He heard only one side for days; that side was recommended by his duty, filial affection, and diffidence of his own good sense.
He was brought to see his proceedings were eccentric, and that it is destruction to be eccentric.
He was made a little ashamed of what he had been proud of.
He was confused and perplexed; he hardly knew what to think or do; he collapsed, and all his spirit was fast leaving him, and then he felt inclined to lean on the first thing he could find, and nothing came to hand but his mother.
Meantime, Christie Johnstone was also thinking of him, but her single anxiety was to find this eighty pounds for him.
It is a Newhaven idea that the female is the natural protector of the male, and this idea was strengthened in her case.
She did not fully comprehend his character and temperament, but she saw, by instinct, that she was to be the protector.

Besides, as she was twenty-one, and he only twenty-two, she felt the difference between herself, a woman, and him, a boy, and to leave him to struggle unaided out of his difficulties seemed to her heartless.
Twice she opened her lips to engage the charitable "vile count" in his cause, but shame closed them again; this would be asking a personal favor, and one on so large a scale.
Several days passed thus; she had determined not to visit him without good news.
She then began to be surprised, she heard nothing from him.
And now she felt something that prevented her calling on him.
But Jean Carnie was to be married, and the next day the wedding party were to spend in festivity upon the island of Inch Coombe.
She bade Jean call on him, and, without mentioning her, invite him to this party, from which, he must know, she would not be absent.
Jean Carnie entered his apartment, and at her entrance his mother, who took for granted this was his sweetheart, whispered in his ear that he should now take the first step, and left him.
What passed between Jean Carnie and Charles Gatty is for another chapter..