yes; he's there now. He wouldn't stir from the rectory till he hears
+that you are better."
+
+"Why shouldn't he stir? Does he mean to say that I'm going to die?
+Perhaps I am. I'm very weak, but he doesn't know it."
+
+Matthew felt that he had made a blunder, and that he must get out of it
+as well as he could. "It isn't that he is thinking anything of that, but
+you are confined to your room, sir. Of course he knows that."
+
+"I never told him."
+
+"He's most particular in his inquiries from day to day."
+
+"Does he come here?"
+
+"He don't venture on that, because he knows as how you wouldn't wish
+it."
+
+"Why shouldn't I wish it? It'd be the most natural thing in the world."
+
+"But there has been--a little--I'm quite sure Mr. Harry don't wish to
+intrude. If you'd let me give it to be understood that you'd like him to
+call, he'd be over here in a jiffy." Then, very slowly, Mr. Prosper did
+give it to be understood that he would take it as a compliment if his
+nephew would walk across the park and ask after him. He was most
+particular as to the mode in which this embassy should be conducted.
+Harry was not to be made to think that he was to come rushing into the
+house after his old fashion,--"Halloo, uncle, aren't you well? Hope
+you'll be better when I come back. Have got to be off by the next
+train." Then he used to fly away and not be heard of again for a week.
+And yet the message was to be conveyed with an alluring courtesy that
+might be attractive, and might indicate that no hostility was intended.
+But it was not to be a positive message, but one which would signify
+what might possibly take place. If it should happen that Mr. Harry was
+walking in this direction, it might also happen that his uncle would be
+pleased to see him. There was no better ambassador at hand than Matthew,
+and therefore Matthew was commissioned to arrange matters. "If you can
+get at Mrs. Weeks, and do it through his mother," suggested Mr. Prosper.
+Then Matthew winked and departed on his errand.
+
+In about two hours there was a ring at the back-door, of which Mr.
+Prosper knew well the sound. Miss Thoroughbung had not been there very
+often, but he had learned to distinguish her ring or her servant's. In
+old days, not so very far removed, Harry had never been accustomed to
+ring at all. But yet his uncle knew that it was he, and not the doctor,
+who might probably come,--or Mr. Soames, of whose coming he lived in
+hourly dread. "You can show him up," he said to Matthew, opening the
+door with great exertion, and attempting to speak to the servant down
+the stairs. Harry, at any rate, was shown up, and in two minutes' time
+was standing over his uncle's sick-chair. "I have not been quite well
+just lately," he said, in answer to the inquiries made.
+
+"We are very sorry to hear that, sir."
+
+"I suppose you've heard it before."
+
+"We did hear that you were a little out of sorts."
+
+"Out of sorts! I don't know what you call out of sorts. I have not been
+out of this room for well-nigh a month. My sister came to see me one
+day, and that's the last Christian I've seen."
+
+"My mother would be over daily if she fancied you'd like it."
+
+"She has her own duties, and I don't want to be troublesome."
+
+"The truth is, Uncle Prosper, that we have all felt that we have been in
+your black books; and as we have not thought that we deserved it, there
+has been a little coolness."
+
+"I told your mother that I was willing to forgive you."
+
+"Forgive me what? A fellow does not care to be forgiven when he has done
+nothing. But if you'll only say that by-gones shall be by-gones quite
+past I'll take it so." He could not give up his position as head of the
+family so easily,--an injured head of the family. And yet he was anxious
+that by-gones should be by-gones, if only the young man would not be so
+jaunty, as he stood there by his arm-chair. "Just say the word, and the
+girls shall come up and see you as they used to do." Mr. Prosper thought
+at the moment that one of the girls was going to marry Joe Thoroughbung,
+and that he would not wish to see her. "As for myself, if I've been in
+any way negligent, I can only say that I did not intend it. I do not
+like to say more, because it would seem as though I were asking you for
+money."
+
+"I don't know why you shouldn't ask me."
+
+"A man doesn't like to do that. But I'd tell you of everything if you'd
+only let me."
+
+"What is there to tell?" said Uncle Prosper, knowing well that the
+love-story would be communicated to him.
+
+"I've got myself engaged to marry a young woman."
+
+"A young woman!"
+
+"Yes;--she's a young woman, of course; but she's a young lady as well.
+You know her name: it is Florence Mountjoy."
+
+"That is the young lady that I've heard of. Was there not some other
+gentleman attached to her?"
+
+"There was;--her cousin, Mountjoy Scarborough."
+
+"His father wrote to me."
+
+"His father is the meanest fellow I ever met."
+
+"And he himself came to me,--down here. They were fighting your battle
+for you."
+
+"I'm much obliged to them."
+
+"For even I have interfered with him about the lady."
+
+Then Harry had to repeat his _veni, vidi, vici_ after his own fashion.
+"Of course I interfered with him. How is a fellow to help himself? We
+both of us were spooning on the same girl, and of course she had to
+decide it."
+
+"And she decided for you?"
+
+"I fancy she did. At any rate I decided for her, and I mean to have
+her."
+
+Then Mr. Prosper was, for him, very gracious in his congratulations,
+saying all manner of good things of Miss Mountjoy. "I think you'd like
+her, Uncle Prosper." Mr. Prosper did not doubt but that he would
+"appease the solicitor." He also had heard of Miss Mountjoy, and what he
+had heard had been much to the "young lady's credit." Then he asked a
+few questions as to the time fixed for the marriage. Here Harry was
+obliged to own that there were difficulties. Miss Mountjoy had promised
+not to marry for three years without her mother's consent. "Three
+years!" said Mr. Prosper. "Then I shall be dead and buried." Harry did
+not tell his uncle that in that case the difficulty might probably
+vanish, as the same degree of fate which had robbed him of his poor
+uncle would have made him owner of Buston. In such a case as that Mrs.
+Mountjoy might probably give way.
+
+"But why is the young lady to be kept from marriage for three years?
+Does she wish it?"
+
+Harry said that he did not exactly think that Miss Mountjoy, on her own
+behalf, did wish for so prolonged a separation. "The fact is, sir, that
+Mrs. Mountjoy is not my best friend. This nephew of hers, Mountjoy
+Scarborough, has always been her favorite."
+
+"But he's a man that always loses his money at cards."
+
+"He's to have all Tretton now, it seems."
+
+"And what does the young lady say?"
+
+"All Tretton won't move her. I'm not a bit afraid. I've got her word,
+and that's enough for me. How it is that her mother should think it
+possible;--that's what I do not know."
+
+"The three years are quite fixed?"
+
+"I don't quite say that altogether."
+
+"But a young lady who will be true to you will be true to her mother
+also." Harry shook his head. He was quite willing to guarantee
+Florence's truth as to her promise to him, but he did not think that her
+promise to her mother need be put on the same footing. "I shall be very
+glad if you can arrange it any other way. Three years is a long time."
+
+"Quite absurd, you know," said Harry, with energy.
+
+"What made her fix on three years?"
+
+"I don't know how they did it between them. Mrs. Mountjoy, perhaps,
+thought that it might give time to her nephew. Ten years would be the
+same as far as he is concerned. Florence is a girl who, when she says
+that she loves a man, means it. For you don't suppose I intend to remain
+three years?"
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"One has to wait a little and see." Then there was a long pause, during
+which Harry stood twiddling his fingers. He had nothing farther to
+suggest, but he thought that his uncle might say something. "Shall I
+come again to-morrow, Uncle Prosper?" he said.
+
+"I have got a plan," said Uncle Prosper.
+
+"What is it, uncle?"
+
+"I don't know that it can lead to anything. It's of no use, of course,
+if the young lady will wait the three years."
+
+"I don't think she's at all anxious," said Harry.
+
+"You might marry almost at once."
+
+"That's what I should like."
+
+"And come and live here."
+
+"In this house?"
+
+"Why not? I'm nobody. You'd soon find that I'm nobody."
+
+"That's nonsense, Uncle Prosper. Of course you're everybody in your own
+house."
+
+"You might endure it for six months in the year."
+
+Harry thought of the sermons, but resolved at once to face them boldly.
+"I am only thinking how generous you are."
+
+"It's what I mean. I don't know the young lady, and perhaps she mightn't
+like living with an old gentleman. In regard to the other six months,
+I'll raise the two hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds. If
+she thinks well of it, she should come here first and let me see her.
+She and her mother might both come." Then there was a pause. "I should
+not know how to bear it,--I should not, indeed. But let them both come."
+
+After some farther delay this was at last decided on. Harry went away
+supremely happy and very grateful, and Mr. Prosper was left to meditate
+on the terrible step he had taken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH'S DEATH.
+
+
+It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Barry, when he heard the last story
+from Tretton, began to think that his partner was not so wide-awake as
+he had hitherto always regarded him. As time runs on, such a result
+generally takes place in all close connections between the old and the
+young. Ten years ago Mr. Barry had looked up to Mr. Grey with a trustful
+respect. Words which fell from Mr. Grey were certainly words of truth,
+but they were, in Mr. Barry's then estimation, words of wisdom also.
+Gradually an altered feeling had grown up; and Mr. Barry, though he did
+not doubt the truth, thought less about it. But he did doubt the wisdom
+constantly. The wisdom practised under Mr. Barry's vice-management was
+not quite the same as Mr. Grey's. And Mr. Barry had come to understand
+that though it might be well to tell the truth on occasions, it was
+folly to suppose that any one else would do so. He had always thought
+that Mr. Grey had gone a little too fast in believing Squire
+Scarborough's first story. "But you've been to Nice, yourself, and
+discovered that it is true," Mr. Grey would say. Mr. Barry would shake
+his head, and declare that in having to deal with a man of such varied
+intellect as Mr. Scarborough there was no coming at the bottom of a
+story.
+
+But there had been no question of any alterations in the mode of
+conducting the business of the firm. Mr. Grey had been, of course, the
+partner by whose judgment any question of importance must ultimately be
+decided; and, though Mr. Barry had been sent to Nice, the Scarborough
+property was especially in Mr. Grey's branch. He had been loud in
+declaring the iniquity of his client, but had altogether made up his
+mind that the iniquity had been practised; and all the clerks in the
+office had gone with him, trusting to his great character for sober
+sagacity. And Mr. Grey was not a man who would easily be put out of his
+high position.
+
+The respect generally felt for him was too high; and he carried himself
+before his partner and clerks too powerfully to lose at once his
+prestige. But Mr. Barry, when he heard the new story, looked at his own
+favorite clerk and almost winked an eye; and when he came to discuss the
+matter with Mr. Grey, he declined even to pretend to be led at once by
+Mr. Grey's opinion. "A gentleman who has been so very clever on one
+occasion may be very clever on another." That had been his argument. Mr.
+Grey's reply had simply been to the effect that you cannot twice catch
+an old bird with chaff. Mr. Barry seemed, however, to think, in
+discussing the matter with the favorite clerk, that the older the bird
+became, the more often he could be caught with chaff.
+
+Mr. Grey in these days was very unhappy,--not made so simply by the
+iniquity of his client, but by the insight which he got into his
+partner's aptitude for business. He began to have his doubts about Mr.
+Barry. Mr. Barry was tending toward sharp practice. Mr. Barry was
+beginning to love his clients,--not with a proper attorney's affection,
+as his children, but as sheep to be shorn. With Mr. Grey the bills had
+gone out and had been paid, no doubt, and the money had in some shape
+found its way into Mr. Grey's pockets. But he had never looked at the
+two things together. Mr. Barry seemed to be thinking of the wool as
+every client came or was dismissed. Mr. Grey, as he thought of these
+things, began to fancy that his own style of business was becoming
+antiquated. He had said good words of Mr. Barry to his daughter, but
+just at this period his faith both in himself and in his partner began
+to fail. His partner was becoming too strong for him, and he felt that
+he was failing. Things were changed; and he did not love his business as
+he used to do. He had fancies, and he knew that he had fancies, and that
+fancies were not good for an attorney. When he saw what was in Mr.
+Barry's mind as to this new story from Tretton, he became convinced that
+Dolly was right. Dolly was not fit, he thought, to be Mr. Barry's wife.
+She might have been the wife of such another as himself, had the partner
+been such another. But it was not probable that any partner should have
+been such as he was. "Old times are changed," he said to himself; "old
+manners gone." Then he determined that he would put his house in order,
+and leave the firm. A man cannot leave his work forever without some
+touch of melancholy.
+
+But it was necessary that some one should go to Rummelsburg and find
+what could be learned there. Mr. Grey had sworn that he would have
+nothing to do with the new story, as soon as the new story had been told
+to him; but it soon became apparent to him that he must have to do with
+it. As soon as the breath should be out of the old squire's body, some
+one must take possession of Tretton, and Mountjoy would be left in the
+house. In accordance with Mr. Grey's theory, Augustus would be the
+proper possessor. Augustus, no doubt, would go down and claim the
+ownership, unless the matter could be decided to the satisfaction of
+them both beforehand. Mr. Grey thought that there was little hope of
+such satisfaction; but it would of course be for him or his firm to see
+what could be done. "That I should ever have got such a piece of
+business!" he said to himself. But it was at last settled among them
+that Mr. Barry should go to Rummelsburg. He had made the inquiry at
+Nice, and he would go on with it at Rummelsburg. Mr. Barry started, with
+Mr. Quaverdale, of St. John's, the gentleman whom Harry Annesley had
+consulted as to the practicability of his earning money by writing for
+the Press. Mr. Quaverdale was supposed to be a German scholar, and
+therefore had his expenses paid for him, with some bonus for his time.
+
+A conversation between Mr. Barry and Mr. Quaverdale, which took place on
+their way home, shall be given, as it will best describe the result of
+their inquiry. This inquiry had been conducted by Mr. Barry's
+intelligence, but had owed so much to Mr. Quaverdale's extensive
+knowledge of languages, that the two gentlemen may be said, as they came
+home, to be equally well instructed in the affairs of Mr. Scarborough's
+property.
+
+"He has been too many for the governor," said Barry. Mr. Barry's
+governor was Mr. Grey.
+
+"It seems to me that Scarborough is a gentleman who is apt to be too
+many for most men."
+
+"The sharpest fellow I ever came across, either in the way of a cheat or
+in any other walk of life. If he wanted any one else to have the
+property, he'd come out with something to show that the entail itself
+was all moonshine."
+
+"But when he married again at Nice, he couldn't have quarrelled with his
+eldest son already. The child was not above four or five months old."
+This came from Quaverdale.
+
+"It's my impression," said Barry, "that it was then his intention to
+divide the property, and that this was done as a kind of protest against
+primogeniture. Then he found that that would fail,--that if he came to
+explain the whole matter to his sons, they would not consent to be
+guided by him, and to accept a division. From what I have seen of both
+of them, they are bad to guide after that fashion. Then Mountjoy got
+frightfully into the hands of the money-lenders, and in order to do them
+it became necessary that the whole property should go to Augustus."
+
+"They must look upon him as a nice sort of old man!" said Quaverdale.
+
+"Rather! But they have never got at him to speak a bit of their mind to
+him. And then how clever he was in getting round his own younger son.
+The property got into such a condition that there was money enough to
+pay the Jews the money they had really lent. Augustus, who was never
+quite sure of his father, thought it would be best to disarm them; and
+he consented to pay them, getting back all their bonds. But he was very
+uncivil to the squire,--told him that the sooner he died the better, or
+something of that sort; and then the squire immediately turned round and
+sprung this Rummelsburg marriage upon us, and has left every stick about
+the place to Mountjoy. It must all go to Mountjoy,--every acre, every
+horse, every bed, and every book."
