And then, when it was dusk within the house, he went out, and passed through the stables and roamed about the gardens till the evening had altogether set in, and black night had come upon him.  Two years ago he had known that he was the heir to it all, though even then that habit was so strong upon him he had felt that his tenure of it would be but slight.  But he had then always to tell himself that when his marriage had taken place a great change would be effected.  His marriage had not taken place, and the next fatal year had fallen upon him.  As long as the inheritance of the estate was certainly his, he could assuredly raise money,—­at a certain cost.  It was well known that the property was rising in value, and the money had always been forthcoming,—­at a tremendous sacrifice.  He had excused to himself his recklessness on the ground of his delayed marriage, but still always treating her, on the few occasions on which they had met, with an imperiousness which had been natural to him.  Then the final crash had come, and the estate was as good as gone.  But the crash, which had been in truth final, had come afterward, almost as soon as his father had learned what was to be the fate of Tretton; and he had found himself to be a bastard with a dishonored mother,—­just a nobody in the eyes of the world.  And he learned at the same time that Harry Annesley was the lover whom Florence Mountjoy really loved.  What had followed has been told already,—­perhaps too often.

But at this moment, as he stood in the gloom of the night, below the porch in the front of the house, swinging his stick at the top of the big steps, an acknowledgment of contrition was very heavy upon him.

Though he was prepared to go to law the moment that Augustus put himself forward as the eldest son, he did recognize how long-suffering his father had been, and how much had been done for him in order, if possible, to preserve him.  And he knew, whatever might be the result of his lawsuit, that his father’s only purpose had been to save the property for one of them.  As it was, legacies which might be valued at perhaps thirty thousand pounds would be his.  He would expend it all on the lawsuit, if he could find lawyers to undertake his suit.  His anger, too, against his brother was quite as hot as was that of his father.  When he had been obliterated and obliged to vanish, from the joint effects of his violence in the streets and his inability to pay his gambling debts at the club, he had, in an evil moment, submitted himself to Augustus; and from that hour Augustus had become to him the most cruel of tyrants.  And this tyranny had come to an end with his absolute banishment from his brother’s house.  Though he had been subdued to obedience in the lowest moment of his fall, he was not the man who could bear such tyranny well.  “I can forgive my father,” he said, “but Augustus I will never forgive.”  Then he went into the house, and in a short time was sitting at dinner with Merton, the young doctor and secretary.  Miss Scarborough seldom came to table at that hour, but remained in a room up-stairs, close to her brother, so that she might be within call should she be wanted.  “Upon the whole, Merton,” he said, “what do you think of my father?” The doctor shrugged his shoulders.  “Will he live or will he die?”