“I don’t,” cried Anthony.  “Upon my soul, I don’t.  I don’t want ’em.  I’d give—­it is true, my dear, I don’t want ’em.  They’re poison.”

“They’re poison to you,” said Rhoda; “they’re health, they’re life to me.  I said, ’My uncle Anthony will help me.  He is not—­I know his heart—­he is not a miser.’  Are you a miser, uncle?”

Her hand was on one of his bags.  It was strenuously withheld:  but while she continued speaking, reiterating the word “miser,” the hold relaxed.  She caught the heavy bag away, startled by its weight.

He perceived the effect produced on her, and cried; “Aha! and I’ve been carrying two of ’em—­two!”

Rhoda panted in her excitement.

“Now, give it up,” said he.  She returned it.  He got it against his breast joylessly, and then bade her to try the weight of the two.  She did try them, and Anthony doated on the wonder of her face.

“Uncle, see what riches do!  You fear everybody—­you think there is no secure place—­you have more?  Do you carry about all your money?”

“No,” he chuckled at her astonishment.  “I’ve...Yes.  I’ve got more of my own.”  Her widened eyes intoxicated him.  “More.  I’ve saved.  I’ve put by.  Say, I’m an old sinner.  What’d th’ old farmer say now?  Do you love your uncle Tony?  ‘Old Ant,’ they call me down at—­” “The Bank,” he was on the point of uttering; but the vision of the Bank lay terrific in his recollection, and, summoned at last, would not be wiped away.  The unbearable picture swam blinking through accumulating clouds; remote and minute as the chief scene of our infancy, but commanding him with the present touch of a mighty arm thrown out.  “I’m honest,” he cried.  “I always have been honest.  I’m known to be honest.  I want no man’s money.  I’ve got money of my own.  I hate sin.  I hate sinners.  I’m an honest man.  Ask them, down at—­Rhoda, my dear!  I say, don’t you hear me?  Rhoda, you think I’ve a turn for misering.  It’s a beastly mistake:  poor savings, and such a trouble to keep honest when you’re poor; and I’ve done it for years, spite o’ temptation ’t ‘d send lots o’ men to the hulks.  Safe into my hand, safe out o’ my hands!  Slip once, and there ain’t mercy in men.  And you say, ’I had a whirl of my head, and went round, and didn’t know where I was for a minute, and forgot the place I’d to go to, and come away to think in a quiet part.’...”  He stopped abruptly in his ravings.  “You give me the money, Rhoda!”

She handed him the money-bags.

He seized them, and dashed them to the ground with the force of madness.  Kneeling, he drew out his penknife, and slit the sides of the bags, and held them aloft, and let the gold pour out in torrents, insufferable to the sight; and uttering laughter that clamoured fierily in her ears for long minutes afterwards, the old man brandished the empty bags, and sprang out of the room.

She sat dismayed in the centre of a heap of gold.