“Meanwhile, as the weeks slipped by, I grew so well that I felt almost like my former self; and had anything been wanting to complete my cure, it was a visit from a former partner of the firm I had served. He had left them years before to commence business for himself, and had thriven so that his establishment was as large as that from which he had split.
“We had always been on civil terms, but I never thought he had noticed me. Now, however, on finding out that I was disengaged, he came to me with a most brilliant offer—at least it seemed so to me then.
“‘I always longed to have your clear head to depend on,’ he said, ‘but, of course, honour forbade any negotiations while you were with the old firm. Now you are free, I shall be very glad if you will join me.’
“‘I’m afraid my clear head has gone for ever,’ I said sadly.
“‘Pooh, nonsense, man!’ he said, laughing. ‘You’ve had a nasty attack, but that’s all gone, and you’ll be your own man in another week. Come, say the word, you’ll join me, and I won’t make promises, but come to me and let me feel that I’ve always somebody at the house that I can trust and depend on while I’m away, and perhaps some day we’ll talk about a junior partnership.’
“I could not thank him, but I gave him my hand, and he left me, evidently congratulating himself on having done a good stroke of business; while I—I felt as if I could never atone for my repinings under affliction.
“But my great trouble was to come.
“We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, talking about how it would be quite unnecessary now to give up the house, when a letter came.
“It was a strange hand, from London, and somehow with a sense of impending evil I began slowly turning it over, and telling my wife that it had been down to the old house, and re-directed here, so that it was over a day old.
“At last I opened it, read it, and it dropped from my hands.