been living for the last ten years on the money I embezzled
from the company whose affairs I managed. The fraud cannot fail of
being detected almost immediately.

"I feel acutely the position in which I am forced to leave your
mother. I do _not_ pity _you_ in the least. I gave you the amplest
opportunity to save yourself from this ruin, if you had not been a
fool. You cared for nothing and for nobody but yourself. You never
worked hard, though you knew it to be my wish; you assumed an air of
spurious independence, and affected the fine gentleman. Your conceit
and idleness will be their own punishment. You have made your own
bed; now you will have to lie in it.

"ROLLO BRUCE."

The truth was soon known to the world. Numberless executions were put
into Vyvyan House. Every available fragment of property was seized by
Sir Rollo's creditors; and as Lady Bruce's private fortune had long been
spent, she and her son were left all but penniless. The gay and gilded
friends of their summer hours were the first to desert them, and Sir
Rollo's wickedness had created such a gust of indignation, that few came
forward to lend his family the slightest assistance.

When Bruce found himself in this most distressing position--when he sat
with his mother in shame and retirement in obscure lodgings, which had
been taken for them by one of their former servants, and with no
immediate means of livelihood--then first the folly of his past career
revealed itself to his mind in its full proportions. Lady Bruce's
health was dreadfully affected by the mental anguish through which she
had passed, and it became a positive necessity that Bruce should work
with his head or hands to earn their daily bread.

He found no difficulty in procuring a temporary post in a lawyer's
office as a clerk. The drudgery was terrible. Daily, from nine in the
morning to six in the evening, he found himself chained to the desk, and
obliged to go through the dullest and most mechanical routine, the only
respite being half an hour in the middle of the day, which he spent in
dining at an eating-house. Nursed on the lap of luxury, habituated to
the choicest viands, and accustomed to find every whim fulfilled, this
kind of life was intolerable to him. The steaming recesses of a squalid
eating-house gave him a sensation of loathing and sickness, and the want
of exercise made him look haggard and wan. In vain he appealed to men
who had