' He answered, 'I don't do things by halves--I
believe you, and I pity you. If you will risk what may happen, I will
risk it too.' God Almighty bless him! He has given me shelter, he
has given me employment, he has given me rest of mind--and I have the
certain conviction (I have had it for some months past) that nothing
will happen now to make him regret it."
"The slander has died out?" I said.
"The slander is as active as ever. But when it follows me here, it will
come too late."
"You will have left the place?"
"No, Mr. Blake--I shall be dead. For ten years past I have suffered from
an incurable internal complaint. I don't disguise from you that I should
have let the agony of it kill me long since, but for one last interest
in life, which makes my existence of some importance to me still. I want
to provide for a person--very dear to me--whom I shall never see again.
My own little patrimony is hardly sufficient to make her independent of
the world. The hope, if I could only live long enough, of increasing
it to a certain sum, has impelled me to resist the disease by such
palliative means as I could devise. The one effectual palliative in my
case, is--opium.
Pages:
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728