“Then you really feel that it is hopeless?” he said.
“Quite. My energies are broken. I have not the spirit to run any more risks, even if I could arrange with my creditors,” replied Deering, sadly. “Another such month as I have passed, and I should have been in a lunatic asylum.”
The doctor looked at him keenly from beneath his brows, and involuntarily stretched out a hand, and took hold of his visitor’s wrist.
“Yes,” he said, “you are terribly pulled down, Deering.”
“Now, Vane, my dear,” said Aunt Hannah, softly; “do put away those dreadful plans.”
“All right, aunt,” said the boy; “just lift up the lamp, will you?”
Aunt Hannah raised the lamp, and Vane drew the soiled tracing linen from beneath, while, as the lamp was heavy, the lady replaced it directly on the spread-out papers.
Vane’s face was a study, so puckered up and intent it had grown, as he stood there with the linen folded over so that he could hold it beneath the lamp-shade, and gaze at some detail, which he compared with the drawing on the paper again and again.
“My dear!” whispered Aunt Hannah; “do pray put those things away now; they give me quite a cold shudder.”
Vane did not answer, but drew a long breath, and fixed his eyes on one particular spot of the pencilled linen, then referred to the paper beneath the lamp, which he shifted a little, so that the bright circle of light shed by the shade was on one spot from which the tracing had been made.