The next scene was a room where everything appeared confused at first, but finally grew more distinct and terrible in its significance. The first person Mr. Hardy recognised was his own oldest boy, George, in company with a group of young men engaged in--what! He rubbed his eyes and stared, painfully. Yes: they were gambling. So here was where George spent all his money, and Bessie's too! Nothing that the miserable father had seen so far cut him to the quick quite so sharply as this. He had prided himself on his own freedom from vices, and had an honest horror of them: for Mr. Hardy was not a monster of iniquity, only an intensely selfish man. Gambling, drinking, impurity--all the physical vices--were to Mr. Hardy the lowest degradation. The thought that his own son had fallen into this pit was terrible to him. But he was compelled to look and listen. All the young men were smoking, and beer and wine, which stood on a buffet at one side of the room, were plentifully partaken of. "I say, George," said a very flashily-dressed youth, who was smoking that invention of the devil, a cigarette, "your old man would rub his eyes to see you here, eh?" "Well, I should remark he would," replied George, as he shuffled the cards and then helped himself to a drink. "I say, George," said the first speaker, "your sister Bess is getting to be a beauty. Introduce me, will you?" "No, I won't," said George shortly. He had been losing all the evening, and he felt nervous and irritable. "Ah! We are too bad, eh?" George made some fierce reply, and the other fellow struck him. Instantly George sprang to his feet and a fight took place. Mr. Hardy could not bear it any longer. He thought he broke away from the scene by the exercise of a great determination. Next he found himself looking into his own home. It seemed to him it was an evening when he and all the children had gone out and Mrs. Hardy sat alone, looking into the fire as she had been looking before he fell asleep. She was thinking, and her thoughts were like burning coals as they fell into Mr. Hardy's heart and scorched him, as no other scene, not even the last, had done.