"It would be of no use if I could tell you," was the reply. "I declare, on my honour, that I do not know. As I say, the money seems to have melted. I was extravagant; I acknowledge that; I spent it thoughtlessly, heedlessly; and when once the downward path in money-spending is entered upon, a man finds himself going along with a run, and can't pull up." "Can't?" reproachingly echoed Mr. St. John. "Well, Isaac, it is more difficult than you could imagine. I have found it so. And the worst is, you glide on so easily that you don't see its danger; otherwise one might sit down halfway and count the cost. I wish you would not look so grieved." "It is not the wilful waste of money that is grieving me," returned Isaac; "it is the--the thought that _you_ should have suffered yourself to fall into these evil ways." Frederick St. John raised his earnest dark-blue eyes to his brother. "Believe me, Isaac, a man can get out of money without running into absolute evil. I can with truth say that it has been my case. A very great portion of mine has gone in what you and my mother have been wont to call my hobby: buying pictures and running about after them. Wherever there was a gallery of paintings to be seen, I went after it, though it might be at the opposite end of Europe. I bought largely, thoughtlessly; never considering how I was to pay. I assisted a great many struggling artists, both English and foreign, and set them on their legs. I always travelled--and you know how very much I have travelled--as if I were a wealthy man; and that is costly. But of evil, in your acceptation of the word, those vices that constitute it, I have not been guilty. Of extravagance, even, I have not been so guilty as you may think." Mr. St. John lifted his eyebrows. "Not guilty of extravagance?" "Isaac, I said not so guilty as you may deem me; not so guilty as appears on the surface. I fell into that dangerous practice of drawing bills. When I bought pictures and could not pay for them, I would give a bill for the amount. When the bill was due, if I could not meet it, I borrowed money upon another, and so patched up the deficiency in that way. It is that that has ruined me. If I owed a hundred pounds I had to pay two for it, sometimes three. Let a man once enter upon this system, and he won't be long above water." "Did you never think of the ending?" "Yes, often. But I could not pull up. There it is! Fairly enter on the downhill path, and there's no getting back again. I can redeem myself in time, Isaac. If I choose to give up all sources of expense, and live upon a shilling a day, as the saying runs, things will right themselves." "How long do you think you would be doing it?" "Four or five years, I suppose." "Just so. The best years of your life. I should not like to see it, Frederick." "It might do me good." "It would scarcely be a position for the heir of Castle Wafer."