I dare say some of your napoleons
and ten-thaler notes could have told queer stories if they had been able
to talk. Taking Phil's money has never weighed upon my conscience. I'm
not very inquisitive about the antecedents of a five-pound note; but I'll
tell you what it is, Hawkehurst, I'd give all I have, and all I ever
hope to have, and would go out and sweep a crossing to-morrow, if I could
get Tom Halliday's face out of my mind, with the look that he turned upon
me the last time I saw him. 'Ah, George,' he said, 'in illness a man
feels the comfort of being among friends!' And he took my hand and
squeezed it, in his old hearty way. We had been boys together,
Hawkehurst, birds-nesting in Hyley Woods; on the same side in our
Barlingford cricket-matches. And I shook his hand, and went away, and
left him to die!"
And here Mr. Sheldon of Gray's Inn, the Sheldon who was in with the
money-lenders, sharpest of legal prestigitators, most ruthless of
opponents, most unscrupulous of allies, buried his face in a flaming
bandanna, and fairly sobbed aloud. When the passion had passed, he got up
and walked hastily to the window, more ashamed of this one touch of
honest emotion than of all the falsehoods and chicaneries of his career.
"I didn't think I could have been such an ass," he muttered sheepishly.
"I did not hope that you could feel so deeply," answered Valentine.
Pages:
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396