"Yes--as the people go! That is what you all say, you patient, brave
souls! See you, my friend, I do not want all this money--"and he
took up a note for five hundred francs--"Take this and make the wife
and little ones happy!"
"Monsieur!" stammered the astonished clerk--"How can I dare--!"
"Dare! Nay, there is no daring in freely taking what your brother
freely gives you! You must let me practise what I preach, my friend,
otherwise I am only a fraud and unfit to live. God keep you!"
The clerk still stood trembling, afraid to take up the note, and
unable through emotion to speak a word, even of thanks. Upon which,
Cyrillon folded up the note and put it himself in the man's pocket.
"There!--go and make happiness with that bit of paper!" he said--
"Who can tell through what dirty usurer's hand it has been, carrying
curses with it perchance on its way! Use it now for the comfort of a
woman and her little children, and perhaps it will bring blessing to
a living man as well as to a departed soul!"
And he literally put the poor stupefied fellow outside his door,
shutting it gently upon him.
That night he left for Rome. And as the express tore its grinding
way along over the iron rails towards the south, he repeated to
himself over and over again as in a dream--
"No--Angela Sovrani is not dead! She cannot be dead! God is too good
for that.
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