“These are comforts which we have no right to expect. I could not have done much for poor Mary; but what a man could have done should not have been wanting.” “I am sure of it; I know it well. What any man could do by himself you would do—excepting one thing.” And the dean as he spoke looked full into the other’s face. “And what is there I would not do?” said Crawley. “Sacrifice your own pride.” “My pride?” “Yes; your own pride.” “I have had but little pride this many a day. Arabin, you do not know what my life has been. How is a man to be proud who—” And then he stopped himself, not wishing to go through the catalogue of those grievances, which, as he thought, had killed the very germs of pride within him, or to insist by spoken words on his poverty, his wants, and the injustice of his position. “No; I wish I could be proud; but the world has been too heavy to me, and I have forgotten all that.” “How long have I known you, Crawley?” “How long? Ah dear! a life-time nearly, now.” “And we were like brothers once.” “Yes; we were equal as brothers then—in our fortunes, our tastes, and our modes of life.” “And yet you would begrudge me the pleasure of putting my hand in my pocket, and relieving the inconveniences which have been thrown on you, and those you love better than yourself, by the chances of your fate in life.” “I will live on no man’s charity,” said Crawley, with an abruptness which amounted almost to an expression of anger. “And is not that pride?” “No—yes;—it is a species of pride, but not that pride of which you spoke. A man cannot be honest if he have not some pride. You yourself;—would you not rather starve than become a beggar?” “I would rather beg than see my wife starve,” said Arabin. Crawley when he heard these words turned sharply round, and stood with his back to the dean, with his hands still behind him, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground. “But in this case there is no question of begging,” continued the dean. “I, out of those superfluities which it has pleased God to put at my disposal, am anxious to assist the needs of those whom I love.” “She is not starving,” said Crawley, in a voice very bitter, but still intended to be exculpatory of himself. “No, my dear friend; I know she is not, and do not you be angry with me because I have endeavoured to put the matter to you in the strongest language I could use.” “You look at it, Arabin, from one side only; I can only look at it from the other. It is very sweet to give; I do not doubt that. But the taking of what is given is very bitter. Gift bread chokes in a man’s throat and poisons his blood, and sits like lead upon the heart. You have never tried it.” “But that is the very fault for which I blame you. That is the pride which I say you ought to sacrifice.”