“I do.”

“I don’t.  That’s the difference.  And I don’t think that Augustus believes it.”

“The story is undoubtedly true.”

“You must excuse me if I will not accept it.”

“At any rate, you had parted with your share in the property.”

“My share was the whole.”

“After your father’s death,” said Mr. Grey; “and that was gone.”

“We needn’t discuss the property.  What is it that he expects me to do now?”

“Simply to be kind in your manner to him, and to agree to what he says about the personal property.  It is his intention, as far as I understand it, to leave you everything.”

“He is very kind.”

“I think he is.”

“Only it would all have been mine if he had not cheated me of my birthright.”

“Or Mr. Tyrrwhit’s, and Mr. Hart’s, and Mr. Spicer’s.”

“Mr. Tyrrwhit, and Mr. Hart, and Mr. Spicer could not have robbed me of my name.  Let them have done what they would with their bonds, I should have been, at any rate, Scarborough of Tretton.  My belief is that I need not blush for my mother.  He has made it appear that I should do so.  I can’t forgive him because he gives me the chairs and tables.”

“They will be worth thirty thousand pounds,” said Mr. Grey.

“I can’t forgive him.”

The cloud sat very black upon Mountjoy Scarborough’s face as he said this, and the blacker it sat the more Mr. Grey liked him.  If something could be done to redeem from ruin a young man who so felt about his mother,—­who so felt about his mother simply because she had been his mother,—­it would be a good thing to do.  Augustus had entertained no such feeling.  He had said to Mr. Grey, as he had said also to his brother, that “he had not known the lady.”  When the facts as to the distribution of the property had been made known to him he had cared nothing for the injury done by the story to his mother’s name.  The story was too true.  Mr. Grey knew that it was true; but he could not on that account do other than feel an intense desire to confer some benefit on Mountjoy Scarborough.  He put his hand out affectionately and laid it on the other man’s knee.  “Your father has not long to live, Captain Scarborough.”

“I suppose not.”

“And he is at present anxious to make what reparation is in his power.  What he can leave you will produce, let us say, fifteen hundred a year.  Without a will from him you would have to live on your brother’s bounty.”

“By Heaven, no!” said Mountjoy, thinking of the pistol and the bullets.

“I see nothing else.”

“I see, but I cannot explain.”

“Do you not think that fifteen hundred a year would be better than nothing,—­with a wife, let us say?” said Mr. Grey, beginning to introduce the one argument on which he believed so much must depend.

“With a wife?”

“Yes; with a wife.”

“With what wife?  A wife may be very well, but a wife must depend on who it is.  Is there any one that you mean?”