Chapter 12 - Page 2

caused a feeling of despondency to creep in upon him. Instead of making a new and more earnest effort to raise the money, he went back to his store, and remained there for nearly half an hour, in a brooding, disheartened state of mind. A glance at the clock, with the minute-hand alarmingly near the figure 2, startled him at length from his dreaming inactivity; and he went forth again to raise, if possible, the money needed to keep his name from commercial dishonour. He was successful; but there were only fifteen minutes in his favour when the exact sum he needed was made up, and his notes taken out of bank.

Two o'clock was Mr. Wilkinson's dinner hour, and he had always, before, so arranged his bank business as to have his notes taken up long enough before that time to be ready to leave promptly for home. But for the failure of Ellis to keep his promise, it would have been so on this day.

"It's hardly worth while to go home now," said he, as he closed his cash and bill books, after making some required entries therein. "Mary has given me over long ago. And, besides, I don't feel in the mood of mind to see her just now. I can't look cheerful, to save me; and I have already called too many shadows to her face to darken it with any more. By evening I will recover myself, and then can meet her with a brighter countenance. No, I won't go home now. I'll stop around to Elder's, and get a cut of roast beef."

Wilkinson had taken up his hat, and was moving down the store, when a suggestion that came to his mind made him pause. It was this:

"But is not Mary waiting for me, and will not my absence for the whole day cause her intense anxiety and alarm? I ought to go home."

And now began an argument in his thoughts. The fact was, a sense of exhaustion of body and depression of spirits had followed the effort and trouble of the day, and Wilkinson felt a much stronger desire for something stimulating to drink than he did for food. Elder's was a drinking as well as an eating-house; and in deciding to go there, instead of returning home, the real influence, although he did not perceive it to be so, was the craving felt for a glass of brandy. And now came the conflict between appetite and an instinctive sense of what was due both to himself and his wife.

"It will only put her to trouble if I go home now." Thus he sought to justify himself in doing what his better sense clearly condemned as wrong.

"It will rather relieve her from trouble," was quickly answered to this.

For a little while Wilkinson stood undecided, then slowly retired to a remote part of the store, took off his hat, and sat down to debate the point at issue in his mind more coolly.

"I will go home early," said he to himself.

"Why not go home now?" was instantly replied.

"It is too late; Mary has given me up