“I dare not deceive you, although to keep such faith I may be compelled to deceive a hundred others.”

“Of that I cannot judge.  Fortune seems to smile upon you; you have not as yet disappointed me.”

“And will not now,” said Varney.  “The gigantic and frightful penalty of disappointing you, stares me in the face.  I dare not do so.”

He took from his pocket, as he spoke, a clasped book, from which he produced several bank notes, which he placed before the stranger.

“A thousand pounds,” he said; “that is the agreement.”

“It is to the very letter.  I do not return to you a thousand thanks—­we understand each other better than to waste time with idle compliment.  Indeed I will go quite as far as to say, truthfully, that did not my necessities require this amount from you, you should have the boon, for which you pay that price at a much cheaper rate.”

“Enough! enough!” said Varney.  “It is strange, that your face should have been the last I saw, when the world closed upon me, and the first that met my eyes when I was again snatched back to life!  Do you pursue still your dreadful trade?”

“Yes,” said the stranger, “for another year, and then, with such a moderate competence as fortune has assigned me, I retire, to make way for younger and abler spirits.”

“And then,” said Varney, “shall you still require of me such an amount as this?”

“No; this is my last visit but one.  I shall be just and liberal towards you.  You are not old; and I have no wish to become the clog of your existence.  As I have before told you, it is my necessity, and not my inclination, that sets the value upon the service I rendered you.”

“I understand you, and ought to thank you.  And in reply to so much courtesy, be assured, that when I shudder at your presence, it is not that I regard you with horror, as an individual, but it is because the sight of you awakens mournfully the remembrance of the past.”

“It is clear to me,” said the stranger; “and now I think we part with each other in a better spirit than we ever did before; and when we meet again, the remembrance that it is the last time, will clear away the gloom that I now find hanging over you.”

“It may! it may!  With what an earnest gaze you still regard me!”

“I do.  It does appear to me most strange, that time should not have obliterated the effects which I thought would have ceased with their cause.  You are no more the man that in my recollection you once were, than I am like a sporting child.”

“And I never shall be,” said Varney; “never—­never again!  This self-same look which the hand of death had placed upon me, I shall ever wear.  I shudder at myself, and as I oft perceive the eye of idle curiosity fixed steadfastly upon me, I wonder in my inmost heart, if even the wildest guesser hits upon the cause why I am not like unto other men?”

“No.  Of that you may depend there is no suspicion; but I will leave you now; we part such friends, as men situated as we are can be.  Once again shall we meet, and then farewell for ever.”