‘No,’ said James, holding him down by the shoulder, ’I will not be degraded by vain solicitations.’

‘This must be that wretched Ramsbotham!’ exclaimed Louis.  ’Oh, Jem!  I little thought he had so much power to injure you.’

‘It is as well you did not,’ said James.  ’It would have made no difference, except in the pain it would have cost you; and the only gratification in this business is, that I suffer because neither you nor I would deny our principles.  I thank you, Fitzjocelyn!’ and he straightened himself in the satisfaction of persecuted rectitude.

‘You have very little to thank me for,’ said Louis, wringing his hand, and turning aside, as if unable yet to face the full extent of the evil.

‘Never fear for us,’ continued James, boldly; ’we shall struggle on.  Mens conscia,—­you see I can’t forget to be a schoolmaster.’

‘But what are you about?  Where are you going?’

’To London.  You spoke to a publisher about my lectures on history; they will serve for introduction.  He may make me his hack—­a willing one, while I advertise—­apply for anything.  I must be gone!’

’You do not look fit for a night journey.  You would be too early at Estminster to see Isabel.’

‘Don’t name her!’ cried James, starting round as if the word were a dart.  ’Thank Heaven that she is away!  I must write to her.  Maybe, Lady Conway will keep her till I am settled—­till I have found some lodging in London where no one will know us.’

‘And where you may run up a comfortable doctor’s bill.’

With a gesture—­half passion, half despair—­James reiterated, ’There’s no staying here.  I must be gone.  I must be among strangers.’

’Your mens conscia would better prove that it has no cause for shame by staying here, instead of rushing out of sight into the human wilderness, and sacrificing those poor little—­’

James struck his foot on the floor, as though to intercept the word; but Louis continued, apparently unmoved by his anger—­’Those poor little children.  If misfortune and injury be no disgrace to the injured, I call it cowardly pride to fly off by night to hide oneself, instead of living in your own house, like an honest man.’

‘Live!—­pray what am I to live on?’ cried James, laughing hoarsely.

‘You will not find out by whirling to London in your present state.’

In fact, Louis’s most immediate care was to detain him for that one night.  There was a look of coming illness about him, and his desperate, maddened state of mind might obscure his judgment, and urge him into some precipitate measure, such as he might afterwards rue bitterly for the sake of the wife and children, the bare thought of whom seemed at present to sting him so intolerably.  Moreover, Louis had a vague hope that so harsh a proceeding would be abandoned by the trustees; his father would remonstrate, and James might be able to think and to apologize.  He was hardly a rational being to-night, and probably would have driven away any other companion; but long habit, and external coolness, enabled Louis to stand his ground, and to protract matters till the clock, striking eleven, relieved him, as much as it exasperated James, by proving it so late that the last train would have already past.