e, and in a
short time was sitting at dinner with Merton, the young doctor and
secretary. Miss Scarborough seldom came to table at that hour, but
remained in a room up-stairs, close to her brother, so that she might be
within call should she be wanted. "Upon the whole, Merton," he said,
"what do you think of my father?" The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Will he live or will he die?"

"He will die, certainly."

"Do not joke with me. But I know you would not joke on such a subject.
And my question did not merely go to the state of his health. What do
you think of him as a man generally? Do you call him an honest man?"

"How am I to answer you?"

"Just the truth."

"If you will have an answer, I do not consider him an honest man. All
this story about your brother is true or is not true. In neither case
can one look upon him as honest."

"Just so."

"But I think that he has within him a capacity for love, and an
unselfishness, which almost atones for his dishonesty; and there is
about him a strange dislike to conventionality and to law which is so
interesting as to make up the balance. I have always regarded your
father as a most excellent man, but thoroughly dishonest. He would rob
any one,--but always to eke out his own gifts to other people. He has,
therefore, to my eyes been most romantic."

"And as to his health?"

"Ah, as to that I cannot answer so decidedly. He will do nothing because
I tell him."

"Do you mean that you could prolong his life?"

"Certainly I think that I could. He has exerted himself this morning,
whereas I have advised him not to exert himself. He could have given
himself the same counsel, and would certainly live longer by obeying it
than the reverse. As there is no difficulty in the matter, there need
be no conceit on my part in saying that so far my advice might be of
service to him."

"How long will he live?"

"Who can say? Sir William Brodrick, when that fearful operation was
performed in London, thought that a month would see the end of it. That
is eight months ago, and he has more vitality now than he had then. For
myself, I do not think that he can live another month."

Later on in the evening Mountjoy Scarborough began again. "The governor
thinks that you have behaved uncommonly well to him."

"I am paid for it all."

"But he has not left you anything by his will."

"I have certainly expected nothing, and there could be no reason why he
should."

"He has entertai