THE TALISMAN.
"The other side—the other side is where foot-passengers pay."
Charles mechanically obeyed the direction.
"One penny, sir!"
He was roused at once from his abstraction; for it was a question to himself whether he had even that in his pocket. Sixpence was, however, discovered; he paid the toll, and passed on. But the impetus of his resolution was gone: out on the certainty of human resolve! Charles had meditated weeks on the act he was about to commit; his reasonings had brought conviction both of the necessity and of the right of suicide; he stood ruined in fortune, desperate, and, as he believed, determined; yet the fact of having had to pay a penny on his road to destruction made him pause. He stayed to recover the excitement of his imagination in one of the recesses of the bridge; involuntarily, as he leaned over the balustrade, his eye became attracted by surrounding objects: he was startled to perceive how light it was.
