“It is a bottomless gulf,” said the attorney.  Captain Scarborough sat silent, with something almost approaching to a smile on his mouth; but his heart within him certainly was not smiling.  “A bottomless gulf,” repeated the attorney.  Upon this the captain frowned.  “What is it that you wish me to do for you?  I have no money of your father’s in my hands, nor could I give it you if I had it.”

“I suppose not.  I must go back to him, and tell him that it is so.”  Then it was the lawyer’s turn to be silent; and he remained thinking of it all till Captain Scarborough rose from his seat and prepared to go.  “I won’t trouble you any more Mr. Grey,” he said.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Grey.  But the captain still remained standing.  “Sit down.  Of course I can take out my check-book, and write a check for this sum of money;—­nothing would be so easy; and if I could succeed in explaining it to your father during his lifetime, he, no doubt, would repay me.  And, for the sake of auld lang syne, I should not be unhappy about my money, whether he did so or not.  But would it be wise?  On your own account would it be wise?”

“I cannot say that anything done for me would be wise,—­unless you could cut my throat.”

“And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier.  Your father, the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew—­”

“I shall never believe all this about my mother.”

“Never mind that now.  We will pass that by for the present.  He has disinherited you.”

“That will be a question some day for the lawyers—­should I live.”

“But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you another fortune.  He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I sympathize.  He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for your sake.  You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all things, you are still.  They tell me he cannot last for six months longer.”

“Heaven knows I do not wish him to die.”

“But he thinks that your brother does.  He feels that Augustus begrudges him a few months’ longer life, and he is angry.  If he could again make you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so.”  Here the captain shook his head.  “But as it is, he will leave you enough for all the needs of even a luxurious life.  Here is his will, which I am going to send down to him for final execution this very day.  My senior clerk will take it, and you will meet him there.  That will give you ample for life.  But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or in one month among a pack of scoundrels?”

“If they be scoundrels, I am one of them.”

“You lose your money.  You are their dupe.  To the best of my belief you have never won.  The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win.  It must be so.”

“You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey.”

“This man who had your money last;—­does he not live on it as a profession?  Why should he win always, and you lose?”