"You will live in luxury," said Goldie, glancing reproachfully round at the elegant, luxurious apartment of his son, "and leave your brother to be ruined, disgraced—"
"That is his own fault, not mine," replied Aleck.
"If not for his sake," cried Goldie more earnestly, "for mine—for your mother's—your poor afflicted mother's! She is almost broken-hearted already with her loss; a blow like this would bring her to her grave."
"All this is very unpleasant," said Aleck, rising impatiently. "I tell you it's not to be done."
"You forget," said his father, his face flushing with anger, "you forget all the sacrifices made for yourself. How I scraped every pound, every sixpence together to place you at an expensive school, to give you an education without which you could never have risen as you have done; how I was in debt for years to raise the sum required to set you out in life to such advantage; how I—"
"There's the hairdresser!" cried Aleck, with a look of relief. "I'm sorry that I shall be engaged this evening. Won't you take a glass of wine before you go? Shall I order my servant to call a fly? I really am afraid of your delaying your return, for at this time of year, it is dangerous for persons of your age to be out in the cold night-air."
Goldie could not for a minute speak—he was actually choking with mingled passion and grief. Then recovering himself, he went up close to his son, and said in a low, thrilling tone, "If no other motive will touch you, think of yourself. The disgrace of your family must be shared by you; remember that you bear the same name!"
"That decides me upon doing what I have thought of before—changing it for that of my wife."
Goldie rushed from the house, as from the den of a serpent, with a determination never to enter it again. The reed on which he had leaned had pierced him to the heart, all that he had hoped for once had been attained only to make him more wretched. Vanity of vanities was written upon what he had most loved! And yet what right had the worldly man to complain! He had taught his children to break the Fourth Commandment, could he wonder that they disregarded the Fifth: he had lived all his life in rebellion and disobedience to his Heavenly Father and dare he hope to find affection in his own children!
Evils were thickening upon him—troubles unsanctified, and therefore intolerable. The ruin of Mat gave the finishing stroke to the misery of his unhappy mother. She lay on her death-bed, broken-hearted, desponding! Goldie had seen one son cut off in the flower of his days, another was dragging him down to poverty and shame, the third, his darling, the pride of his soul, had inflicted on the heart of his parent perhaps the deepest wound of all.