Even cowardice might be overcome when that pressure was put on.
It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again.
It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others.
You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.
For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my head; Richard had said so.

I had not a cent of money, and I had no means of earning any.

The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread.

He would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me out to-morrow, if he came: my clothes--were _they_ even mine, or would they be given to me, if they were?
This uncle had reproached Uncle Leonard once for what he had done for me.

I had even an idea that it was about my mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred.