"But it would be folly to make its existence known until you have got out of the hands of those money-lenders," Ralph went on.
"They would grab it all, you think?"
"I fear so. If all one hears about their cunning is true, there is scarcely any hope for a man who once gets into their clutches. The law seems powerless. You had better have made yourself a bankrupt right off."
"I don't know; the disgrace is so great."
Ralph curled his lip scornfully.
"It seems to me you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," he said.
"I have been hard pressed," the squire answered dolefully.
For several seconds neither of them spoke again. Ralph was evidently fighting a hard battle with himself. It is not easy to be magnanimous when it is more than probable your magnanimity will be abused. Why should he be kind to this man? He had received nothing but cruelty at his hands. Should he turn his cheek to the smiter? Should he restrain himself when he had the chance of paying off old scores? Was it not human, after all, to say an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? Was not revenge sweet?
They were facing each other in the very house from which he and his mother and Ruth had been evicted, the house in which his father had died of a broken heart. Did not every stone in it cry out for vengeance? This man had shown them no mercy. In the hour of their greatest need he had been more cruel than any fabled Shylock. He had insisted upon his pound of flesh, though it meant beggary to them all. He had pursued them with a vindictiveness that was almost without a parallel. And now that the tables had been turned, and the tyrant, bereft of his power, was pleading for mercy, was he to kiss the hand that before had struck him?
Moreover, what guarantee was there that if this man were restored to his old position he would be any better than he was before? Was not his heart what it had always been? Was he not a tyrant by nature?