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.