"Not all the money of all your tribe should tempt an honest man to pollute himself by exchanging a second word with one so contemptible."
Irritated at this unfeeling treatment, he returned home, too much provoked to think of the consequences which might follow a similar disappointment.
Having become used to the fluctuations of his looks and behavior, the widow ceased altogether to tease him with inquiries, which she saw he was sometimes loath to answer. She now allowed him to walk in and out without a remark, and silently contemplated his pale and melancholy countenance, when, after a ramble of the greatest part of the day, he returned home exhausted and dispirited.
William was always the first to welcome his friend at the threshold, by running to him, taking hold of his coat, and asking to go with him up stairs. The count usually gratified him, and brightened many dull hours with his innocent caresses.
This child was literally his only earthly comfort; for he saw that in him he could still excite those emotions of happiness which had once afforded him his sweetest joy. William ever greeted him with smiles, and when he entered the kitchen, sprang to his bosom, as if that were the seat of peace, as it was of virtue. But, alas! fate seemed adverse to lend anything long to the unhappy Thaddeus which might render his desolate state more tolerable.
Just risen from a bed of sickness, he required the hand of some tender nurse to restore his wasted vigor, instead of being reduced to the hard vigils of poverty and want. His recent disappointment, added to a cold which he had caught, increased his feverish debility; yet he adhered to the determination not to appropriate to his own subsistence the few valuables he had assigned as a deposit for the charges of his rent. During a fortnight he never tasted anything better than bread and water; but this hermit's fare was accompanied by the resigned thought that if it ended in death, his sufferings would then be over, and the widow amply remunerated by what little of his property remained.
In this state of body and mind he received a most painful shock, when one evening, returning from a walk of many hours, in the place of his little favorite, he met Mrs. Robson in tears at the door. She told him William had been sickening all the day, and was now so delirious, that neither she nor his sister could keep him quiet.
Thaddeus went to the side of the child's bed, where he lay gasping on the pillow, held clown by the crying Nanny. The count touched his cheek.
"Poor child!" exclaimed he; "he is in a high fever. Have you sent for
Mr. Vincent?"
"O, no; I had not the heart to leave him."