And now I find there
is a stain which I can't help. My mother felt it, and tried
to keep as clear of it as she could, and so will I. You shall keep
your ill-gotten money. If I had any fortune of my own, I would
willingly pay it to any one who could disprove what you have told me.
What I have to thank you for is that you kept the money till now,
when I can refuse it. It ought to lie with a man's self that he is
a gentleman. Good-night, sir."
Bulstrode was going to speak, but Will, with determined quickness,
was out of the room in an instant, and in another the hall-door had
closed behind him. He was too strongly possessed with passionate
rebellion against this inherited blot which had been thrust on his
knowledge to reflect at present whether he had not been too hard
on Bulstrode--too arrogantly merciless towards a man of sixty,
who was making efforts at retrieval when time had rendered them vain.
No third person listening could have thoroughly understood the
impetuosity of Will's repulse or the bitterness of his words.
No one but himself then knew how everything connected with the
sentiment of his own dignity had an immediate bearing for him on
his relation to Dorothea and to Mr. Casaubon's treatment of him.
And in the rush of impulses by which he flung back that offer
of Bulstrode's there was mingled the sense that it would have been
impossible for him ever to tell Dorothea that he had accepted it.
Pages:
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950