Chapter 18

WHEN David fell senseless on the floor, Mr. Hardie was somewhat confused by the back-handed blow from his convulsed and whirling arm. But Skinner ran to him, held up his head, and whipped off his neckcloth.

Then Hardie turned to seize the bell and ring for assistance; but Skinner shook his head and said it was useless: this was no faint: old Betty could not help him.

“It is a bad day’s work, sir,” said he, trembling: “he is a dead man.”

“Dead? Heaven forbid!”

“Apoplexy!” whispered Skinner.

“Run for a doctor then: lose no time: don’t let us have his blood on our hands! Dead?”

And he repeated the word this time in a very different tone, a. tone too strange and significant to escape Skinner’s quick ear. However, he laid David’s head gently down and rose from his knees to obey.

What did he see now, but Mr. Hardie, with his back turned, putting the notes and bills softly into the safe again out of sight. He saw, comprehended, and took his own course with equal rapidity.

“Come, run!” cried Mr. Hardie; “I’ll take care of him; every moment is precious.”

(“Wants to get rid of me!” thought Skinner.) “No, sir,” said he, “be ruled by me: let us take him to his friends: he won’t live; and we shall get all the blame if we doctor him.”

Already egotism had whispered Hardie, “How lucky if he should die!” and now a still guiltier thought flashed through him: he did not try to conquer it; he only trembled at himself for entertaining it.

“At least: give him air!” said he in a quavering voice, consenting to a crime, yet compromising with his conscience, feebly.

He threw the window, open with great zeal¹ — with prodigious² zeal; for, he wanted to deceive himself as well as Skinner. With equal parade he helped carry Dodd to the window; it opened, on the ground: this done, the self-deceivers put their heads together, and soon managed matters so that two porters, known to Skinner, were introduced into the garden, and informed that a gentleman had fallen down in a fit, and they were to take him home to his friends, and not talk about it: there might be an inquest, and that was so disagreeable to a gentleman like Mr. Hardie. The men agreed at once for a sovereign apiece. It was all done in a great hurry and agitation³, and while Skinner accompanied the men to see that they did not blab, Mr. Hardie went into the garden to breathe and think. But he could do neither.

He must have a look at It.

He stole back, opened the safe, and examined the notes and bills.

He fingered them.

They seemed to grow to his finger.

He lusted⁴ after them.

He said to himself, “The matter has gone too far to stop; I must go on borrowing this money of the Dodds, and make it the basis of a large fortune: it will be best for all parties in the end.”

He put It into his pocket-book; that pocket-book into his breast-pocket; and passed by his private door into the house, and to his dressing-room.

Ten minutes later he left the house with a little black bag in his band.

1 zeal   

n.热心，热情，热忱

参考例句：

• Revolutionary zeal caught them up,and they joined the army.革命热情激励他们，于是他们从军了。
• They worked with great zeal to finish the project.他们热情高涨地工作，以期完成这个项目。

2 prodigious   

adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的

参考例句：

• This business generates cash in prodigious amounts.这种业务收益丰厚。
• He impressed all who met him with his prodigious memory.他惊人的记忆力让所有见过他的人都印象深刻。

3 agitation   

n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动

参考例句：

• Small shopkeepers carried on a long agitation against the big department stores.小店主们长期以来一直在煽动人们反对大型百货商店。
• These materials require constant agitation to keep them in suspension.这些药剂要经常搅动以保持悬浮状态。

4 lusted   

贪求（lust的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• He had even lusted for Halina, already woven a net in readiness to ensnare her. 他甚至贪恋海莉娜，已经编织了一个罗网，在引诱她落进去。
• Men feared him and women lusted after the handsome warrior. 男人们害怕他，女人们纷纷追求这个英俊的勇士。