He had listened to Earle with a sinking heart, and when he concluded he fairly gnashed his teeth from anger and disappointment.
Earle had spoken very quietly. There was not the slightest excitement visible in his manner, but every word had in it the ring of an unalterable purpose.
“Do you mean it?” Mr. Dalton asked, in low, repressed tones.
“Most emphatically, sir; you can never enter the home from which my mother was driven in disgrace on account of your baseness and treachery.”
Mr. Dalton sat in sullen thought for awhile. How he hated this calm, proud young man, from whom, even though he was his own son, he knew he had no right to expect anything of respect or consideration.
But the things of the world were desperate with him just at present, and he controlled his fierce passion to make one last appeal.
It was true that Editha still had her fortune, and while she still remained single he knew he need not want for anything within reason; still he could not in any way control her property, and all he received had to come through her hands, which, to a man so proud and spirited as himself, was, to say the least, humiliating.
But if he could but once lay hand upon the overflowing coffers of Wycliffe his future would be one long day of luxury and pleasure, and, having been wronged out of his share for so many years, he would feel no compunctions about scattering with lavish hand the shining treasure of the house of Vance.
“I will be frank with you,” he said, trying to speak in a conciliatory tone. “I am a ruined man. I have been speculating, and every dollar of my handsome property is gone. Even my house and furniture are mortgaged, and liable to be taken from me any day. I say again I regret the past sincerely;” and so he did, so much of it as had served to keep him out of Wycliffe, though no part of his sin. “I wish to be at peace with you, but if you turn against me now, I must come down to the level of the common herd.”
To the level of the common herd! How the words galled Earle. He would sink to the level of the common herd, of which he had once believed his mother was one, and so it had not mattered if he had ruined her.