“Oh, papa, not that,” cried Lucy; but Lady Curtis only cried as she dropped into the big chair by the fire to get a little warmth. She felt at first as if her husband had a right to reproach her, notwithstanding that she had done everything she could; for she had left him with perhaps a boast of her own influence, and with very high hopes. It had seemed to her that Arthur must yield; and not only had Arthur not yielded, but all the harm that had been threatened was accomplished, and their only son was lost to them. She could not contradict what Sir John said. She was humbled, she who had been so confident; she had gone away almost promising to bring him back with her, confident in her power over her boy. Never before had her husband gained such an advantage. He had a kind of right to jibe at her henceforward, if he chose to exercise it. She had nothing to answer to him. It was quite true what he had said. What difference would it have made had the boy died. “I never thought it would come to this,” said Sir John, “not that I believed in your remonstrances; but I could not have believed that the fellow was such a fool. What does he suppose he will make by it? He had everything that heart could desire, a good allowance, a good home; and to go and cut his own throat as it were, to make an end of himself! He might just as well have done it at once. He will never be of any good again.” “It is quite true, it is quite true,” said Lady Curtis, “all that your papa says is true.” Her heart was so wrung that she scarcely knew whom she was addressing, Arthur, who had gone away in his disobedience, or Lucy, in whom there were faint appearances of standing up for her brother. The mother would not divest herself of the sense of a domestic audience to be convinced, whom perhaps their papa might be effectual with, though she had failed herself. “What he could think he was to gain by it!” Sir John resumed, encouraged by this support, which he did not always receive from his wife. “Debt and that sort of thing is bad enough, and we know how young men are drawn into it; but what could anybody suppose this was going to be but ruin and destruction; what could he think there was to gain?” “Oh, papa!” Lucy could not keep silence any longer. It was not the habit of the house to allow papa to have everything his own way. When Arthur’s youthful peccadilloes had been discussed hitherto, Lady Curtis, however she might object to his conduct, had always been his champion with his father, and one of the greatest marvels and most confusing circumstances of all was this silence on her part, and surrender as it were of Arthur to be crushed as Sir John pleased. Lucy could not be still and hear it all. “Oh, papa!” she cried, “you speak as if poor Arthur thought of nothing but his own interest; was he so selfish? you know that he never thought of what was for his interest at all. Cannot you believe that he loved her, and that this was his motive?”