Since he could see so little of her, he had spent almost all the time that used to be devoted to her with Molken. In consequence, he seldom reached home in anything like what he had been accustomed to consider decent time. When his mother spoke to him on the subject he shoved it aside with an "Ah! you were in bed, mother," prefacing some story, part true, part false, arranged for the occasion. So long as his father took no notice of the matter he did not much mind. He was afraid of him still; but so long as he was out of bed early enough in the morning, his father did not much care at what hour he went to it: he had had his own wild oats to sow in his time. The purity of his boy's mind and body did not trouble him much, provided that, when he came to take his position in the machine of things, he turned out a steady, respectable pinion, whose cogs did not miss, but held--the one till the other caught. He had, however, grown ambitious for him within the last few days--more of which by and by. In the vacancy of mind occasioned by the loss of his visits to Lucy--for he had never entered heartily into any healthy pursuits in literature, art, or even amusement--Thomas had, as it were, gradually sauntered more and more into the power of Mr. Molken; and although he had vowed to himself, after his first experience, that he would, never play again, himself not being to himself a very awe-inspiring authority, he had easily broken that vow. It was not that he had any very strong inclination to play--the demon of play had not quite entered into him: it was only that whatever lord asserted dominion over Thomas, to him Thomas was ready to yield that which he claimed. Molken said, "Come along," and Thomas went along. Nor was it always to the gambling-house that he followed Molken; but although there was one most degrading species of vice from which his love to Lucy--for he loved Lucy with a real though not great love--did preserve him, there were several places to which his _friend_ took him from which he could scarcely emerge as pure as he entered them. I suspect--thanks to what influence Lucy had with him, to what conscience he had left in him, to what good his mother and Mr. Simon had taught him, in a word, to the care of God over him--Mr. Molken found him rather harder to corrupt than, from his shilly-shally ways, he had expected. Above all, the love of woman, next to the love of God, is the power of God to a young man's salvation; for all is of God, everything, from first to last--nature, providence, and grace--it is all of our Father in Heaven; and what God hath joined let not man put asunder.