“I wouldn’t spend my time and energies in white-washing any rascal,” said Dolly, with vigor.

“You don’t know what you’d do.  And a man isn’t to be left in the lurch altogether because he’s a rascal.  Would you have a murderer hanged without some one to stand up for him?”

“Yes, I would,” said Dolly, thoughtlessly.

“And he mightn’t have been a murderer after all; or not legally so, which as far as the law goes is the same thing.”

But this special question had been often discussed between them, and Mr. Grey and Dolly did not intend to be carried away by it on the present occasion.  “I know all about that,” she said; “but this isn’t a case of life and death.  The old man is only anxious to save his property, and throws upon you all the burden of doing it.  He never agrees with you as to anything you say.”

“As to legal points he does.”

“But he keeps you always in hot water, and puts forward so much villany that I would have nothing farther to do with him.  He has been so crafty that you hardly know now which is, in truth, the heir.”

“Oh yes, I do,” said the lawyer.  “I know very well, and am very sorry that it should be so.  And I cannot but feel for the rascal because the dishonest effort was made on behalf of his own son.”

“Why was it necessary?” said Dolly, with sparks flying from her eye.  “Throughout from the beginning he has been bad.  Why was the woman not his wife?”

“Ah! why, indeed.  But had his sin consisted only in that, I should not have dreamed of refusing my assistance as a family lawyer.  All that would have gone for nothing then.”

“When evil creeps in,” said Dolly, sententiously, “you cannot put it right afterward.”

“Never mind about that.  We shall never get to the end if you go back to Adam and Eve.”

“People don’t go back often enough.”

“Bother!” said Mr. Grey, finishing his second and last glass of port-wine.  “Do keep yourself in some degree to the question in dispute.  In advising an attorney of to-day as to how he is to treat a client you can’t do any good by going back to Adam and Eve.  Augustus is the heir, and I am bound to protect the property for him from these money-lending harpies.  The moment the breath is out of the old man’s body they will settle down upon it if we leave them an inch of ground on which to stand.  Every detail of his marriage must be made as clear as daylight; and that must be done in the teeth of former false statements.”

“As far as I can see, the money-lending harpies are the honestest lot of people concerned.”

“The law is not on their side.  They have got no right.  The estate, as a fact, will belong to Augustus the moment his father dies.  Mr. Scarborough endeavored to do what he could for him whom he regarded as his eldest son.  It was very wicked.  He was adding a second and a worse crime to the first.  He was flying in the face of the laws of his country.  But he was successful; and he threw dust into my eyes, because he wanted to save the property for the boy.  And he endeavored to make it up to his second son by saving for him a second property.  He was not selfish; and I cannot but feel for him.”