Still, early in March his affairs were at that pass in which men begin
to say that their oaths were delivered in ignorance, and to perceive
that the act which they had called impossible to them is becoming
manifestly possible. With Dover's ugly security soon to be put
in force, with the proceeds of his practice immediately absorbed
in paying back debts, and with the chance, if the worst were known,
of daily supplies being refused on credit, above all with the
vision of Rosamond's hopeless discontent continually haunting him,
Lydgate had begun to see that he should inevitably bend himself to ask
help from somebody or other. At first he had considered whether he
should write to Mr. Vincy; but on questioning Rosamond he found that,
as he had suspected, she had already applied twice to her father,
the last time being since the disappointment from Sir Godwin;
and papa had said that Lydgate must look out for himself. "Papa said
he had come, with one bad year after another, to trade more and
more on borrowed capital, and had had to give up many indulgences;
he could not spare a single hundred from the charges of his family.
He said, let Lydgate ask Bulstrode: they have always been hand
and glove."
Indeed, Lydgate himself had come to the conclusion that if he
must end by asking for a free loan, his relations with Bulstrode,
more at least than with any other man, might take the shape of a
claim which was not purely personal.
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