"Can't you live on your pay here?"
"No!" He answered her almost as though he were angry with her. "If I had been used all my life to the strictest economies, perhaps I might do so. Some men do, no doubt; but I am too old to begin it. There is the choice of two things,—to blow my brains out, or go back."
"You are not such a coward as that."
"I don't know. I ain't sure that it would be cowardice. If there were anybody I could injure by doing it, it would be cowardly."
"The family," suggested Mary.
"What does Sir Gregory care for me? I'll show you his letter to me some day. I don't think it would be cowardly at all to get away from such a lot."
"I am sure you won't do that, Captain Marrable."
"Think what it is to know that your father is a swindler. Perhaps that is the worst of it all. Fancy talking or thinking of one's family after that. I like my uncle John. He is very kind, and has offered to lend me £150, which I'm sure he can't afford to lose, and which I am too honest to take. But even he hardly sees it. He calls it a misfortune, and I've no doubt would shake hands with his brother to-morrow."
"So would you, if he were really sorry."
"No, Mary; nothing on earth shall ever induce me to set my eyes on him again willingly. He has destroyed all the world for me. He should have had half of it without a word. When he used to whine to me in his letters, and say how cruelly he had been treated, I always made up my mind that he should have half the income for life. It was because he should not want till I came home that I enabled him to do what he has done. And now he has robbed me of every cursed shilling! I wonder whether I shall ever get my mind free from it."