This was the reward which the
old man received for having struggled to provide handsomely and
luxuriously for his son! He still made his son a sufficient allowance
befitting the heir of a man of large property, but he had resolved never
to see him again. It was true that he almost hated him, and thoroughly
despised him.
But since the departure and mysterious disappearance of his eldest son
his regard for the sinner had returned. He had become apparently a
hopeless gambler. His debts had been paid and repaid. At last the
squire had learned that Mountjoy owed so much on post-obits that the
farther payment of them was an impossibility. There was no way of saving
him. To save the property he must undo the doings of his early youth,
and prove that the elder son was illegitimate. He had still kept the
proofs, and he did it.
To the great disgust of Mr. Grey, to the dismay of creditors, to the
incredulous wonder of Augustus, and almost to the annihilation of
Mountjoy himself, he had done it. But there had been nothing in
Mountjoy's conduct which had in truth wounded him. Mountjoy's vices had
been dangerous, destructive, absurdly foolish, but not, to his father, a
shame. He ridiculed gambling as a source of excitement.
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