“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.