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.”