"God bless you, Monroe," he said. "I may be saved, after all. Ten
thousand dollars will be enough for the present pinch, and before the
next acceptance is due some relief may come."
"Don't speak of thanks. I'll get the notes in a moment."
Tears stole silently down the unaccustomed furrows; the gateway of
feeling was open, but the tremulous lips refused to speak. Before he
could recover his self-possession, Monroe was gone. Mr. Lindsay tried to
read the newspapers, but the print before his eyes conveyed no idea to
his preoccupied brain. Then his thoughts turned to his beautiful villa
in Brookline, and he remembered how that morning his daughter stepped
lightly into the brougham with him at the back piazza, rode down the
winding path between the evergreen-hedges, and, after giving him a kiss,
sprang out when they reached the gate. He knew, that, when he returned
in the evening, he should find her in her place under the great
horse-chestnut, at the foot of the hill, ready to ride to the house. How
could he meet her with the news he would have to carry? how crush the
spirits of his invalid wife? Humiliating as the idea of failure was when
considered in his relations with the mercantile world, the thought of
home, with its changed feelings and circumstances, and the probable
deprivation of habitual indulgences, was far more poignant.
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