By degrees facts had made themselves clear to his mind, and he had become aware that the captain had been born before his client's marriage.

He was ineffably shocked at the old squire's villany in the matter, but declared to all to whom he spoke openly on the subject that he did not see how the sinner could be punished.

He never thought that the father and son were in a conspiracy together.

Nor had he believed that they had arranged the young man's disappearance in order the more thoroughly to defraud the creditors.

They could not, at any rate, harm a man of whose whereabouts they were unaware and who, for all they knew, might be dead.
But the reader is already aware that this surmise on the part of Mr.
Grey was unfounded.
The captain had been absent for three weeks when Augustus Scarborough went down for a second time to Tretton Park, in order to discuss the matter with his father.
Augustus had, with much equanimity and a steady, fixed purpose, settled himself down to the position as elder son.