She asked nothing back. She didn't know he could make
her any return. Bless her! bless her!" he screamed. "Oh, how cruel I have
been to her, and she so kind to me. She would never let me want, if I
took her fourteen thousand pounds. Like enough give me a thousand, and
help me save my poor soul, that I shall damn if I meet him again. I won't
go his way again. Lead us not into temptation. I repent. Lord have mercy
on me a miserable sinner." And tears bedewed those wizened cheeks, tears
of penitence, sincere, at least for the time.
A sleepy languor now came over him, and the good book fell from his hand;
but his resolution remained unshaken. By-and-by waking up from a sort of
heavy dose, he took, as it were, a last look at the receipt, and
murmured, "My head, how heavy it feels." But presently he roused himself,
full of his penitent resolution, and murmured again brokenly,
"I'll---take it to---Pembroke Street to---morrow: to---mor---row."
CHAPTER LII
MR. HARDIE raised the money on his scrip, and at great inconvenience, for
he was holding on five hundred thousand pounds' worth of old Turkish
Bonds over an unfavourable settling day, and wanted every shilling to pay
his broker.
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