Gals as hadn't made enough to pay for
their night's lodgin' often used to sleep on Meg's stairs. Poll was
picked up as nigh dead as a toucher, and she died at the 'ospital.'
Toiling in the revolving cage of Circumstance, I strove in vain
against that most appalling form of envy--the envy of one's fellow
creatures that they should live and breathe while there is no breath
of life for the _one_.
My uncle Cecil's death had made me a rich man; but what was wealth to
me if it could not buy me respite from the vision haunting me day and
night--the vision of the attic, the mattress, and the woman?
And as I thought of the powerlessness of wealth to give me one crumb
of comfort, and remembered Winnie's sermon about wealth, I would look
at myself in the mirror above my mantelpiece and smile bitterly at
the sight of the hollow cheeks, furrowed brow, and melancholy eyes,
and recall her words about her hovering near me after she was dead.
The thought of my wealth and the squalor in which she had died was, I
think, the most maddening thought of all.
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