Now my position was, and is, very different. I do not speak of
any personal prejudice against the mere act of running away, considered as
an immediate means of escape from disagreeable circumstances, with the
hope of ultimate immunity from all unpleasant consequences. That is a
matter of early education."
"I had very little early education," observed Dumnoff. "And none at all
afterwards."
"My friend, it is not for you and me to enter into the history of our
misfortunes. We have met in the vat of poverty to be seethed alike in the
brew of unhappiness. We have sat at the same daily labour, we have shared
often the same fare, but there is that in each of us which we can keep
sacred from the contamination of confidence, and which will withstand even
the thrusts of poverty. I mean our individual selves, the better part of
us, the nobler element which has suffered, as distinguished from the
grosser, which may yet enjoy. But I am wandering a little. I am afraid I
sometimes do. I return to the point. For me to take advantage of your
generous attempt to free me would have been to act as though I had a moral
cause for flight. In other words, it would have been to acknowledge that I
had committed some dishonourable action."
"It seems to me that to get away would have been the best way out of it.
They would not have caught you if you had trusted to me, and if they did
not catch you they could not prove anything against you."
"The suspicion would have remained, and the disgrace in my own eyes,"
answered the Count.
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