Mrs. Tompkins wept bitterly when her husband ceased speaking.  Every word went to her heart.  She saw her folly, nay, her crime, in having acted as she had done.  She was a weak, vain woman, but not all perverted.  Notwithstanding rank weeds had long overgrown the garden of her mind, some plants of goodly promise yet remained.

On the next day, without hesitating a moment, Mr. Tompkins went to a real-estate broker, and employed him to sell his house as quickly as possible.  He mentioned this to his wife, as a thing of course, and suggested the necessity of disposing of their splendid furniture, and retiring from their too prominent position in the social world.

“There is but one way of safety and peace,” he said, “and that way we must take, whether the entrance to it be smooth or thorny.”

“Why need we sell our handsome furniture?” asked Mrs. Tompkins, in a hoarse voice.

“For the same reason that we have for selling our house,” firmly returned her husband—­“because it is necessary.”

Mr. Tompkins spoke so decidedly, that his wife felt that remonstrance would be unavailing.  Having once admitted the truth of all he had alleged, she had no ground for opposition.  Completely subdued, she became altogether passive, and left her husband to do just as he pleased.  The pressing nature of his affairs made him prompt to carry out all the reforms he had proposed.  In less than a week he found a purchaser for his house, and was able to sell it on tolerably fair terms.  The real-estate agent who had made the sale for him, had left his store but a short time after communicating all the preliminaries of the transaction, when old Wolford entered with a slow gait and a look of resolution.

“Will you be ready with that money to-morrow?” said he, fixing his small, keen eyes upon the merchant, and bending his brows.

“No!” was the decisive answer.

“Then I shall foreclose the mortgage.”

“You will not do that, certainly,” returned Tompkins, in a quiet tone, something like a smile playing about his lips.

“Won’t I?  Don’t trust to that, my friend.  I always keep contracts to the letter, and exact them from others, when made to me, as rigidly.  You borrowed my money for a year, on a mortgage of your property.  That year is up to-morrow.  If the money does not come, I will immediately have your property sold.”

“I have been ahead of you,” coolly replied Tompkins.

“What do you mean?”

“I have already sold the property.”

The miser seemed stunned by the intelligence.

“Sold it?,” he asked, after a moment—­“why have you sold it?”

“In order to get out of your clutches, now and for ever.  You have had a good deal of my money in your time, and fool enough have I been to let you get your fingers upon it!  But you will never get another dollar from me!  You were not content with eighteen hundred dollars a year as the interest on fifteen thousand—­wasn’t I a fool to pay it?—­but you must try to put your foot still more heavily on my neck!  But you have overreached yourself.  Your mortgage on my property is not worth that!—­(snapping his fingers.) Didn’t you know this before?”