Adrien, who had been talking to Lady Constance, now glanced appealingly towards Mortimer; but with a gesture, as if to silence him, Shelton turned to Vermont again.
"Friend!" he exclaimed bitterly. "A pretty friend! But no more of this. I advise you to leave the Castle while you are safe, for we have sufficient proof here to send you to penal servitude."
"Yes," Lord Barminster repeated, "leave the house at once. If I find you within my grounds an hour hence, I will thrash you within an inch of your life, old man as I am."
Jasper Vermont's face grew livid with anger, and something approaching fear as well; he clenched his hands so tightly that the carefully manicured nails dug deep into his flesh. But with characteristic insolence he tried to brazen it out.
"Your grounds?" he exclaimed, in virulent scorn. "Your grounds, my lord! First tell me where I shall find them. You have no grounds. Barminster Castle is in the hands of a moneylender; these lands, as far as the eye can reach, are the property of Mr. Harker, the City capitalist, by right of countless bills and deeds which your precious son has made over to him."
With an exclamation of pain and astonishment, Adrien gazed on the man whom he had so loved and trusted. There was no mistaking the bitter hatred that was in Vermont's tones. At last, his eyes were being opened to the man's true character.
Lord Barminster regarded him steadily.
"You're mad!" he said quietly.
"Oh, no, no!" laughed Vermont. "It is not I who am mad, but you, who foolishly handed over your wealth to your son before it was his by right. You should have let him wait till death had removed you, before you gave him full power over Barminster. Such lavish expenditure as his would empty the coffers of a nation. His folly has melted every stone of your precious Castle in the cup of pleasure, and has poured out the costly draught at the feet of his friends and parasites. Friends? He has never had any--leeches, perhaps, who have sucked him dry of all his possessions, and then deserted him."
"Speak for yourself, you cur." cried Shelton, "since it is you, and your dishonest management of his estates, that have brought him to this pass."