For though his shame had been too great to let him
confess to young Cooley and ask for help, his fear was as great as
his shame; and it increased as the hours passed. In truth his case was
desperate. Except the people who had stripped him, Cooley was the
only person in all of Europe with whom he had more than a very casual
acquaintance. At home, in Cranston, he had no friends susceptible
to such an appeal as it was vitally necessary for him to make. His
relatives were not numerous: there were two aunts, the widows of his
father's brothers, and a number of old-maid cousins; and he had an uncle
in Iowa, a country minister whom he had not seen for years. But he could
not cable to any of these for money; nor could he quite conjure his
imagination into picturing any of them sending it if he did. And even to
cable he would have to pawn his watch, which was an old-fashioned one of
silver and might not bring enough to pay the charges.
He began to be haunted by fragmentary, prophetic visions--confused but
realistic in detail, and horridly probable--of his ejectment from the
hotel, perhaps arrest and trial.
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