“And why should I be called on to do so? Is not the labourer worthy of his hire? Am I not able to work, and willing? Have I not always had my shoulder to the collar, and is it right that I should now be contented with the scraps from a rich man’s kitchen? Arabin, you and I were equal once and we were then friends, understanding each other’s thoughts and sympathizing with each other’s sorrows. But it cannot be so now.” “If there be such inability, it is all with you.” “It is all with me,—because in our connection the pain would all be on my side. It would not hurt you to see me at your table with worn shoes and a ragged shirt. I do not think so meanly of you as that. You would give me your feast to eat though I were not clad a tithe as well as the menial behind your chair. But it would hurt me to know that there were those looking at me who thought me unfit to sit in your rooms.” “That is the pride of which I speak;—false pride.” “Call it so if you will; but, Arabin, no preaching of yours can alter it. It is all that is left to me of my manliness. That poor broken reed who is lying there sick,—who has sacrificed all the world to her love for me,—who is the mother of my children, and the partner of my sorrows and the wife of my bosom,—even she cannot change me in this, though she pleads with the eloquence of all her wants. Not even for her can I hold out my hand for a dole.” They had now come back to the door of the house, and Mr. Crawley, hardly conscious of what he was doing, was preparing to enter. “Will Mrs. Crawley be able to see me if I come in?” said the dean. “Oh, stop; no; you had better not do so,” said Mr. Crawley. “You, no doubt, might be subject to infection, and then Mrs. Arabin would be frightened.” “I do not care about it in the least,” said the dean. “But it is of no use; you had better not. Her room, I fear, is quite unfit for you to see; and the whole house, you know, may be infected.” Dr. Arabin by this time was in the sitting-room; but seeing that his friend was really anxious that he should not go farther, he did not persist. “It will be a comfort to us, at any rate, to know that Miss Robarts is with her.” “The young lady is very good—very good indeed,” said Crawley; “but I trust she will return to her home to-morrow. It is impossible that she should remain in so poor a house as mine. There will be nothing here of all the things that she will want.” The dean thought that Lucy Robarts’s wants during her present occupation of nursing would not be so numerous as to make her continued sojourn in Mrs. Crawley’s sick room impossible, and therefore took his leave with a satisfied conviction that the poor lady would not be left wholly to the somewhat unskilful nursing of her husband. CHAPTER XXXVII. MR. SOWERBY WITHOUT COMPANY.