I do not doubt you will believe, that I know
nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he
spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his
mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret.

"Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that
kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I
have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his
appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's
confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how
successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!"

"People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry.

"What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do
justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly
successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a
little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of
his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I
determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of
my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not
prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I
am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my
death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar?
Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in
doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have
spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have
gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of
the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."

What was Harry Annesley to say in answer to such an address as this?
There was the man, stretched on his bed before him, haggard, unshaved,
pale, and grizzly, with a fire in his eyes, but weakness in his
voice,--bold, defiant, self-satisfied, and yet not selfish. He had lived
through his life with the one strong resolution of setting the law at
defiance in reference to the distribution of his property; but chiefly
because he had thought the law to be unjust. Then, when the accident of
his eldest son's extravagance had fallen upon him, he had endeavored to
save his second son, and had thought, without the slightest remorse, of
the loss which was to fall on the creditors. He had d