Again and again, he tried to count up how much the amount was, but grew confused, and had to give it up.
"Never mind how much there is," he cried, at last; "it's mine—all mine! nobody saw me; nobody knows it: nobody—but one—but one!" he continued, looking upward for an instant, and then, clasping his hands together, and leaning his head over the money, he wept bitter tears over his great Piece of Luck.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WILL.
At a splendid escritoir Mr. Granite sat, in his own room, surrounded by the luxurious appliances which wait upon wealth, however acquired. The face of the sitter is deadly pale, for he is alone, and amongst his most private papers. He has missed one, upon which the permanence of his worldly happiness hung. Diligently has he been searching for that small scrap of paper, which contained the sentence of death to his repute. Oh! the agony of that suspense! It could not have been abstracted, for it was in a secret part of his writing-desk; although by the simplest accident in the world it had now got mislaid; yet was he destined not to recover it. In hastily taking out some papers, it had dropped through the opening of the desk, which was a large one, upon the carpet, where it remained, unperceived. In the midst of his anxious and agonized search, there was a knock at the door, and even paler and more heart-broken than the merchant himself, Sterling tottered into the room.
"Well, my good Sterling," said the merchant, with a great effort stifling his own apprehension, "I am to be troubled no more by that fellow's pitiful whinings. I was a fool to be over-persuaded; but benevolence is my failing—a commendable one, I own—but still a failing."
"I am glad to hear you say that, sir, for you now have a great opportunity to exercise it."
"Ask me for nothing more, for I have done"—interrupted Granite; fancying for an instant that he might have placed the missing document in a secret place, where he was sometimes in the habit of depositing matters of the first importance, he quitted the room hurriedly.
"Lost! lost, for ever! I have killed the son of my old benefactor!" cried Sterling. "He can't recover from the shock—nor I—nor I! my heart is breaking—to fall from such a height of joy into such a gulf of despair—I, who could have sold my very life to bring him happiness." At that moment his eye caught a paper which lay on the carpet, and with the instinct of a clerk's neatness solely, he picked it up and put it on the table before him. "The crime of self-destruction is great," he continued, "but I am sorely tempted. With chilling selfishness on one side, and dreadful misery on the other, life is but a weary burden." Carelessly glancing at the paper which he had taken from the floor, he read the name of Travers; he looked closely at it, and discovered that it was an abstract of a will. Curiosity prompted him to examine it, and his heart gave one tremendous throb, when he discovered it to bear date after the one by which Henry, in a fit of anger, was disinherited by his father.
The old man fell upon his knees, and if ever a fervent, heartfelt prayer issued from the lips of mortal, he then prayed that he might but live to see that great wrong righted.