"I can't bear it--I can't, indeed." "Ah!" he said, as he sunk back exhausted.

"I thought that when you understood the customs at Meeson's you would feel for me in my present position.

Think, girl, think what I must suffer, with such a past, standing face to face with an unknown future!" Then came a silence.
"Take him away! Take him away!" suddenly shouted out Mr.Meeson, staring around him with frightened eyes.
"Who ?" asked Augusta; "who ?" "Him--the tall, thin man, with the big book! I know him; he used to be Number 25--he died years ago.

He was a very clever doctor; but one of his patients brought a false charge against him and ruined him, so he had to take to writing, poor devil! We made him edit a medical encyclopaedia--twelve volumes for L300, to be paid on completion; and he went mad and died at the eleventh volume.

So, of course, we did not pay his widow anything.