ney to several creditors; but then he owed,
which troubled him more, gambling debts, which he could only pay by his
brother's assistance. And now, as he thought of it, he felt convinced
that his brother must be joined with his father and the lawyer in this
conspiracy. He felt, also, that he could meet neither Mr. Grey nor his
brother without personally attacking them. All the world might perish,
but he, with his last breath, would declare himself to be Captain
Mountjoy Scarborough, of Tretton Park; and though he knew at the moment
that he must perish,--as regarded social life among his comrades,--unless
he could raise five hundred pounds from his brother, yet he felt that,
were he to meet his brother, he could not but fly at his throat and
accuse him of the basest villany.

At that moment, at the corner of Bond Street, he did meet his brother.

"What is this?" said he, fiercely.

"What is what?" said Augustus, without any fierceness. "What is up now?"

"I have just come from my father."

"And how is the governor? If I were he I should be in a most awful funk.
I should hardly be able to think of anything but that man who is to come
to-morrow with his knives. But he takes it all as cool as a cucumber."

There was something in this which at once shook, though it did not
remove, the captain's belief, and he said something as to the property.
Then there came questions and answers, in which the captain did not
reveal the story which had been told to him, but the barrister did
assert that he had as yet heard nothing as to anything of importance. As
to Tretton, the captain believed his brother's manner rather than his
words. In fact, the barrister had heard nothing as yet of what was to be
done on his behalf.

The interview ended in the two men going and dining at a club, where the
captain told the whole story of his father's imagined iniquity.

Augustus received the tale almost in silence. In reply to his brother's
authoritative, domineering speeches he said nothing. To him it was all
new, but to him, also, it seemed certainly to be untrue. He did not at
all bring himself to believe that Mr. Grey was in the conspiracy, but he
had no scruple of paternal regard to make him feel that this father
would not concoct such a scheme simply because he was his father. It
would be a saving of the spoil from the Amalekites, and of this idea he
did give a hardly-expressed hint to his brother.

"By George," said the captain, "nothin