“I will not reproach you, Mr. Hurdlestone, for giving me life,” he cried, in tones tremulous with passion, “for that would be to insult the God who made me:  but your unnatural conduct to me since the first moment I inherited that melancholy boon has made me consider that my greatest misfortune is being your son.  It was in your power to have rendered it a mutual blessing.  From a child, I have been a stranger in your house, an alien to your affections.  While you possessed a yearly income of two hundred thousand pounds, you suffered your only son to be educated on the charity of your injured brother, your sordid love of gold rendering you indifferent to the wants of your motherless child.  Destitute of a home without money, and driven to desperation by an act of imprudence, which my compassion for the son of that generous uncle urged me in an unguarded hour to commit, I seek you in my dire necessity to ask the loan of a small sum, to save me from utter ruin.  This you refuse.  I now call upon you by every feeling, both human and divine, to grant my request.

“What, silent yet.  Nay, then by Heaven!  I will not leave the house until you give me the money.  Give me this paltry sum, and you may leave your hoarded treasures to the owls and bats, or make glad with your useless wealth some penurious wretch, as fond of gold as yourself!”

Mark Hurdlestone rocked to and fro in his chair, as if laboring with some great internal emotion; at length he half rose from his seat, and drew a key from beneath his vest.  Anthony, who watched all his movements with intense interest, felt something like the glow of hope animate his breast; but these expectations were doomed to be annihilated, as the miser again sunk down in his chair, and hastily concealed the key among the tattered remains of his garments.

“Anthony, Anthony,” he said, in a hollow voice, which issued from his chest as from a sepulchre.  “Cannot you wait patiently until my death?  It will all be your own, then.”

“It will be too late,” returned the agitated young man, whilst his cheeks glowed with the crimson blush of shame, as a thousand agonising recollections crowded upon his brain, and, covering his face with his hands, he groaned aloud.  A long and painful pause succeeded.  At length a desperate thought flashed through his mind.

He drew nearer, and fixed his dark expanded eyes upon his father’s face, until the old man cowered, beneath the awful scrutiny.  Again he spoke, but his voice was calm, dreadfully calm.  “Father, will you grant my request?  Let your answer be briefly, yes—­or no?”

“No!” thundered the miser.  “I will part with my life first.”

“Be not rash.  We are alone,” returned the son, with the same unnatural composure.  “You are weak, and I am strong.  If you wantonly provoke the indignation of a desperate man, what will your riches avail you?”

The miser instinctively grasped at the huge poker that graced the fireplace, in whose rusty grate a cheerful fire had not been kindled for many years.  Anthony’s quick eye detected the movement, and he took possession of the dangerous weapon with the same cool but determined air.