even to you, because he had a great dislike to say, ‘I was not wrong,’ as if that were proof, when there are guilty people who will say so. The truth is, he knew nothing of this man Raffles, or that there were any bad secrets about him; and he thought that Mr. Bulstrode offered him the money because he repented, out of kindness, of having refused it before. All his anxiety about his patient was to treat him rightly, and he was a little uncomfortable that the case did not end as he had expected; but he thought then and still thinks that there may have been no wrong in it on anyone’s part. And I have told Mr. Farebrother, and Mr. Brooke, and Sir James Chettam: they all believe in your husband. That will cheer you, will it not? That will give you courage?”
Dorothea’s face had become animated, and as it beamed on Rosamond very close to her, she felt something like bashful timidity before a superior, in the presence of this self-forgetful ardor. She said, with blushing embarrassment, “Thank you: you are very kind.”
“And he felt that he had been so wrong not to pour out everything about this to you. But you will forgive him.
It was because he feels so much more about your happiness than anything else—he feels his life bound into one with yours, and it hurts him more than anything, that his misfortunes must hurt you.
He could speak to me because I am an indifferent person. And then I asked him if I might come to see you; because I felt so much for his trouble and yours.
That is why I came yesterday, and why I am come today.
Trouble is so hard to bear, is it not?—How can we live and think that anyone has trouble—piercing trouble—and we could help them, and never try?”