her. "And why
should I not sell my soul?" asked he, almost fiercely. "I sell my
talents, my time, my strength; I'd sell my life to-morrow, and go to be
shot for a shilling a day, if it would make the old man comfortable for
life; and why not my soul too? Don't that belong to me as much as any
other part of me? Why am I to be condemned to sacrifice my prospects in
life to a girl of whose honesty I am not even sure? What is this
intolerable fascination? Witch! I almost believe in mesmerism now!--
Again, I say, why should I not sell my soul, as I'd sell my coat, if the
bargain's but a good one?"

And if he did, who would ever know?--Not even Grace herself. The secret
was his, and no one else's.

Or if they did know, what matter? Dozens of men sell their souls every
year, and thrive thereon; tradesmen, lawyers, squires, popular
preachers, great noblemen, kings and princes. He would be in good
company, at all events: and while so many live in glass houses, who dare
throw stones?

But then, curiously enough, there came over him a vague dread of
possible evil, such as he had never felt before. He had been trying for
years to raise himself above the power of fortune; and he had succeeded
ill enough: but he had never lost heart. Robbed, shipwrecked, lost in
deserts, cheated at cards, shot in revolutions, begging his bread, he
had always been the same unconquerable light-hearted Tom, whose motto
was, "Fall light, and don't whimper: better luck next round." But now,
what if he played his last court-card, and Fortune, out of her
close-hidden hand, laid down a trump thereon with quiet sneering smile?
And she would! He knew, somehow, that he should not thrive. His children
would die of the measles, his horses break their knees, his plate be
stolen, his house catch fire, and Mark Armsworth die insolvent. What a
fool he was, to fancy such nonsense! Here he had been slaving all his
life to keep his father: and now he could keep him; why, he would be
justified, right, a good son, in doing the thing. How hard, how unjust
of those upper Powers in which he believed so vaguely, to forbid his
doing it!

And how did he know that they forbid him? That is too deep a question to
be analysed here: but this thing is noteworthy, that there came next
over Tom's mind a stranger feeling still--a fancy that if he did this
thing, and sold his soul, he could not answer for himself thenceforth on
the score of merest respectability; could not answer f