"I can work for her, I suppose?"
"No, sir, that's just what you can't do. Idle and dissipated you have always been, and idle and dissipated you always will be. Oh, I have heard of your goings-on in London, Mr. Arkel. You spent Barton's money freely while you had it, now you haven't got it, you are certainly not likely to make any for yourself."
"If the will is found——"
"Will!—found!—stuff and nonsense! Do you think the man who murdered your uncle for the sole purpose of stealing it is going to emerge from his hiding and make you a present of it? Don't be a fool, sir! Go and ask Dundas to give you a leg up, and try and do something to earn a pound a week. As to Hilda, put her out of your head."
By this time Gerald was almost beside himself.
"Mind your own business, Marsh," he shouted, jumping up. "I will not touch a penny of Dundas' money. But how I make my living, and what I decide to do, has nothing to do with you."
"Right! it hasn't. If I gave my consent to your marrying Hilda, it would have; as I decline to let my child throw herself away on a pauper, it hasn't. The best thing you can do is to quit this house and try and preserve your few scattered wits."
"You are beastly rude. But allow me to say that before I go I must hear what Hilda says," and with a very dogged look upon his face Master Gerald sat down.
"You will find that although Hilda has lapsed so far as to engage herself to you, she has still sufficient regard for the wishes of those in authority over her to obey them." The doctor was becoming classic again. "However, you shall see her."
Again Gerald cast an ironical glance round the room, as though mutely inquiring if he could possibly take Hilda into surroundings more impoverished than those amid which she was at present. But Marsh ignored the look entirely, for the very good reason that its contention was irrefutable even by him. So he stalked away, leaving Gerald to gnaw his moustache, and curse the fate which had robbed him of his money and now threatened to rob him of "the only girl he ever loved."