‘Dear me!’ he said, when at length he suffered his eyes to rest upon them. ‘What can that be? How did that come here?’
He stooped, picked up the papers, laid them upon his desk, and smoothed them out, making a fold lengthways to counteract the creases into which they had already fallen. He saw a crisp clean Bank of England note for a hundred pounds, and, lifting it, found another. Then he lifted half the bundle, and, finding a note of the same value, gave an inward gasp, and expelled his breath slowly after it. Then he looked at the last note of all, and sat down with the whole bundle in his hands. His pale and fleshy features had taken an unusual colour, and his breathing was a good deal disturbed. A watcher might have guessed that he was profoundly agitated from the swift unintermittent rustle the paper made in his hands. He seemed to sit as steady as a rock, and yet the crisp paper rustled noisily.
Mr. Brown’s bank-notes had been a fruitful source of emotion that day already, and, in Bommaney’s mind at least, had raised very dreadful doubts and perplexities. There were doubts and perplexities in the mind of young Mr. Barter, but they were altogether of another order. Young Mr. Barter was perfectly aware that he was being tempted, and felt that, in its way, the temptation wets a kind of godsend. He even said as much in a low murmur to himself. His perplexities related to other things than the fear of any fall from honour. Bommaney had evidently been very queer. Bommaney had been horribly cut up about something, even before he heard the news the young solicitor had to give him. But was he so disturbed as to be likely to forget where he had last secured so considerable a sum of money? This mental inquiry naturally set young Mr. Barter to work to discover how considerable the sum of money actually was. He laid the notes upon the table, and tried to wet his thumb upon his lips. There was no moisture there, and his mouth was as dry as touchwood. He drank a little water, and then began to count the notes. He made them eighty-one at first; and then, recounting, made them seventy-nine. Counting them a third time, he made them eighty.