"
"No. Nothing of the kind."
"And it will be well if he have not done so as a man. Do you think that
when people hear that these changes have been made with my assistance
they will stop to unravel it all, and to see that I have been only a
fool and not a knave? Can I explain under what stress of entreaty I went
down there on this last occasion?"
"Papa, you were quite right to go. He was your old friend, and he was
dying."
Even for this he was grateful. "Who will judge me as you do,--you who
persuaded me that I should not have gone? See how the world will use my
name! He has made me a party to each of his frauds. He disinherited
Mountjoy, and he forced me to believe the evidence he brought. Then,
when Mountjoy was nobody, he half paid the creditors by means of my
assistance."
"They got all they were entitled to get."
"No; till the law had decided against them, they were entitled to their
bonds. But they, ruffians though they are, had advanced so much hard
money, and I was anxious that they should get their hard money back
again. But unless Mountjoy had been illegitimate,--so as to be capable of
inheriting nothing,--they would have been cheated; and they have been
cheated. Will it be possible that I should make them or make others
think that I have had nothing to do with it? And Augustus, who will be
open-mouthed,--what will he say against me? In every turn and double of
the man's crafty mind I shall be supposed to have turned and doubled
with him.
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