Chap­ter XVII brings Mr. Hard­ing into direct con­ver­sa­tion with Sir Abra­ham, the attor­ney-gen­er­al, inside a room that speaks more of aca­d­e­m­ic detach­ment than legal urgency. Books line the walls, but lit­tle of warmth exists between them, reflect­ing Sir Abraham’s personality—a man gov­erned more by law than empa­thy. Mr. Hard­ing arrives not seek­ing pro­tec­tion, but guid­ance. He is not con­cerned about win­ning a case, as it has already been with­drawn, but about under­stand­ing what is right. Sir Abra­ham, how­ev­er, speaks in terms of enti­tle­ment and legal­i­ty. Accord­ing to doc­u­ments, prece­dent, and legal stand­ing, Mr. Hard­ing has every right to remain as War­den and accept the income tied to the posi­tion. Still, Hard­ing can­not shake the sense that, though legal, the arrange­ment may not be just. That difference—between what can be done and what should be done—weighs heav­i­ly on his spir­it, a bur­den Sir Abra­ham can­not quite com­pre­hend.

Sir Abraham’s man­ner is pol­ished, pre­cise, and entire­ly prag­mat­ic. He lis­tens to Mr. Hard­ing with the patience of a sea­soned pro­fes­sion­al, but with lit­tle emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. To him, the sit­u­a­tion is clear-cut: the law­suit is over, the posi­tion is secure, and no wrong­do­ing has been proven. Yet for Hard­ing, facts are not enough. He is haunt­ed by the voic­es in The Jupiter, by pub­lic crit­i­cism, and most impor­tant­ly, by his own con­science. The ques­tion is no longer about legal­i­ty but about per­son­al peace. Sir Abra­ham warns that to resign now would be both finan­cial­ly fool­ish and social­ly dam­ag­ing. But Hard­ing is not seek­ing approval—he is search­ing for clar­i­ty. And that clar­i­ty, he knows, won’t come from legal inter­pre­ta­tion, but from with­in. His eth­i­cal con­flict can­not be solved by a statute.

As the meet­ing con­tin­ues, a stark con­trast devel­ops between the two men. Sir Abra­ham is a man of the system—detached, com­pe­tent, and successful—but also lim­it­ed in vision when it comes to moral nuance. Hard­ing, on the oth­er hand, is uncer­tain and anx­ious, yet moral­ly coura­geous. He is will­ing to con­sid­er a future with few­er com­forts if it means regain­ing his self-respect. Trol­lope uses this inter­ac­tion to high­light how insti­tu­tions, though struc­tured and log­i­cal, can often over­look the per­son­al toll of their deci­sions. Sir Abra­ham sug­gests com­pro­mise, delay, or recontextualization—tools of the pro­fes­sion­al world that often side­step moral reck­on­ing. But Hard­ing sees those options as ways to post­pone what he feels must be faced now. He does not want to explain away his dis­com­fort. He wants to live with­out it.

When Hard­ing rais­es the ques­tion of the founder’s orig­i­nal inten­tion for the hospital—whether the funds were meant to enrich the War­den or serve the bedesmen—Sir Abra­ham again leans on legal inter­pre­ta­tion. Intent, he sug­gests, is murky when fil­tered through years of legal prece­dent and struc­tur­al change. But for Hard­ing, that ambi­gu­i­ty is no relief. If the founder meant for the income to improve the lives of oth­ers and not pro­vide lux­u­ry for a sin­gle man, then remain­ing in the post feels exploita­tive. No mat­ter what Sir Abra­ham argues, Hard­ing hears only one truth: if his role no longer aligns with the spir­it of ser­vice it once rep­re­sent­ed, then it must be left behind. Even if it’s uncom­fort­able. Even if it invites crit­i­cism from those clos­est to him.

This chap­ter qui­et­ly under­scores a larg­er truth—that the pur­suit of jus­tice does not always end in court­rooms. Some­times it plays out in pri­vate, in the still­ness of a deci­sion that no one applauds but which changes every­thing. Mr. Harding’s moral strug­gle deep­ens here, not through action, but reflec­tion. He leaves the meet­ing not with new infor­ma­tion, but with a stronger sense that his feel­ings are not a weakness—they are a com­pass. Trollope’s cri­tique of the imper­son­al machin­ery of law comes through not in hos­til­i­ty but in con­trast. Sir Abra­ham is not a vil­lain; he is sim­ply unequipped to deal with the per­son­al weight of moral bur­den. And in that absence of under­stand­ing, Hard­ing finds his resolve.

The sig­nif­i­cance of this chap­ter extends beyond the res­ig­na­tion itself. It cap­tures a moment where char­ac­ter out­weighs career, where self-aware­ness over­rules exter­nal val­i­da­tion. Harding’s moral lens may not be prac­ti­cal, but it is pure. And that puri­ty, in a world increas­ing­ly ruled by tech­ni­cal­i­ties and appear­ances, feels qui­et­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary. Trol­lope uses Harding’s unease to remind us that eth­i­cal deci­sions are rarely easy or profitable—but they are essen­tial. They ask for sac­ri­fice, for hon­esty, and for courage when there is no reward in sight. And in that courage, Trol­lope gives us one of the most com­pelling por­tray­als of con­science in Vic­to­ri­an lit­er­a­ture. Harding’s choice is not yet made, but the road toward it is now clear.