Harry started for his walk, and his companion immediately began again about the property.  “I’m beginning to think,” said he, “that it’s nearly all up with the governor.  These attacks come upon him worse and worse, and always leave him absolutely prostrate.  Then he will do nothing to prevent them.  To assure himself a week of life, he will not endure an hour of discomfort.  It is plucky, you know.”

“He is in all respects as brave a man as I have known.”

“He sets God and man at absolute defiance, and always does it with the most profound courtesy.  If he goes to the infernal regions he will insist upon being the last of the company to enter the door.  And he will be prepared with something good-humored to say as soon as he has been ushered in.  He was very much troubled about you yesterday.”

“What has he to say of me?”

“Nothing in the least uncivil; but he has an idea in his head which nothing on earth will put out of it, and in which, but for your own word, I should be inclined to agree.”  Harry, when this was said, stood still on the mountain-side, and looked full into his companion’s face.  He felt at the moment that the idea had some reference to Mountjoy Scarborough and his disappearance.  They were together on the heathy, unenclosed ground of Cannock Chase, and had already walked some ten or twelve miles.  “He thinks you know where Mountjoy is.”

“Why should I know?”

“Or at any rate that you have seen him since any of us.  He professes not to care a straw for Mountjoy or his whereabouts, and declares himself under obligation to those who have contrived his departure.  Nevertheless, he is curious.”

“What have I to do with Mountjoy Scarborough?”

“That’s just the question.  What have you to do with him?  He suggests that there have been words between you as to Florence, which has caused Mountjoy to vanish.  I don’t profess to explain anything beyond that,—­nor, indeed, do I profess to agree with my father.  But the odd thing is that Prodgers, the policeman, has the same thing running in his head.”

“Because I have shown some anxiety about your brother in Scotland Yard.”

“No doubt; Prodgers says that you’ve shown more anxiety than was to be expected from a mere acquaintance.  I quite acknowledge that Prodgers is as thick-headed an idiot as you shall catch on a summer’s day; but that’s his opinion.  For myself, I know your word too well to doubt it.”  Harry walked on in silence, thinking, or trying to think, what, on the spur of the moment, he had better do.  He was minded to speak out the whole truth, and declare to himself that it was nothing to him what Augustus Scarborough might say or think.  And there was present to him a feeling that his companion was dealing unfairly with him, and was endeavoring in some way to trap him and lead him into a difficulty.  But he had made up his mind, as it were, not to know anything of Mountjoy Scarborough, and to let those five minutes