Audley’s spirits were much affected by this new loss. He inly resolved never to marry again. He had a vague thought at first of retrenching his expenditure, and making young Randal Leslie his heir. But when he first saw the clever Eton boy, his feelings did not warm to him, though his intellect appreciated Randal’s quick keen talents. He contented himself with resolving to push the boy;—to do what was merely just to the distant kinsman of his late wife. Always careless and lavish in money matters, generous and princely, not from the delight of serving others, but from a _grand Seigneur’s_ sentiment of what was due to himself and his station, Audley had a mournful excuse for the lordly waste of the large fortune at his control. The morbid functions of the heart had become organic disease. True, he might live many years, and die at last of some other complaint in the course of nature; but the progress of the disease would quicken with all emotional excitement; he might die suddenly—any day—in the very prime, and, seemingly, in the full vigour, of his life. And the only physician in whom he confided what he wished to keep concealed from the world, (for ambitious men would fain be thought immortal,) told him frankly that it was improbable that, with the wear and tear of political strife and action, he could advance far into middle age. Therefore, no son of his succeeding—his nearest relations all wealthy—Egerton resigned himself to his constitutional disdain of money; he could look into no affairs, provided the balance in his banker’s hands were such as became the munificent commoner. All else he left to his steward and to Levy. Levy grew rapidly rich—very, very rich—and the steward thrived. The usurer continued to possess a determined hold over the imperious great man. He knew Audley’s secret; he could reveal that secret to Harley. And the one soft and tender side of the statesman’s nature—the sole part of him not dipped in the ninefold Styx of practical prosaic life, which so renders man invulnerable to affection—was his remorseful love for the school friend whom he still deceived. Here then you have the key to the locked chambers of Audley Egerton’s character, the fortified castle of his mind. The envied minister—the joyless man—the oracle on the economics of an empire—the prodigal in a usurer’s hands—the august, high-crested gentleman, to whom princes would refer for the casuistry of honour—the culprit trembling lest the friend he best loved on earth should detect his lie! Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the Arts or the Graces weave for thee, O Human Nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence! CHAPTER XIX.