+
+"And these, in twelve months' time, will have been divided among the
+card-players of the metropolis," said Quaverdale.
+
+"We've got nothing to do with that. If ever a man did have a lesson he
+has had it. If he chose to take it, no man would ever have been saved in
+so miraculous a manner. But there can be no doubt that John Scarborough
+and Ada Sneyd were married at Rummelsburg, and that it will be found to
+be impossible to unmarry them."
+
+"Old Mrs. Sneyd, the lady's mother, was then present?" said Quaverdale.
+
+"Not a doubt about it, and that Fritz Deutchmann was present at the
+marriage. I almost think that we ought to have brought him away with us.
+It would have cost a couple of hundred pounds, but the estate can bear
+that. We can have him by sending for him, if we should want it." Then,
+after many more words on the same subject and to the same effect, Mr.
+Barry went on to give his own private opinions: "In fact, the only
+blemish in old Scarborough's plans was this,--that the Rummelsburg
+marriage was sure to come out sooner or later."
+
+"Do you think so? Fritz Deutchmann is the only one of the party alive,
+and it's not probable that he would ever have heard of Tretton."
+
+"These things always do come out. But it does not signify now. And the
+world will know how godless and reprobate old Scarborough has been; but
+that will not interfere with Mountjoy's legitimacy. And the world has
+pretty well understood already that the old man has cared nothing for
+God or man. It was bad enough, according to the other story, that he
+should have kept Augustus so long in the dark, and determined to give it
+all to a bastard by means of a plot and a fraud. The world has got used
+to that. The world will simply be amused by this other turn. And as the
+world generally is not very fond of Augustus Scarborough, and entertains
+a sort of a good-natured pity for Mountjoy, the first marriage will be
+easily accepted."
+
+"There'll be a lawsuit, I suppose?" said Quaverdale.
+
+"I don't see that they'll have a leg to stand on. When the old man dies
+the property will be exactly as it would have been. This latter intended
+fraud in favor of Augustus will be understood as having been old
+Scarborough's farce. The Jews are the party who have really suffered."
+
+"And Augustus?"
+
+"He will have lost nothing to which he was by law entitled. His father
+might of course make what will he pleased. If Augustus was uncivil to
+his father, his father could of course alter his will. The world would
+see all that. But the world will be inclined to say that these poor
+money-lenders have been awfully swindled."
+
+"The world won't pity them."
+
+"I'm not so sure. It's a hard case to get hold of a lot of men and force
+them to lend you a hundred pounds without security and without interest.
+That's what has been done in this case."
+
+"They'll have no means of recovering anything."
+
+"Not a shilling. The wonder is that they should have got three hundred
+thousand pounds. They never would have had it unless the squire had
+wished to pave the way back for Mountjoy. And then he made Augustus do
+it for him! In my mind he has been so clever that he ought to be
+forgiven all his rascality. There has been, too, no punishment for him,
+and no probability of punishment. He has done nothing for which the law
+can touch him. He has proposed to cheat people, but before he would have
+cheated them he might be dead. The money-lenders will have been swindled
+awfully, but they have never had any ground of tangible complaint
+against him. 'Who are you?' he has said. 'I don't know you.' They
+alleged that they had lent their money to his eldest son. 'That's as you
+thought,' he replied. 'I ain't bound to come and tell you all the family
+arrangements about my marriage.' If you look at it all round it was
+uncommonly well done."
+
+When Mr. Barry got back he found that it was generally admitted at the
+Chambers that the business had been well done. Everybody was prepared
+to allow that Mr. Scarborough had not left a screw loose in the
+arrangement,--though he was this moment on his death-bed, and had been
+under surgical tortures and operations, and, in fact, slowly dying,
+during the whole period that he had been thus busy. Every one concerned
+in the matter seemed to admire Mr. Scarborough except Mr. Grey, whose
+anger, either with himself or his client, became the stronger the louder
+grew the admiration of the world.
+
+A couple of barristers very learned in the law were consulted, and they
+gave it as their opinion that from the evidence as shown to them there
+could be no doubt but that Mountjoy was legitimate. There was no reason
+in the least for doubting it, but for that strange episode which had
+occurred when, in order to get the better of the law, Mr. Scarborough
+had declared that at the time of Mountjoy's birth he had not been
+married. They went on to declare that on the squire's death the
+Rummelsburg marriage must of course have been discovered, and had given
+it as their opinion that the squire had never dreamed of doing so great
+an injustice either to his elder or his younger son. He had simply
+desired, as they thought, to cheat the money-lenders, and had cheated
+them beautifully. That Mr. Tyrrwhit should have been so very soft was a
+marvel to them; but it only showed how very foolish a sharp man of the
+world might be when he encountered one sharper.
+
+And Augustus, through an attorney acting on his own behalf, consulted
+two other barristers, whose joint opinion was not forthcoming quite at
+once, but may have to be stated. Augustus was declared by them to have
+received at his father's hands a most irreparable injury to such an
+extent that an action for damages would, in their opinion, lie.
+
+He had, by accepting his father's first story, altered the whole course
+of his life, abandoned his profession, and even paid large sums of money
+out of his own pocket for the maintenance of his elder brother. A jury
+would probably award him some very considerable sum,--if a jury could get
+hold of his father while still living. No doubt the furniture and other
+property would remain, and might be held to be liable for the present
+owner's laches. But these two learned lawyers did not think that an
+action could be taken with any probability of success against the eldest
+son, with reference to his tables and chairs, when the Tretton estates
+should have become his. As these learned lawyers had learned that old
+Mr. Scarborough was at this moment almost _in articulo mortis_, would
+it not be better that Augustus should apply to his elder brother to make
+him such compensation as the peculiarities of the case would demand? But
+as this opinion did not reach Augustus till his father was dead, the
+first alternative proposed was of no use.
+
+"I suppose, sir, we had better communicate with Mr. Scarborough?" Mr.
+Barry said to his partner, on his return.
+
+"Not in my name," Mr. Grey replied. "I've put Mr. Scarborough in such a
+state that he is not allowed to see any business letter. Sir William
+Brodrick is there now." But communications were made both to Mountjoy
+and to Augustus. There was nothing for Mountjoy to do; his case was in
+Mr. Barry's hands; nor could he take any steps till something should be
+done to oust him from Tretton. Augustus, however, immediately went to
+work and employed his counsel, learned in the law.
+
+"You will do something, I suppose, for poor Gus?" the old man said to
+his son one morning. It was the last morning on which he was destined to
+awake in the world, and he had been told by Sir William and by Mr.
+Merton that it would probably be so. But death to him had no terror.
+Life to him, for many weeks past, had been so laden with pain as to make
+him look forward to a release from it with hope. But the business of
+life had pressed so hard upon him as to make him feel that he could not
+tell what had been accomplished.
+
+The adjustment of such a property as Tretton required, he thought, his
+presence, and, till it had been adjusted, he clung to life with a
+pertinacity which had seemed to be oppressive. Now Mountjoy's debts had
+been paid, and Mountjoy could be left a bit happier. Having achieved so
+much, he was delighted to think that he might. But there had come
+latterly a claim upon him equally strong,--that he should wreak his
+vengeance upon Augustus. Had Augustus abused him for keeping him in the
+dark so long, he would have borne it patiently. He had expected as much.
+But his son had ridiculed him, laughed at him, made nothing of him, and
+had at last told him to die out of the way. He would, at any rate, do
+something before he died.
+
+He had had his revenge, very bitter of its kind. Augustus should be made
+to feel that he had not been ridiculous,--not to be laughed at in his
+last days. He had ruined his son, inevitably ruined him, and was about to
+leave him penniless upon the earth. But now in his last moments, in his
+very last, there came upon him some feeling of pity, and in speaking of
+his son he once more called him "Gus."
+
+"I don't know how it will all be, sir; but if the property is to be
+mine--"
+
+"It will be yours; it must be yours."
+
+"Then I will do anything for him that he will accept."
+
+"Do not let him starve, or have to earn his bread."
+
+"Say what you wish, sir, and it shall be done, as far as I can do it."
+
+"Make an offer to him of some income, and settle it on him. Do it at
+once." The old man, as he said this, was thinking probably of the great
+danger that all Tretton might, before long, have been made to vanish.
+"And, Mountjoy--"
+
+"Sir."
+
+"You have gambled surely enough for amusement. With such a property as
+this in your hands gambling becomes very serious."
+
+They were the last words,--the last intelligible words,--which the old man
+spoke. He died with his left hand on his son's neck, and took Merton and
+his sister by his side. It was a death-bed not without its lesson,--not
+without a certain charm in the eyes of some fancied beholder. Those who
+were there seemed to love him well, and should do so.
+
+He had contrived, in spite of his great faults, to create a respect in
+the minds of those around him, which is itself a great element of love.
+But there was something in his manner which told of love for others. He
+was one who could hate to distraction, and on whom no bonds of blood
+would operate to mitigate his hatred. He would persevere to injure with
+a terrible persistency; but yet in every phase of his life he had been
+actuated by love for others. He had never been selfish, thinking always
+of others rather than of himself. Supremely indifferent he had been to
+the opinion of the world around him, but he had never run counter to his
+own conscience. For the conventionalities of the law he entertained a
+supreme contempt, but he did wish so to arrange matters with which he
+was himself concerned as to do what justice demanded. Whether he
+succeeded in the last year of his life the reader may judge. But
+certainly the three persons who were assembled around his death-bed did
+respect him, and had been made to love him by what he had done.
+
+Merton wrote the next morning to his friend Henry Annesley respecting
+the scene. "The poor old boy has gone at last, and, in spite of all his
+faults, I feel as though I had lost an old friend. To me he has been
+most kind, and did I not know of all his sins I should say that he had
+been always loyal and always charitable. Mr. Grey condemns him, and all
+the world must condemn him. One cannot make an apology for him without
+being ready to throw all truth and all morality to the dogs. But if you
+can imagine for yourself a state of things in which neither truth nor
+morality shall be thought essential, then old Mr. Scarborough would be
+your hero. He was the bravest man I ever knew. He was ready to look all
+opposition in the face, and prepared to bear it down. And whatever he
+did, he did with the view of accomplishing what he thought to be right
+for other people. Between him and his God I cannot judge, but he
+believed in an Almighty One, and certainly went forth to meet him
+without a fear in his heart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+JOE THOROUGHBUNG'S WEDDING.
+
+
+While some men die others are marrying. While the funeral dirge was
+pealing sadly at Tretton, the joyful marriage-bells were ringing both at
+Buntingford and Buston. Joe Thoroughbung, dressed all in his best, was
+about to carry off Molly Annesley to Rome previous to settling down to a
+comfortable life of hunting and brewing in his native town. Miss
+Thoroughbung sent her compliments to Mrs. Annesley. Would her brother be
+there? She thought it probable that Mr. Prosper would not be glad to see
+her. She longed to substitute "Peter" for Mr. Prosper, but abstained. In
+such case she would deny herself the pleasure of "seeing Joe turned
+off." Then there was an embassy sent to the Hall. The two younger girls
+went with the object of inviting Uncle Prosper, but with a desire at
+their hearts that Uncle Prosper might not come. "I presume the family at
+Buntingford will be represented?" Uncle Prosper had asked. "Somebody
+will come, I suppose," said Fanny. Then Uncle Prosper had sent down a
+pretty jewelled ring, and said that he would remain in his room. His
+health hardly permitted of his being present with advantage. So it was
+decided that Miss Thoroughbung should come, and every one felt that she
+would be the howling spirit,--if not at the ceremony, at the banquet
+which would be given afterward.
+
+Miss Thoroughbung was not the only obstacle, had the whole been known.
+Young Soames, the son of the attorney with whom Mr. Prosper had found it
+so evil a thing to have to deal, was to act as Joe's best man. Mr.
+Prosper learned this, probably, from Matthew, but he never spoke of it
+to the family.
+
+It was a sad disgrace in his eyes that any Soames should have been so
+far mixed up with the Prosper blood. Young Algy Soames was in himself a
+very nice sort of young fellow, who liked a day's hunting when he could
+be spared out of his father's office, and whose worst fault was that he
+wore loud cravats. But he was an abomination to Mr. Prosper, who had
+never seen him. As it was, he carried himself very mildly on this
+occasion.
+
+"It's a pity we're not to have two marriages at the same time," said Mr.
+Crabtree, a clerical wag from the next parish. "Don't you think so, Mrs.
+Annesley?" Mrs. Annesley was standing close by, as was also Miss
+Thoroughbung, but she made no answer to the appeal. People who
+understood anything knew that Mrs. Annesley would not be gratified by
+such an allusion. But Mr. Crabtree was a man who understood nothing.
+
+"The old birds never pair so readily as the young ones," said Miss
+Thoroughbung.
+
+"Old! Who talks of being old?" said Mr. Crabtree. "My friend Prosper is
+quite a boy. There's a good time coming, and I hope you'll give way yet,
+Miss Thoroughbung."
+
+Then they were all marshalled on their way to church. It is quite out of
+my power to describe the bride's dress, or that of the bride's maids.
+They were the bride's sisters and two of Joe's sisters. An attempt had
+been made to induce Florence Mountjoy to come down, but it had been
+unsuccessful. Things had gone so far now at Cheltenham that Mrs.
+Mountjoy had been driven to acknowledge that if Florence held to her
+project for three years she should be allowed to marry Harry Annesley.
+But she had accompanied this permission by many absurd restrictions.
+Florence was not to see him, at any rate, during the first year; but she
+was to see Mountjoy Scarborough if he came to Cheltenham. Florence
+declared this to be impossible; but, as the Buston marriage took place
+just at this moment, she could not have her way in everything. Joe drove
+up to the church with Algy Soames, it not having been thought discreet
+that he should enter the parsonage on that morning, though he had been
+there nearly every day through the winter. "I declare, here he is!"
+said Miss Thoroughbung, very loudly. "I never thought he'd have the
+courage at the last moment."
+
+"I wonder how a certain gentleman would have felt when it came to his
+last moment," said Mr. Crabtree.
+
+Mrs. Annesley took to weeping bitterly, which seemed to be unnecessary,
+as she had done nothing but congratulate herself since the match had
+first been made, and had rejoiced greatly that one of her numerous brood
+should have "put into such a haven of rest."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Annesley," said Mrs. Crabtree, consoling her in that she
+would not be far removed from her child, "you can almost see the brewery
+chimneys from the church tower." Those who knew the two ladies well were
+aware that there was some little slur intended by the allusion to
+brewery chimneys. Mrs. Crabtree's girl had married the third son of Sir
+Reginald Rattlepate. The Rattlepates were not rich, and the third son
+was not inclined to earn his bread.
+
+"Thank God, yes!" said Mrs. Annesley, through her tears. "Whenever I
+shall see them I shall know that there's an income coming out with the
+smoke."
+
+The boys were home from school for the occasion. "Molly, there's Joe
+coming after you," said the elder.
+
+"If he gives you a kiss now you needn't pretend to mind," said the
+other.
+
+"My darling, my own one, that so soon will be my own no longer!" said
+the father, as he made his way into the vestry to put on his surplice.
