Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/30

 Tuesday, 2nd.—At last it has all broken down. I dare not go to the office. Quite helpless. She sees it, and knows the miserable night I have passed. I have sent to Maxwell, to the bank. He has cruelly warned me that on the day after to-morrow they will call upon me to resign. Then what will be done! only one thing—Heaven's will.

Three o'clock. Mr. Stanhope, the clergyman, just gone. Lord Langton has fallen from his horse, and they have got down Sir Duncan Dennison, the great London doctor—a good man and a charitable man—and Mr. Stanhope has brought him on to me. But his remedy! I could have laughed, but for her sad face. "My good friend, no tricks will do here. You are in a bad way this moment; and I tell you solemnly your only chance is the German waters, and, listen, one special one of those German places—Homburg—is the only thing to save you. I snatched a man from the jaws, from the throat of death, this year, by packing him off. You must go to-morrow morning." A fine remedy, and a precious one truly. Maxwell comes in as the doctor is there, and Dora passionately tells him what has been said. He listens coolly and civilly.

"With that I have nothing to say. We have to begin making out the report to-night, and are not going to take on fresh hands to swell the expenses. The best thing you can do—and I advise you as manager—is to resign at once. I have another man ready for the place, and I dare say it could be arranged that a quarter's salary could be got in some way, as a bonus, with which you could take your expedition."

"And leave them to starve! What do you suppose is to become of us? Are they to be turned out on the road? Has your bank, your board of blood-suckers, no heart, no soul?"

"The Associated Bank!—God bless me, yes!" said Sir Duncan, who had been silent. "I attend at least two of the directors, as honest and soft fellows as ever signed a cheque. They're not the fellows to suck anybody's blood—unless at least, it's in private."

"They are men of business, sir," said Maxwell, "and do their duty to the bank and the shareholders."

Then they all left us, Sir Duncan saying:

"My poor fellow, I am sorry for you! Something may turn up."

We, however, were calm. As I said before, I had taught Dora whom to turn to in these straits, and bade her pray for even Maxwell. On myself I find a sort of insensibility coming, I suppose from illness. And yet I have great vitality and life, and if there was a crisis or purpose before me, could shake all off for a time.

Four o'clock!—What ungrateful creatures we are! Oh, to an ever bountiful Providence be all praise! It seems like a miracle; but that confidence, somehow, never failed. A telegram lies before me from the directors in London. A note from Maxwell, at the same time. He would not come himself, though he came so often before, to gloat over our miseries. But I shall find out more of his treachery. Still I am so joyous, so supremely happy, I can be angry with no one. Mr. Barnard, who is a director, but who has been away on the Continent, has come down himself. He has seen and told me the plan—leave of absence, and I am not to resign! Oh, happy change! I feel as in a dream!

Five o'clock.—There is more happiness to set down. I can hardly write these words—not from sickness, but from excitement. It is all settled, and I go, not this morning, but to-night—this very night. Heaven is very good—too good! Not an hour ago Mr. Barnard came in here—his knock made me tremble.

"So you are ill?" he said, it seemed with sternness. "Well, this can't go on. You will lose your situation; the bank must have its work done."

"I know it, sir," I said.

"And so this Sir Duncan says nothing short of Homburg will do you. A first-class watering-place, and an expensive journey for a bank clerk! Well, well!"

Dora was in a flood of tears. "Oh, he will die, sir!" she said, passionately.

"No he won't," he said, with a sudden change in manner—"or, at least, if he does, it shall be his own fault. Come, he shall go, and this night too."

My dear gave a scream. I felt the colour in my own face. He sat down and gave us details of this miraculous deliverance.

Here was the plan, and I do recognise in it one more proof of that actual guidance of Providence—that positive interference in our affairs here below. Oh, how unworthy, I say again, am I of such goodness! Our bank, it seems, in London, has a good many Jew directors, and has been trying to get a little foreign business in the way of agency. A rich Frankfurt merchant, whom he knew,