"After what I have suffered there I cannot bear the place."
"You must force yourself to bear it. Do you mean to say that because you are unhappy you will not pay your debts?"
"I owe no man a shilling;—or, if I do, I will pay it to-morrow."
"There are debts you can only settle by daily payments. To every man living on your land you owe such a debt. To every friend connected with you by name, or blood, or love, you owe such a debt. Do you suppose that you can cast yourself adrift, and make yourself a by-word, and hurt no one but yourself? Why is it that we hate a suicide?"
"Because he sins."
"Because he is a coward, and runs away from the burden which he ought to bear gallantly. He throws his load down on the roadside, and does not care who may bear it, or who may suffer because he is too poor a creature to struggle on! Have you no feeling that, though it may be hard with you here,"—and the Vicar, as he spoke, struck his breast,—"you should so carry your outer self, that the eyes of those around you should see nothing of the sorrow within? That is my idea of manliness, and I have ever taken you to be a man."
"We work for the esteem of others while we desire it. I desire nothing now. She has so knocked me about that I should be a liar if I were to say that there is enough manhood left in me to bear it. I shan't kill myself."
"No, Harry, you won't do that."
"But I shall give up the place, and go abroad."
"Whom will you serve by that?"