"What could I do, Ralph?" she questioned plaintively. "We had spent all, and the landlord stopped us from selling any more furniture. The parish would allow her half a crown a week, which would not pay the rent, and I could get nothing to do."
He gulped down a lump that had risen in his throat, and clenched his hands, but he did not speak.
"She said there was no disgrace in going into the House," Ruth went on; "that father had paid rates for more than five-and-twenty years, and that she had a right to all she would get, and a good deal more."
"Rights go for nothing in this world," he said bitterly. "It is the strong who win."
"Mrs. Menire told me this morning that her son would have trusted us to any amount and for any length of time if he had only known."
"Mother would never consent," she replied. "Besides, Mr. Menire is a comparative stranger to us."
"That is true, and yet he has been a true friend to me to-day."
"I hesitated about accepting his hospitality," Ruth answered, with her eyes upon the floor. "He sent word yesterday that he had learned you were to be liberated this morning, and that he was going to Bodmin to meet you and bring you back, and that his mother would be glad to offer me hospitality if I would like to meet you here."
"It was very kind of him, Ruth; but where are you living?"
"It is quite true. I was bound to earn my living somehow."
"Prison, workhouse, and domestic service! What may we get to next, do you think?"
"But we have not gone into debt or cheated anybody, and we've kept our consciences clean, Ralph."
"Yes, ours is a case of virtue rewarded," he answered cynically. "Honesty sent to prison, and thrift to the workhouse."
"But we haven't done with life and the world yet."
"You think there are lower depths in store for us?"
"I hope not. We may begin to rise now. Let us not despair, Ralph. Suffering should purify and strengthen us."
"I don't see how suffering wrongly or unjustly can do anybody any good," he answered moodily.
"Nor can I at present. Perhaps we shall see later on. There is one great joy amid all our grief. Your name has been cleared."
"Yes, that is something--better than a verdict of acquittal, eh?" and a softer light came into his eyes.
"I would rather be in our place, Ralph, bitter and humiliating as it is, than take the place of the oppressor."