Old Bates had been ruined, but still had enough to eat and drink, and clothes to wear, and did not work half as hard as his employer.

He thought that if he could only find some one person who would sympathize with him and support him, he would not mind.

But the mental loneliness of his position almost broke his heart.
Then there came across his mind the dim remembrance of certain old school words, and he touched his horse with his spur and hurried onward: "Let there be no steps backward." A thought as to the manliness of persevering, of the want of manliness in yielding to depression, came to his rescue.

Let him, at any rate, have the comfort of thinking that he had done his best according to his lights.

After some dim fashion, he did come to recognize it as a fact that nothing could really support him but self-approbation.