ine about his
father's voice which once more deceived him. He did not dream of the
depth of the old man's anger. He did not imagine that at such a moment
it could boil over with such ferocity; nor was he altogether aware of
the cat-like quietude with which he could pave the way for his last
spring. Mountjoy, by far the least gifted of the two, had gained the
truer insight to his father's character.

"You had done much, or rather, as I supposed, circumstances had done
much."

"Circumstances?"

"The facts, I mean, as to Mountjoy's birth and my own."

"I have not always left myself to be governed by actual circumstances."

"If there was any omission on my part of an expression of proper
feeling, I regret it."

"I don't know that there was. What is proper feeling? There was no
hypocrisy, at any rate."

"You sometimes are a little bitter, sir."

"I hope you won't find it so when I am gone."

"I don't know what I said that has angered you, but I may have been
driven to say what I did not feel."

"Certainly not to me."

"I'm not here to beg pardon for any special fault, as I do not quite
know of what I am accused."

"Of nothing. There is accusation at all."

"Nor what the punishment is to be. I have learned that you have left to
Mountjoy all the furniture in the house."

"Yes, poor boy!--when I found that you had turned him out."

"I never turned him out,--not till your house was open to receive him."

"You would not have wished him to go into the poor-house?"

"I did the very best for him. I kept him going when there was no one
else to give him a shilling."

"He must have had a bitter time," said the father. "I hope it may have
done him good."

"I think I behaved to him just as an elder brother should have done. He
was not particularly grateful, but that was not my fault."

"Still, I thought it best to leave him the old sticks about the place.
As he was to have the property, it was better that he should have the
sticks." As he said this he managed to turn himself round and look his
son full in the face. Such a look as it was! There was the gleam of
victory, and the glory of triumph, and the venom of malice. "You
wouldn't have them separated, would you?"

"I have heard of some farther trick of this kind."

"Just the ordinary way in which things ought to be allowed to run. Mr.
Grey, who is a very good man, persuaded me. No man ought to interfere
with the law. An attempt in that direction led to evil