He had good cause to blame himself and to curse the miscalculation that had emboldened him to launch himself upon a course of insult against this Wilding, whom he hated with all the currish and resentful hatred of the worthless for the man of parts.
But there was more than hate in the affront that he had offered; there was calculation--to an even greater extent than we have seen.

It happened that through his own fault young Richard was all but penniless.
The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton--the wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations--had been so stirred to anger by Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's half-sister Ruth.

At present things were not so bad for the worthless boy.

Ruth worshipped him.

He was a sacred charge to her from their dead father, who, knowing the stoutness of her soul and the feebleness of Richard's, had in dying imposed on her the care and guidance of her graceless brother.