But they found enough. Pay-rolls for men kept up long after they had been discharged, and many who had never been at all; systematic falsifications that could not be brought to light without a rigid inspection and comparison by an expert. But Hamilton Minor felt, with the world's wisdom, that bringing the Eastmans back as criminals would not be likely to lead to any restoration; while it would prove a family disgrace, and perhaps add Gertrude to the list of dependent ones. "It makes me heart-sick!" declared Fred. "There is nothing but selfishness and hollowness and greed. Are truth and honor quite dead?" "Very fine talk, my young friend," said Minor in a sneering tone; "but the question that more nearly concerns you is how you are all going to live, granting even that there may be enough to pay the debts. Of course this great house cannot be kept afloat. You had better discharge some of the servants, and retrench while you do remain in it." Then had followed the talk with Agatha, when matrimony was proposed as a certain and sure remedy for these present ills: a cure the young man disdained with anger. Mrs. Lawrence kept to her room, and was too ill to listen to business details, even if she could have helped in any way, which she could not. She fancied now, like many another woman, that her husband had been her only delight in life, and that there was nothing left. When Agatha suggested that she had been very short-sighted to consent to mortgaging Hope Terrace, she cried, and said "she would have given up every thing for him, and now that he was gone she wanted no fortune,--she should never leave her room again until she was carried." If there had been any bright little Sylvie to run in and comfort her! any strong-hearted, tender woman, to whom he could turn! He seemed now to realize more keenly what he had lost, than on the night Sylvie rejected him. And that other strong, manly soul--no, bitterly as he might regret, he could no more go back to him than to Sylvie.