“Adler, sir; Abel Adler.”
“Mine is Williams. Good-night. You will see the hamper of dishes returned?”
“Oh, yes, sir! Thank you more than words can say,” responded Adler.
“More than words can say,” repeated his wife.
“Good-night! good-night!” said Harcourt hastily, and he hurried out from the cellar.
It had cost him almost as much to relieve the pressing necessities of this poor family as it had to furnish his own bare attic room, and both outlays had nearly exhausted the remains of the funds from the payment of that “old debt” which the “pious fraud” of Ruth Elde, assisted by her Joe, had invented.
Poor Harcourt did not grudge the money, but he felt that he must find work at once, or have nothing to send to his mother, when, in the course of weeks, he should write to her.
He went up to his attic, but as soon as he found himself alone there his temporary feelings of relief left him. While with Adler and his family he had really felt better, as he had said; but it was the surrounding and reflection of their happier feelings.
Now, in the solitude of his attic, remorse and despair seized him again, much on account of his share in that tragedy at the Isle of Storms, but more, far more, for that which had come of it—his black, black treachery to Roma Fronde. The first might be expiated when he should give himself up to justice to suffer the penalty of his offense; but the last—the last! How should he ever atone for the irreparable wrong done to Roma?
In the soul’s utter extremity to whom can it go but to its Father in heaven?