+
+"Dear papa!" It was the only word the bride said as she walked in at the
+church-door, and prepared to make her way up the nave at the head of her
+little bevy. They were all very bright, as they stood there before the
+altar, but the brightest spot among them was Algy Soames's blue necktie.
+Joe for the moment was much depressed, and thought nothing of the last
+run in which he had distinguished himself; but nevertheless he held up
+his head well as a man and a brewer.
+
+"Dont'ee take on so," Miss Thoroughbung said to Mrs. Annesley at the
+last moment. "He'll give her plenty to eat and to drink, and will never
+do her a morsel of harm." Joe overheard this, and wished that his aunt
+was back in her bed at Marmaduke Lodge.
+
+Then the marriage was over, and they all trooped into the vestry to sign
+the book. "You can't get out of that now," said Mrs. Crabtree to Joe.
+
+"I don't want to. I have got the fairest girl in these parts for my
+wife, and, as I believe, the best young woman." This he said with a
+spirit for which Mrs. Crabtree had not given him credit, and Algy Soames
+heard him and admired his friend beneath his blue necktie. And one of
+the girls heard it, and cried tears of joy as she told her sister
+afterward in the bedroom. "Oh, what a darling he is!" Molly had said,
+amid her own sobbing. Joe stood an inch higher among them all because of
+that word.
+
+Then came the breakfast,--that dullest, saddest hour of all. To feed
+heavily about twelve in the morning is always a nuisance,--a nuisance so
+abominable that it should be avoided under any other circumstances than
+a wedding in your own family. But that wedding-breakfast, when it does
+come, is the worst of all feeding. The smart dresses and bare shoulders
+seen there by daylight, the handing people in and out among the seats,
+the very nature of the food, made up of chicken and sweets and flummery,
+the profusion of champagne, not sometimes of the very best on such an
+occasion; and then the speeches! They fall generally to the lot of some
+middle-aged gentlemen, who seem always to have been selected for their
+incapacity. But there is a worse trouble yet remaining--in the unnatural
+repletion which the sight even of so much food produces, and the fact
+that your dinner for that day is destroyed utterly and forever.
+
+Mr. Crabtree and the two fathers made the speeches, over and beyond that
+which was made by Joe himself. Joe's father was not eloquent. He brewed,
+no doubt, good beer, without a taste in it beyond malt and hops;--no man
+in the county brewed better beer; but he couldn't make a speech. He got
+up, dressed in a big white waistcoat, and a face as red as his son's
+hunting-coat, and said that he hoped his boy would make a good husband.
+All he could say was, that being a lover had not helped to make him a
+good brewer. Perhaps when Molly Annesley was brought nearer to
+Buntingford, Joe mightn't spend so much of his time in going to and fro.
+Perhaps Mr. Joe might not demand so much of her attention. This was the
+great point he made, and it was received well by all but the bride, who
+whispered to Joe that if he thought that he was to be among the brewing
+tubs from morning till night he'd find he was mistaken. Mr. Annesley
+threw a word or two of feeling into his speech, as is usual with the
+father of the young lady, but nobody seemed to care much for that. Mr.
+Crabtree was facetious with the ordinary wedding jests,--as might have
+been expected, seeing that he had been present at every wedding in the
+county for the last twenty years. The elderly ladies laughed
+good-humoredly, and Mrs. Crabtree was heard to say that the whole
+affair would have been very tame but that Mr. Crabtree had "carried it
+all off." But, in truth, when Joe got up the fun of the day had
+commenced, for Miss Thoroughbung, though she kept her chair, was able to
+utter as many words as her nephew: "I'm sure I'm very much obliged to
+you for what you've all been saying."
+
+"So you ought, sir, for you have heard more good of yourself than you'll
+ever hear again."
+
+"Then I'm the more obliged to you. What my people have said about my
+being so long upon the road--"
+
+"That's only just what you have told them at the brewery. Nobody knows
+where you have been."
+
+"Molly can tell you all about that."
+
+"I can't tell them anything," Molly said in a whisper.
+
+"But it comes only once in a man's lifetime," continued Joe; "and I dare
+say, if we knew all about the governor when he was of my age, which I
+don't remember, he was as spooney as any one."
+
+"I only saw him once for six months before he was married," said Mrs.
+Thoroughbung in a funereal voice.
+
+"He's made up for it since," said Miss Thoroughbung.
+
+"I'm sure I'm very proud to have got such a young lady to have come and
+joined her lot with mine," continued Joe; "and nobody can think more
+about his wife's family than I do."
+
+"And all Buston," said the aunt.
+
+"Yes, and all Buston."
+
+"I'm sure we're all sorry that the bride's uncle, from Buston Hall, has
+not been able to come here to-day. You ought to say that, Joe."
+
+"Yes, I do say it. I'm very sorry that Mr. Prosper isn't able to be
+here."
+
+"Perhaps Miss Thoroughbung can tell us something about him?" said Mr.
+Crabtree.
+
+"Me! I know nothing special. When I saw him last he was in good health.
+I did nothing to him to make him keep his bed. Mrs. Crabtree seems to
+think that I have got your uncle in my keeping. Molly, I beg to say that
+I'm not responsible."
+
+It must be allowed that amid such free conversation it was difficult for
+Joe to shine as an orator. But as he had no such ambition, perhaps the
+interruptions only served him. But Miss Thoroughbung's witticism did
+throw a certain damp over the wedding-breakfast. It was perhaps to have
+been expected that the lady should take her revenge for the injury done
+to her. It was the only revenge that she did take. She had been
+ill-used, she thought, and yet she had not put Mr. Prosper to a shilling
+of expense. And there was present to her a feeling that the uncle had at
+the last moment been debarred from complying with her small requests in
+favor of Miss Tickle and the ponies on behalf of the young man who was
+now sitting opposite to her, and that the good things coming from Buston
+Hall were to be made to flow in the way of the Annesleys generally
+rather than in her way. She did not regret them very much, and it was
+not in her nature to be bitter; but still all those little touches about
+Mr. Prosper were pleasant to her, and were, of course, unpleasant to the
+Annesleys. Then, it will be said, she should not have come to partake of
+a breakfast in Mr. Annesley's dining-room. That is a matter of taste,
+and perhaps Miss Thoroughbung's taste was not altogether refined.
+
+Joe's speech came to an end, and with it his aunt's remarks. But as she
+left the room she said a few words to Mr. Annesley. "Don't suppose that
+I am angry,--not in the least; certainly not with you or Harry. I'd do
+him a good turn to-morrow if I could; and so, for the matter of that, I
+would to his uncle. But you can't expect but what a woman should have
+her feelings and express them." Mr. Annesley, on the other hand, thought
+it strange that a woman in such a position should express her feelings.
+
+Then at last came the departure. Molly was taken up into her mother's
+room and cried over for the last time. "I know that I'm an old fool!"
+
+"Oh, mamma! now, dearest mamma!"
+
+"A good husband is the greatest blessing that God can send a girl, and I
+do think that he is good and sterling."
+
+"He is, mamma,--he is. I know he is."
+
+"And when that woman talks about brewery chimneys, I know what a comfort
+it is that there should be chimneys, and that they should be near.
+Brewery chimneys are better than a do-nothing scamp that can't earn a
+meal for himself or his children. And when I see Joe with his pink coat
+on going to the meet, I thank God that my Molly has got a lad that can
+work hard, and ride his own horses, and go out hunting with the best of
+them."
+
+"Oh, mamma, I do like to see him then. He is handsome."
+
+"I would not have anything altered. But--but--Oh, my child, you are
+going away!"
+
+"As Mrs. Crabtree says, I sha'n't be far."
+
+"No, no! But you won't be all mine. The time will come when you'll
+think of your girls in the same way. You haven't done a thing that I
+haven't seen and known and pondered over; you haven't worn a skirt but
+what it has been dear to me; you haven't uttered a prayer but what I
+have heard it as it went up to God's throne. I hope he says his
+prayers."
+
+"I'm sure he does," said Molly, with confidence more or less well
+founded.
+
+"Now go, and leave me here. I'm such an old stupid that I can't help
+crying; and if that woman was to say anything more to me about the
+chimneys I should give her a bit of my mind."
+
+Then Molly went down with her travelling-hat on, looking twice prettier
+than she had done during the whole of the morning ceremonies. It is, I
+suppose, on the bridegroom's behalf that the bride is put forth in all
+her best looks just as she is about to become, for the first time,
+exclusively his own. Molly, on the present occasion, was very pretty,
+and Joe was very proud. It was not the least of his pride that he,
+feeling himself to be not quite as yet removed from the "Bung" to the
+"Thorough," had married into a family by which his ascent might be
+matured.
+
+And then, as they went, came the normal shower of rice, to be picked up
+in the course of the next hour by the vicarage fowls, and not by the
+London beggars, and the air was darkened by a storm of old shoes. In
+London, white satin slippers are the fashion. But Buston and Buntingford
+combined could not afford enough of such missiles; and from the hands of
+the boys black shoes, and boots too, were thrown freely. "There go my
+best pair," said one of the boys, as the chariot was driven off, "and I
+don't mean to let them lie there." Then the boots were recovered and
+taken up to the bedroom.
+
+Now that Molly was gone, Harry's affairs became paramount at Buston.
+After all, Harry was of superior importance to Molly, though those
+chimneys at Buntingford could probably give a better income than the
+acres belonging to the park. But Harry was to be the future Prosper of
+the county; to assume at some future time the family name; and there was
+undoubtedly present to them all at the parsonage a feeling that Harry
+Annesley Prosper would loom in future years a bigger squire than the
+parish had ever known before. He had got a fellowship, which no Prosper
+had ever done; and he had the look and tone of a man who had lived in
+London, which had never belonged to the Prospers generally. And he was
+to bring a wife, with a good fortune, and one of whom a reputation for
+many charms had preceded her. And Harry, having been somewhat under a
+cloud for the last six months, was now emerging from it brighter than
+ever. Even Uncle Prosper could not do without him. That terrible Miss
+Thoroughbung had thrown a gloom over Buston Hall which could only be
+removed, as the squire himself had felt, by the coming of the natural
+heir. Harry was indispensable, and was no longer felt by any one to be a
+burden.
+
+It was now the end of March. Old Mr. Scarborough was dead and buried,
+and Mountjoy was living at Tretton. Nothing had been heard of his coming
+up to London. No rushing to the card-tables had been announced. That
+there were to be some terrible internecine law contests between him and
+Augustus had been declared in many circles, but of this nothing was
+known at the Buston Rectory. Harry had been one day at Cheltenham, and
+had been allowed to spend the best part of an hour with his sweetheart;
+but this permission had been given on the understanding that he was not
+to come again, and now for a month he had abstained. Then had come his
+uncle's offer, that generous offer under which Harry was to bring his
+wife to Buston Hall, and live there during half the year, and to receive
+an increased allowance for his maintenance during the other half. As he
+thought of his ways and means he fancied that they would be almost rich.
+She would have four hundred a year, and he as much; and an established
+home would be provided for them. Of all these good things he had written
+to Florence, but had not yet seen her since the offer had been made. Her
+answer had not been as propitious as it might be, and it was absolutely
+necessary that he should go down to Cheltenham and settle things.
+
+The three years had in his imagination been easily reduced to one, which
+was still, as he thought, an impossible time for waiting. By degrees it
+came down to six months in his imagination, and now to three, resulting
+in an idea that they might be easily married early in June, so as to
+have the whole of the summer before them for their wedding-tour.
+"Mother," he said, "I shall be off to-morrow."
+
+"To Cheltenham?"
+
+"Yes, to Cheltenham. What is the good of waiting. I think a girl may be
+too obedient to her mother."
+
+"It is a fine feeling, which you will be glad to remember that she
+possessed."
+
+"Supposing that you had declared that Molly shouldn't have married Joe
+Thoroughbung?"
+
+"Molly has got a father," said Mrs. Annesley.
+
+"Suppose she had none?"
+
+"I cannot suppose anything so horrible."
+
+"As if you and he had joined together to forbid Molly."
+
+"But we didn't."
+
+"I think a girl may carry it too far," said Harry. "Mrs. Mountjoy has
+committed herself to Mountjoy Scarborough, and will not go back from her
+word. He has again come back to the fore, and out of a ruined man has
+appeared as the rich proprietor of the town of Tretton. Of course the
+mother hangs on to him still."
+
+"You don't think Florence will change?"
+
+"Not in the least. I'm not a bit afraid of Mountjoy Scarborough and all
+his property; but I can see that she may be subjected to much annoyance
+from which I ought to extricate her."
+
+"What can you do, Harry?"
+
+"Go and tell her so. Make her understand that she should put herself
+into my hands at once, and that I could protect her."
+
+"Take her away from her mother by force?" said Mrs. Annesley, with
+horror.
+
+"If she were once married her mother would think no more about it. I
+don't believe that Mrs. Mountjoy has any special dislike to me. She
+thinks of her own nephew, and as long as Florence is Florence Mountjoy
+there will be for her the chance. I know that he has no chance; and I
+don't think that I ought to leave her there to be bullied for some
+endless period of time. Think of three years,--of dooming a girl to live
+three years without ever seeing her lover! There is an absurdity about
+it which is revolting. I shall go down to-morrow and see if I cannot put
+a stop to it." To this the mother could make no objection, though she
+could express no approval of a project under which Florence was to be
+made to marry without her mother's consent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+MR. SCARBOROUGH IS BURIED.
+
+
+When Mr. Scarborough died, and when he had been buried, his son Mountjoy
+was left alone at Tretton, living in a very desolate manner. Till the
+day of the funeral, Merton, the doctor, had remained with him and his
+aunt, Miss Scarborough; but when the old squire had been laid in his
+grave they both departed. Miss Scarborough was afraid of her nephew, and
+could not look forward to living comfortably at the big house; and Dr.
+Merton had the general work of his life to call him away. "You might as
+well stay for another week," Mountjoy had said to him. But Merton had
+felt that he could not remain at Tretton without some especial duty, and
+he too went his way.
+
+The funeral had been very strange. Augustus had refused to come and
+stand at his father's grave. "Considering all things, I had rather
+decline," he had written to Mountjoy. Other guests--none were invited,
+except the tenants. They came in a body, for the squire had been noted
+among them as a liberal landlord.
+
+But a crowd of tenants does not in any way make up that look of family
+sorrow which is expected at the funeral of such a man as Mr.
+Scarborough. Mountjoy was there, and stood through the ceremony
+speechless, and almost sullen. He went down to the church behind the
+body with Merton, and then walked away from the ground without having
+uttered a syllable. But during the ceremony he had seen that which
+caused him to be sullen. Mr. Samuel Hart had been there, and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit. And there was a man whom he called to his mind as connected
+with the names of Evans & Crooke, and Mr. Spicer, and Mr. Richard
+Juniper. He knew them all as they stood there round the grave, not in
+decorous funeral array, but as strangers who had strayed into the
+cemetery. He could not but feel, as he looked at them and they at him,
+that they had come to look after their interest,--their heavy interest on
+the money which had been fraudulently repaid to them. He knew that they
+had parted with their bonds. But he knew also that almost all that was
+now his would have been theirs, had they not been cheated into believing
+that he, Mountjoy Scarborough, was not, and never would be, Scarborough
+of Tretton Park. They said nothing as they stood there, and did not in
+any way interrupt the ceremony; but they looked at Mountjoy as they
+were standing, and their looks disconcerted him terribly.
