You
are not in England. A little more of that sort of thing, and our lives
aren't worth an hour's purchase."
"I don't care," she retorted, with all the headlong brutality of her
origin. "It's true what I say! It's true!"
"It is true." The interruption came from the Rajah himself. He had
risen and stood before them, very pale, but calm and composed, his
eyes fixed with haggard resolution on the furious face of his accuser.
"It is true. I am a swindler. I have ruined you all. Why should you
believe it was done unwittingly? Yet that is true also. I, like my
poor friend here whom I used as my tool, believed that I was doing the
best for you all. But I have ruined you. I have done worse than
that--I have ruined my country, my people. You have friends who will
help you in your distress, but who will help my people? I pulled them
out of their miserable homes only to cast them into deeper misery. I
have taken their pitiful savings, meaning, without the use of charity,
to increase them tenfold. I have taken everything from them. I gave a
hope, and have left them with a deeper despair. Not all my wealth--and
not a stone, not a farthing piece shall be held back from your and
their just claims upon me--will fill up the ruin of those I wished so
well. It is true--I stand before you all a dishonored man."
There was a moment's petrified silence. Even Mrs. Cary's coarse nature
stood baffled before this pitiless, dignified self-accusal.
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