ve vanished in the pursuit of
science, and in the gulf of suffering more immediate than our own. If I
die also, with me perish the results of his experiments, his studies,
and his sacrifices. There are moments when all ordinary calculations and
prudence are empty baubles. Life is the only real possession we have,
and death the only certainty. Listen! I will make one last proposal to
you. Lend me but _ten_ pounds--that is but _ten_ weeks of life--and I
swear to you that if I live, I will repay you for each pound lent not
ten or twenty, but one hundred--in all; one thousand pounds! Grant that
it be but a chance upon the one hand, yet, upon the other, how small is
the risk; and then, to save a human life--- is not that something in the
scale?" And the stranger laughed at these last words with a bitter
gayety, which caused a strange thrill to creep along the nerves of the
usurer.

However, the lender of gold shrugged his shoulders without relaxing his
habitual impassibility of manner. He did not speak. Possibly the idea
occurred to him that his strange client meditated some act of violence
upon himself or his strong box. But this idea speedily vanished, as the
stranger, relapsing suddenly into silence and conventional behavior,
removed his hand from the usurer's shoulder, and strode rapidly but
calmly from the apartment.

The door closed behind the ruined man, and the usurer drew a long
breath, while his bushy brows were contracted in a sort of agony of
doubt and irresolute purpose.

Meanwhile Bernard West paused for an instant on the threshold of the
outer-door, as if undecided which road to take. In truth all roads were
much alike to him at that moment. Some cause, too subtle to be seized by
the mental analyst, determined his course. He turned to the right, and
strode rapidly onward.

He felt already like one of the dead, to join whom he was hurrying
headlong. He looked neither to the right nor to the left; and before him
was a mist, in which the phantoms of his imagination disported
themselves, to the exclusion of all other visible objects. Nothing
earthly had any further interest for him. He did not even hear the steps
of some one running behind him, nor hear the voice which called after
him to stop; but his course was soon more effectually arrested by the
firm grasp of a man's hand, which seized him by the arm with the force
and the tenacity of a vice.

He turned fiercely round. He was in no humor for the convers