+
+He had declared that he would walk back to the house which was not above
+two miles distant from the graveyard, and therefore, when the funeral
+was over, there was no carriage to take him. But he knew that the men
+would dog his steps as he walked. He had only just got within the
+precincts of the park when he saw them all. But Mr. Tyrrwhit was by
+himself, and came up to him. "What are you going to do, Captain
+Scarborough," he said, "as to our claims?"
+
+"You have no claims of which I am aware," he said roughly.
+
+"Oh yes, Captain Scarborough; we have claims, certainly. You've come up
+to the front lately with a deal of luck; I don't begrudge it, for one;
+but I have claims,--I and those other gentlemen; we have claims. You'll
+have to admit that."
+
+"Send in the documents. Mr. Barry is acting as my lawyer; he is Mr.
+Grey's partner, and is now taking the leading share in the business."
+
+"I know Mr. Barry well; a very sharp gentleman is Mr. Barry."
+
+"I cannot enter into conversation with yourself at such a time as this."
+
+"We are sorry to trouble you; but then our interests are so pressing.
+What do you mean to do, Captain Scarborough? That's the question."
+
+"Yes; with the estate," said Mr. Samuel Hart, coming up and joining
+them. Of the lot of men, Mr. Samuel Hart was the most distasteful to
+Mountjoy. He had last seen his Jew persecutor at Monte Carlo, and had
+then, as he thought, been grossly insulted by him. "What are you hafter,
+captain?" To this Mountjoy made no answer, but Hart, walking a step or
+two in advance, turned upon his heels and looked at the park around him.
+"Tidy sort of place, ain't it, Tyrrwhit, for a gentleman to hang his 'at
+up, when we were told he was a bastard, not worth a shilling?"
+
+"I have nothing to do with all that," said Mountjoy; "you and Mr.
+Tyrrwhit held my acceptances for certain sums of money. They have, I
+believe, been paid in full."
+
+"No, they ain't; they ain't been paid in full at all; you knows they
+ain't." As he said this, Mr. Hart walked on in front, and stood in the
+pathway, facing Mountjoy. "How can you 'ave the cheek to say we've been
+paid in full? You know it ain't true."
+
+"Evans & Crooke haven't been paid, so far," said a voice from behind.
+
+"More ain't Spicer," said another voice.
+
+"Captain Scarborough, I haven't been paid in full," said Mr. Juniper,
+advancing to the front. "You don't mean to tell me that my five hundred
+pounds have been paid in full? You've ruined me, Captain Scarborough. I
+was to have been married to a young lady with a large fortune,--your Mr.
+Grey's niece,--and it has been broken off altogether because of your bad
+treatment. Do you mean to assert that I have been paid in full?"
+
+"If you have got any document, take it to Mr. Barry."
+
+"No, I won't; I won't take it to any lawyer. I'll take it right in
+before the Court, and expose you. My name is Juniper, and I've never
+parted with a morsel of paper that has your name to it."
+
+"Then, no doubt, you'll get your money," said the captain.
+
+"I thought, gentlemen, you were to allow me to be the spokesman on this
+occasion," said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "We certainly cannot do any good if we
+attack the captain all at once. Now, Captain Scarborough, we don't want
+to be uncivil."
+
+"Uncivil be blowed!" said Mr. Hart; "I want to get my money, and mean to
+'ave it. I agreed as you was to speak, Mr. Tyrrwhit; but I means to be
+spoken up for; and if no one else can do it, I can do it myself. Is we
+to have any settlement made to us, or is we to go to law?"
+
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy, walking on very
+rapidly. He thought that when he reached the house he might be able to
+enter in and leave them out, and he thought also that if he kept them on
+the trot he would thus prevent them from attacking him with many words.
+Evans & Crooke were already lagging behind, and Mr. Spicer was giving
+signs of being hard pressed. Even Hart, who was younger than the others,
+was fat and short, and already showed that he would have to halt if he
+made many speeches.
+
+"Barry be d----d!" exclaimed Hart.
+
+"You see how it is, Captain Scarborough," said Tyrrwhit; "Your father,
+as has just been laid to rest in hopes of a a happy resurrection, was a
+very peculiar gentleman."
+
+"The most hinfernal swindler I ever 'eard tell of!" said Hart.
+
+"I don't wish to say a word disrespectful," continued Tyrrwhit, "but he
+had his own notions. He said as you was illegitimate,--didn't he, now?"
+
+"I can only refer you to Mr. Barry," said Mountjoy.
+
+"And he said that Mr. Augustus was to have it all; and he proved his
+words,--didn't he, now? And then he made out that, if so, our deeds
+weren't worth the paper they were written on. Isn't it all true what I'm
+saying? And then when we'd taken what small sums of money he chose to
+offer us, just to save ourselves from ruin, then he comes up and says
+you are the heir, as legitimate as anybody else, and are to have all the
+property. And he proves that too! What are we to think about it?"
+
+There was nothing left for Mountjoy Scarborough but to make the pace as
+good as possible. Mr. Hart tried once and again to stop their progress
+by standing in the captain's path, but could only do this sufficiently
+at each stoppage to enable him to express his horror with various
+interjections. "Oh laws! that such a liar as 'e should ever be buried!"
+
+"You can't do anything by being disrespectful, Mr. Hart," said Tyrrwhit.
+
+"What--is it--he means--to do?" ejaculated Spicer.
+
+"Mr. Spicer," said Mountjoy, "I mean to leave it all in the hands of Mr.
+Barry; and, if you will believe me, no good can be done by any of you by
+hunting me across the park."
+
+"Hare you a bastard, or haren't you?" ejaculated Hart.
+
+"No, Mr. Hart, I am not."
+
+"Then pay us what you h'owes us. You h'ain't h'agoing to say as you don't
+h'owe us?"
+
+"Mr. Tyrrwhit," said the captain, "it is of no use my answering Mr.
+Hart, because he is angry."
+
+"H'angry! By George, I h'am angry! I'd like to pull that h'old sinner's
+bones h'out of the ground!"
+
+"But to you I can say that Mr. Barry will be better able to tell you
+than I am what can be done by me to defend my property."
+
+"Captain Scarborough," said Mr. Tyrrwhit, mildly, "we had your name, you
+know. We did have your name."
+
+"And my father bought the bonds back."
+
+"Oh laws! And he calls himself a shentleman!"
+
+"I have nothing farther to say to you now, gentlemen, and can only refer
+you to Mr. Barry." The path on which they were walking had then brought
+them to the corner of a garden wall, through which a door opened into
+the garden. Luckily, at the moment, it occurred to Mountjoy that there
+was a bolt on the other side of the gate, and he entered it quickly and
+bolted the door. Mr. Tyrrwhit was left on the other side, and was joined
+by his companions as quickly as their failing breath enabled them to do
+so. "'Ere's a go!" said Mr. Hart, striking the door violently with the
+handle of his stick.
+
+"He had nothing for it but to leave us when we attacked him altogether,"
+said Mr. Tyrrwhit. "If you had left it to me he would have told us what
+he intended to do. You, Mr. Hart, had not so much cause to be angry, as
+you had received a considerable sum for interest." Then Mr. Hart turned
+upon Mr. Tyrrwhit, and abused him all the way back to their inn. But it
+was pleasant to see how these commercial gentlemen, all engaged in the
+natural course of trade, expressed their violent indignation, not so
+much as to their personal losses, but at the commercial dishonesty
+generally of which the Scarboroughs, father and son, had been and were
+about to be guilty.
+
+Mountjoy, when he reached the house of which he was now the only
+occupant besides the servants, stood for an hour in the dining-room with
+his back toward the fire, thinking of his position. He had many things
+of which to think. In the first place, there were these pseudo-creditors
+who had just attacked him in his own park with much acrimony. He
+endeavored to comfort himself by telling himself that they were
+certainly pseudo-creditors, to whom he did not in fact owe a penny. Mr.
+Barry could deal with them.
+
+But then his conscience reminded him that they had, in truth, been
+cheated,--cheated by his father for his benefit. For every pound which
+they had received they would have claimed three or four. They would no
+doubt have cheated him. But how was he now to measure the extent of his
+father's fraud against that of his creditors? And though it would have
+been right in him to resist the villany of these Jews, he felt that it
+was not fit that he should escape from their fangs altogether by his
+father's deceit. He had not become so dead to honor but that _noblesse
+oblige_ did still live within his bosom. And yet there was nothing that
+he could do to absolve his bosom. The income of the estate was nearly
+clear, the money brought in by the late sales having all but sufficed to
+give these gentlemen that which his father had chosen to pay them. But
+was he sure of that income? He had just now asserted boldly that he was
+the legitimate heir to the property; but did he know that he was so?
+Could he believe his father? Had not Mr. Grey asserted that he would not
+accept this later evidence? Was he not sure that Augustus intended to
+proceed against him? and was he not aware that nothing could be called
+his own till that lawsuit should have been decided? If that should be
+given against him, then these harpies would have been treated only too
+well; then there would be no question, at any rate by him, as to what
+_noblesse oblige_ might require of him. He could take no immediate step
+in regard to them, and therefore, for the moment, drove that trouble
+from his mind.
+
+But what should he do with himself as to his future life? To be
+persecuted and abused by these wretched men, as had this morning been
+his fate, would be intolerable. Could he shut himself up from Mr. Samuel
+Hart and still live in England? And then could he face the clubs,--if the
+clubs would be kind enough to re-elect him? And then there came a dark
+frown across his brow, as he bethought himself that even at this moment
+his heart was longing to be once more among the cards. Could he not
+escape to Monaco, and there be happy among the gambling-tables? Mr. Hart
+would surely not follow him there, and he would be free from the
+surveillance of that double blackguard, his brother's servant and his
+father's spy.
+
+But, after all, as he declared to himself, did it not altogether turn on
+the final answer which he might get from Florence Mountjoy? Could
+Florence be brought to accede to his wishes, he thought that he might
+still live happily, respectably, and in such a manner that his name
+might go down to posterity not altogether blasted. If Florence would
+consent to live at Tretton, then could he remain there. He thought it
+over as he stood there with his back to the fire, and he told himself
+that with Florence the first year would be possible, and that after the
+first year the struggle would cease to be a struggle. He knew himself,
+he declared, and he made all manner of excuses for his former vicious
+life, basing them all on the hardness of her treatment of him. He did
+not know himself, and such assurances were vain. But buoyed up by such
+assurances, he resolved that his future fate must be in her hands, and
+that her word alone should suffice either to destroy him or to save him.
+
+Thinking thus of his future life, he resolved that he would go at once
+to Cheltenham, and throw himself, and what of Tretton belonged to him,
+at the girl's feet. Nor could he endure himself to rest another night at
+Tretton till he had done so. He started at once, and got late to
+Gloucester, where he slept, and on the next morning at eleven o'clock
+was at Cheltenham, out on his way to Montpellier Terrace. He at once
+asked for Florence, but circumstances so arranged themselves that he
+first found himself closeted with her mother. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+delighted, and yet shocked, to see him. "My poor brother!" she said;
+"and he was buried only yesterday!" Such explanation as Mountjoy could
+give was given. He soon made the whole tenor of his thoughts
+intelligible to her. "Yes; Tretton was his,--at least he supposed so. As
+to his future life he could say nothing. It must depend on Florence. He
+thought that if she would promise to become at once his wife, there
+would be no more gambling. He had felt it to be incumbent on him to come
+and tell her so."
+
+Mrs. Mountjoy, frightened by the thorough blackness of his apparel and
+by the sternness of his manner, had not a word to say to him in
+opposition. "Be gentle with her," she said, as she led the way to the
+room in which Florence was found. "Your cousin has come to see you," she
+said; "has come immediately after the funeral. I hope you will be
+gracious to him." Then she closed the door, and the two were alone
+together.
+
+"Florence!" he said.
+
+"Mountjoy! We hardly expected you here so soon."
+
+"Where the heart strays the body is apt to follow. I could speak to no
+one, I could do nothing, I could hope and pray for nothing till I had
+seen you."
+
+"You cannot depend on me like that," she answered.
+
+"I do depend on you most entirely. No human being can depend more
+thoroughly on another. It is not my fortune that I have come to offer
+you, or simply my love, but in very truth my soul."
+
+"Mountjoy, that is wicked!"
+
+"Then wicked let it be. It is true. Tretton, by singular circumstances,
+is all my own, free of debt. At any rate, I and others believe it to be
+so."
+
+"Tretton being all your own can make no difference."
+
+"I told you that I had not come to offer you my fortune." And he almost
+scowled at her as he spoke. "You know what my career has hitherto been,
+though you do not perhaps know what has driven me to it. Shall I go
+back, and live after the same fashion, and let Tretton go to the dogs?
+It will be so unless you take me and Tretton into your hands."
+
+"It cannot be."
+
+"Oh, Florence! think of it before you pronounce my doom."
+
+"It cannot be. I love you well as my cousin, and for your sake I love
+Tretton also. I would suffer much to save you, if any suffering on my
+part would be of avail. But it cannot be in that fashion." Then he
+scowled again at her. "Mountjoy, you frighten me by your hard looks;--but
+though you were to kill me you cannot change me. I am the promised wife
+of Harry Annesley; and for his honor I must bid you plead this cause no
+more." Then, just at this moment there was a ring at the bell and a
+knock at the door, each of them somewhat impetuous, and Florence
+Mountjoy, jumping up with a start, knew that Harry Annesley was there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+HARRY ANNESLEY IS ACCEPTED.
+
+
+She knew that Harry Annesley was at the door. He had written to say that
+he must come again, though he had fixed no day for his coming. She had
+been delighted to think that he should come, though she had after her
+fashion, scolded him for the promised visit. But, though his comings had
+not been frequent, she recognized already the sounds of his advent. When
+a girl really loves her lover, the very atmosphere tells of his
+whereabouts. She was expecting him with almost breathless expectation
+when her cousin Mountjoy was brought to her; and so was her mother, who
+had been told that Harry Annesley had business on which he intended to
+call. But now the two foes must meet in her presence. That was the idea
+which first came upon her. She was sure that Harry would behave well.
+Why should not a favored lover on such occasions always behave well? But
+how would Mountjoy conduct himself when brought face to face with his
+rival? As Florence thought of it, she remembered that when last they met
+the quarrel between them had been outrageous. And Mountjoy had been the
+sinner, while Harry had been made to bear the punishment of the sin.
+
+Harry, when he was told that Miss Mountjoy was at home, had at once
+walked in and opened for himself the door of the front room downstairs.
+There he found Florence and Mountjoy Scarborough. Mrs. Mountjoy was
+still up-stairs in her bedroom, and was palpitating with fear as she
+thought of the anger of the two combative lovers. To her belief, Harry
+was, of the two, the most like to a roaring lion, because she had heard
+of him that he had roared so dreadfully on that former occasion. But she
+did not instantly go down, detained in her bedroom by the eagerness of
+her fear, and by the necessity of resolving how she would behave when
+she got there.
+
+Harry, when he entered, stood a moment at the door, and then, hurrying
+across the room, offered Scarborough his hand. "I have been so sorry,"
+he said, "to hear of your loss; but your father's health was such that
+you could not have expected that his life should be prolonged." Mountjoy
+muttered something, but his mutterings, as Florence had observed, were
+made in courtesy. And the two men had taken each other by the hand;
+after that they could hardly fly at each other's throats in her
+presence. Then Harry crossed to Florence and took her hand. "I never get
+a line from you," he said, laughing, "but what you scold me. I think I
+escape better when I am present; so here I am."
