 for me. No, you won't? Don't
be sulky, old boy; I'm going down to - to the country to-morrow.«
 

                                 Chapter LXIII

                    Which Accounts Perhaps for Chapter LXII.

The information regarding the affairs of the Clavering family which Major
Pendennis had acquired through Strong, and by his own personal interference as
the friend of the house, was such as almost made the old gentleman pause in any
plans which he might have once entertained for his nephew's benefit. To bestow
upon Arthur a wife with two such fathers-in-law as the two worthies whom the
guileless and unfortunate Lady Clavering had drawn in her marriage ventures, was
to benefit no man. And though the one, in a manner, neutralized the other, and
the appearance of Amory or Altamont in public would be the signal for his
instantaneous withdrawal and condign punishment - for the fugitive convict had
cut down the officer in charge of him, and a rope would be inevitably his end if
he came again under British authorities - yet no guardian would like to secure
for his ward a wife whose parent was to be got rid of in such a way; and the old
gentleman's notion always had been that Altamont, with the gallows before his
eyes, would assuredly avoid recognition; while, at the same time, by holding the
threat of his discovery over Clavering, the latter, who would lose everything by
Amory's appearance, would be a slave in the hands of the person who knew so
fatal a secret.
    But if the Begum paid Clavering's debts many times more, her wealth would be
expended altogether upon this irreclaimable reprobate; and her heirs, whoever
they might be, would succeed but to an emptied treasury, and Miss Amory, instead
of bringing her husband a good income and a seat in Parliament, would bring to
that individual her person only, and her pedigree with that lamentable note of
sus. per coll. at the name of the last male of her line.
    There was, however, to the old schemer revolving these things in his mind,
another course yet open; the which will appear to the reader who may take the
trouble to peruse a conversation, which presently ensued, between Major
Pendennis and the honourable Baronet the member for Clavering.
    When a man, under pecuniary difficulties, disappears from among his usual
friends and equals - dives out of sight, as it were, from the flock of birds in
which he is accustomed to sail - it is wonderful at what strange and distant
nooks he comes up again for breath. I have
