“Command yourself,” he said. “Tell me all. You will not find me an unsympathetic confidant.”
She appeared to cast a look at him of the most pathetic gratitude.
“I will,” she said—“O, I will! We had been so happy and so contented—and then the blow—the horror! His position was one of trust; but indeed, indeed, the temptation was overwhelming. He had intended, the emergency once past, to move heaven and earth to restore what he had borrowed—only that. But Fate was always against him. And now, at last—” she rose again, in uncontrollable agitation—“to-morrow morning,” she said, “the accountants are to begin their annual examination of the books, and if before then he has failed to make good the deficit, we are disgraced and ruined for ever.”
A brief silence succeeded her agonized cry, during which Gilead battled with his emotions. It was not so much the anguish, perhaps, as the heart-moving tone of its utterance which stirred the very bowels, so to speak, of his official circumspection. He made but a feeble attempt to assert his independence. This story, on the face of it, seemed to him one of the most pitifully tragic to which he had ever listened. That a man should be so cast down and trampled on in the name of fond humanity appeared to him monstrous. There were some temptations which it was even irreligious to resist. Was not Nature one with God?
“Mrs Nightingale,” he said, “I need affect no hesitation in assuring you that you have my sincerest sympathy in your trouble, and that your case comes directly within our province. If you will kindly leave me your address—”
Something in her attitude—some suggestion of hope but half fulfilled, of resignation setting itself to endure long hours of doubt and fear, overcame him finally. He turned to his desk, sat down, produced a cheque-book, and prepared to write.
“No,” he said. “I will not condemn you to it. The sum was fifty pounds, you say. I will trust you, or never myself again.”
He wrote, rose, and handed a draft to the visitor.
“Take it,” he said—“I have made it payable at the counter—and peace go with you.”
He thought she was about to fall on her knees to him, and he prevented her.