"If it is anything that will relieve me from my terrible embarrassments it is not likely that I shall throw it away."
"It will do that for a certainty, and there is money attaching to it which I have in my pocket, and which you can have this very night."
"How can I thank you--how can I thank you?"
"Don't try to, and don't be surprised at what you hear. It is a strange piece of business, and I should have refused to undertake it if I had not said to myself, 'This will suit my friend Cohen; it will lift him out of his trouble.' But, upon my word, now that I'm here I don't know how to commence. I never met with anything like it in all my life, and if you were well off you would be the last man in the world I should have dreamed of coming to. But you are not well off, Cohen; you have lost everything; Rachel is ill, and the doctor says she must be taken out of this cold and dismal climate to a place where she can see the sun, and where the air is mild and warm. I dare say you're thinking, 'Moss is speaking in a strange way'; and so I am; but it's nothing to what I've got to tell you. Cohen, what will happen if you can't afford to do as the doctor advises you?"
"Do not ask me," groaned Aaron. "I dare not think of it--I dare not, I dare not!"
"I don't say it unkindly, Cohen, but it seems to be a matter of life and death." Aaron clasped his forehead. "Very well, then; and don't forget that it is in your own hands. Before I commence I must say a word about myself. I can't do all you ask me in this letter; as I'm a living man I should be glad to assist you, but I have entered into a large speculation which has taken all my spare cash, and the most I could afford would be eight or ten pounds. How long would that last you? In two or three weeks it would be gone, and you would be no better off than you were before; and as to taking Rachel to the south of France, that would be quite out of the question."
"But you held out hope to me," said the trembling Aaron; "you said you were the bearer of good news."
"I said what is true, Cohen, but it is not my money that I have to deal with. I have brought fifty pounds with me, another man's money, intrusted to me for special purposes, and which you can have at once if you will undertake a certain task and accept a certain responsibility. It is only out of my friendship for you; it is only because I know you to be so badly off that you hardly know which way to turn; it is only because Rachel is ill, and requires what you can't afford to pay for, that it entered my mind to offer you the chance."
"Fifty pounds would be the saving of me, Mr. Moss," said Aaron in an agony of suspense. "It would restore my Rachel to health, it would bring happiness into my life. Surely Heaven has directed you to come to my assistance."
"You shall judge for yourself. Listen patiently to what I am going to tell you; it will startle you, but don't decide hastily or rashly. And bear in mind that what passes between us is not to be disclosed to another person on earth."