IT was half-past eight o'clock in the evening.
By the side of a bed in a comfortable chamber at the surgeon's house in the Cambridge Road, near Bethnal Green New Church, sate James Tomlinson.
The light of the candles that burnt upon the table, fell on the pale and ghastly countenance of old Michael Martin, who lay in that bed, his head propped up with pillows.
There was no one else in the room at the time, save these two persons.
"And thus was it, my good and faithful friend," said Tomlinson, breaking the long silence which had ensued after mutual explanations,—"thus was it that you so nobly sacrificed yourself for me! Oh! believe me that I have never ceased to think of your generous—your unparalleled behaviour in that sad business!"
"I know it—I know it," returned the old man in a weak and hollow voice. "If you had not been a kind master to me, I should never have done all that for you. But, tell me,—and tell me truly," added Michael, fixing his glassy eyes upon the stock-broker, "do you think that these persons—the surgeon, and that hideous man who—"
Martin ceased—and his entire frame was convulsed with horror as he remembered the appalling circumstances under which he had been recovered from his late death-like trance and restored to life.
"Compose yourself, my excellent friend," said Tomlinson, who fully comprehended what was passing in his mind; "fear alone will seal these people's lips—even if no other motive were powerful enough to ensure their silence. The surgeon seems an honest kind of man, and may be relied upon: besides, he would seriously compromise himself were he to breathe a word of this strange occurrence. As for the other person—he who came to tell me what had taken place, and brought me hither this evening—I have agreed to purchase his silence and that of a comrade, who, it appears, was engaged with him in the business."
"I know you cannot afford to do any such thing," said old Michael, speaking with somewhat of that bluntness, or even gruffness of manner, which had characterised him in past times; "and I won't have you get yourself into difficulties on my account."
"Believe me, I can afford it," returned Tomlinson.