"Your creditors were all rich men, I think?"
"All of them. Except in the way of business I never owed a penny, and I dealt only with the best houses."
"Suppose you had not been elected to the Rest, I think they meant to have made a subscription for you, Mr. Trulock."
"Madam!" said the old man almost fiercely, "I would have gone to the poorhouse before I accepted their charity!"
"Ah, Mr. Trulock! That is what Gilbert bid me say to you!"
"What?" cried Ralph, with a start. "That I ought to have done that—gone to the poorhouse?"
"No, no,—but that you must look well to it that in this matter you are not governed by pride rather than by any better feeling."
"I have always been a proud man," Ralph answered, drawing himself up. "Mrs. Cloudesley, in living on the barest necessaries of life—and that I do, for bread and water are my usual food, and I roam the country to keep myself warm, to save firing,—I am doing the only thing that can reconcile me to life. People talk of me now as a beaten man, glad to hide my head in an almshouse, because ill-health, sorrow, and age made it impossible for me to begin life again. But before I die, I will prove to these proud, successful men, that I was not so utterly beaten; that, in spite of age, and failing health, and sorrow to boot, I fought the battle and kept my honourable name. When I have paid the money, I may be able to feel grateful to Arnott and the rest for what they said and did—as it is, I can only just keep from hating them."
May looked at him with a deep sorrow in her sweet eyes.
"Oh, Mr. Trulock," she said, "do forgive me if I speak my mind—and Gilbert's, for he thinks as I do about it. Is that a Christian spirit? Your creditors wished to forgive you this debt, they felt kindly towards you, and were glad that you should not be left in poverty. You are in an asylum planned to make those who have been unfortunate forget their difficulties and pass a peaceful life, with every comfort, even to the power of doing something for others. But you refuse to accept anything, either from your old friends or from poor dead Lady Mabel; you shut-up your heart, and will admit no happiness, no kind feeling,—but just fight on, doggedly, to do what no one wants you to do—to pay back money which no one needs (for the sums are too small to make any difference to prosperous men), and all because you are too proud to accept a kindness from any one, living or dead."