"'Alone I did it, boy.'"
"Then it's an infernal shame. What harm had he ever done you? For me I had some ground of quarrel with him, but for you there was none."
"I have my own quarrel with him also."
"I quarrelled with him—with a cause. I do not care if I quarrel with him again. He shall never marry Florence Mountjoy if I can help it. But to rob a fellow of his property I think a very shabby thing." Then Augustus got up and walked out of the chambers into the street, and Mountjoy soon followed him.
"I must make him understand that he must leave this at once," said Augustus to himself, "and if necessary I must order the supplies to be cut off."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE SCARBOROUGH CORRESPONDENCE.
It was as Mountjoy had said. The squire had written to him a letter inviting him to Tretton, and telling him that it would be the best home for him till death should have put Tretton into other hands. Mountjoy had thought the matter over, sitting in the easy-chair in his brother's room, and had at last declined the invitation. As his letter was emblematic of the man, it may be as well to give it to the reader:
"My dear father,—I don't think it will suit me to go down to Tretton at present. I don't mind the cards, and I don't doubt that you would make it better than this place. But, to tell the truth, I don't believe a word of what you have told to the world about my mother, and some of these days I mean to have it out with Augustus. I shall not sit quietly by and see Tretton taken out of my mouth. Therefore I think I had better not go to Tretton.