"Does he? Why should he think so, when I told him that I know nothing? I tell you that I know absolutely nothing. I am ignorant whether he is dead or alive." "He is not dead," said the father. "I suppose not; but I know nothing about him. Why your second son--" "You mean my eldest according to law,--or rather my only son!" "Why Augustus Scarborough," continued Harry Annesley, "should take upon himself to suspect that I know aught of his brother I cannot say. He has some cock-and-bull story about a policeman whom he professes to believe to be ignorant of his own business. This policeman, he says, is anxious to arrest me." "To make you give evidence before a magistrate," said his father. "He did not dare to tell me that he suspected me himself." "There;--I knew you had quarrelled." "I deny it altogether. I have not quarrelled with Augustus Scarborough. He is welcome to his suspicions if he chooses to entertain them. I should have liked him better if he had not brought me down to Tretton, so as to extract from me whatever he can. I shall be more guarded in future in speaking of Mountjoy Scarborough; but to you I give my positive assurance, which I do not doubt you will believe, that I know nothing respecting him." An honest indignation gleamed in his eyes as he spoke; but still there were the signs of that vacillation about his mouth which Florence had been able to read, but not to interpret. "Yes," said the squire, after a pause, "I believe you. You haven't that kind of ingenuity which enables a man to tell a lie and stick to it. I have. It's a very great gift if a man be enabled to restrain his appetite for lying." Harry could only smile when he heard the squire's confession. "Only think how I have lied about Mountjoy; and how successful my lies might have been, but for his own folly!" "People do judge you a little harshly now," said Harry. "What's the odd's? I care nothing for their judgment; I endeavored to do justice to my own child, and very nearly did it. I was very nearly successful in rectifying the gross injustice of the world. Why should a little delay in a ceremony in which he had no voice have robbed him of his possessions? I determined that he should have Tretton, and I determined also to make it up to Augustus by denying myself the use of my own wealth. Things have gone wrongly not by my own folly. I could not prevent the mad career which Mountjoy has run; but do you think that I am ashamed because the world knows what I have done? Do you suppose my death-bed will be embittered by the remembrance that I have been a liar? Not in the least. I have done the best I could for my two sons, and in doing it have denied myself many advantages. How many a man would have spent his money on himself, thinking nothing of his boys, and then have gone to his grave with all the dignity of a steady Christian father! Of the two men I prefer myself; but I know that I have been a liar."