The advertisement told him that a London hospital gratefully
acknowledged the receipt of one hundred pounds, being the twenty-first
donation from the same hand, and making two thousand and twenty pounds
as the total received to date. In accordance with the request of their
anonymous benefactor, they inserted this notice, and they offered at
the same time their heartfelt thanks.
Dale tore out the advertisement and threw away the rest of the paper.
To his mind, this money was the payment of a very old debt. The amount
of his first charitable donation sent nearly fifteen years ago, had
been twenty pounds. That, the most urgent part of the debt,
represented the four bank-notes given to the wife by Mr. Barradine in
London. The other twenty instalments made up the amount of the legacy
that came to her at his death. Mavis had lent the money to her
husband, had in due course received a similar sum of money from him,
and she held it now safely invested; but, as Dale told himself, she
did not in truth hold one penny of the dead man's gifts. All that she
had now was the gift of him, Dale; and the money that soiled her hands
in touching it, the money that had burned his brain, the filthy gold
that had made him half-mad to think of, had gone to strangers whom
neither of them had ever seen.
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