“Yes!” said Philip, pouring it out, and taking the glass in his hand. “I drink to your new occupation, Perdita. May it bring you satisfaction: and may you long enjoy it!”
“Stay!” exclaimed she: “let me drink too. But my toast shall be different. May the day on which I forgive you be the last day I live!”
They drank, and set down their glasses; and exchanged a final look. Was it hate that he saw in her eyes, or love? Often afterwards that question recurred to Philip’s mind, and never found a certain answer. But he always remembered Perdita as she stood there, erect and bright, with a smile on her beautiful face, and her red lips wet with the red wine.
Sir Francis Bendibow, the last of his race, and once held to be the greatest and most successful banker in England, was meanwhile lying on a bed in a small room, in a house not his own, and with no traces of luxury about him. The bed, indeed, was an easy bed enough, though it was not made of mahogany, nor draped with damask curtains: and the room was by no means a dungeon, though the furniture and fittings were of the plainest and most economical description, and Sir Francis would not have been at liberty to open the door and go out, had he wished to do so. It is not probable, however, that he wished to do anything of the kind: nor, had he been as free as the sparrow that was twittering on the eaves outside the narrow window, could he have found strength to rise from his bed and walk across the room. His physical resources were at an end: and the physician who had felt his pulse that morning had admitted (in response to the urgent demand of the baronet) that the chances were against his surviving many hours longer. Sentence of death, come it how it may, generally produces a notable impression on the recipient. Sir Francis said nothing: he fixed his eyes curiously upon the doctor’s face for a few moments; then let his gaze wander slowly round the room, taking note of every object in it. Finally, he settled himself comfortably in the bed, and appeared to give himself up to his meditations, in the midst of which the doctor left him, feeling some surprise at the baronet’s sang-froid and equanimity. “Must have a tolerable clean conscience, after all,” he remarked to Fillmore, outside the door. “Dare say others were more to blame for the smash than he. Seems always to have been unlucky in his friends.”