Manton looked at her a moment with a very hard, cold glance, while a flush of indignation gleamed across his brow; for he had a sure presentiment that he should never see this money again. The great misfortune of his organisation was his recklessness in regard to money, and the absolute inability of his nature to comprehend the sterile meannesses of its abject worshippers. For the first time the impulse to strike this woman to the earth came across him, but in an instant this angry feeling was dissipated amidst the gay and laughing caresses of his petted favorites.
When, on the next day, Manton demanded of the woman an account of the money, she turned pale and red, looked upwards and downwards, and finally askance, while she faintly told him that she had spent the whole; but, for his good, as well as that of the dear girls and herself, “for,” she said, “you know you are so careless about money, so generous, so liberal, that you would have thrown it all away without accomplishing any of the good you so much desire. Pray, forgive me, for my anxiety to do the best for us all!” and as she saw the brow of Manton, who had not uttered a word, settling darker and darker above his cold dilated eyes, she sank upon her knees at his feet, and clasping his in her arms, she plaintively plead—
“Ah, forgive me! forgive me! I acted for the best! For God’s sake do not look so, you will kill me!”
He spurned her contemptuously from him with his foot, and retreating, as she crawled abjectly back again, he said in a measured, deliberate tone—
“Keep away from me, woman! You may retain your ill-gotten plunder once more, but, mark you, if ever you dare to put your hands into my pockets again I will strike you to the earth, woman as you are, and trample you beneath my feet, as I would another reptile! I have had enough of this remorseless fleecing!” And spurning yet more contemptuously her persistent attempts to clutch his knees again, he left her swooning upon the floor. He went forth with the scales falling from his eyes regarding this woman, in some particulars at least.
The sequel to the last scene is too rich to be passed over. Since that wholesale and impudent robbery, Manton had maintained his ground firmly, in regard to money. All her arts were brought to bear, in vain; he steadily and sternly refused to be plundered any farther; until finally, his feminine “saviour” being driven to the extreme verge of desperation, tried a new and dashing game.
She had just been reading Zschokke’s charming tale, “Illumination, or the Sleep-Walker.” The reader will remember how the Sleep-Walker, the heroine of the tale, instructs Emanuel, while in the clairvoyant state, as to how he should proceed in her own case, which he had been elected to restore to health again, through the nervous, or sympathetic medium, by re-establishing the balance of the lost physical with the spiritual life. That, in addition, the Sleep-Walker revealed to him the thoughts of his own soul, and counselled him as an angel would have done, against the evil she saw in him—tells him too, that he must not regard her weakness, or the petulance of her words towards him in her waking state.
Well, our clairvoyant, after reading this book herself, exhibited an unusual degree of restlessness to have it read by Manton, too; nothing would content her until he had fairly commenced it, when she knew there was no probability of his pausing until he got through. She watched him during the reading, with great curiosity, frequently interrupting him to draw out his opinion as he progressed.
Everybody knows the fascination of the tale, and confesses the fine skill with which its wonderful details are wrought up. Manton could do no less; he was charmed, of course, as millions of other readers have been. A few hours after finishing the book, while sitting at his table, engaged in writing, the door, which was unbolted, flew open wide, and there stood Madame, dressed in pure white—the eyes nearly closed, and features pale and rigid, the outstretched hands reaching vaguely forward, after the manner of the somnambulist.