I have never loved money with much of my heart, though we are bound to do as our neighbours do; and perhaps it had been a little pleasure to me, to have more than I ever could have dreamed of having, through the great generosity of Aunt Parslow, and the timely assistance of Captain Fairthorn. But now my whole heart went down in a lump, and I scarcely had any power of breath, as I fell once more upon my widowed bed, and had no strength to wrestle with the woe that lay upon me. That my own wife, my own true wife, the heart of my heart, and the life of my life, should have run away from me, of her own accord, without a word, without one good-bye, and carried off all our money!
“Come, Kit, how much longer do you mean to be?” my uncle’s voice came up the stairs. “Let him alone, Biggs. Perhaps he is crying. Those young fellows never understand the world. Some little thing comes round a corner on them, and they give way, for want of seasoning. He was wonderfully bound up in his Kitty. And however it may look against her now, I will stake my life that she deserved it. You Peelers see all the worst of the world, and it makes you look black at everything. I would lay every penny I possess, which is very little in these free-trade times, that he finds every farthing of his money right. Though I have often told him what a fool he was to keep so much in his own house.”
“He seems an uncommon time a-counting of it.” Sergeant Biggs spoke sceptically, and retired to the kitchen; for it did not matter very much to him.
Getting no reply from me, my uncle came up slowly; for a night out of bed tells upon the stiff joints, when a man is getting on in years. Then he marched up bravely, and laid one hand upon my shoulder.
“What are you about, Kit? Breaking down, old fellow! You must not do that, with these chaps in the house, or the Lord knows what a lot of lies will get about. Money all right, of course. No doubt of that, my boy.”
I could make no answer, but pointed to the drawer, which was still pulled out to its full extent. With a little smile, which expressed as well as words—“What a fool you must be, to keep your money there!” he looked in, and saw the empty cash-box, and turned as white as his own pear-blossom. Then he took the brown box in his thick right hand, and turned it upside down, as if he could not trust his eyes.
“How much was there in it? But perhaps you did not know? Oh, Kit, Kit, is it come to this at last?”
He spoke as if I ought to have been robbed by my own wife, a long time ago, and was bound by the duty of a husband to expect it. But my spirit rose, and I jumped up, and faced him.
“Every farthing of it was her own,” I said; “and she had a perfect right to take it. It is part of the hundred pounds Aunt Parslow gave her, on our—on her wedding-day. There was forty-five pounds in that box; and the other fifty-five was invested according to your advice. I would send her that also, if I knew her address. It was all her own money; you may ask Aunt Parslow. I have no right to a farthing of it.”