"
"Stop, Crawley!" And the dean, putting his hand upon him, stayed him
in the road. "She is doing her own work, and if you were speaking of
her with reference to any other household than your own, you would
say so. Is it not a comfort to you to know that your wife has a woman
near her at such a time as this; and a woman, too, who can speak to
her as one lady does to another?"
"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.
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