"I ought to pay my debt." As in his dreams, he was constantly feeling the anguish of an upright and desperate man who wishes to meet his obligations.
Pay!.

.

.

and how?
It was now very late.

For a moment the heroic resolution came into his head of offering himself as a volunteer, of marching with his bag at his side in some one of the groups of future combatants, the same as the carpenter.