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48 "I do not know how it is, but I no more trust that man than I would a burglar. He has designs on your father. Well, there is not much to get out of him, that's one comfort! Women may be fools, but they read facts and hearts better than do these poor men."

"There's no help for it, Elms," the doctor was saying.

"The thing must be given up. I have no means myself, and can procure none from those who have."

"It is a great shame, sir," replied the man with evident feeling; "the poor fellows are doing well. They'll be mad if I tell them they'll have to go. They'll blame you, sir."

"Perhaps they will. Let them! Who will be the greater sufferer? I, who have laid out the little money I had, who have spent my time and drawn obloquy upon myself for their sakes, to be denounced by them and jeered at by my friends—or they who have had everything to gain and nothing to lose?"

And the strong man, from whom all upon which he had set his heart seemed slipping, groaned within himself, though his face was set as if he were undergoing an operation. As he was! Slowly his life's hopes were being torn from him, but he would not wince.

"Only why," he was thinking, "so strongly as we desire to live honestly and to some purpose, do we find the means wanting?" Tom Lord and Frank Brown appearing at the door were about to withdraw.

"Do not go," said the doctor; "you are in at the death."

"What death?"

"Only that of my little pet scheme. It has collapsed for want of funds."

"Indeed, I'm sorry," remarked Tom, not looking