Sentence:  After an unspeakable siege , lasting the better part of two months , it was announced that the studio '' owed `` the government a tax debt in excess of eight million dollars while I , who had always <WSD>remained</WSD> aloof from such iniquitous practices as paying taxes on the salary I had earned and the little I legally inherited as Morris ' helpless relict , was '' stung `` with a personal bill of such astronomical proportions as to '' wipe out `` all but a fraction of my poor , hard-come-by savings . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  stay the same; remain in a certain state