Now they were
talking confidentially, intimately, with that brotherliness which
contact with death inspires in mankind.
The millionaire followed the carpenter with a look of respect,
immeasurably increased since he had taken his part in this human
avalanche. And this respect had in it something of envy, the envy that
springs from an uneasy conscience.
Whenever Don Marcelo passed a bad night, suffering from nightmare, a
certain terrible thing--always the same--would torment his imagination.
Rarely did he dream of mortal peril to his family or self. The frightful
vision was always that certain notes bearing his signature were
presented for collection which he, Marcelo Desnoyers, the man always
faithful to his bond, with a past of immaculate probity, was not able
to pay. Such a possibility made him tremble, and long after waking his
heart would be oppressed with terror. To his imagination this was the
greatest disgrace that a man could suffer.
Now that war was overturning his existence with its agitations, the
same agonies were reappearing. Completely awake, with full powers of
reasoning, he was suffering exactly the same distress as when in his
horrible dreams he saw his dishonored signature on a protested document.
All his past was looming up before his eyes with such extraordinary
clearness that it seemed as though until then his mind must have been
in hopeless confusion.
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