+
+"You always make wicked propositions, and of course I scold you. A girl
+has to go on scolding till she's married, and then it's her turn to get
+it."
+
+"No wonder, then, that you talk of three years so glibly. I want to be
+able to scold you."
+
+All this was going on in Mountjoy's presence, while he stood by, silent,
+black, and scowling. His position was very difficult,--that of hearing
+the billing and cooing of these lovers. But theirs also was not too
+easy, which made the billing and cooing necessary in his presence. Each
+had to seem to be natural, but the billing and cooing were in truth
+affected. Had he not been there, would they not have been in each
+other's arms? and would not she have made him the proudest man in
+England by a loving kiss? "I was asking Miss Mountjoy, when you came in,
+to be my wife." This Scarborough said with a loud voice, looking Harry
+full in the face.
+
+"It cannot be," said Florence; "I told you that, for his honor,"--and she
+laid her hand on Harry's arm,--"I could listen to no such request."
+
+"The request has to be made again," he said.
+
+"It will be made in vain," said Harry.
+
+"So, no doubt, you think," said Captain Scarborough.
+
+"You can ask herself," said Harry.
+
+"Of course it will be made in vain," said Florence. "Does he think that
+a girl, in such a matter as that of loving a man, can be turned here and
+there at a moment's notice,--that she can say yes and no alternately to
+two men? It is impossible. Harry Annesley has chosen me, and I am
+infinitely happy in his choice." Here Harry made an attempt to get his
+arm round her waist, in which, however, she prevented him, seeing the
+angry passion rising in her cousin's eyes. "He is to be my husband, I
+hope. I have told him that I love him, and I tell you so also. He has my
+promise, and I cannot take it back without perjury to him, and ruin,
+absolute ruin, to myself. All my happiness in this world depends on him.
+He is to me my own one absolute master, to whom I have given myself
+altogether, as far as this world goes. Even were he to reject me I could
+not give myself to another."
+
+"My Florence! my darling!" Harry exclaimed.
+
+"After having told you so much, can you ask your cousin to be untrue to
+her word and to her heart, and to become your wife when her heart is
+utterly within his keeping? Mountjoy, it is impossible."
+
+"What of me, then?" he said.
+
+"Rouse yourself and love some other girl and marry her, and so do well
+with yourself and with your property."
+
+"You talk of your heart," he said, "and you bid me use my own after such
+fashion as that!"
+
+"A man's heart can be changed, but not a woman's. His love is but one
+thing among many."
+
+"It is the one thing," said Harry. Then the door opened, and Mrs.
+Mountjoy entered the room.
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear!" she said, "you, both of you, here together?"
+
+"Yes: we are both here together," said Harry.
+
+There was an unfortunate smile on his face as he said so, which made
+Mountjoy Scarborough very angry. The two men were both handsome, two as
+handsome men as you shall see on a summer's day. Mountjoy was
+dark-visaged, with coal-black whiskers and mustaches, with sparkling,
+angry eyes, and every feature of his face well cut and finely formed;
+but there was absent from him all look of contentment or satisfaction.
+Harry was light-haired, with long, silken beard, and bright eyes; but
+there was usually present to his face a look of infinite joy, which was
+comfortable to all beholders. If not strong, as was the other man's, it
+was happy and eloquent of good temper. But in one thing they were
+alike:--neither of them counted aught on his good looks. Mountjoy had
+attempted to domineer by his bad temper, and had failed; but Harry,
+without any attempt at domineering, always doubting of himself till he
+had been assured of success by her lips, had succeeded. Now he was very
+proud of his success; but he was proud of her, and not of himself.
+
+"You come in here and boast of what you have done in my presence," said
+Mountjoy Scarborough.
+
+"How can I not seem to boast when she tells me that she loves me?" said
+Harry.
+
+"For God's sake, do not quarrel here!" said Mrs. Mountjoy.
+
+"They shall not quarrel at all," said Florence, "There is no cause for
+quarrelling. When a girl has given herself away there should be an end
+of it. No man who knows that she has done so should speak to her again
+in the way of love. I will leave you now; but, Harry, you must come
+again, in order that I may tell you that you must not have it all your
+own way, just as you please, sir." Then she gave him her hand, and
+passing on at once to Mountjoy, tendered her hand to him also. "You are
+my cousin, and the head now of my mother's family. I would fain know
+that you would say a kind word to me, and bid me 'God speed.'"
+
+He looked at her, but did not take her hand. "I cannot do it," he said.
+"I cannot bid you 'God speed.' You have ruined me, trampled upon me,
+destroyed me. I am not angry with him," and he pointed across the room
+to Harry Annesley; "nor with you; but only with myself." Then, without
+speaking a word to his aunt, he marched out of the room and left the
+house, closing the front-door after him with a loud noise, which
+testified to his anger.
+
+"He has gone!" said Mrs. Mountjoy, with a tone of deep tragedy.
+
+"It is better so," said Florence.
+
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," said Harry. "There
+is something about Mountjoy Scarborough that, after all, I like. I do
+not love Augustus, but, with certain faults, Mountjoy is a good fellow."
+
+"He is the head of our family," said Mrs. Mountjoy, "and is the owner of
+Tretton."
+
+"That is nothing to do with it," said Florence.
+
+"It has much to do with it," said her mother, "though you would never
+listen to me. I had set my heart upon it, but you have determined to
+thwart me. And yet there was a time when you preferred him to every one
+else."
+
+"Never!" said Florence, with energy.
+
+"Yes, you did,--before Mr. Annesley here came in the way."
+
+"It was before I came, at any rate," said Harry.
+
+"I was young, and I did not wish to be disobedient. But I never loved
+him, and I never told him so. Now it is out of the question."
+
+"He will never come back again," said Mrs. Mountjoy, mournfully.
+
+"I should be very glad to see him back when I and Florence are man and
+wife. I don't care how soon we should see him."
+
+"No; he will never come back," said Florence,--"not as he came to-day.
+That trouble is at last over, mamma."
+
+"And my trouble is going to begin."
+
+"Why should there be any trouble? Harry will not give you trouble;--will
+you, Harry?"
+
+"Never, I trust," said Harry.
+
+"He cannot understand," said Mrs. Mountjoy; "he knows nothing of the
+desire and ambition of my life. I had promised him my child, and my word
+to him is now broken."
+
+"He will have known, mamma, that you could not promise for me. Now go,
+Harry, because we are flurried. May I not ask him to come here to-night
+and to drink tea with us?" This she said, addressing her mother in a
+tone of sweetest entreaty. To this Mrs. Mountjoy unwillingly yielded,
+and then Harry also took his departure.
+
+Florence was aware that she had gained much by the interview of the
+morning. Even to her it began to appear unnecessary that she should keep
+Harry waiting three years. She had spoken of postponing the time of her
+servitude and of preserving for herself the masterdom of her own
+condition. But in that respect the truth of her own desires was well
+understood by them all. She was anxious enough to submit to her new
+master, and she felt that the time was coming. Her mother had yielded so
+much, and Mountjoy had yielded. Harry was saying to himself at this very
+moment that Mountjoy had thrown up the sponge. She, too, was declaring
+the same thing for her own comfort in less sporting phraseology, and,
+what was much more to her, her mother had nearly thrown up the sponge
+also. In the worse days of her troubles any suitor had made himself
+welcome to her mother who would rescue her child from the fangs of that
+roaring lion, Harry Annesley. Mr. Anderson had been received with open
+arms, and even M. Grascour. Mrs. Mountjoy had then got it into her head
+that of all lions which were about in those days Harry roared the
+loudest. His sins in regard to leaving poor Mountjoy speechless and
+motionless on the pavement had filled her with horror. But Florence now
+felt that all that had come to an end. Not only had Mountjoy gone away,
+but no mention would probably be ever again made of Anderson or
+Grascour. When Florence was preparing herself for tea that evening she
+sang a little song to herself as to the coming of the conquering hero.
+"A man must take his chance in such warfare as this," she said,
+repeating to herself her lover's words.
+
+"You can't expect me to be very bright," her mother said to her before
+Harry came.
+
+There was a sign of yielding in this also; but Florence in her happiness
+did not wish to make her mother miserable, "Why not be bright, mamma?
+Don't you know that Harry is good?"
+
+"No. How am I to know anything about him? He may be utterly penniless."
+
+"But his uncle has offered to let us live in the house and to give us an
+income. Mr. Prosper has abandoned all idea of getting married."
+
+"He can be married any day. And why do you want to live in another man's
+house when you may live in your own? Tretton is ready for you,--the
+finest mansion in the whole county." Here Mrs. Mountjoy exaggerated a
+little, but some exaggeration may be allowed to a lady in her
+circumstances.
+
+"Mamma, you know that I cannot live at Tretton."
+
+"It is the house in which I was born."
+
+"How can that signify? When such things happen they are used as
+additional grounds for satisfaction. But I cannot marry your nephew
+because you were born in a certain house. And all that is over now: you
+know that Mountjoy will not come back again."
+
+"He would," exclaimed the mother, as though with new hopes.
+
+"Oh, mamma! how can you talk like that? I mean to marry Harry
+Annesley;--you know that I do. Why not make your own girl happy by
+accepting him?" Then Mrs. Mountjoy left the room and went to her own
+chamber and cried there, not bitterly, I think, but copiously. Her girl
+would be the wife of the squire of Buston, who, after all, was not a bad
+sort of fellow. At any rate he would not gamble. There had always been
+that terrible drawback. And he was a fellow of his college, in which she
+would look for, and probably would find, some compensation as to
+Tretton. When, therefore, she came down to tea, she was able to receive
+Harry not with joy but at least without rebuke.
+
+Conversation was at first somewhat flat between the two. If the old
+lady could have been induced to remain up-stairs, Harry felt that the
+evening would have been much more satisfactory. But, as it was, he found
+himself enabled to make some progress. He at once began to address
+Florence as his undoubted future spouse, very slyly using words adapted
+for that purpose: and she, without any outburst of her intention,--as she
+had made when discussing the matter with her cousin,--answered him in the
+same spirit, and by degrees came so to talk as though the matter were
+entirely settled. And then, at last, that future day was absolutely
+brought on the tapis as though now to be named.
+
+"Three years!" ejaculated Mrs. Mountjoy, as though not even yet
+surrendering her last hope.
+
+Florence, from the nature of the circumstances, received this in
+silence. Had it been ten years she might have expostulated. But a young
+lady's bashfulness was bound to appear satisfied with an assurance of
+marriage within three years. But it was otherwise with Harry. "Good God,
+Mrs. Mountjoy, we shall all be dead!" he cried out.
+
+Mrs. Mountjoy showed by her countenance that she was extremely shocked.
+"Oh, Harry!" said Florence, "none of us, I hope, will be dead in three
+years."
+
+"I shall be a great deal too old to be married if I am left alive. Three
+months, you mean. It will be just the proper time of year, which does go
+for something. And three months is always supposed to be long enough to
+allow a girl to get her new frocks."
+
+"You know nothing about it, Harry," said Florence. And so the matter was
+discussed--in such a manner that when Harry took his departure that
+evening he was half inclined to sing a song of himself about the
+conquering hero. "Dear mamma!" said Florence, kissing her mother with
+all the warm, clinging affection of former years. It was very
+pleasant,--but still Mrs. Mountjoy went to her room with a sad heart.
+
+When there she sat for a while over the fire, and then drew out her
+desk. She had been beaten,--absolutely beaten,--and it was necessary that
+she should own so much in writing to one person. So she wrote her
+letter, which was as follows:
+
+"Dear Mountjoy,--After all it cannot be as I would have had it. As they
+say, 'Man proposes, but God disposes.' I would have given her to you
+now, and would even yet have trusted that you would have treated her
+well, had it not been that Mr. Annesley has gained such a hold upon her
+affections. She is wilful, as you are, and I cannot bend her. It has
+been the longing of my heart that you two should live together at
+Tretton. But such longings are, I think, wicked, and are seldom
+realized.
+
+"I write now just this one line to tell you that it is all settled. I
+have not been strong enough to prevent such settling. He talks of three
+months! But what does it matter? Three months or three years will be the
+same to you, and nearly the same to me.
+
+"Your affectionate aunt,
+
+"SARAH MOUNTJOY.
+
+"P.S.--May I as your loving aunt add one word of passionate entreaty?
+All Tretton is yours now, and the honor of Tretton is within your
+keeping. Do not go back to those wretched tables!"
+
+Mountjoy Scarborough when he received this letter cannot be said to have
+been made unhappy by it, because he had already known all his
+unhappiness. But he turned it in his mind as though to think what would
+now be the best course of life open to him. And he did think that he had
+better go back to those tables against which his aunt had warned him,
+and there remain till he had made the acres of Tretton utterly
+disappear. There was nothing for him which seemed to be better. And here
+at home in England even that would at present be impossible to him. He
+could not enter the clubs, and elsewhere Samuel Hart would be ever at
+his heels. And there was his brother with his lawsuit, though on that
+matter a compromise had already been offered to him. Augustus had
+proposed to him by his lawyer to share Tretton. He would never share
+Tretton. His brother should have an income secured to him, but he would
+keep Tretton in his own hands,--as long as the gambling-tables would
+allow him.
+
+He was, in truth, a wretched man, as on that night he did make up his
+mind, and ringing his bell called his servant out of his bed to bid him
+prepare everything for a sudden start. He would leave Tretton on the
+following day, or on the day after, and intended at once to go abroad.
+"He is off for that place nigh to Italy where they have the
+gambling-tables," said the butler, on the following morning, to the
+valet who declared his master's intentions.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder, Mr. Stokes," said the valet. "I'm told it's a
+beauteous country and I should like to see a little of that sort of
+life myself." Alas, alas! Within a week from that time Captain
+Scarborough might have been seen seated in the Monte Carlo room, without
+any friendly Samuel Hart to stand over him and guard him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+THE LAST OF MR. GREY.
+
+
+"I have put in my last appearance at the old chamber in Lincoln's Inn
+Fields," said Mr. Grey, on arriving home one day early in June.
+
+"Papa, you don't mean it!" said Dolly.
+
+"I do. Why not one day as well as another? I have made up my mind that
+it is to be so. I have been thinking of it for the last six weeks. It is
+done now."
+
+"But you have not told me."
+
+"Well, yes; I have told you all that was necessary. It has come now a
+little sudden, that is all."
+
+"You will never go back again?"
+
+"Well, I may look in. Mr. Barry will be lord and master."
+
+"At any rate he won't be my lord and master!" said Dolly, showing by the
+tone of her voice that the matter had been again discussed by them since
+the last conversation which was recorded, and had been settled to her
+father's satisfaction.
+
+"No;--you at least will be left to me. But the fact is, I cannot have any
+farther dealings with the affairs of Mr. Scarborough. The old man who is
+dead was too many for me. Though I call him old, he was ever so much
+younger than I am. Barry says he was the best lawyer he ever knew. As
+things go now a man has to be accounted a fool if he attempts to run
+straight. Barry does not tell me that I have been a fool, but he clearly
+thinks so."
+
+"Do you care what Mr. Barry thinks or says?"
+
+"Yes, I do,--in regard to the professional position which I hold. He is
+confident that Mountjoy Scarborough is his father's eldest legitimate
+son, and he believes that the old squire simply was anxious to supersede
+him to get some cheap arrangement made as to his debts."
