But the weakness was not of that nature, and he had failed.

Then had come the rivalry between Mountjoy and Harry, which had seemed to Augustus to be the extreme of impudence.

From of old he had been taught to regard his brother Mountjoy as the first of young men--among commoners; the first in prospects and the first in rank; and to him Florence Mountjoy had been allotted as a bride.

How he had himself learned first to envy and then to covet this allotted bride need not here be told.

But by degrees it had come to pass that Augustus had determined that his spendthrift brother should fall under his own power, and that the bride should be the reward.