Hope after hope had failed him.

He had longed so to be a rich man, had God in his anger granted him his wish?
And was no other thing to prosper with him?
All the same he clung to his gold with a deeper affection.

When all other vices are old avarice is still young.

As ambition and other motives died out, avarice usurped their places, and Tallisker saw with a feeling half angry, and half pitiful, the laird's life dwindling down to this most contemptible of all aims.

He kept his duty as proprietor constantly before the laird, but he no longer seemed to care that people should say, "Crawford's men have the best laborers' cottages in Scotland." "I hae made up my mind, Tallisker," said fretfully, "the warld thinks more o' the who mak money than o' those who gie it awa." Certainly this change was not a sudden one; for two years after Helen's death it was coming slowly forward, yet there were often times when Tallisker hoped that it was but a temptation, and would be finally conquered.
Men do not lose the noble savor of humanity in a moment.