+
+"I supposed that was the case before."
+
+"But what am I to think of such a man? Mr. Barry speaks of him almost
+with affection. How am I to get on with such a man as Mr. Barry?"
+
+"He himself is honest."
+
+"Well;--yes, I believe so. But he does not hate the absolute utter
+roguery of our own client. And that is not quite all. When the story of
+the Rummelsburg marriage was told I did not believe one word of it, and
+I said so most strongly. I did not at first believe the story that there
+had been no such marriage, and I swore to Mr. Scarborough that I would
+protect Mountjoy and Mountjoy's creditors against any such scheme as
+that which was intended. Then I was convinced. All the details of the
+Nice marriage were laid before me. It was manifest that the lady had
+submitted to be married in a public manner and with all regular forms,
+while she had a baby, as it were, in her arms. And I got all the dates.
+Taking that marriage for granted, Mountjoy was clearly illegitimate, and
+I was driven so to confess. Then I took up arms on behalf of Augustus.
+Augustus was a thoroughly bad fellow,--a bully and a tyrant; but he was
+the eldest son. Then came the question of paying the debts. I thought
+it a very good thing that the debts should be payed in the proposed
+fashion. The men were all to get the money they had actually lent, and
+no better arrangement seemed to be probable. I helped in that, feeling
+that it was all right. But it was a swindle that I was made to assist
+in. Of course it was a swindle, if the Rummelsburg marriage be true, and
+all these creditors think that I have been a party to it. Then I swore
+that I wouldn't believe the Rummelsburg marriage. But Barry and the rest
+of them only shake their heads and laugh, and I am told that Mr.
+Scarborough was the best lawyer among us!"
+
+"What does it matter? How can that hurt you?" asked Dolly.
+
+"It does hurt me;--that is the truth. I have been at my business long
+enough. Another system has grown up which does not suit me. I feel that
+they all can put their fingers in my eyes. It may be that I am a fool,
+and that my idea of honesty is a mistake."
+
+"No!" shouted Dolly.
+
+"I heard of a rich American the other day who had been poor, and was
+asked how he had suddenly become so well off. 'I found a partner,' said
+the American, 'and we went into business together. He had the capital
+and I had the experience. We just made a change. He has the experience
+now and I have the capital.' When I knew that story I went to strip his
+coat off the wretch's back; but Mr. Barry would give him a fine fur
+cloak as a mark of respect. When I find that clever rascals are
+respectable, I think it is time that I should give up work altogether."
+
+Thus it was that Mr. Grey left the house of Grey & Barry, driven to
+premature retirement by the vices, or rather frauds, of old Mr.
+Scarborough. When Augustus went to work, which he did immediately on his
+father's death, to wrest the property from the hands of his brother,--or
+what part of the property might be possible,--Mr. Grey absolutely
+declined to have anything to do with the case. Mr. Barry explained how
+impossible it was that the house, even for its own sake, should
+absolutely secede from all consideration of the question. Mountjoy had
+been left in possession, and, according to all the evidence now before
+them, was the true owner. Of course he would want a lawyer, and, as Mr.
+Barry said, would be very well able to pay for what he wanted. It was
+necessary that the firm should protect themselves against the
+vindictiveness of Mr. Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart. Should the firm fail to
+do so, it would leave itself open to all manner of evil calumnies. The
+firm had been so long employed on behalf of the Scarboroughs that now,
+when the old squire was dead, it could not afford to relinquish the
+business till this final great question had been settled. It was
+necessary, as Mr. Barry said, that they should see it out, Mr. Barry
+taking a much more leading part in these discussions than had been his
+wont. Consequently Mr. Grey had told him that he might do it himself,
+and Mr. Barry had been quite contented. Mr. Barry, in talking the matter
+over with one of the clerks, whom he afterward took into partnership,
+expressed his opinion that "poor old Grey was altogether off the hooks."
+"Old Grey" had always been Mr. Grey when spoken of by Mr. Barry till
+that day, and the clerk remarking this, left Mr. Grey's bell unanswered
+for three or four minutes. Mr. Grey, though he was quite willing to
+shelf himself, understood it all, and knocked them about in the chambers
+that afternoon with unwonted severity. He said nothing about it when he
+came home that evening: but the next day was the last on which he took
+his accustomed chair.
+
+"What will you do with yourself, papa?" Dolly said to him the next
+morning.
+
+"Do with myself?"
+
+"What employment will you take in hand? One has to think of that, and to
+live accordingly. If you would like to turn farmer, we must live in the
+country."
+
+"Certainly I shall not do that. I need not absolutely throw away what
+money I have saved."
+
+"Or if you were fond of shooting or hunting?"
+
+"You know very well I never shot a bird, and hardly ever crossed a horse
+in my life."
+
+"But you are fond of gardening."
+
+"Haven't I got garden enough here?"
+
+"Quite enough, if you think so; but will there be occupation sufficient
+in that to find you employment for all your life?"
+
+"I shall read."
+
+"It seems to me," she said, "that reading becomes wearisome as an only
+pursuit, unless you've made yourself accustomed to it."
+
+"Sha'n't I have as much employment as you?"
+
+"A woman is so different! Darning will get through an unlimited number
+of hours. A new set of underclothing will occupy me for a fortnight.
+Turning the big girl's dresses over there into frocks for the little
+girls is sufficient to keep my mind in employment for a month. Then I
+have the maid-servants to look after, and to guard against their lovers.
+I have the dinners to provide, and to see that the cook does not give
+the fragments to the policeman. I have been brought up to do these
+things, and habit has made them usual occupations to me. I never envied
+you when you had to encounter all Mr. Scarborough's vagaries; but I knew
+that they sufficed to give you something to do."
+
+"They have sufficed," said he, "to leave me without anything that I can
+do."
+
+"You must not allow yourself to be so left. You must find out some
+employment." Then they sat silent for a time, while Mr. Grey occupied
+himself with some of the numerous papers which it would be necessary
+that he should hand over to Mr. Barry. "And now," said Dolly, "Mr.
+Carroll will have gone out, and I will go over to the Terrace. I have to
+see them every day, and Mr. Carroll has the decency to take himself off
+to some billiard-table so as to make room for me."
+
+"What are they doing about that man?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"About the lover? Mr. Juniper has, I fancy, made himself extremely
+disagreeable, not satisfying himself with abusing you and me, but poor
+aunt as well, and all the girls. He has, I fancy, got some money of his
+own."
+
+"He has had money paid to him by Captain Scarborough; but that I should
+fancy would rather make him in a good humor than the reverse."
+
+"He is only in a good humor, I take it, when he has something to get.
+However, I must be off now, or the legitimate period of Uncle Carroll's
+absence will be over."
+
+Mr. Grey, when he was left alone, at once gave up the manipulation of
+his papers, and, throwing himself back into his chair, began to think of
+that future life of which he had talked so easily to his daughter. What
+should he do with himself? He believed that he could manage with his
+books for two hours a day; but even of that he was not sure. He much
+doubted whether for many years past the time devoted to reading in his
+own house had amounted to one hour a day. He thought that he could
+employ himself in the garden for two hours; but that would fail him when
+there should be hail, or fierce sunshine, or frost, or snow, or rain.
+Eating and drinking would be much to him; but he could not but look
+forward to self-reproach if eating and drinking were to be the joy of
+his life. Then he thought of Dolly's life,--how much purer and better and
+nobler it had been than his own. She talked in a slighting, careless
+tone of her usual day's work, but how much of her time had been occupied
+in doing the tasks of others? He knew well that she disliked the
+Carrolls. She would speak of her own dislike of them as of her great
+sin, of which it was necessary that she should repent in sackcloth and
+ashes.
+
+But yet how she worked for the family! turning old dresses into new
+frocks, as though the girls who had worn them, and the children who were
+to wear them, had been to her her dearest friends. Every day she went
+across to the house intent upon doing good offices; and this was the
+repentance in sackcloth and ashes which she exacted from herself. Could
+not he do as she did? He could not darn Minnie's and Brenda's stockings,
+but he might do something to make those children more worthy of their
+cousin's care. He could not associate with his brother-in-law, because
+he was sure that Mr. Carroll would not endure his society; but he might
+labor to do something for the reform even of this abominable man. Before
+Dolly had come back to him he had resolved that he could only redeem his
+life from the stagnation with which it was threatened by working for
+others, now that the work of his own life had come to a close. "Well,
+Dolly," he said, as soon as she had entered the room, "have you heard
+any thing more about Mr. Juniper?"
+
+"Have you been here ever since, papa?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; I used to sit at chambers for six or seven hours at a
+stretch, almost without getting out of my chair."
+
+"And are you still employed about those awful papers?"
+
+"I have not looked at them since you left the room."
+
+"Then you must have been asleep."
+
+"No, indeed; I have not been asleep. You left me too much to think of to
+enable me to sleep. What am I to do with myself besides eating and
+drinking, so that I shall not sleep always on this side of the grave?"
+
+"There are twenty things, papa,--thirty, fifty, for a man so minded as
+you are." This she said trying to comfort him.
+
+"I must endeavor to find one or two of the fifty." Then he went back to
+his papers, and really worked hard on that day.
+
+On the following morning, early, he went across to Bolsover Terrace, to
+begin his task of reproving the Carroll family, without saying a word to
+Dolly indicative of his purpose.
+
+He found that the task would be difficult, and as he went he considered
+within his mind how best it might be accomplished. He had put a
+prayer-book in his pocket, without giving it much thought; but before he
+knocked at the door he had assured himself that the prayer-book would
+not be of avail. He would not know how to begin to use it, and felt that
+it would be ridiculed. He must leave that to Dolly or to the clergyman.
+He could talk to the girls; but they would not care about the affairs of
+the firm; and, in truth, he did not know what they would care about.
+With Dolly he could hold sweet converse as long as she would remain with
+him. But he had been present at the bringing up of Dolly, and did think
+that gifts had been given to Dolly which had not fallen to the lot of
+the Carroll girls. "They all want to be married," he said to himself,
+"and that at any rate is a legitimate desire."
+
+With this he knocked at the door, and when it was opened by Sophia, he
+found an old gentleman with black cotton gloves and a doubtful white
+cravat just preparing for his departure. There was Amelia, then giving
+him his hat, and looking as pure and proper as though she had never been
+winked at by Prince Chitakov. Then the mother came through from the
+parlor into the passage. "Oh, John! how very kind of you to come. Mr.
+Matterson, pray let me introduce you to my brother, Mr. Grey. John, this
+is the Rev. Mr. Matterson, a clergyman who is a very intimate friend of
+Amelia."
+
+"Me, ma! Why me in particular?"
+
+"Well, my dear, because it is so. I suppose it is so because Mr.
+Matterson likes you the best."
+
+"Laws, ma; what nonsense!" Mr. Matterson appeared to be a very shy
+gentleman, and only anxious to escape from the hall-door. But Mr. Grey
+remembered that in former days, before the coming of Mr. Juniper upon
+the scene, he had heard of a clerical admirer. He had been told that the
+gentleman's name was Matterson, that he was not very young nor very
+rich, that he had five or six children, and that he could afford to
+marry if the wife could bring with her about one hundred pounds a year.
+He had not then thought much of Mr. Matterson, and no direct appeal had
+been made to him. After that Mr. Juniper had come forward, and then Mr.
+Juniper had been altogether abolished. But it occurred to Mr. Grey that
+Mr. Matterson was at any rate better than Mr. Juniper; that he was by
+profession a gentleman, and that there might be a beginning of those
+good deeds by which he was anxious to make the evening of his days
+bearable to himself.
+
+"I am delighted to make Mr. Matterson's acquaintance," he said, as that
+old gentleman scrambled out of the door.
+
+Then his sister took him by the arm and led him at once into the parlor.
+"You might as well come and hear what I have to say, Amelia." So the
+daughter followed them in. "He is the most praiseworthy gentleman you
+ever knew, John," began Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"A clergyman, I think?"
+
+"Oh yes; he is in orders,--in priest's orders," said Mrs. Carroll,
+meaning to make the most of Mr. Matterson. "He has a church over at
+Putney."
+
+"I am glad of that," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Yes, indeed; though it isn't very good, because it's only a curate's
+one hundred and fifty pounds. Yes; he does have one hundred and fifty
+pounds, and something out of the surplice fees."
+
+"Another one hundred pounds I believe it is," said Amelia.
+
+"Not quite so much as that, my dear, but it is something."
+
+"He is a widower with children, I believe?" said Mr. Grey.
+
+"There are children--five of them; the prettiest little dears one ever
+saw. The eldest is just about thirteen." This was a fib, because Mrs.
+Carroll knew that the eldest boy was sixteen; but what did it signify?
+"Amelia is so warmly attached to them."
+
+"It is a settled thing, then?"
+
+"We hope so. It cannot be said to be quite settled, because there are
+always money difficulties. Poor Mr. Matterson must have some increase to
+his income before he can afford it."
+
+"Ah, yes!"
+
+"You did say something, uncle, about five hundred pounds," said Amelia.
+
+"Four hundred and fifty, my dear," said Mr. Grey.
+
+"Oh, I had forgotten. I did say that I hoped there would be five
+hundred."
+
+"There shall be five hundred," said Mr. Grey, remembering that now had
+come the time for doing to one of the Carroll family the good things of
+which he had thought to himself. "As Mr. Matterson is a clergyman of
+whom I have heard nothing but good, it shall be five hundred." He had in
+truth heard nothing either good or bad respecting Mr. Matterson.
+
+Then he asked Amelia to take a walk with him as he went home, reflecting
+that now had come the time in which a little wholesome conversation
+might have its effect. And an idea entered his head that in his old age
+an acquaintance with a neighboring clergyman might be salutary to
+himself. So Amelia got her bonnet and walked home with him.
+
+"Is he an eloquent preacher, my dear?" But Amelia had never heard him
+preach. "I suppose there will be plenty for you to do in your new home."
+
+"I don't mean to be put upon, if you mean that, uncle."
+
+"But five children!"
+
+"There is a servant who looks after them. Of course I shall have to see
+to Mr. Matterson's own things, but I have told him I cannot slave for
+them all. The three eldest have to be sent somewhere; that has been
+agreed upon. He has got an unmarried sister who can quite afford to do
+as much as that." Then she explained her reasons for the marriage. "Papa
+is getting quite unbearable, and Sophy spoils him in everything."
+
+Poor Mr. Grey, when his niece turned and went back home, thought that,
+as far as the girl was concerned, or her future household, there would
+be very little room for employment for him. Mr. Matterson wanted an
+upper servant who instead of demanding wages, would bring a little money
+with her, and he could not but feel that the poor clergyman would find
+that he had taken into his house a bad and expensive upper servant.
+
+"Never mind, papa," said Dolly, "we will go on and persevere, and if we
+intend to do good, good will come of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+THE LAST OF AUGUSTUS SCARBOROUGH.
