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'Let her go,' said Dick, and he watched her disappear with
strangely mingled feelings. For he had fallen into that
stage when men have the vertigo of misfortune, court the
strokes of destiny, and rush towards anything decisive, that
it may free them from suspense though at the cost of ruin.
It is one of the many minor forms of suicide.
'She did not love me,' he said, turning to her father.
'I feared as much,' said he, 'when I sounded her. Poor Dick,
poor Dick. And yet I believe I am as much cut up as you are.
I was born to see others happy.'
'
You forget,' returned Dick, with something like a sneer,
that I am now a pauper.'
'
Van Tromp snapped his fingers.
'Tut!' said he; 'Esther has plenty for us all.'
Dick looked at him with some wonder. It had never dawned
upon him that this shiftless, thriftless, worthless, sponging
parasite was yet, after and in spite of all, not mercenary in
the issue of his thoughts; yet so it was.
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