"Well, well, Sir, this all sounds very plausible, indeed," was Mr. Trevor's reply, having listened with becoming gravity and consideration to the defence; "but I would advise you to give up this losing trade of gambling you have commenced. You will find it, let me tell you, far less profitable in the end than sticking to your bank. In the meantime, to extricate you from your present dilemma, and enable you to turn over a new leaf for the future--this also being in your case the first trouble you have given me--I will write you a cheque for what you require; but remember, this is the last time you must expect from me anything of the sort. Your brother there will tell you how I have plenty to do with one younger son's worthless extravagance--" "Mr. Trevor, you are cruelly unjust," interposed the mother's trembling voice, indignant tears swelling to her eyelids. "You know that one half of what you bestow so freely upon Eugene would amply cover all that Eustace owes--" "Mrs. Trevor, may I request your silence on the subject?" thundered her husband. "Have I not often told you, that I desire no interference between myself and the affairs of my sons. Supposing I do act with the cruel injustice you so flatteringly ascribe to me, what then? have I not a right to do what I will with my own?" And, suiting the action to the words, his hand trembling with agitation, he hastened to achieve--that to him almost incredible thing--to write a cheque and present it to his youngest son for a thousand pounds, with a certain feeling, or at any rate the appearance, of unmurmuring alacrity. So does one bad feeling at the time being, govern even our worst of passions. Eugene on his part did not, as may well be supposed, trouble himself to analyse the merits of his father's unexpected generosity. He was really overcome with gratitude at the ready manner in which his anxiety and trouble were thus alleviated. He thanked his father with earnest emotion, and repeated protestations of never again requiring such beneficence at his hands. Mr. Trevor waved him away. He had done the deed--he had shown forth his own perfect independence of will and power--satisfied his own bad feelings towards the object of his unnatural aversion, and mortified--as seemed his constant aim--the partial feelings, as he deemed them of his gentle wife towards her second son. And now the ruling passion began again to struggle into power. The remembrance that he had just signed away a thousand pounds of his close-kept hoards, without more demur than in former times he might have bestowed a half-crown piece upon the boy, began to stir within his breast no very great feeling of satisfaction. Eugene knew his father too well to risk any further provocation of the feelings he could pretty plainly divine, and hastened to beat a triumphant retreat, purposing to leave Montrevor that same night.