"How! not satisfied yet!" he cried in the same harsh tones, "then may I
perish to all eternity if I give you one fraction more."
As he was about to close the chest, Elinor, who knew that without a
necessary supply of money both her unborn infant and its avaricious
father would perish for want, slid her hand into the box, and dextrously
abstracted some of the broad gold pieces it contained. The coins, in
coming in contact with each other, emitted a slight ringing sound, which
arrested, trifling as it was, the ear of the sleeper.
"What! fingering the gold already?" he exclaimed, hastily slapping down
the lid of the strong box. "Could you not wait till I am dead?"
Then staggering back to his apartment, he was soon awake, and raving
under a fresh paroxysm of the fever. In his delirium he fancied himself
confined to the dreary gulf of eternal woe, and from this place of
torment he imagined that his brother could alone release him, and he
proffered to him, while under the influence of that strong agony, all
his hidden treasures if he would but intercede with Christ to save his
soul.
These visions of his diseased brain were so frequent and appalling, and
the near approach of death so dreadful to the guilty and despairing
wretch, that they produced at last a strong desire to see his brother,
that he might ask his forgiveness, and make some restitution of his
property to him before he died.
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