"Help us--help us--God help us! What's this? My--my--oh, my God! It's very bad!" He was stumping round and round the table, near which he had sat, and restlessly shoving the pamphlets and books hither and thither as he went. "What have I done to earn this curse?--was ever mortal so pursued? The last thing, this was; now all's gone--quite gone--it's over, quite. They've done it--they've done it. _Bravo! bravi tutti! brava!_ All--all, and everything gone! To think of her--only to think of her! She was my pet." (And in his bleak, trembling voice, he cried a horrid curse at her.) "I tell you," he screamed, dashing his hand on the table, at the other end of which he had arrested his monotonous shuffle round it, when his brother caught suddenly his vacant eye, "you think, because I'm down in the world, and you are prosperous, that you can do as you like. If I was where I should be, you daren't. I'll have her back, Sir. I'll have the police with you. I'll--I'll indict you--it's a police-office affair. They'll take her through the streets. Where's the wretch like her? I charge her--let them take her by the shoulder. And my son, Richard--to think of him!--the cursed puppy!--his _post obit_! One foot in the grave, have I? No, I'm not so near smoked out as you take me--I've a long time for it--I've a long life. I'll live to see him broken--without a coat to his back--you villanous, swindling dandy, and I'll----"
His voice got husky, and he struck his thin fist on the table, and clung to it, and the room was suddenly silent.
David Arden rang the bell violently, and got his arm round his brother, who shook himself feebly, and shrugged, as if he disdained and hated that support.
In came Crozier, who looked aghast, but wheeled his easy-chair close to where he stood, and between them they got him into it, trembling from head to foot.
Martha Tansey came in and lent her aid, and beckoning her to the door, David Arden asked her if she thought him very ill.
"I 'a' seen him just so a dozen times over. He'll be well enough, soon, and if ye knew him as weel in they takins, ye'd ho'd wi' me, there's nothing more than common in't; he's a bit teathy and short-waisted, and always was, and that's how he works himself into them fits."