+
+
+When old Mr. Scarborough was dead, and had been for a while buried,
+Augustus made his application in form to Messrs. Grey & Barry. He made
+it through his own attorney, and had now received Mr. Barry's answer
+through the same attorney. The nature of the application had been in
+this wise: that Mr. Augustus Scarborough had been put in to the position
+of the eldest son; that he did not himself in the least doubt that such
+was his true position; that close inquiry had been made at the time, and
+that the lawyers, including Mr. Grey and Mr. Barry had assented to the
+statements as then made by old Mr. Scarborough; that he himself had then
+gone to work to pay his brother's debts, for the honor of the family,
+and had paid them partly out of his own immediate pocket, and partly out
+of the estate, which was the same as his own property; that during his
+brother's "abeyance" he had assisted in his maintenance, and, on his
+brother's return, had taken him to his own home; that then his father
+had died, and that this incredible new story had been told. Mr. Augustus
+Scarborough was in no way desirous of animadverting on his father's
+memory, but was forced to repeat his belief that he was his father's
+eldest son, and was, in fact, at that moment the legitimate owner of
+Tretton, in accordance with the existing contract. He did not wish to
+dispute his father's will, though his father's mental and bodily
+condition at the time of the making of the will might, perhaps, enable
+him to do so with success. The will might be allowed to pass valid, but
+the rights of primogeniture must be held sacred.
+
+Nevertheless, having his mother's memory in great honor, he felt himself
+ill inclined to drag the family history before the public. For his
+mother's sake he was open to a compromise. He would advise that the
+whole property,--that which would pass under the entail, and that which
+was intended to be left by will,--should be valued, and that the total
+should then be divided between them. If his brother chose to take the
+family mansion, it should be so. Augustus Scarborough had no desire to
+set himself over his brother. But if this offer were not accepted, he
+must at once go to law, and prove that their Nice marriage had been, in
+fact, the one marriage by which his father and mother had been joined
+together. There was another proviso added to this offer: as the
+valuation and division of the property must take time, an income at the
+rate of two hundred pounds a month should be allowed to Augustus till
+such time as it should be completed. Such was the offer which Augustus
+had authorized his attorney to make.
+
+There was some delay in getting Mountjoy to consent to a reply. Before
+the offer had reached Mr. Barry he was already at Monte Carlo, with that
+ready money his father had left behind him. At every venture that he
+made,--at least at every loss which he incurred,--he told himself that it
+was altogether the doings of Florence Mountjoy. But he returned to
+England, and consented to a reply. He was the eldest son, and meant to
+support that position, both on his mother's behalf and on his own. As to
+his father's will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother
+would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man's bodily sufferings
+were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had
+never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by
+his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred.
+As to what his brother had done for himself, it was hardly worth his
+while to answer such an allegation. His memory carried him but little
+farther back than the day on which his brother turned him out of his
+rooms.
+
+There were, however, many reasons,--and this was put in at the suggestion
+of Mr. Barry,--why he would not wish that his brother should be left
+penniless. If his brother would be willing to withdraw altogether from
+any lawsuit, and would lend his co-operation to a speedy arrangement of
+the family matters, a thousand a year,--or twenty-five thousand
+pounds,--should be made over to him as a younger brother's portion. To
+this offer it would be necessary that a speedy reply should be given,
+and, under such circumstances, no temporary income need be supplied.
+
+It was early in June when Augustus was sitting in his luxurious lodgings
+in Victoria Street, contemplating this reply. His own lawyer had advised
+him to accept the offer, but he had declared to himself a dozen times
+since his father's death that, in this matter of the property, he would
+"either make a spoon or spoil a horn." And the lawyer was no friend of
+his own,--was not a man who knew nothing of the facts of the case beyond
+what were told him, and nothing of the working of his client's mind.
+Augustus had looked to him only for the law in the matter, and the
+lawyer had declared the law to be against his client. "All that your
+father said about the Nice marriage will go for nothing. It will be
+shown that he had an object."
+
+"But there certainly was such a marriage."
+
+"No doubt there was some ceremony--performed with an object. A second
+marriage cannot invalidate the first, though it may itself be altogether
+invalidated. The Rummelsburg marriage is, and will be, an established
+fact, and of the Rummelsburg marriage your brother was no doubt the
+issue. Accept the offer of an income. Of course we can come to terms as
+to the amount; and from your brother's character it is probable enough
+that he may increase it." Such had been his lawyer's advice, and
+Augustus was sitting there in his lodging thinking of it.
+
+He was not a happy man as he sat there. In the first place he owed
+a little money, and the debt had come upon him chiefly from his lavish
+expenditure in maintaining Mountjoy and Mountjoy's servant upon their
+travels. At that time he had thought that by lavish expenditure he might
+make Tretton certainly his own. He had not known his brother's
+character, and had thought that by such means he could keep him down,
+with his head well under water. His brother might drink,--take to
+drinking regularly at Monte Carlo or some other place,--and might so die.
+Or he would surely gamble himself into farther and utter ruin. At any
+rate he would be well out of the way, and Augustus in his pride had been
+glad to feel that he had his brother well under his thumb. Then the debt
+had been paid with the object of saving the estate from litigation on
+the part of the creditors. That had been his one great mistake. And he
+had not known his father, or his father's guile, or his father's
+strength. Why had not his father died at once?--as all the world had
+assured him would be the case. Looking back he could remember that the
+idea of paying the creditors had at first come from his father, simply
+as a vague idea! Oh, what a crafty rascal his father had been! And then
+he had allowed himself, in his pride, to insult his father, and had
+spoken of his father's coming death as a thing that was desirable! From
+that moment his father had plotted his ruin. He could see it all now.
+
+He was still minded to make the spoon; but he found that he should spoil
+the horn. Had there been any one to assist him he would still have
+persevered. He thought that he could have persevered with a lawyer who
+would really have taken up his case with interest. If Mountjoy could be
+made to drink--so as to die! He was still next in the entail; and he was
+his brother's heir should his brother die without a will. But so he
+would be if he took the twenty-five thousand pounds. But to accept so
+poor a modicum would go frightfully against the grain with him. He
+seemed to think that by taking the allowance he would bring back his
+brother to all the long-lived decencies of life. He would have to
+surrender altogether that feeling of conscious superiority which had
+been so much to him. "D----n the fellow!" he exclaimed to himself. "I
+should not wonder if he were in that fellow's pay." The first "fellow"
+here was the lawyer, and the second was his brother.
+
+When he had sat there alone for half an hour he could not make up his
+mind. When all his debts were paid he would not have much above
+twenty-five thousand pounds. His father had absolutely extracted five
+thousand pounds from him toward paying his brother's debts! The money
+had been wanted immediately. Together with the sum coming from the new
+purchasers, father and son must each subscribe five thousand pounds to
+pay those Jews. So it had been represented to him, and he had borrowed
+the money to carry out his object. Had ever any one been so swindled, so
+cruelly treated! This might probably be explained, and the five thousand
+pounds might be added to the twenty-five thousand pounds. But the
+explanation would be necessary, and all his pride would rebel against
+it. On that night when by chance he had come across his brother,
+bleeding and still half drunk, as he was about to enter his lodging, how
+completely under his thumb he had been! And now he was offering him of
+his bounty this wretched pittance! Then with half-muttered curses he
+execrated the names of his father, his brother, of Grey, and of Barry,
+and of his own lawyer.
+
+At that moment the door was opened and his bosom friend, Septimus Jones,
+entered the room. At any rate this friend was the nearest he had to his
+bosom. He was a man without friends in the true sense. There was no one
+who knew the innermost wishes of his heart, the secret desires of his
+soul. There are thus so many who can divulge to none those secret
+wishes! And how can such a one have a friend who can advise him as to
+what he shall do? Scarcely can the honest man have such a friend,
+because it is so difficult for him to find a man who will believe in
+him. Augustus had no desire for such a friend, but he did desire some
+one who would do his bidding as though he were such a friend. He wanted
+a friend who would listen to his words, and act as though they were the
+truth. Mr. Septimus Jones was the man he had chosen, but he did not in
+the least believe in Mr. Septimus Jones himself. "What does that man
+say?" asked Septimus Jones. The man was the lawyer of whom Augustus was
+now thinking, at this very moment, all manner of evil.
+
+"D----n him!" said Augustus.
+
+"With all my heart. But what does he say? As you are to pay him for what
+he says, it is worth while listening to it."
+
+There was a tone in the voice of Septimus Jones which declared at once
+some diminution of his usual respect. So it sounded, at least, to
+Augustus. He was no longer the assured heir of Tretton, and in this way
+he was to be told of the failure of his golden hopes. It would be odd,
+he thought, if he could not still hold his dominion over Septimus Jones.
+"I am not at all sure that I shall listen to him or to you either."
+
+"As for that, you can do as you like."
+
+"Of course I can do as I like." Then he remembered that he must still
+use the man as a messenger, if in no other capacity. "Of course he wants
+to compromise it. A lawyer always proposes a compromise. He cannot be
+beat that way, and it is safe for him."
+
+"You had agreed to that."
+
+"But what are the terms to be?--that is the question. I made my
+offer:--half and half. Nothing fairer can be imagined,--unless, indeed, I
+choose to stand out for the whole property."
+
+"But what does your brother say?"
+
+He could not use his friend even as a messenger without telling him
+something of the truth. "When I think of it, of this injustice, I can
+hardly hold myself. He proposes to give me twenty-five thousand pounds."
+
+"Twenty-five thousand pounds!--for everything?"
+
+"Everything; yes. What the devil do you suppose I mean? Now just listen
+to me." Then he told his tale as he thought that it ought to be told. He
+recapitulated all the money he had spent on his brother's behalf, and
+all that he chose to say that he had spent. He painted in glowing colors
+the position in which he would have been put by the Nice marriage. He
+was both angry and pathetic about the creditors. And he tore his hair
+almost with vexation at the treatment to which he was subjected.
+
+"I think I'd take the twenty-five thousand pounds," said Jones.
+
+"Never! I'd rather starve first!"
+
+"That's about what you'll have to do if all that you tell me is true."
+There was again that tone of disappearing subjection. "I'll be shot if I
+wouldn't take the money." Then there was a pause. "Couldn't you do that
+and go to law with him afterward? That was what your father would have
+done." Yes; but Augustus had to acknowledge that he was not as clever as
+his father.
+
+At last he gave Jones a commission. Jones was to see his brother and to
+explain to him that, before any question could be raised as to the
+amount to be paid under the compromise, a sum of ten thousand pounds
+must be handed to Augustus to reimburse him for money out of pocket.
+Then Jones was to say, as out of his own head, that he thought that
+Augustus might probably accept fifty thousand pounds in lieu of
+twenty-five thousand pounds. That would still leave the bulk of the
+property to Mountjoy, although Mountjoy must be aware of the great
+difficulties which would be thrown in his way by his father's conduct.
+But Jones had to come back the next day with an intimation that Mountjoy
+had again gone abroad, leaving full authority with Mr. Barry.
+
+Jones was sent to Mr. Barry, but without effect. Mr. Barry would discuss
+the matter with the lawyer, or, if Augustus was so pleased, with
+himself; but he was sure that no good would be done by any conversation
+with Mr. Jones. A month went on--two months went by--and nothing came of
+it. "It is no use your coming here, Mr. Scarborough," at last Mr. Barry
+said to him with but scant courtesy. "We are perfectly sure of our
+ground. There is not a penny due you;--not a penny. If you will sign
+certain documents, which I would advise you to do in the presence of
+your own lawyer, there will be twenty-five thousand pounds for you. You
+must excuse me if I say that I cannot see you again on the
+subject,--unless you accept your brother's liberality."
+
+At this time, Augustus was very short of money and, as is always the
+case, those to whom he owed aught became pressing as his readiness to
+pay them gradually receded. But to be so spoken to by a lawyer,--he,
+Scarborough of Tretton, as he had all but been,--to be so addressed by a
+man whom he had regarded as old Grey's clerk, was bitter indeed. He had
+been so exalted by that Nice marriage, had been so lifted high in the
+world, that he was now absolutely prostrate. He quarrelled with his
+lawyer, and he quarrelled also with Septimus Jones. There was no one
+with whom he could discuss the matter, or rather no one who would
+discuss it with him on his terms. So at last he accepted the money, and
+went daily into the City in order that he might turn it into more. What
+became of him in the City it is hardly the province of this chronicle to
+tell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+THE LAST OF FLORENCE MOUNTJOY.
+
+
+Now at last in this chapter has to be told the fate of Florence
+Mountjoy, as far as it can be told in these pages. It was, at any rate,
+her peculiarity to attach to herself, by bonds which could not easily be
+severed, those who had once thought that they might be able to win her
+love. An attempt has been made to show how firm and determined were the
+affections of Harry Annesley, and how absolutely he trusted in her word
+when once it had been given to him. He had seemed to think that when she
+had even nodded to him, in answer to his assertion that he desired her
+to be his wife, all his trouble as regarded her heart had been off his
+mind.
+
+There might be infinite trouble as to time,--as to ten years, three
+years, or even one year; trouble in inducing her to promise that she
+would become his wife in opposition to her mother; but he had felt sure
+that she never would be the wife of any one else. How he had at last
+succeeded in mitigating the opposition of her mother, so as to make the
+three years, or even the one year, appear to himself an altogether
+impossible delay, the reader knows. How he at last contrived to have his
+own way altogether, so that, as Florence told him, she was merely a ball
+in his hand, the reader will have to know very shortly. But not a shade
+of doubt had ever clouded Harry's mind as to his eventual success since
+she had nodded to him at Mrs. Armitage's ball. Though this girl's love
+had been so grand a thing to have achieved, he was quite sure from that
+moment that it would be his forever.
+
+With Mountjoy Scarborough there had never come such a moment, and never
+could; yet he had been very confident, so that he had lived on the
+assurance that such a moment would come. And the self-deportment natural
+to her had been such that he had shown his assurance. He never would
+have succeeded; but he should not the less love her sincerely. And when
+the time came for him to think what he should do with himself, those few
+days after his father's death, he turned to her as his one prospect of
+salvation. If his cousin Florence would be good to him all might yet be
+well. He had come by that time to lose his assurance. He had recognized
+Harry Annesley as his enemy, as has been told often enough in these
+pages. Harry was to him a hateful stumbling-block. And he had not been
+quite as sure of her fidelity to another as Harry had been sure of it to
+himself. Tretton might prevail. Trettons do so often prevail. And the
+girl's mother was all on his side. So he had gone to Cheltenham, true as
+the needle to the pole, to try his luck yet once again. He had gone to
+Cheltenham, and there he found Harry Annesley. All hopes for him were
+then over and he started at once for Monaco; or, as he himself told
+himself, for the devil.
+
+Among the lovers of Florence some memory may attach itself to poor Hugh
+Anderson. He too had been absolutely true to Florence. From the hour in
+which he had first conceived the idea that she would make him happy as
+his wife, it had gone on growing upon him with all the weight of love,
+He did not quite understand why he should have loved her so dearly, but
+thus it was. Such a Mrs. Hugh Anderson, with a pair of horses on the
+boulevards, was to his imagination the most lovely sight which could be
+painted. Then Florence took the mode of disabusing him which has been
+told, and Hugh Anderson gave the required promise. Alas, in what an
+unfortunate moment had he done so! Such was his own thought. For though
+he was sure of his own attachment to her, he could not mount high enough
+to be as sure of her to somebody else. It was a "sort of thing a man
+oughtn't to have been asked to promise," he said to the third secretary.
+And having so determined, he made up his mind to follow her to England
+and to try his fortune once again.
