have failed to advance your career. True, I
warned you that you drew into a lottery; but you had more chance of
a prize than a blank. A blank, however, it has turned out, and the
question becomes grave,--What are you to do?"

Here, seeing that Egerton came to a full pause, Randal answered readily,

"Still, sir, to go by your advice."

"My advice," said Audley, with a softened look, "would perhaps be rude
and unpalatable. I would rather place before you an option. On the one
hand, recommence life again. I told you that I would keep your name
on your college books. You can return, you can take your degree, after
that, you can go to the Bar,--you have just the talents calculated to
succeed in that profession. Success will be slow, it is true; but, with
perseverance, it will be sure. And, believe me, Leslie, Ambition is only
sweet while it is but the loftier name for Hope. Who would care for a
fox's brush if it had not been rendered a prize by the excitement of the
chase?"

"Oxford--again! It is a long step back in life," said Randal, drearily,
and little heeding Egerton's unusual indulgence of illustration. "A long
step back--and to what? To a profession in which one never begins to
rise till one's hair is gray. Besides, how live in the mean while?"

"Do not let that thought disturb you. The modest income that suffices
for a student at the Bar, I trust, at least, to insure you from the
wrecks of my fortune."

"Ah, sir, I would not burden you further. What right have I to such
kindness, save my name of Leslie?" And in spite of himself, as Randal
concluded, a tone of bitterness, that betrayed reproach, broke forth.
Egerton was too much the man of the world not to comprehend the
reproach, and not to pardon it.

"Certainly," he answered calmly, "as a Leslie you are entitled to my
consideration, and would have been entitled perhaps to more, had I not
so explicitly warned you to the contrary. But the Bar does not seem to
please you?"

"What is the alternative, sir? Let me decide when I hear it," answered
Randal, sullenly. He began to lose respect for the roan who owned he
could do so little for him, and who evidently recommended him to shift
for himself.

If one could have pierced into Egerton's gloomy heart as he noted the
young man's change of tone, it may be a doubt whether one would have
seen there pain or pleasure,--pain, for merely from the force of habit
he had begun to like Randal, or pleasure at the thought