Everything which
has made the Hospital unpopular has helped with other causes--
I think they are all connected with my professional zeal--to make me
unpopular as a practitioner. I get chiefly patients who can't pay me.
I should like them best, if I had nobody to pay on my own side."
Lydgate waited a little, but Bulstrode only bowed, looking at
him fixedly, and he went on with the same interrupted enunciation--
as if he were biting an objectional leek.
"I have slipped into money difficulties which I can see no way out of,
unless some one who trusts me and my future will advance me a sum
without other security. I had very little fortune left when I
came here. I have no prospects of money from my own family.
My expenses, in consequence of my marriage, have been very much
greater than I had expected. The result at this moment is that it
would take a thousand pounds to clear me. I mean, to free me from
the risk of having all my goods sold in security of my largest debt--
as well as to pay my other debts--and leave anything to keep us
a little beforehand with our small income. I find that it is out
of the question that my wife's father should make such an advance.
That is why I mention my position to--to the only other man who
may be held to have some personal connection with my prosperity
or ruin."
Lydgate hated to hear himself.
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