"Simpleton!" said Guy. "And how about your daughters and their husbands? And their husbands' solicitors? Will they throw their arms round your neck, and break forth into twaddle? No! I have made inquiries. Your husband's affairs are desperate. I won't throw your money into his well; and you will both live to thank me for seeing clearer than you do, and saving this L1900 for you and yours."
James Little had writhed in his chair for some time: he now cried out wildly, "Edith, you shall demean yourself no more. He always hated me: and now let him have his will, and seal my dishonor and my ruin. Oblige me by leaving my house, Mr. Raby."
"Oh, no, James!" cried Edith, trembling, and shocked at this affront. But Guy rose like a tower. "I've noticed this trait in all tradespeople," said he grimly. "They are obsequious to a gentleman so long as they hope to get the better of him; but, the moment they find it is impossible to overreach him, they insult him." And with this he stalked out of the house.
"Oh, my poor James, how could you?" said Edith.
"Forgive me," said he, quietly. "It is all over. That was our last chance."
Guy Raby walked down the street, stung to the quick. He went straight to his solicitor and arranged to borrow L1900 on his own property. "For," said he, "I'll show them both how little a snob can understand a gentleman. I won't tamper with her son's money, but I'll give her my own to throw into his well. Confound him! why did she ever marry him?"
When the business was virtually settled, he came back to the house in great haste.
Meantime Mr. James Little went up to his dressing-room, as usual, to dress for dinner; but he remained there so long that, at last, Mrs.
Little sent her maid to tell him dinner was ready.
The girl had hardly reached the top of the stairs, when she gave a terrible scream that rang through the whole house.
Mrs. Little rushed upstairs, and found her clinging to the balusters, and pointing at the floor, with eyes protruding and full of horror. Her candle-stick had fallen from her benumbed hand; but the hall-lamp revealed what her finger was quivering and pointing at: a dark fluid trickling slowly out into the lobby from beneath the bedroom door.
It was blood.
The room was burst into, and the wretched, tottering wife, hanging upon her sobbing servants, found her lover, her husband, her child's father, lying on the floor, dead by his own hand; stone dead. A terrible sight for strangers to see; but for her, what words can even shadow the horror of it!
I drop the veil on her wild bursts of agony, and piteous appeals to him who could not hear her cries.
The gaping wound that let out that precious life, her eye never ceased to see it, nor her own heart to bleed with it, while she lived.
She was gently dragged away, and supported down to another room.
Doctor Amboyne came and did what he could for her; and that was--nothing.
At this time she seemed stupefied. But when Guy came beaming into the room to tell her he had got her the money, a terrible scene occurred. The bereaved wife uttered a miserable scream at sight of him, and swooned away directly.
The maids gathered round her, laid her down, and cut her stays, and told Guy the terrible tidings, in broken whispers, over her insensible body.
He rose to his feet horrified. He began to gasp and sob. And he yearned to say something to comfort her. At that moment his house, his heart, and all he had, were hers.