The grey-haired man raised his eyes, without lifting
his head, and surveyed his son with an expression of mocking triumph,
but answered not a word. His contemptuous silence was more galling to
the irritated applicant than the loudest torrent of abuse. He was
prepared for that, and he turned from the stony glance and harsh face of
his father with eyes full of tears, and his breast heaving under the
sense of intolerable wrongs.
At length his feelings found utterance. His dark eyes flashed fire, and
despair, with all her attendant furies, took possession of his heart.
"I will not reproach you, Mr. Hurdlestone, for giving me life," he
cried, in tones tremulous with passion, "for that would be to insult the
God who made me: but your unnatural conduct to me since the first moment
I inherited that melancholy boon has made me consider that my greatest
misfortune is being your son. It was in your power to have rendered it a
mutual blessing. From a child, I have been a stranger in your house, an
alien to your affections. While you possessed a yearly income of two
hundred thousand pounds, you suffered your only son to be educated on
the charity of your injured brother, your sordid love of gold rendering
you indifferent to the wants of your motherless child. Destitute of a
home without money, and driven to desperation by an act of imprudence,
which my compassion for the son of that generous uncle urged me in an
unguarded hour to commit, I seek you in my dire necessity to ask the
loan of a small sum, to save me from utter ruin.
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