“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.