'I do. What is the answer? Give it, please. Is there any reason why a man who has money enough to live upon should go to the bar?'
'I can think of but one,' said Esther, grave and wondering now.
'Perhaps there is one reason.'
'And that?' said Pitt, without looking at her.
'I can think of but one,' Esther repeated. 'It is not a man's business view, I know, but it is mine. I can think of no reason why, for itself, a man should plunge himself into the strifes and confusions of the law, supposing that he need not, except for the one sake of righting the wrong and delivering the oppressed.'
'That is my view,' said Pitt quietly.
'And is that what you are going to do?' she said with smothered eagerness, and as well a smothered pang.
'I do not propose to be a lawyer merely,' he said, in the same quiet way, not looking at her. 'But I thought it would give me an advantage in the great business of righting the wrong and getting the oppressed go free. So I propose to finish my terms and be called to the bar.'
'Then you will live in England?' said Esther, with a most unaccountable feeling of depression at the thought.
'For the present, probably. Wherever I can do my work best.'
'Your work? That is—?'