Once—very long ago, these would have mattered to him a great deal; in those days he had believed in men's honour and in women's virtue.
But now? He had lost so much self-respect already—what mattered if a few more shreds of it went the way of all his other ideals.
He had once boldly said that he would give his life's blood drop by drop, endure every agony, undergo every torture to see his mother installed at Maries Castle, her rightful and proper place.
Well, that had been easy to say! These things were not asked of him, and he had gone through so much, suffered often so terribly from hunger, wounds and fatigue that the sacrifice of his life or the endurance of most bitter tortures would have been an easy sacrifice. He was hard and tough—what nerves he had had been jarred beyond all sensibility long ago.
But now something was asked of him. Fate had spoken in no uncertain accents. She had said: "Make a sacrifice of thine honour, and thy most cherished wish will be gratified!"
If those former bold words—offers of blood and life—were not the talk of a weak-kneed braggart, then, Michael Kestyon, thou shouldst not hesitate!
Dost prize those paltry remnants of self-respect so highly that thou wouldst see thy mother starve ere thou sell them?
Starve, remember, starve!—in the direct, absolute, unmitigated sense of the word. If thou canst not provide her with the necessities of life, she must starve sooner or later, in a month, in a year, in two mayhap, that would depend how charitably inclined the neighbours happened to be. But starve she must, if thou, her son, dost naught for her.
And Fate had whispered: "Money, power, justice await thee, at the price of thy self-respect and the honour of a woman who is a stranger to thee."
The subtle temptation had entered into Michael's heart like an insinuating poison which killed every objection, every argument, every moral rebellion in his soul. And the temptation assailed him just at this time when his whole being ached with the constant buffetings of life, when he longed with all the maddening strength of defiant impotence to hit right and left at the world which had derided him, to begin again a new life of action, of combat, of lofty aspirations.