Young Mr. Barter's Repentance

felt a monetary temptation until now. It was humiliating to feel it now--it was horrible to have his fingers itching for another man's money, and his heart coveting it, and his brain, in spite of himself, devising countless means of use for it. It was quite unbearable to know that the money might tide him over his troubles and land him in prosperity again, if he could only dare to use it, and risk engulfing it with the lost wreckage of his own fortunes.

But no, no, no. He had never meant to use it. His only reason for accepting it had been that he had not found the courage to declare his true position to his old friend and school companion. Perhaps, he told himself (trying to silence and cajole that inward monitor and accuser who would not be silenced or cajoled), perhaps if Brown had been less confident and truthful--if he had had less faith in his old companion's powers as a man of business--it would have come easier to tell the truth. And how futile a thing it was to stave off discovery fo