when a word of it would have made me rich; yet how I have felt it
fit that I should hold my course, content to know him, and to be
unknown. Mr. Redlaw," said the student, faintly, "what I would
have said, I have said ill, for my strength is strange to me as
yet; but for anything unworthy in this fraud of mine, forgive me,
and for all the rest forget me!"

The staring frown remained on Redlaw's face, and yielded to no
other expression until the student, with these words, advanced
towards him, as if to touch his hand, when he drew back and cried
to him:

"Don't come nearer to me!"

The young man stopped, shocked by the eagerness of his recoil, and
by the sternness of his repulsion; and he passed his hand,
thoughtfully, across his forehead.

"The past is past," said the Chemist. "It dies like the brutes.
Who talks to me of its traces in my life? He raves or lies! What
have I to do with your distempered dreams? If you want money, here
it is. I came to offer it; and that is all I came for. There can
be nothing else that brings me here," he muttered, holding his head
again, with both his hands. "There CAN be nothing else, and yet--"

He had tossed his purse upon the table. As he fell into this dim
cogitation with himself, the student took it up, and held it out to
him.

"Take it back, sir," he said proudly, though not angrily. "I wish