say
anything that seems worth saying--only I will try that your goodness
shall not be thrown away."

"That's enough. Good-by, and God bless you."

In that way they parted. But both of them walked about a long while
before they went out of the starlight. Much of Fred's rumination might
be summed up in the words, "It certainly would have been a fine thing
for her to marry Farebrother--but if she loves me best and I am a good
husband?"

Perhaps Mr. Farebrother's might be concentrated into a single shrug and
one little speech. "To think of the part one little woman can play in
the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation
of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!"

CHAPTER LXVII.

Now is there civil war within the soul:
Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne
By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier
Makes humble compact, plays the supple part
Of envoy and deft-tongued apologist
For hungry rebels.

Happily Lydgate had ended by losing in the billiard-room, and brought
away no encouragement to make a raid on luck. On the contrary, he felt
unmixed disgust with himself the next day when he had to pay four or
five pounds over and above his gains, and he carried about with him a
most unpleasant vision of the figure he had made, not only rubbing
elbows with the men at the Green Dragon but behaving just as they did.
A philosopher fallen to betting is hardly distinguishable from a
Philistine under the same circumstances: the difference will chiefly be
found in his subsequent reflections, and Lydgate chewed a very
disagreeable cud in that way. His reason told him how the affair might
have been magnified into ruin by a slight change of scenery--if it had
been a gambling-house that he had turned into, where chance could be
clutched with both hands instead of being picked up with thumb and
fore-finger. Nevertheless, though reason strangled the desire to
gamble, there remained the feeling that, with an assurance of luck to
the needful amount, he would have liked to gamble, rather than take the
alternative which was beginning to urge itself as inevitable.

That alternative was to apply to Mr. Bulstrode. Lydgate had so many
times boasted both to himself and others that he was totally
independent of Bulstrode, to whose plans he had lent himself solely
because they enabled him to carry out his own ideas of professional
work and public benefit--he had s