Page:Middlemarch (Second Edition).djvu/528

 “That is true. I can’t deny that I act upon what I heard from him.”

“You are a conscientious man, Mr Garth—a man, I trust, who feels himself accountable to God. You would not wish to injure me by being too ready to believe a slander,” said Bulstrode, casting about for pleas that might be adapted to his hearer’s mind. “That is a poor reason for giving up a connection which I think I may say will be mutually beneficial.”

“I would injure no man if I could help it,” said Caleb; “even if I thought God winked at it. I hope I should have a feeling for my fellow-creature. But, sir—I am obliged to believe that this Raffles has told me the truth. And I can’t be happy in working with you, or profiting by you. It hurts my mind. I must beg you to seek another agent.”

“Very well, Mr Garth. But I must at least claim to know the worst that he has told you. I must know what is the foul speech that I am liable to be the victim of,” said Bulstrode, a certain amount of anger beginning to mingle with his humiliation before this quiet man who renounced his benefits.

“That's needless,” said Caleb, waving his hand, bowing his head slightly, and not swerving from the tone which had in it the merciful intention to spare this pitiable man. “What he has said to me will never pass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from me. If you led a harmful life for gain, and kept others out of their rights by deceit, to get the more for yourself, I daresay you repent—you would like to go back, and can’t: that must be a bitter thing”—Caleb paused a moment and shook his head—“it is not for me to make your life harder to you.”

“But you do—you do make it harder to me,” said Bulstrode, constrained into a genuine, pleading cry. “You make it harder to me by turning your back on me.”

“That I'm forced to do,” said Caleb, still more gently, lifting up his hand. “I am sorry. I don’t judge you and say, he is wicked, and I am righteous. God forbid. I don’t know everything. A man may do wrong, and his will may rise clear out of it, though he can’t get his life clear. That’s a bad punishment. If it is so with you,—well, I'm very sorry for you. But I have that feeling inside me, that I can’t go on working with you. That’s all, Mr Bulstrode. Everything else is buried, so far as my will goes. And I wish you good-day.”

“One moment, Mr Garth!” said Bulstrode, hurriedly. “I may trust then to your solemn assurance that you will not repeat either to man or woman what—even if it have any degree of truth in it—is yet a malicious representation?”

Caleb’s wrath was stirred, and he said, indignantly—

“Why should I have said it if I didn’t mean it? I am in no fear of you. Such tales as that will never tempt my tongue.”

“Excuse me—I am agitated—I am the victim of this abandoned man.”