"Nor should they, though I were as strong as you. What are Mountjoy's
creditors to me? They have not a scrap of my handwriting in their
possession. There is not one who can say that he has even a verbal
promise from me. They never came to me when they wanted to lend him
money at fifty per cent. Did they ever hear me say that he was my heir?"

"Perhaps not."

"Not one has ever heard it. It was not to them I lied, but to you and to
Grey. D---- the creditors! What do I care for them, though they be all
ruined?"

"Not in the least."

"Why do you talk to me about the creditors? You, at any rate, know the
truth." Then Augustus quitted the room, leaving his father in a passion.
But, as a fact, he was by no means assured as to the truth. He supposed
that he was the heir; but might it not be possible that his father had
contrived all this so as to save the property from Mountjoy and that
greedy pack of money-lenders? Grey must surely know the truth. But why
should not Grey be deceived on the second event as well as the first.
There was no limit, Augustus sometimes thought, to his father's
cleverness. This idea had occurred to him within the last week, and his
mind was tormented with reflecting what might yet be his condition. But
of one thing he was sure, that his father and Mountjoy were not in
league together. Mountjoy at any rate believed himself to have been
disinherited. Mountjoy conceived that his only chance of obtaining money
arose from his brother. The circumstances of Mountjoy's absence were, at
any rate, unknown to his father.