"No!" he said, and stood erect; though he was ghastly pale, and his voice sounded hoarse and strange—"But I am a Christian. I shall not return blow for blow."
It was a new doctrine; foreign to the practice, if familiar to the ear, of Christian Norton Bury. No one answered him; all stared at him; one or two sheered off from him with contemptuous smiles. Then Ursula March stretched out her friendly hand. John took it, and grew calm in a moment.
There arose a murmur of "Mr. Brithwood is going."
"Let him go!" Miss March cried, anger still glowing in her eyes.
"Not so—it is not right. I will speak to him. May I?" John softly unclosed her detaining hand, and went up to Mr. Brithwood. "Sir, there is no need for you to leave this house—I am leaving it. You and I shall not meet again if I can help it."
His proud courtesy, his absolute dignity and calmness, completely overwhelmed his blustering adversary; who gazed open-mouthed, while John made his adieu to his host and to those he knew. The women gathered round him—woman's instinct is usually true. Even Lady Caroline, amid a flutter of regrets, declared she did not believe there was a man in the universe who would have borne so charmingly such a "degradation."
At the word Miss March fired up. "Madam," she said, in her impetuous young voice, "no insult offered to a man can ever degrade him; the only real degradation is when he degrades himself."
John, passing out at the doorway, caught her words. As he quitted the room no crowned victor ever wore a look more joyful, more proud.
After a minute we followed him; the Doctor's wife and I. But now the pride and joy had both faded.
"Mrs. Jessop, you see I am right," he murmured. "I ought not to have come here. It is a hard world for such as I. I shall never conquer it—never."