When old Mr. Scarborough was dead, and had been for a while buried, Augustus made his application in form to Messrs. Grey & Barry. He made it through his own attorney, and had now received Mr. Barry\'s answer through the same attorney. The nature of the application had been in this wise: that Mr. Augustus Scarborough had been put in to the position of the eldest son; that he did not himself in the least doubt that such was his true position; that close inquiry had been made at the time, and that the lawyers, including Mr. Grey and Mr. Barry had assented to the statements as then made by old Mr. Scarborough; that he himself had then gone to work to pay his brother\'s debts, for the honor of the family, and had paid them partly out of his own immediate pocket, and partly out of the estate, which was the same as his own property; that during his brother\'s "abeyance" he had assisted in his maintenance, and, on his brother\'s return, had taken him to his own home; that then his father had died, and that this incredible new story had been told. Mr. Augustus Scarborough was in no way desirous of animadverting on his father\'s memory, but was forced to repeat his belief that he was his father\'s eldest son, and was, in fact, at that moment the legitimate owner of Tretton, in accordance with the existing contract. He did not wish to dispute his father\'s will, though his father\'s mental and bodily condition at the time of the making of the will might, perhaps, enable him to do so with success. The will might be allowed to pass valid, but the rights of primogeniture must be held sacred.

Nevertheless, having his mother\'s memory in great honor, he felt himself ill inclined to drag the family history before the public. For his mother\'s sake he was open to a compromise. He would advise that the whole property,—that which would pass under the entail, and that which was intended to be left by will,—should be valued, and that the total should then be divided between them. If his brother chose to take the family mansion, it should be so. Augustus Scarborough had no desire to set himself over his brother. But if this offer were not accepted, he must at once go to law, and prove that their Nice marriage had been, in fact, the one marriage by which his father and mother had been joined together. There was another proviso added to this offer: as the valuation and division of the property must take time, an income at the rate of two hundred pounds a month should be allowed to Augustus till such time as it should be completed. Such was the offer which Augustus had authorized his attorney to make.

There was some delay in getting Mountjoy to consent to a reply. Before the offer had reached Mr. Barry he was already at Monte Carlo, with that ready money his father had left behind him. At every venture that he made,—at least at every loss which he incurred,—he told himself that it was altogether the doings of Florence Mountjoy. But he returned to England, and consented to a reply. He was the eldest son, and meant to support that position, both on his mother\'s behalf and on his own. As to his father\'s will, made in his favor, he felt sure that his brother would not have the hardihood to dispute it. A man\'s bodily sufferings were no impediment to his making a will; of mental incapacity he had never heard his father accused till the accusation had now been made by his own son. He was, however, well aware that it would not be preferred. As to what his brother had done for himself, it was hardly worth his while to answer such an allegation. His memory carried him but little farther back than the day on which his brother turned him out of his rooms.

There were, however, many reasons,—and this was put in at the suggestion of Mr. Barry,—why he would not wish that his brother should be left penniless. If his brother would be willing to withdraw altogether from any lawsuit, and would lend his co-operation to a speedy arrangement of the family matters, a thousand a year,—or twenty-five thousand pounds,—should be made over to him as a younger brother\'s portion. To this offer it would be necessary that a speedy reply should be given, and, under such circumstances, no temporary income need be supplied.

It was early in June when Augustus was sitting in his luxurious lodgings in Victoria Street, contemplating this reply. His own lawyer had advised him to accept the offer, but he had declared to himself a dozen times since his father\'s death that, in this matter of the property, he would "either make a spoon or spoil a horn." And the lawyer was no friend of his own,—was not a man who knew nothing of the facts of the case beyond what were told him, and nothing of the working of his client\'s mind. Augustus had looked to him only for the law in the matter, and the lawyer had declared the law to be against his client. "All that your father said about the Nice marriage will go for nothing. It will be shown that he had an object."

"But there certainly was such a marriage."

"No doubt there was some ceremony—performed with an object. A second marriage cannot invalidate the first, though it may itself be altogether invalidated. The Rummelsburg marriage is, and will be, an established fact, and of the Rummelsburg marriage your brother was no doubt the issue. Accept the offer of an income. Of course we can come to terms as to the amount; and from your brother\'s character it is probable enough that he may increase it." Such had been his lawyer\'s advice, and Augustus was sitting there in his lodging thinking of it.

He was not a happy man as he sat there. In the first place he owed a little money, and the debt had come upon him chiefly from his lavish expenditure in maintaining Mountjoy and Mountjoy\'s servant upon their travels. At that time he had thought that by lavish expenditure he might make Tretton certainly his own. He had not known his brother\'s character, and had thought that by such means he could keep him down, with his head well under water. His brother might drink,—take to drinking regularly at Monte Carlo or some other place,—and might so die. Or he would surely gamble himself into farther and utter ruin. At any rate he would be well out of the way, and Augustus in his pride had been glad to feel that he had his brother well under his thumb. Then the debt had been paid with the object of saving the estate from litigation on the part of the creditors. That had been his one great mistake. And he had not known his father, or his father\'s guile, or his father\'s strength. Why had not his father died at once?—as all the world had assured him would be the case. Looking back he could remember that the idea of paying the creditors had at first come from his father, simply as a vague idea! Oh, what a crafty rascal his father had been! And then he had allowed himself, in his pride, to insult his father, and had spoken of his father\'s coming death as a thing that was desirable! From that moment his father had plotted his ruin. He could see it all now.

He was still minded to make the spoon; but he found that he should spoil the horn. Had there been any one to assist him he would still have persevered. He thought that he could have persevered with a lawyer who would really have taken up his case with interest. If Mountjoy could be made to drink—so as to die! He was still next in the entail; and he was his brother\'s heir should his brother die without a will. But so he would be if he took the twenty-five thousand pounds. But to accept so poor a modicum would go frightfully against the grain with him. He seemed to think t............