These agonizing thoughts flashed through her brain in the single instant. She felt her head turning, and her limbs failing under her. She had only strength to shriek, "Murder! murder! Help! help!" and then she fell headlong and senseless upon her father's dead body.
BOOK SEVENTH.
JOURNEYINGS AGAINST FATE.
CHAPTER I.
PEA-SHOOTING AS A SCIENCE.
Be it said to the credit of Wesley Tiffles, that he always paid bills promptly when he could borrow money to do it. The funds that he had raised from Marcus Wilkeson, and others, for the panorama, had been faithfully applied to that great object. If he could have borrowed money from other people to repay those loans, that act of financial justice would also have been done; and so on without end, like a round robin.
When Tiffles bestowed the last instalment of compensation upon Patching, that individual shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "The paltry price of artistic degradation," said he. "Remember, I would have done this job only for a friend. The world must not know it is a Patching--though I fear that even on this hasty daub I have left marks of my style which will betray me."
"You are safe, my dear fellow," said Tiffles. "I have already ordered the posters and bills; and the name of Andrea Ceccarini will appear thereon as the artist. Ceccarini has an Italian look, which is an advantage; and, you will pardon me for saying, is rather more imposing than Patching."