s proud head, stunned by the blow,
and say, "Thou refusest me the obedience of the son, thou demandest to
be as the dead to me. I can control thee not from vice, I can guide thee
not to virtue. Thou wouldst sell me the name I have inherited stainless,
and have as stainless borne. Be it so! Name thy price!"

And something like this last was the father's choice.

He listened, and was long silent; and then he said slowly, "Pause before
you decide."

"I have paused long; my decision is made! This is the last time we meet.
I see before me now the way to fortune, fairly, honorably; you can aid
me in it only in the way I have said. Reject me now, and the option may
never come again to either!"

And then Roland said to himself, "I have spared and saved for this son:
what care I for aught else than enough to live without debt, creep into
a corner, and await the grave? And the more I can give, why, the better
chance that he will abjure the vile associate and the desperate course."
And so, out of his small income Roland surrendered to the rebel child
more than the half.

Vivian was not aware of his father's fortune,--he did not suppose the
sum of two hundred pounds a year was an allowance so disproportioned
to Roland's means; yet when it was named, even he was struck by the
generosity of one to whom he himself had given the right to say, "I take
thee at thy word: 'Just enough not to starve!'"

But then that hateful cynicism, which, caught from bad men and evil
books, he called "knowledge of the world," made him think, "It is not
for me, it is only for his name;" and he said aloud, "I accept these
terms, sir; here is the address of a solicitor with whom yours can
settle them. Farewell forever."

At those last words Roland started, and stretched out his arms vaguely
like a blind man. But Vivian had already thrown open the window (the
room was on the ground floor) and sprung upon the sill. "Farewell," he
repeated; "tell the world I am dead."

He leaped into the street, and the father drew in the outstretched arms,
smote his heart, and said: "Well, then, my task in the world of man is
over! I will back to the old ruin,--the wreck to the wrecks; and the
sight of tombs I have at least rescued from dishonor shall comfort me
for all!"

CHAPTER VII.

The Results.--Perverted Ambition.--Selfish Passion.--The Intellect
Distorted by the Crookedness of the Heart.

Vivian's schemes thus prospered. He had an income that permit