L'Estrange did not feel disposed to follow him into this thesis, and sat silent and motionless.
“I suppose,” muttered Bramleigh, as he folded his arms and walked the room with slow steps, “it's all expediency,—all! We do the best we can, and hope it may be enough. You are a good man, L'Estrange—”
“Far from it, sir. I feel, and feel very bitterly, too, my own unworthiness,” said the curate, with an intense sincerity of voice.
“I think you so far good that you are not worldly. You would not do a mean thing, an ignoble, a dishonest thing; you would n't take what was not your own, nor defraud another of what was his,—would you?”
“Perhaps not; I hope not.”
“And yet that is saying a great deal. I may have my doubts whether that penknife be mine or not. Some one may come to-morrow or next day to claim it as his, and describe it, Heaven knows how rightly or wrongly. No matter, he 'll say he owns it. Would you, sir,—I ask you now simply as a Christian man, I am not speaking to a casuist or a lawyer,—would you, sir, at once, just as a measure of peace to your own conscience, say, 'Let him take,' rather than burden your heart with a discussion for which you had no temper nor taste? That's the question I 'd like to ask you. Can you answer it? I see you cannot,” cried he, rapidly. “I see at once how you want to go off into a thousand subtleties, and instead of resolving my one doubt, surround me with a legion of others.”
“If I know anything about myself I 'm not much of a casuist; I haven't the brains for it,” said L'Estrange, with a sad smile.
“Ay, there it is. That 's the humility of Satan's own making; that's the humility that exclaims, 'I'm only honest. I 'm no genius. Heaven has not made me great or gifted. I 'm simply a poor creature, right-minded and pure-hearted.' As if there was anything,—as if there could be anything so exalted as this same purity.”
“But I never said that; I never presumed to say so,” said the other, modestly.
“And if you rail against riches, and tell me that wealth is a snare and a pitfall, what do you mean by telling me that my reverse of fortune is a chastisement? Why, sir, by your own theory it ought to be a blessing,—a positive blessing; so that if I were turned out of this princely house to-morrow, branded as a pretender and an impostor, I should go forth better,—not only better, but happier. Ay, that's the point; happier than I ever was as the lord of these broad acres!” As he spoke he tore his cravat from his throat, as though it were strangling him by its pressure, and now walked the room, carrying the neckcloth in his hand, while the veins in his throat stood out full and swollen like a tangled cordage.