'At all events, we shall fight it out,' said Dr Maurice. 'The only thing to be risked now is a little money more or less, and that, I suppose, a man ought to be willing to risk for the sake of justice—myself especially, who have neither chick nor child.'
He said this in so dreary a way that poor Stephen smiled. The man who was removed from any such delights—who could never improve his own position in any way, nor procure for himself any of the joys of life, looked at the man who thus announced himself with a mixture of gentle ridicule and pity.
'That at least must be your own fault,' he said; and then he thought of himself, and sighed.
No one knew what dreams might have been in Stephen Haldane's mind before he became the wreck he was. Probably no one ever would know. He smiled at the other, but for himself he could not restrain a sigh.
'I don't see how it can be said to be my own fault,' said Dr Maurice with whimsical petulance. 'There are preliminary steps, of course, which one might take—but not necessarily with success—not by any means certainly with success. I tell you what, though, Haldane,' he added hastily, after a pause, 'I'd like to adopt Norah Drummond. That is what I should like to do. I'd be very good to her; she should have everything she could set her face to. To start a strange child from the beginning, even if it were one's own, is always like putting into a lottery. A baby is no better than a speculation. How do you know what it may turn out? whereas a creature like Norah——Ah, that is what I should like, to adopt such a child as that!'
'To adopt—Norah?' Stephen grew pale. 'What! to take her from her mother! to carry away the one little gleam of light!'
'She would be a gleam of light to me too,' said Dr Maurice, 'and I could do her justice. I could provide for her. Her mother, if she cared for the child's interest, ought not to stand in the way. There! you need not look so horror-stricken. I don't mean to attempt it. I only say that is what I should like to do.'
But the proposal, even when so lightly made, took away Stephen's breath. He did not recover himself for some time. He muttered, 'Adopt—Norah!' under his breath, while his friend talked on other subjects. He could not forget it. He even made Dr Maurice a little speech when he rose to go away. He put out his hand and grasped the other's arm in the earnestness of his interest.
'Look here, Maurice,' he said, 'wealth has its temptations as well as poverty; because you have plenty of money, if you think you could make such a proposition——'
'What proposition?'