o constantly in their personal
intercourse had his pride sustained by the sense that he was making a
good social use of this predominating banker, whose opinions he thought
contemptible and whose motives often seemed to him an absurd mixture of
contradictory impressions--that he had been creating for himself
strong ideal obstacles to the proffering of any considerable request to
him on his own account.

Still, early in March his affairs were at that pass in which men begin
to say that their oaths were delivered in ignorance, and to perceive
that the act which they had called impossible to them is becoming
manifestly possible. With Dover's ugly security soon to be put in
force, with the proceeds of his practice immediately absorbed in paying
back debts, and with the chance, if the worst were known, of daily
supplies being refused on credit, above all with the vision of
Rosamond's hopeless discontent continually haunting him, Lydgate had
begun to see that he should inevitably bend himself to ask help from
somebody or other. At first he had considered whether he should write
to Mr. Vincy; but on questioning Rosamond he found that, as he had
suspected, she had already applied twice to her father, the last time
being since the disappointment from Sir Godwin; and papa had said that
Lydgate must look out for himself. "Papa said he had come, with one
bad year after another, to trade more and more on borrowed capital, and
had had to give up many indulgences; he could not spare a single
hundred from the charges of his family. He said, let Lydgate ask
Bulstrode: they have always been hand and glove."

Indeed, Lydgate himself had come to the conclusion that if he must end
by asking for a free loan, his relations with Bulstrode, more at least
than with any other man, might take the shape of a claim which was not
purely personal. Bulstrode had indirectly helped to cause the failure
of his practice, and had also been highly gratified by getting a
medical partner in his plans:--but who among us ever reduced himself
to the sort of dependence in which Lydgate now stood, without trying to
believe that he had claims which diminished the humiliation of asking?
It was true that of late there had seemed to be a new languor of
interest in Bulstrode about the Hospital; but his health had got worse,
and showed signs of a deep-seated nervous affection. In other respects
he did not appear to be changed: he had always been highly polite, but