“You have acted foolishly,” he said; “no uncommon thing at your age—­and in danger and difficulty you seek me.  I suppose I ought to consider this act of condescension on your part a great compliment.  Your circumstances must be desperate indeed, when they lead you to make a confidant of your father, considering how greatly I am indebted to you for filial love.  You have been in my neighborhood, Anthony Hurdlestone, nearly a month, and this is the first visit with which you have honored me.”

“I should have been most happy to have paid my respects to you, sir, could I have imagined that my visits would have been acceptable.”

“It was worth your while to make the trial, young man.  It was not for you to think, but to act, and the result would have proved to you how far you were right.  But to dismiss all idle excuses, which but aggravate your want of duty in my eyes, be pleased briefly to inform me, why I am honored so late at night with a visit from Mr. Anthony Hurdlestone?”

Anthony bit his lips.  It was too late to retract, and though he deeply repented having placed himself in such a humiliating situation, he faithfully related to his stern auditor the cause of his distress.  The old man listened to him attentively, a sarcastic smile at times writhing his thin lips; and when Anthony implored him for the loan of four hundred pounds, until the return of Mr. Wildegrave, who he was certain would overlook his unintentional fraud—­he burst into a taunting laugh, and flatly refused to grant his request.

Anthony assailed him with a storm of eloquence, using every argument which the agony of the moment suggested, in order to soften his hard heart.  He might as well have asked charity of the marble monuments of his ancestors.  Stung to madness by the old man’s obstinate refusal, he sprang from his seat.

“Father, relent I beseech you:  revoke this cruel decision.  My request is too urgent to admit of a denial!”

He dashed his clenched fist upon the shattered remains of the old oak table, upon which Mark was leaning, his head resting between his long bony attenuated hands.  The blow sent a hollow sound through the empty desolate apartment.  The grey-haired man raised his eyes, without lifting his head, and surveyed his son with an expression of mocking triumph, but answered not a word.  His contemptuous silence was more galling to the irritated applicant than the loudest torrent of abuse.  He was prepared for that, and he turned from the stony glance and harsh face of his father with eyes full of tears, and his breast heaving under the sense of intolerable wrongs.

At length his feelings found utterance.  His dark eyes flashed fire, and despair, with all her attendant furies, took possession of his heart.