This was true. He might not want them at all, he said,
and he had no present idea of using them; but he wished to have them
by him. All this time he still read the newspaper. We talked about the
price. He was to forgive me a small debt--I was quite in his power--and
to pay me five pounds; and there the matter dropped, through others
coming in. But, next night, under exactly similar circumstances, I gave
him the drugs, on his saying I was a fool to think that he should ever
use them for any harm; and he gave me the money. We have never met
since. I only know that the poor old father died soon afterwards, just
as he would have died from this cause; and that I have undergone, and
suffer now, intolerable misery. Nothing' he added, stretching out his
hands, 'can paint my misery! It is well deserved, but nothing can paint
it.'
With that he hung his head, and said no more, wasted and wretched, he
was not a creature upon whom to heap reproaches that were unavailing.
'Let him remain at hand,' said Martin, turning from him; 'but out of
sight, in Heaven's name!'
'He will remain here,' John whispered.
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