nds. You wouldn't have paid that for
him?"

"Not again;--certainly not again."

"Then what could he do better than disappear? I suppose I shall have to
make him an allowance some of these days, and if he can live and keep
himself dark I will do so."

There was in this a tacit allusion to his father's speedy death which
was grim enough; but the father passed it by without any expression of
displeasure. He certainly owed much to his younger son, and was willing
to pay it by quiescence. Let them both forbear. Such was the language
which he held to himself in thinking of his younger son. Augustus was
certainly behaving well to him. Not a word of rebuke had passed his lips
as to the infamous attempt at spoliation which had been made. The old
squire felt grateful for his younger son's conduct, but yet in his heart
of hearts he preferred the elder.

"He has denuded me of every penny," said Augustus, "and I must ask you
to refund me something of what has gone."

"He has kept me very bare. A man with so great a propensity for getting
rid of money I think no father ever before had to endure."

"You have had the last of it."

"I do not know that. If I live, and he lets me know his whereabouts, I
cannot leave him penniless. I do feel that a great injustice has been
done him."

"I don't exactly see it," said Augustus.

"Because you're too hard-hearted to put yourself in another man's place.
He was my eldest son."

"He thought that he was."

"And should have remained so had there been a hope for him," said the
squire, roused to temporary anger. Augustus only shrugged his
shoulders. "But there is no good talking about it."

"Not the least in the world. Mr. Grey, I suppose, knows the truth at
last. I shall have to get three or four thousand pounds from you, or I
too must resort to the Jews. I shall do it, at any rate, under better
circumstances than my brother."

Some arrangement was at last made which was satisfactory to the son, and
which we must presume that the father found to be endurable. Then the
son took his leave, and went back to London, with the understood
intention of pushing the inquiries as to his brother's existence and
whereabouts.

The sudden and complete disappearance of Captain Scarborough struck Mrs.
Mountjoy with the deepest awe. It was not at first borne in upon her to
believe that Captain Mountjoy Scarborough, an officer in the
Coldstreams, and the acknowledged heir to the Tretton property, had