Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/249

Charles Dickens] he or any other, call him Bernard, or any name? Suppose I did put down some money, it is my own concern, and that of my own too scrupulous conscience. Suppose I did lose even. That is my business—distinctly mine, and no one else's. I shall have to bear the consequences. . .. O, Heaven, there it is—consequences! I must begin again.

I can think of this no more. O my lost gold, my precious money, that those robbers have stripped me of! The vile, scheming miscreants, that fatten and thrive on the poor. O what shall I do—what is to become of me! And what stupid folly to abandon my only safeguard, the system I was preaching of to others! What madness! If I had only stopped when I had begun to lose, and then waited for a new opening. But they shall give it to me all back, every coin of it, and with interest! 

 .—I never slept till four this morning. I had the hum of that cursed wheel in my ears. Was there ever man so cruelly persecuted, or made to fight the battle of life so pitilessly? I come here for a little holiday, which I have not had for years, and to pick up some wretched scraps of health; and when I succeed a little, I find my house struck with affliction, and all my means melting away. That child—and Dora's piteous, foolish letter! But what do I say—she is left to me. Wicked tongue that should be cropped out! Am I not ungrateful, brutishly ungrateful, when she remains to me! After all, I have something to be thankful for, deeply thankful for. And a few napoleons loss is not such a crime. Wiser and holier men have lost thousands. No, it is not that. "Cursed!" Oh, what words it has taught me! Well, accursed—there! that is more decent. It is very fine for a sick, worried, badgered soul to be picking his words. I leave that to the complacently virtuous at home, who have nothing to trouble them, and are never tried, and can pray smoothly on a soft hassock. I should like to see these smug pharisees with bills pouring in, they going home without a farthing to meet the bills, and a small bag with a hundred pounds in gold, forgotten by some one on the railway cushion beside them. Not notes which can be stopped or identified. There is the test to put these holy men to. Try a starving curate with it, and insure him against detection.

Another letter lying on the table which I had passed over. Why do they persecute me in this way with their long screeds! Yet I know the hand—Maxwell's—yes. What does he say? More of his underhand work—his stabbing in the dark; but I warn them to take care, for there is a point when the baited soul will turn.

",—The directors of this bank have learned with surprise that a responsible officer of theirs, entrusted with a serious mission, has become actually notorious for his assiduous attendance at the gambling tables of the place you are now in. When there is considered the extraordinary delay in remitting the large sum of money which was to have been lodged at this bank to Mr. Bernard's credit, very grave and serious suspicions arise as to your behaviour. I am instructed therefore to request you will cease to bring any fresh scandals on the untarnished name of the house, and at once return. The stories that have reached them, would almost justify them in immediate dismissal; but they forbear further action, until it be seen whether you can offer any explanation."

Return! But whither am I to turn for money? Sixty pounds! why it will be to return home and face bailiffs. He told me last time he could give me no more time, and that, on another occasion, I must be punctual. I could no more make out sixty pounds than I could fly. I had better go home at once and face them all. It will be over the sooner. As for any good I have gained by coming to this place, it is all gone now by this worry and affliction. My nerves seem all gone, and my heart last night was almost leaping up every moment I could lie down. God help us all. At any rate, I will get out of this place.

Four o'clock.—I just met Grainger coming out of the room, his hand full of gold. He was exulting an instant, was about making me say to him, "Where is your resolution, your promise?" when I checked myself. What right had I—and indeed, I felt that all this was delusion and I had no right to set up as a preacher.

"Don't blow me up," he said gently, "I can't help it. I have tried and tried. Besides you know, you yourself. By the way, D'Eyncourt says he saw you lose fifty louis last night."

"Where is he?" I said, fiercely; "bring me to him, and I will teach him to invent falsehoods about me."

"Well, you lost something, didn't you? But don't be cast down. I am very sorry for you, very; and I tell you what, here are six naps, all I can afford, and go back and try again."

I turned away with horror. "Never," I