"I know that this has touched your pride--I can give a pretty good guess as to how proud you are--but, for God's sake! don't let your pride stand in the way of this arrangement." "But--" Stafford began; for he felt that he could not longer keep back the truth, that his father must be told not only that there was nothing between Maude and himself, but that he loved Ida Heron.
But before he could utter another word Sir Stephen stopped before him, and with hands thrown out appealingly, and with a look of terror and agony in his face, cried in broken accents: "If you going to raise any obstacle, Stafford, prompted by your pride, for God's sake, don't say the word! You don't know, you don't understand! You speak of ruin as if it meant only the loss of money, the loss of every penny." He laughed almost hysterically, and his lips twitched.

"Do you think I should care for that, except for your sake?
No, a thousand times, no! I'm young still, I could begin the world again! Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but"-- his voice sank, and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and startled Stafford--"the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means more than the loss of money.

It means the loss of everything! Of friends, of good name--of hope!" Stafford started, and his face grew a trifle hard; and Sir Stephen saw it and made a despairing, appealing gesture with his hand.
"For God's sake don't turn away from me, my boy; don't judge me harshly.

You can't judge me fairly from your standpoint; your life has been a totally different one from mine, has been lived under different circumstances.

You have never known the temptations to which I have been subjected.