"Six-and-twenty yesterday."
"Then you are not forced to supply his extravagance, to find money for his faults and follies. You are not obliged to let him keep you down."
"By law, no," sighed poor Lennard. "But these ill-doing sons sometimes entwine themselves around your very heartstrings; far rather would you suffer and suffer than not ward off the ill from them. He has tried his hand at many occupations, but remains at none; the result is always trouble: and yet his education and intellect, his good looks and perfect, pleasant manners, would fit him for almost any responsible position in life. But he is reckless. Get into what scrape he would, whether of debt, or worse, here he was sure of a refuge and a welcome; I received him, his mother and sisters loved him. One of them is bedridden," he added, in an altered tone.
"I went first by mistake into the next room. I probably saw her."
"Yes, that's Maria. It is a weakness that has settled in her legs; some chronic affection, I suppose; and there she has lain for ten months. With medical attendance and sea air she might be restored, they tell me, but I can provide neither. Leonard's claims have been too heavy."
"But should you waste means on him that ought to be applied to her necessities?" I involuntarily interrupted.
He half raised himself on his elbow, and the effort proved how weak he was, and his eyes and his voice betrayed a strange earnestness. "When a son, whom you love better than life itself, has to be saved from the consequences of his follies, from prison, from worse disgrace even than that, other interests are forgotten, let them be what they may. Silent, patient needs give way to obtrusive wants that stare you in the face, and that may bear fear and danger in their train. Mr. Strange, you can imagine this."
"I do. It must ever be so."
"The pecuniary wants of a young man, such as my son is, are as the cry of the horse-leech. Give! give! Leonard mixes sometimes with distant relatives, young fellows of fashion, who are moving in a sphere far above our present position, although I constantly warn him not to do it. One of these wants, imperative and to be provided for in some way or other, occurred the beginning of February in this year. How I managed to pay it I can hardly tell, but it stripped me of all the money I could raise, and left me with some urgent debts upon me. The rent was owing, twelve months the previous December, and some of the tradespeople were becoming clamorous. The landlord, discerning the state of affairs, put in a distress, terrifying poor Maria, whose illness had then not very long set in, almost to death. That I had the means to pay the man out you may judge, when I tell you that we had not the money to buy a joint of meat or a loaf of bread."
Lennard paused to wipe the dew from his brow.