"And yet there is no one whose future life might be easier. Your father, the circumstances of whose life are the most singular I ever knew—"
"I shall never believe all this about my mother."
"Never mind that now. We will pass that by for the present. He has disinherited you."
"That will be a question some day for the lawyers—should I live."
"But circumstances have so gone with him that he is enabled to leave you another fortune. He is very angry with your brother, in which anger I sympathize. He will strip Tretton as bare as the palm of my hand for your sake. You have always been his favorite, and so, in spite of all things, you are still. They tell me he cannot last for six months longer."
"Heaven knows I do not wish him to die."
"But he thinks that your brother does. He feels that Augustus begrudges him a few months' longer life, and he is angry. If he could again make you his heir, now that the debts are all paid, he would do so." Here the captain shook his head. "But as it is, he will leave you enough for all the needs of even a luxurious life. Here is his will, which I am going to send down to him for final execution this very day. My senior clerk will take it, and you will meet him there. That will give you ample for life. But what is the use of it all, if you can lose it in one night or in one month among a pack of scoundrels?"
"If they be scoundrels, I am one of them."
"You lose your money. You are their dupe. To the best of my belief you have never won. The dupes lose, and the scoundrels win. It must be so."
"You know nothing about it, Mr. Grey."