Graeme had now seated himself; and I resumed my chair also, to wait an answer, which his manner seemed to indicate might be slow and delicate.  We looked, in the dim light of the room, at two in the morning, like two wizards trying our skill in working out some scheme of diablerie; yet, in reality, how unlike!  For though we had both been gamblers, and consequently bad men, we had for years renounced the wild ways of an ill-regulated youth, and settled down to tread, with pleasure to ourselves and profit to others, the decent paths of virtue.

“I am resolved,” said Graeme at length——­

“On what?” I inquired.

“On making amends.  That money, which by means of the substituted card I took from Gourlay, sticks like a bone-splint in the red throat of my penitence.  I cannot pray myself, nor join Annabel, nor listen to Edith, when they send up their supplications to that place where mercy is, and where, too, vengeance is—­vengeance which, in the very form of my pictured crime, dogs me everywhere, as you have seen, though a philosophical pride prevents you from giving faith to what you have seen—­vengeance which, though using no earthly instruments, is yet the stronger, and more terrible to me, for that very circumstance that it brings up my conscience, and parades its pictured whisperings before my vision, scorching my brain, and making me mad—­vengeance, breaking no bones, nor lacerating flesh, nor spilling blood, yet going to the heart of the human organism, among the fine tissues where begin the rudiments of being, and whence issue the springs of feeling, sympathy, hope, love, and justice, all of which it poisons, and turns into agonies.  Yes, sir, vengeance which, claiming the assistance of the fairest virtues, conjugal love and angelic purity, makes them smite with shame, so that it were even a relief to me that the wife of my bosom were wicked, and the child of my affections a creature of sin.  What are these signs that haunt me but instigators to redemption? and can I hesitate when Heaven asks obedience?”

“A useless harangue,” said I, “when you have the means of saving yourself.  Pay the money, read your Bible, and the signs will cease.”

“You have said it.  I will pay the money; but I do not know where the woman Gourlay lives.”

“That is not a difficult matter.  Where money is to be paid, the recipient will start out of the bosom of the earth.  I am about sick of this chamber of mysteries—­though no mysteries to me; and I go to bed.  I doubt if you may expect to see me at the breakfast table in the morning.”

“Will you leave me in this condition?” he said, with an imploring eye.

“You will hear from me.  Good night.”