'll have a bit of a talk and smoke."

Scott readily consented, and the two young men proceeded to the
balcony upon which Mainwaring's room opened, where the latter had
already placed two reclining chairs and a small table containing
a box of his favorite Havanas.

For a few moments they puffed in silence, looking out into the
starlit night with its beauty of dim outline and mysterious shadow.
Mainwaring was the first to speak.

"I say, Scott, I'm awfully ashamed of the way that some of us, my
family in particular, have treated you within the last day or two.
It was confoundedly shabby, and I beg your pardon for my share in
it, anyhow."

"Don't waste any regrets over that matter," Scott answered,
indifferently; "I never gave it any thought, and it is not worth
mentioning."

"I do regret it, though, more than I can tell, and I haven't any
excuse for myself; only things did look so deucedly queer there
for a while, don't you know?"

"Well," said Scott, pleasantly, "we are not out of the woods yet,
and there is no telling what developments may arise. Things might
'look queer' again, you know."

"That's all right. I know a gentleman when I see him, unless I
happen to lose my head, and that doesn't occur very often. Now
it's different with the governor. He's got so confoundedly wrought
up over that will, don't you know, that he can't think of anything
else, and there's no reason in him."

"As I understand it," remarked Scott, "Mr. Mainwaring expects to
win the property in any case, either for you or for himself."

"Yes; and naturally you might think that the loss of the will
wouldn't amount to much, one way or the other; but it's like this:
the governor and I are very different; I know we've got plenty of
ducats, and that's enough for me, but not for him; he is ambitious.
It has always galled him that we were not in the direct line of
descent from the main branch of the Mainwarings; and it has been
his one great ambition since the death of old Ralph Mainwaring,
Hugh's father, a few years before I was born, to win into his own
family the old Mainwaring estate. He had an idea that Hugh would
never marry, and gave me his name, hoping that I would be made
his heir. Should the governor succeed in this scheme of his, he
will immediately buy back the Mainwaring estate, although he knows
I don't care a rap for the whole thing, and we will then have the
honor, as he considers it, of perpetuating the old family line.