“Well, doctor,” she stammered, in reply to this kind and confidential inquiry, “indeed I have a fortune.”
The doctor started.
“Pray don’t expose me. I shall die if I am found out. Kill me, doctor, if you won’t forgive me.”
“A fortune! and you for so long have been living on charity; obtaining relief and medical attendance from the union! Oh, that is wicked indeed!”
At this moment there passed through the doctor’s mind a thought more wicked than any of the thoughts or acts of the pauper patient. He was then walking the streets of London, attending his patients, earning his own bread and his family’s bread by the sufferance of a Christian usurer, who had obtained judgments against him on bills of exchange, and who extracted, as the price of what he called forbearance, enormous interest and costs for a disreputable attorney, who (let me say in confidence) I have reason to know divided them with his client. The bitter poverty of the man was his strong temptation.
“Could I manage to get this woman’s property into my hands?” he asked himself.
“No!” was the answer of his conscience.
“It would be an enormous blessing to me if I could get a little money just now, and pay off that infernal Tompkins, who threatens and harasses my life during the twenty-four hours in every day; whose sheriff’s officer ghost haunts my steps from the moment I leave my door in the morning till the moment I return at night; who disturbs my repose at home, and the fear of whom disturbs my sleep. If I could get the use of the money, I would repay it. To wrong this wretched pauper would be a crime I am incapable of; but to use the money of the old sinner for a while, and make it up again, would do nobody any harm. I will try if I can get it.”
Such was the train of thought, interrogation, and reply, and of resolution, which passed through the mind of the doctor, with more rapidity than it has passed under the eye of the reader.
“My good woman, as you say, you have acted very wrongfully, not alone towards me; but you have, in that respect, done a great injustice towards me. By what means can I live and maintain my family than by the exercise of my profession? If you could have paid my fees, you should have done so. I would willingly have attended upon you as long as you lived, without charge, if your necessities had required it; but as you could pay, I think you ought to have paid.”