But once more the chief agent
peremptorily and irritably interposed:
"I tell you, for the third time," he said, "I will listen to no
expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve
them. It is true that I recollect your father's timely kindness
to me--true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years
since at your house by the river-side. I remember everything,
down to what you would consider the veriest trifle--that cup of
coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told
you then that you would think better of me some day. I know that
you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my
face for risking my life for you. I won't hear you, because my
risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can't
look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to
what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night
at your house before the wedding--something in what you said, in
what your sister did--which altered me. I have had my days of
gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have
sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and
cringing, first under one master then under another. I have
longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight
of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with
the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer.
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