is;--or worse, for you have not been thrown into temptation like
that poor boy! And you will break your cousin's heart. Poor Roger! I
feel for him;--he that has been so true to us! But you think nothing
of that.'

'I think very much of my cousin Roger.'

'And how do you show it;--or your love for me? There would have been a
home for us all. Now we must starve, I suppose. Hetta, you have been
worse to me even than Felix.' Then Lady Carbury, in her passion, burst
out of the room, and took herself to her own chamber.

CHAPTER LXVII - SIR FELIX PROTECTS HIS SISTER

Up to this period of his life Sir Felix Carbury had probably felt but
little of the punishment due to his very numerous shortcomings. He had
spent all his fortune; he had lost his commission in the army; he had
incurred the contempt of everybody that had known him; he had
forfeited the friendship of those who were his natural friends, and
had attached to him none others in their place; he had pretty nearly
ruined his mother and sister; but, to use his own language, he had
always contrived 'to carry on the game.' He had eaten and drunk, had
gambled, hunted, and diverted himself generally after the fashion
considered to be appropriate to young men about town. He had kept up
till now. But now there seemed to him to have come an end to all
things. When he was lying in bed in his mother's house he counted up
all his wealth. He had a few pounds in ready money, he still had a
little roll of Mr Miles Grendall's notes of hand, amounting perhaps to
a couple of hundred pounds,--and Mr Melmotte owed him L600. But where
was he to turn, and what was he to do with himself? Gradually he
learned the whole story of the journey to Liverpool,--how Marie had
gone there and had been sent back by the police, how Marie's money had
been repaid to Mr Melmotte by Mr Broune, and how his failure to make
the journey to Liverpool had become known. He was ashamed to go to his
club. He could not go to Melmotte's house. He was ashamed even to show
himself in the streets by day.

He was becoming almost afraid even of his mother. Now that the
brilliant marriage had broken down, and seemed to be altogether beyond
hope, now that he had to depend on her household for all his comforts,
he was no longer able to treat her with absolute scorn,--nor was she
willing to yield as she had yielded.

One thing only was clear to him. He must realize his possessions. With
this view he wrote both to