"No, you don't wish it. You ain't worth a shilling, and yet you regret nothing. I am worth half a million in one way or the other, and I regret everything—everything—everything!"
"You should not think in that way, Scatcherd; you need not think so. Yesterday you told Mr Clarke that you were comfortable in your mind." Mr Clarke was the clergyman who had visited him.
"Of course I did. What else could I say when he asked me? It wouldn't have been civil to have told him that his time and words were all thrown away. But, Thorne, believe me, when a man's heart is sad—sad—sad to the core, a few words from a parson at the last moment will never make it all right."
"May He have mercy on you, my friend!—if you will think of Him, and look to Him, He will have mercy on you."
"Well—I will try, doctor; but would that it were all to do again. You'll see to the old woman for my sake, won't you?"
"What, Lady Scatcherd?"
"Lady Devil! If anything angers me now it is that 'ladyship'—her to be my lady! Why, when I came out of jail that time, the poor creature had hardly a shoe to her foot. But it wasn't her fault, Thorne; it was none of her doing. She never asked for such nonsense."
"She has been an excellent wife, Scatcherd; and what is more, she is an excellent woman. She is, and ever will be, one of my dearest friends."
"Thank'ee, doctor, thank'ee. Yes; she has been a good wife—better for a poor man than a rich one; but then, that was what she was born to. You won't let her be knocked about by them, will you, Thorne?"
Dr Thorne again assured him, that as long as he lived Lady Scatcherd should never want one true friend; in making this promise, however, he managed to drop all allusion to the obnoxious title.