+
+Florence had just wished Harry good-bye for the day, or rather for the
+week. She cared for nothing now in the way of protestations of
+affection. "Come Harry--there now--don't be so unreasonable. Am not I
+just as impatient as you are? This day fortnight you will be back, and
+then--"
+
+"Then there will be some peace, won't there? But mind you write every
+day." And so Harry was whisked away, as triumphant a man as ever left
+Cheltenham by the London train. On the following morning Hugh Anderson
+reached Cheltenham and appeared in Montpellier Place.
+
+"My daughter is at home, certainly," said Mrs. Mountjoy. There was
+something in the tone which made the young man at once assure himself
+that he had better go back to Brussels. He had even been a favorite with
+Mrs. Mountjoy. In his days of love-making poor Mountjoy had been absent,
+declared no longer to have a chance of Tretton, and Harry had been--the
+very evil one himself. Mrs. Mountjoy had been assured by the Brussels
+Mountjoy that, with the view of getting well rid of the evil one, she
+had better take poor Anderson to her bosom. She had opened her bosom
+accordingly, but with very poor results. And now he had come to look
+after what result there might be. Mrs. Mountjoy felt that he had better
+go back to Brussels.
+
+"Could I not see her?" asked Anderson.
+
+"Well, yes; you could see her."
+
+"Mrs. Mountjoy, I'll tell you everything, just as though you were my own
+mother. I have loved your daughter;--oh, I don't know how it is! If she'd
+be my wife for two years, I don't think I'd mind dying afterward."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"
+
+"I wouldn't. I never heard of a case where a girl had got such a hold of
+a man as she has of me."
+
+"You don't mean to say that she has behaved badly?"
+
+"Oh no! She couldn't behave badly;--it isn't in her. But she can bowl a
+fellow over in the most--well, most desperate manner. As for me, I'm not
+worth my salt since I first saw her. When I go to ride with the governor
+I haven't a word to say to him," But this ended in Mrs. Mountjoy going
+and promising that she would send Florence down in her place. She knew
+that it would be in vain; but to a young man who had behaved so well as
+Mr. Anderson so much could not be refused. "Here I am again," he said,
+very much like Punch in the pantomime.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Anderson! how do you do?"
+
+A lover who is anxious to prevail with a lady should always hold up his
+head. Where is the writer of novels, or of human nature, who does not
+know as much as that? And yet the man who is in love, truly in love,
+never does hold up his head very high. It is the man who is not in love
+who does so. Nevertheless it does sometimes happen that the true lover
+obtains his reward. In this case it was not observed to be so. But now
+Mr. Anderson was sure of his fate, so that there was no encouragement to
+him to make any attempt at holding up his head. "I have come once more
+to see you," he said.
+
+"I am sure it gives mamma so much pleasure."
+
+"Mrs. Mountjoy is very kind. But it hasn't been for her. The truth is, I
+couldn't settle down in this world without having another interview."
+
+"What am I to say, Mr. Anderson?"
+
+"I'll just tell you how it all is. You know what my prospects are." She
+did not quite remember, but she bowed to him. "You must know, because I
+told you. There is nothing I kept concealed." Again she bowed. "There
+can be no possible family reason for my going to Kamtchatka."
+
+"Kamtchatka!"
+
+"Yes, indeed;--the F.O." (The F.O. always meant the Foreign Office.) "The
+F.O. wants a young man on whom it can thoroughly depend to go to
+Kamtchatka. The allowances are handsome enough, but the allowances are
+nothing to me."
+
+"Why should you go?"
+
+"It is for you to decide. Yes, you can detain me. If I go to that bleak
+and barren desert, it will merely be to court exile from that quarter of
+the globe in which you and I would have to live together and not
+separate. That I cannot stand. In Kamtchatka--Well, there is no knowing
+what may happen to me then."
+
+"But I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Annesley."
+
+"You told me something of that before."
+
+"But it's all fixed. Mamma will tell you. It's to be this day fortnight.
+If you'd only stay and come as one of my friends."
+
+Surely such a proposition as this is the unkindest that any young lady
+can make; but we believe that it is made not unfrequently. In the
+present case it received no reply.
+
+Mr. Anderson took up his hat and rushed to the door. Then he returned
+for a moment. "God bless you, Miss Mountjoy!" he said. "In spite of the
+cruelty of that suggestion, I must bid God bless you." And then he was
+gone. About a week afterward M. Grascour appeared upon the scene with
+precisely the same intention. He, too, retained in his memory a most
+vivid recollection of the young lady and her charms. He had heard that
+Captain Scarborough had inherited Tretton, and had been informed that it
+was not probable that Miss Florence Mountjoy would marry her cousin. He
+was somewhat confused in his ideas, and thought, that were he now to
+re-appear on the scene there might still be a chance for him. There was
+no lover more unlike Mr. Anderson than M. Grascour. Not even for
+Florence Mountjoy, not even to own her, would he go to Kamtchatka; and
+were he not to see her he would simply go back to Brussels. And yet he
+loved her as well as he knew how to love any one, and, would she have
+become his wife, would have treated her admirably. He had looked at it
+all round, and could see no reason why he should not marry her. Like a
+persevering man, he persevered; but as he did so, no glimmering of an
+idea of Kamtchatka disturbed him.
+
+But from this farther trouble Mrs. Mountjoy was able to save her
+daughter. M. Grascour made his way into Mrs. Mountjoy's presence, and
+there declared his purpose. He had been sent over on some question
+connected with the literature of commerce, and had ventured to take the
+opportunity of coming down to Cheltenham. He hoped that the truth of his
+affection would be evinced by the journey. Mrs. Mountjoy had observed,
+while he was making his little speech, how extremely well brushed was
+his hat. She had observed, also, that poor Mr. Anderson's hat was in
+such a condition as almost to make her try to smooth it down for him.
+"If you make objection to my hat, you should brush it yourself," she had
+heard Harry say to Florence, and Florence had taken the hat, and had
+brushed it with fond, lingering touches.
+
+"M. Grascour, I can assure you that she is really engaged," Mrs.
+Mountjoy had said. M. Grascour bowed and sighed. "She is to be married
+this day week."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"To Mr. Harry Annesley."
+
+"Oh-h-h! I remember the gentleman's name. I had thought--"
+
+"Well, yes; there were objections, but they have luckily disappeared."
+Though Mrs. Mountjoy was only as yet happy in a melancholy manner,
+rejoicing with but bated joy at her girl's joys, she was too loyal to
+say a word now against Harry Annesley.
+
+"I should not have troubled you, but--"
+
+"I am sure of that, M. Grascour; and we are both of us grateful to you
+for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you
+are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the
+thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to
+be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new
+pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief
+merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in
+looking at them than she would have had in listening to the
+congratulations of M. Grascour.
+
+"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than
+Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry
+all the good men."
+
+There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's
+marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at
+Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's
+maid, were to go down to assist upon the occasion. His father was to
+marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of
+seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride
+three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at
+Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since
+the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for
+Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those
+of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own
+courtship the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a
+work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good
+her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise
+his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing
+had passed by him.
+
+But it had passed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch
+of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had
+heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as
+hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which
+troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the
+drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to
+sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last
+made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood
+how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said,
+with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told
+her that, on farther considerations, he had determined to add in the
+dressing-room.
+
+The whole parish felt the effect. It was not so much that the parish was
+struck by the expenditure proposed,--because the squire was known to be a
+man who had not for years spent all his income,--but that he had given
+way so far on behalf of a nephew whom he had lately been so anxious to
+disinherit. Rumor had already reached Buntingford of what the squire had
+intended to do on the receipt of his own wife,--rumors which had of
+course since faded away into nothing. It had been positively notified to
+Buntingford that there should be really a new carpet and new curtains in
+the drawing-room. Miss Thoroughbung had been known to have declared at
+the brewery that the whole thing should be done before she had been
+there twelve months.
+
+"He shall go the whole hog," she had said. And there had been a little
+bet about it between her and her brother, who entertained an idea that
+Mr. Prosper was an obstinate man. And Joe had brought tidings of the bet
+to the parsonage, so that there had been much commotion on the subject.
+When the best room had been included, and then the dressing-room, even
+Matthew had been alarmed. "It'll come to as much as five hundred
+pounds!" he had whispered to Mrs. Annesley. Matthew seemed to think that
+it was quite time that there should be somebody to control his master.
+"Why, ma'am, it's only the other day, because I can remember it myself,
+when that loo-table came into the house new!" Matthew had been in the
+place over twenty years. When Mrs. Annesley reminded him that fashions
+were changed, and that other kinds of table were required, he only shook
+his head.
+
+But there was a question more vital than that of expense. How was the
+new furniture to be chosen? The first idea was that Florence should be
+invited to spend a week at her future home, and go up and down to London
+with either Mrs. Annesley or her brother, and select the furniture
+herself. But there were reasons against this. Mr. Prosper would like to
+surprise her by the munificence of what he did. And the suggestion of
+one day was sure to wane before the stronger lights of the next. Mr.
+Prosper, though he intended to be munificent, was still a little afraid
+that it should be thrown away as a thing of course, or that it should
+appear to have been Harry's work. That would be manifestly unjust. "I
+think I had better do it myself," he said to his sister.
+
+"Perhaps I could help you, Peter." He shuddered; but it was at the
+memory of the sound of the word "Peter," as it had been blurted out for
+his express annoyance by Miss Thoroughbung. "I wouldn't mind going up to
+London with you." He shook his head, demanding still more time for
+deliberation. Were he to accept his sister's offer he would be bound by
+his acceptance. "It's the last drawing-room carpet I shall ever buy," he
+said to himself, with true melancholy, as he walked back home across the
+park.
+
+Then there had been the other grand question of the journey, or not,
+down to Cheltenham. In a good-natured way Harry had told him that the
+wedding would be no wedding without his presence. That had moved him
+considerably. It was very desirable that the wedding should be more than
+a merely legal wedding. The world ought to be made aware that the heir
+to Buston had been married in the presence of the Squire of Buston. But
+the journey was a tremendous difficulty. If he could have gone from
+Buston direct to Cheltenham it would have been comparatively easy. But
+he must pass through London, and to do this must travel the whole way
+between the Northern and Western railway-stations. And the trains would
+not fit. He studied his Bradshaw for an entire morning and found that
+they would not fit. "Where am I to spend the hour and a quarter?" he
+asked his sister, mournfully. "And there would be four journeys, going
+and coming,--four separate journeys!" And these would be irrespective of
+numerous carriages and cabs. It was absolutely impossible that he should
+be present in the flesh on that happy day at Cheltenham. He was left at
+home for three months,--July, August, and September,--in which to buy the
+furniture; which, however, was at last procured by Mr. Annesley.
+
+The marriage, as far as the wedding was concerned, was not nearly as
+good fun as that of Joe and Molly. There was no Mr. Crabtree there, and
+no Miss Thoroughbung. And Mrs. Mountjoy, though she meant to do it all
+as well as it could be done, was still joyous only with bated joy. Some
+tinge of melancholy still clung to her. She had for so many years
+thought of her nephew as the husband destined for her girl, that she
+could not be as yet demonstrative in her appreciation of Harry Annesley.
+"I have no doubt we shall come to be true friends, Mr. Annesley," she
+had said to him.
+
+"Don't call me Mr. Annesley."
+
+"No, I won't, when you come back again and I am used to you. But at
+present there--there is a something--"
+
+"A regret, perhaps?"
+
+"Well, not quite a regret. I am an old-fashioned person, and I can't
+change my manners all at once. You know what it was that I used to
+hope."
+
+"Oh yes. But Florence was very stupid, and would have a different
+opinion."
+
+"Of course I am happy now. Her happiness is all the world to me. And
+things have undergone a change."
+
+"That's true. Mr. Prosper has made over the marrying business to me, and
+I mean to go through it like a man. Only you must call me Harry." This
+she promised to do, and did, in the seclusion of her room, give him a
+kiss. But still her joy was not loud, and the hilarity of her guests was
+moderated. Mr. Annesley did his best, and the bridesmaids' dresses
+were pretty,--which is all that is required of a bride's maid. Then at
+last the father's carriage came, and they were carried away to
+Gloucester, where they were committed to the untender, commonplace, but
+much more comfortable mercies of the railway-carriage. There we will
+part with them, and encounter them again but for a few moments as, after
+a long day's ramble, they made their way back to a solitary but
+comfortable hotel among the Bernese Alps. Florence was on a pony, which
+Harry had insisted on hiring for her, though Florence had declared
+herself able to walk the whole way. It had been very hot, and she was
+probably glad of the pony. They both had alpenstocks in their hands, and
+on the pommel of her saddle hung the light jacket with which he had
+started, and which had not been so light but that he had been glad to
+ease himself of the weight. The guide was lagging behind, and they two
+were close together. "Well, old girl!" he said, "and now what do you
+think of it all?"
+
+"I'm not so very much older than I was when you took me, pet."
+
+"Oh, yes, you are. Half of your life has gone; you have settled down
+into the cares and duties of married life, none of which had been so
+much as thought of when I took you."
+
+"Not thought of! They have been on my mind ever since that night at Mrs.
+Armitage's."
+
+"Only in a romantic and therefore untrue sort of manner. Since that time
+you have always thought of me with a white choker and dress-boots."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself; I never looked at your boots."
+
+"You knew that they were the boots and the clothes of a man making love,
+didn't you? I don't care personally very much about my own boots: I
+never shall care about another pair; but I should care about them.
+Anything that might give me the slightest assistance."
+
+"Nothing was wanted; it had all been done, Harry."
+
+"My pet! But still a pair of high-lows heavy with nails would not have
+been efficacious then. I should think I love him, you might have said to
+yourself, but he is such an awkward fellow."
+
+"It had gone much beyond that at Mrs. Armitage's."
+
+"But now you have to take my high-lows as part of your duty."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"When a man loves a woman he falls in love with everything belonging to
+her. You don't wear high-lows. Everything you possess as specially your
+own has to administer to my sense of love and beauty."
+
+"I wish--I wish it might be so."
+
+"There is no danger about that at all. But I have to come before you on
+an occasion such as this as a kind of navvy,--and you must accept me."
+She glanced around furtively to see whether their guide was looking, but
+the guide had gone back out of sight. For, sitting on her pony, she had
+her arm around his neck and kissed him. "And then there is ever so much
+more," he continued. "I don't think I snore?"
+
+"Indeed, no! There isn't a sound comes from you. I sometimes look to see
+if I think you are alive."
+
+"But if I do, you'll have to put up with it. That would be one of your
+duties as a wife. You never could have thought of that when I had those
+dress-boots on."
+
+"Of course I didn't. How can you talk such rubbish?"
+
+"I don't know whether it is rubbish. Those are the kind of things that
+must fall upon a woman so heavily. Suppose I were to beat you?"
+
+"Beat me!"
+
+"Yes;--hit you over the head with this stick!"
+
+"I am sure you would not do that."
+
+"So am I. But suppose I were to? Your mother must be told of my leaving
+that poor man bloody and speechless. What if I were to carry out my
+usual habits as then shown? Take care, my darling, or that brute'll
+throw you!" This he said as the pony stumbled over a stone.
+
+"Almost as unlikely as you are. One has to risk dangers in the world,
+but one makes the risk as little as possible. I know they won't give me
+a pony that will tumble down; and I know that I've told you to look to
+see that they don't. You chose the pony, but I had to choose you. I
+don't know very much about ponies, but I do know something about a
+lover, and I know that I have got one that will suit me."
+
+
+
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