felt the sufficiency of his answer. "But they are neither of them
pleased."

"You cannot please men by going wrong, even in their own behalf."

"I'm not so sure of that. Were you to say that we cannot please men ever
by doing right on their behalf you would perhaps be nearer the mark.
Where do you think that Mountjoy is?" A rumor, had reached Mr. Grey that
Mountjoy had been seen at Monte Carlo, but it had been only a rumor. The
same had, in truth, reached Mr. Scarborough, but he chose to keep his
rumor to himself. Indeed, more than a rumor had reached him.

"I think that he will turn up safely," said the lawyer. "I think that if
it were made worth his while he would turn up at once."

"Is it not better that he should be away?" Mr. Grey shrugged his
shoulders. "What's the good of his coming back into a nest of hornets? I
have always thought that he did very well to disappear. Where is he to
live if he came back? Should he come here?"

"Not with his gambling debts unpaid at the club."

"That might have been settled. Though, indeed, his gambling was as a tub
that has no bottom to it. There has been nothing for it but to throw him
over altogether. And yet how very much the better he has been of the
two! Poor Mountjoy!"

"Poor Mountjoy!"

"You see, if I hadn't disinherited him I should have had to go on paying
for him till the whole estate would have been squandered even during my
lifetime."

"You speak as though the law had given you the power of disinheriting
him."

"So it did."

"But not the power of giving him the inheritance."

"I took that upon myself. There I was stronger than the law. Now I
simply and humbly ask the law to come and help me. And the upshot is
that Augustus takes upon himself to lecture me and to feel aggrieved. He
is not angry with me for what I did about Mountjoy, but is quarrelling
with me because I do not die. I have no idea of dying just to please
him. I think it important that I should live just at present."

"But will you let him have the money to pay these creditors?"

"That is what I want to speak about. If I can see the list of the sums
to be paid, and if you can assure yourself that by paying them I shall
get back all the post-obit bonds which Mountjoy has given, and that the
money can be at once raised upon a joint mortgage, to be executed by me
and Augustus, I will do it. But the first thing must be to know the
amount. I will join Augustus in nothing without your consent.