"As if made for me, Sir. I thank you for it."
"It was altered for you. Finlay knew your measure to a quarter of an inch, he said. I told him you were not fit to come."
"I would like to rest with Christine for a few days."
"How can you think of such a thing? Do you want to ruin your sister as well as yourself? Do you not know that Rath is going to sue you as soon as your first sentence is served, for shortage in his money account? He will keep up this prosecution, if you stay in this country."
"You must go to the United States, or Argentine, or India, or----"
"H-m-m! I will lend you twenty pounds, if you will repay it."
"Certainly, I will repay it. I will go to New York. I shall have a little left, when I get there, I suppose. I shall have to travel decently."
"You can get a comfortable passage for twelve pounds. With the balance you can make a spoon, or spoil a horn. Many a good man has built a fine fortune on less than forty pounds."
"I can spare fifty pounds, Sir. I will gladly give it."
"You cannot spare it. You need every shilling of it, and as I have said--fifty pounds will make a man, or waste a man. Any Scotchman with youth, education, and fifty pounds, feels sure of his share of the world, or he is not worth his porridge."
"You forget, Sir, that I have the bonds of a false charge to fight."
"The charge was not false. Do what is right, in the future, and I promise you that it shall never more come up against you. But if you go on buying money with life and honor, you will have a second charge to meet. I know whereof I speak. I have had several interviews with Mr. Rath. He is my half-sister's nephew. He will do anything reasonable I ask of him."
"My God! And you let me go to prison, and blasted my good name, and made a beggar and a wreck of me. I won't have your help," and he turned to Christine, and cried out passionately, "Christine! Christine! Save me from a friend like this! Help me yoursel', dear lassie! Help Neil yoursel'! For Mither's sake help Neil yoursel'."
She went quickly to his side. She put her arms round him--her white, strong, motherly arms. She kissed his face, and wept with him, and she said with a loving passion, all those soft, cruddling, little sentences with which a mother soothes a hurt child. "I'll gie you a' the siller you want, dearie. I'll gie it to you as a free gift. I'll stand by ye through thick and thin. Guilty or not guilty, ye are my ain dear brither! I don't believe you're guilty! You are feyther's son, ye couldna be guilty. It's a' spite, and envy, and ill will. Mither bid me be kind to you, and I will be kind, though all the warld's against me!"