When Magnus Susman had left him, Richard Merton sat long at his desk, cudgelling his brains for a solution to the great problem on which his destiny seemed to hang. He was sorely troubled, and knew not in what way to turn. His had been a long and bitter struggle; and, do what he would, his prospects were ever growing worse. It seemed impossible that he could from this matured stage retrieve his lost fortunes and extricate himself from the meshes that immured him. He expected great things, it is true, from Grant Attwell, as the rich father of his ward. But how long would that be in coming? At the least, he could not rely upon receiving any assistance from that quarter prior to Edith's attaining her majority: whereas, to escape the iniquitous clutches of Magnus Susman, he required a fortune within a month. His pride rebelled against any thought of condescending to ask for the aid he needed. His Micawberish philosophy had hitherto kept him from despair; but now that the question was definitely fixed for decision, there was little use in speculating what the far-off future might bring him.
Being thus hemmed in, it was hard for him to cast aside the proposal of Magnus Susman; and the more he debated the question the more he grew in favor of it, till at last, when he presented the whole facts before his wife, he was inclined to advocate the devil's cause. He left her in a flood of tears, and himself in a towering rage. He was, as a rule, a good husband; and though he generally expressed himself with a rugged bluntness, he seldom allowed full scope to his temper when aroused, but lately adversity had made him irritable, and so when Mrs. Merton opposed the scheme as a monstrosity, he called her a fool and an idiot. The poor woman took it to heart; and when Edith came in a little later she found her crying. The girl dropped on her knees and took the old lady's hand tenderly in her own.
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