Gathered In by Catherine Helen Spence — Read

When Ellerton's recovery, retarded by his own impatience and imprudence, was going on, he was glad to see anybody, even the seedy Hugh Carmichael. There was no real advantage in gambling with him for two excellent reasons; he had no money, and he was as clever and as unscrupulous as Ellerton himself. If the latter knew a few modern tricks, Carmichael played a very deep old game, and somehow, although the visits were originally made with the view of earning the balance of £500 frustrated by the incompleteness of the accident, the pair rather took to each other on further acquaintance.

As Jim Oswald was absent, his advance spent, and great difficulties in the way of earning more from him appeared in the surveillance of the surgeon--especially as Ellerton himself began to see how necessary it was to be circumspect, Carmichael set himself to discover the causes of the hatred which was unsuspected by its object. When Ellerton expatiated--as he did freely on Carmichael's first visit--on the shabbiness of young Oswald's conduct in going off for his own pleasure, and leaving him writhing in pain among strangers, he did not hint at any deeper motive than Jim's general indifference to every one but himself. But when he got more familiar, and spoke of his wife's wonderful voice, and the hopes he had of her great success as a public singer, and showed the beautifully finished coloured photograph, which he carried about with him everywhere, Mr. Carmichael discovered the motive for the commission, which he had undertaken to execute, to put the husband out of the way.