"You are all of you wonderfully innocent and ignorant, no doubt. I don't know that I am doing you a kindness in enlightening you. This Price is a drinker, an idler, and a gambler. Finding Guy's handsome face and well-sounding name of use to him, he is trying to make him such another as himself. He has begun with billiards, but he will not stop there. Guy does not seem to have learned the lesson as quickly as I should have expected; but I do not see what is to save him unless you can persuade him to come home. I almost fear he will refuse to do so. In which case, his utter ruin is only a matter of time."
"If you knew that this was likely, why did you not warn him?" said Aymer.
"I did warn you all. You would not believe me; but you know now that I was right. Persuade him to come home if you can,—and—"
"And what?" said Aymer, hotly. "Work hard and live poorly, without a hope or chance of better days!"
"Aymer, I see no good, no object to be gained by any of you, uneducated and unfriended, risking yourselves."
Again Aymer interrupted him. "How is it to end?" he asked, passionately. "If we all remain here, just living—what is to become of us, father?"
"When I am gone, my family must do something for you," Mr. Egerton answered, quickly. "For their own sakes, they must do it."
Then he got up and left the room.
Aymer was silent for a few moments, but then the bitterness of long years broke forth.
"So!" said he. "To save his pride, we are all to live as best we may, until at his death we are turned out of this place; and then we are to be indebted to his fine relatives for help to grub on in the same way somewhere else. I would sooner beg my bread from house to house!"