“Well, yes; taking it altogether it has been unfortunate.  I am not a soft-hearted fellow, but I am driven to pity him.  The worst of it is that, had not my father been induced at last to tell the truth, from most dishonest causes, he would not have been a bit better off than he is.  I doubt whether he could have raised another couple of thousand on the day when he went.  If he had done so then, and again more and more, to any amount you choose to think of, it would have been the same with him.”

“I suppose so.”

“His lust for gambling was a bottomless quicksand, which no possible amount of winning could ever have satiated.  Let him enter his club with five thousand pounds at his banker’s and no misfortune could touch him.  He being such as he is,—­or, alas! for aught we know, such as he was,—­the escape which the property has had cannot but be regarded as very fortunate.  I don’t care to talk much of myself in particular, though no wrong can have been done to a man more infinite than that which my father contrived for me.”

“I cannot understand your father,” said Harry.  In truth, there was something in Scarborough’s manner in speaking of his father which almost produced belief in Harry’s mind.  He began to doubt whether Augustus was in the conspiracy.

“No, I should say not.  It is hard to understand that an English gentleman should have the courage to conceive such a plot, and the wit to carry it out.  If Mountjoy had run only decently straight, or not more than indecently crooked, I should have been a younger brother, practising law in the Temple to the end of my days.  The story of Esau and of Jacob is as nothing to it.  But that is not the most remarkable circumstance.  My father, for purposes of his own, which includes the absolute throwing over of Mountjoy’s creditors, changes his plan, and is pleased to restore to me that of which he had resolved to rob me.  What father would dare to look in the face of the son whom he had thus resolved to defraud?  My father tells me the story with a gentle chuckle, showing almost as much indifference to Mountjoy’s ruin as to my recovered prosperity.  He has not a blush when he reveals it all.  He has not a word to say, or, as far as I can see, a thought as to the world’s opinion.  No doubt he is supposed to be dying.  I do presume that three or four months will see the end of him.  In the mean time he takes it all as quietly as though he had simply lent a five-pound note to Mountjoy out of my pocket.”

“You, at any rate, will get your property?”

“Oh, yes; and that, no doubt, is his argument when he sees me.  He is delighted to have me down at Tretton, and, to tell the truth, I do not feel the slightest animosity toward him.  But as I look at him I think him to be the most remarkable old gentleman that the world has ever produced.  He is quite unconscious that I have any ground of complaint against him.”

“He has probably thought that the circumstances of your brother’s birth should not militate against his prospects.”