practice. It is roguish to live on other men's money, and Mr. Sowerby had long been doing so. It is roguish—at least so I would hold it—to deal willingly with rogues, and Mr. Sowerby had been constant in such dealings. I do not know whether he had not at times fallen even into more palpable roguery than is proved by such practices as those enumerated. Though I have for him some tender feeling, knowing that there was still a touch of gentle bearing round his heart, an abiding taste for better things within him, I can not acquit him from the great accusation. But, for all that, in spite of his acknowledged roguery, Lord Lufton was too hard upon him in his judgment. There was yet within him the means of repentance, could a locus penitentiæ have been supplied to him. He grieved bitterly over his own ill doings, and knew well what changes gentlehood would have demanded from him. Whether or no he had gone too far for all changes—whether the locus penitentiæ was for him still a possibility—that was between him and a higher power.
"I have no one to blame but myself," said Mark, still speaking in the same heart-broken tone, and with his face averted from his friend.
The debt would now be paid, and the bailiffs would be expelled; but that would not set him right before the world. It would be known to all men—to all clergymen in the diocese—that the sheriff's officers had been in charge of Framley Parsonage, and he could never again hold up his head in the Close of Barchester.
"My dear fellow, if we were all to make ourselves miserable for such a trifle as this—" said Lord Lufton, putting his arm affectionately on his friend's shoulder.
"But we are not all clergymen," said Mark; and, as he spoke, he turned away to the window, and Lord Lufton knew that the tears were on his cheek.
Nothing was then said between them for some moments, after which Lord Lufton again spoke:
"Mark, my dear fellow!"
"Well?" said Mark, with his face still turned toward the window.
"You must remember one thing: in helping you over this stile, which will be really a matter of no inconvenience to me, I have a better right than that even of an old friend; I look upon you now as my brother-in-law."
