At such times, he thought uneasily of the possibility of foreclosing the mortgage on the old Jacobs house, selling the house, and reinvesting the money in a more advantageous way.

He always tried to put the thought away from him as a dishonorable one; but it had a fatal persistency.

He could not banish it.
"Poor, half-witted old woman! she might a great deal better be in the poor-house." "There is no reason why we should lose our interest, for the sake of keeping her along." "The mortgage was for too large a sum.

I doubt if the old house could sell to-day for enough to clear it, anyhow." These were some of the suggestions which the devil kept whispering into Stephen's ear, in these long hours of perplexity and misgiving.

It was a question of casuistry which might, perhaps, have puzzled a finer moral sense than Stephen's.