Complete details of all legal proceedings, together with copious comment on the demeanor of complainant and defendant, as well as irrelevant addenda concerning such things as dress and facial expression, can be found in the back files of a certain aristocratic journal, but nothing edifying is to be gained by perusal of this voluminous report. The circulation of the sheet in question was given sudden and tremendous impetus, yet this proved merely temporary, for the revengeful note obtruded, the personal animosity broke forth, overstepping all limits of honor and fair play, so that those who had not heretofore followed public topics over-closely wondered what was the editor's quarrel with the defendant. But his quarrel was not with the nephew; although through the nephew he hoped to reach the uncle, the Honorable Oliver Britton, who was abroad, representing England in a consular capacity.
The name of Britton, of Britton Hall, was high enough and proud enough and old enough to afford a splendid target for the batteries of ignominy which were masked within the publishing offices of the warring journal, and the fact that the Honorable Oliver Britton had once humbled by personal opposition the political aspirations of the editor was what made the reputation-shelling process so destructive. Still, in spite of the deliberate use of his heaviest artillery, the man behind the fire of words did not foresee the startling result of such drastic measures.
When, after months of fighting through successive law-courts, the celebrated action came to an end, the journal's editor had to announce, much to his chagrin, that the final verdict was dismissal with a division of costs. This decision, the report intimated, was due entirely to that matchless legal machine, Ainsworth.
However, the enemy of the Britton name enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that his vitriolic pen had done more than he dared to hope, for he soon had the supreme delight of stating that, owing to the disgrace involving the family name, the Honorable Oliver Britton had resigned his post as Consul at a foreign court. Furthermore, the powers that appoint had placed another in the post in the diplomatic service which, it was understood, was being reserved for Rex Britton till his return from the holiday cruise that his honor-graduation at Oxford had earned.
And, later, the journal announced what it had not foreseen, the news that the Honorable Oliver Britton had returned from the Continent, violently quarrelled with his nephew and disinherited him. It gloated over the cruel truth that of all the Brittons, who had for generations counted thousands of pounds upon their rent-rolls, a Britton now stood penniless, except for a paltry three hundred guineas left out of his patrimony, nearly exhausted by the long legal battle; gloated over him because the gentleman's hand must turn to labor, the ambitious trusts of educational and diplomatic posts being denied him on account of the name-smudge.
There the journal's report and comment ends, except for an item telling that Christopher Morris and his wife had gone to America.
The night Rex Britton quarrelled with his uncle, he went out from Britton Hall, down white gravel walks between clipped hedges, under the massed oaks in the familiar grove, and along green Sussex lanes to the depot. There he telegraphed Ainsworth to get Trascott to meet him at the former's rooms, as new developments had arisen which occasioned his departure from what he had considered home since his boyhood days. The night express took him up and whirled him away to London.
Trascott was with a dying woman in the slums, so it was evening of the next day before the three friends could get together in Cyril Ainsworth's rooms. The curate came in, weary and depressed, and with a gravity of bearing caused by association with the near presence of death.
"The uncle has cut the nephew out of the will and kicked him off the estate," Ainsworth plunged, giving Trascott a terse summing-up of Rex Britton's explanations. "He has left three hundred pounds of money, three mountains of pride, and the strength of three bulls. He's off to Canada and the Yukon!"
Trascott stilled his surprise and bent earnestly over the table.