“You are kind,—­very kind.”

“I don’t know about that; but I have come altogether at my father’s instance, and I think, indeed, that, in fairness, I ought to tell you the truth as to what took place between me and your nephew.”

“You are very good; but your father has already given me his account,—­and I suppose yours.”

“I don’t know what my father may have done, but I think that you ought to desire to hear from my lips an account of the transaction.  An untrue account has been told to you.”

“I have heard it all from your own brother.”

“An untrue account has been told to you.  I attacked your nephew.”

“What made you do that?” asked the squire.

“That has nothing to do with it; but I did.”

“I understood all that before.”

“But you didn’t understand that Mr. Annesley behaved perfectly well in all that occurred.”

“Did he tell a lie about it afterward?”

“My brother no doubt lured him on to make an untrue statement.”

“A lie!”

“You may call it so if you will.  If you think that Augustus was to have it all his own way, I disagree with you altogether.  In point of fact, your nephew behaved through the whole of that matter as well as a man could do.  Practically, he told no lie at all.  He did just what a man ought to do, and anything that you have heard to the contrary is calumnious and false.  As I am told that you have been led by my brother’s statement to disinherit your nephew—­”

“I have done nothing of the kind.”

“I am very glad to hear it.  He has not, at any rate, deserved it; and I have felt it to be my duty to come and tell you.”

Then Mountjoy retired, not without hospitality having been coldly offered by Mr. Prosper, and went back to Buntingford and to London.  Now at last would come, he said to himself through the whole afternoon, now at last would come a repetition of those joys for which his very soul had sighed so eagerly.

CHAPTER XLII.

CAPTAIN VIGNOLLES ENTERTAINS HIS FRIENDS.

Mountjoy, when he reached Captain Vignolles’s rooms, was received apparently with great indifference.  “I didn’t feel at all sure you would come.  But there is a bit of supper, if you like to stay.  I saw Moody this morning, and he said he would look in if he was passing this way.  Now sit down and tell me what you have been doing since you disappeared in that remarkable manner.”  This was not at all what Mountjoy had expected, but he could only sit down and say that he had done nothing in particular.  Of all club men, Captain Vignolles would be the worst with whom to play alone during the entire evening.  And Mountjoy remembered now that he had never been inside four walls with Vignolles except at a club.  Vignolles regarded him simply as a piece of prey whom chance had thrown up on the shore.  And Moody, who would no doubt show himself before long, was another bird of the same covey, though less rapacious.  Mountjoy put his hand up to his breast-pocket, and knew that the fifty pounds was there, but he knew also that it would soon be gone.