"Yes, Banks too has woke up to the fact that you are frequently seen alone, and in a clandestine manner, with his only child; but he believes that you love her, that you, in spite of your position, remember that you are only a workman's son, and that you mean to marry a workman's daughter, and bring her home here as the wife of the master of Dumford Works." "Confound it all!" muttered Richard, biting his nails. "He smiles at the notion of your being engaged to Eve, for he believes you to be honourable and a gentleman, while I, your mother, am obliged to know that your designs are evil, that you plot the ruin of a poor, weak girl--I wake up, in short, to know that my son is behaving like a scoundrel." "Hold your tongue!" cried Richard, hoarsely; and leaping up, he took two or three turns backwards and forwards in the room, before throwing himself once more in his chair. "But you've not spoken to Joe Banks?" he cried. "I have, this morning," said Mrs Glaire, and then, her voice trembling, and the judgelike tone giving way to one of appeal, she threw herself at the young man's knees, clasping them with her arms, and then catching at and holding his hand. "Dick, my boy--my darling--I was obliged to speak--I _am_ obliged to speak to you. You know how, since you became of age, I have delivered everything into your hands--how I have kept back from interfering--how I have been proud to see the boy I brought into the world rich and powerful. You know I have never stood in the way, though you have poured out like water on your betting and gambling the money your father and I saved by dint of scraping and saving." "Oh, that's it, is it?" said Richard, with a sneer. "No," cried his mother, appealingly, "it is not, Dick, my boy; it is that I wish to make you see your danger before it is too late. You mad, infatuated boy, can you not see that by what you have done you have set all your workmen against you? You see how you are treated to-day!" "Oh yes," said Richard; "and I've got the marks upon me." "Who stood by you, faithfully and true, as he has always stood by our house in similar times of danger--danger not brought on by folly?-- Banks, your father's old fellow-workman--a man as true as steel." "Oh yes, Joe Banks is right enough," muttered Richard. "And yet you, Dick--oh, Dick, Dick, my boy, think what you are doing-- you would reward him for his long services by doing him the greatest injury man could do to man. Are you mad?" "If I'm not, you'll drive me mad," cried Richard, trying to shake off his mother's tight embrace.