The son sat pale and trembling, but attempted not a word of explanation or denial.
They were passively yielded for inspection. All--all--alike!
"Do you wished to be hanged, Sir?" almost shrieked the father.
"I must have money--those might have passed for such."
"Might?--yes, and you might, I say, be hanged."
"Well, if I were hanged, what then? Life's not worth having without money," was the dark and moody rejoinder.
"And why should you ever be in want of money?" Mr. Trevor replied in a low, trembling voice.
"Why? why--when I see how you serve Eustace."
"Eustace!" in a tone of impatient scorn; "what's Eustace to do with you?"
"Or if I could be content to live the life that Harry leads," was the sullen continuation, "I might perhaps do very well; but as I have in some degree tastes and inclinations beyond those of a groom or a jockey, I must have money somehow or another, for accidental emergencies like the present. There was nothing left for me but this," pointing to the notes, "or to blow my brains out, to which alternative I suppose I have now arrived."
"Tut, tut--nonsense!" replied the agitated father; "why did you not come to me?"
"You?--why, after that thousand pounds you gave me, I could not expect you'd supply me with all I want now."
"And who--who," continued Mr. Trevor, still livid with horror and dismay at the dreadful risk his son had run, rather than at the crime he had perpetuated; "who, in the name of Heaven, was your abettor in this preposterous scheme?"
Eugene Trevor, after a little hesitation, named his accomplice--of course, an _attaché_ of the Bank in question--a young man of low birth and principles, with whom Eugene Trevor had formed this dreadful confederacy, and who was subsequently removed from the bank by the connivance of Mr. Trevor, about the same time, as his young patron was, as we have before mentioned, mysteriously taken from the business.
"None of these notes have yet been circulated," the father inquired in terrified anxiety.
"No; not yet. I brought them down here, and Wilson was to follow, as you gave me leave to ask him; and then I was to consider over with him the best way of proceeding."
Mr. Trevor mused for a moment; then gathering up the notes in his long, thin fingers, carefully, nay, even delicately, as if he could not away with some sentiment of tender respect even for that which only bore the semblance of his heart's idol; he bade his son, in a low hoarse tone, to get up, and follow him down stairs.