"I cannot tell you how often he has attempted to get that money from me.

He has bullied, cajoled, threatened, coaxed, done all that a man could

do. I still held it with the presentiment that a need for it would come.

When I heard of this villainous business, his flight, and his leaving

his partner to face the storm, above all that my old friend had been

driven to surrender his income in order to make up for my brother's

defalcations, I felt that now indeed I had a need for it. I sent in

Charles yesterday to Mr. McAdam, and his client, upon hearing the facts

of the case, very graciously consented to give back the papers, and

to take the money which he had advanced. Not a word of thanks to me,

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Admiral. I tell you that it was very cheap benevolence, for it was all

done with his own money, and how could I use it better?

"I thought that I should probably hear from him soon, and I did. Last

evening there was handed in a note of the usual whining, cringing tone.

He had come back from abroad at the risk of his life and liberty, just

in order that he might say good-bye to the only sister he ever had, and

to entreat my forgiveness for any pain which he had caused me. He would

never trouble me again, and he begged only that I would hand over to him

the sum which I held in trust for him. That, with what he had already,

would be enough to start him as an honest man in the new world, when

he would ever remember and pray for the dear sister who had been his

savior. That was the style of the letter, and it ended by imploring me

to leave the window-latch open, and to be in the front room at three in

the morning, when he would come to receive my last kiss and to bid me

farewell.

"Bad as he was, I could not, when he trusted me, betray him. I said

nothing, but I was there at the hour. He entered through the window,

and implored me to give him the money. He was terribly changed; gaunt,

wolfish, and spoke like a madman. I told him that I had spent the money.

He gnashed his teeth at me, and swore it was his money. I told him that

I had spent it on him. He asked me how. I said in trying to make him an

honest man, and in repairing the results of his villainy. He shrieked

out a curse, and pulling something out of the breast of his coat--a

loaded stick, I think--he struck me with it, and I remembered nothing

more."




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