It is remarkable how truths sometimes flash on men at night in hours of
nervous excitement; it was in one of these nightly reveries David Dodd's
pocket-book flashed back upon Mr. Hardie. He saw it before his eyes quite
plain, and on the inside of the leather cover a slip of paper pasted, and
written on in pencil or pale ink, he could not recall which.
What was that writing? It might be the numbers of the notes, the
description of the bills. Why had he not taken it out of the dying man's
pocket? "Fool! fool!" he groaned, "to do anything by halves."
Another night he got a far severer shock. Lying in his bed dozing and
muttering as usual, he was suddenly startled out of that uneasy slumber
by three tremendous knocks at the street door.
He sprang out of bed, and in his confusion made sure the officers of
justice were come for him: he began to huddle on his clothes with a vague
notion of flight.
He had got on his trousers and slippers, and was looking under his pillow
for the fatal Cash, when he heard himself called loudly and repeatedly by
name; but this time the sound came from the garden into which his bedroom
looked.
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