“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