Hard Cash. Charles Reade Reade

Hard Cash revolves around the sum of £14,000, of which a bankrupt banker Richard Hardie defrauds David Dodd, a sea-captain. Upon realizing his loss Dodd has a cataleptic shock and goes insane. Hardie's son Alfred, who loves Dodd's daughter Julia, detects his father's wrongdoing and confronts him about it, so Hardie puts him in a private insane asylum to keep him quiet. Trying to keep a straight mind among the insane, Alfred meets and befriends Dodd, and when a fire breaks out they manage to escape, having one thing on their mind.