This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Gilbert Parker
When Francis Armour left his wife's room he did not go to his own, butquietly descended the stairs, went to the library, and sat down. Theloneliest thing in the world is to be tete-a-tete with one's conscience.A man may have a bad hour with an enemy, a sad hour with a friend, apeaceful hour with himself, but when the little dwarf, conscience,perches upon every hillock of remembrance and makes slow signs—thosestrange symbols of the language of the soul—to him, no slave upon thetread-mill suffers more.
The butler came in to see if anything was required, but Armour onlygreeted him silently and waved him away. His brain was painfully alert,his memory singularly awake. It seemed that the incident of this hourhad so opened up every channel of his intelligence that all his life ranpast him in fantastic panorama, as by that illumination which comes tothe drowning man. He seemed under some strange spell. Once or twice herose, rubbed his eyes, and looked round the room—the room where as a boyhe had spent idle hours, where as a student he had been in the hands ofhis tutor, and as a young man had found recreations such as belong toambitious and ardent youth. Every corner was familiar. Nothing waschanged. The books upon the shelves were as they were placed twentyyears ago. And yet he did not seem a part of it. It did not seemnatural to him. He was in an atmosphere of strangeness—that atmospherewhich surrounds a man, as by a cloud, when some crisis comes upon him andhis life seems to stand still, whirling upon its narrow base, while theworld appears at an interminable distance, even as to a deaf man who seesyet cannot hear.
There came home to him at that moment with a force indescribable theshamelessness of the act he committed four years ago. He had thought tocome back to miserable humiliation. For four years he had refused to dohis duty as a man towards an innocent woman,—a woman, though in part asavage,—now transformed into a gentle, noble creature of delight andgoodness. How had he deserved it? He had sown the storm, it was butjust that he should reap the whirlwind; he had scattered thistles,could he expect to gather grapes? He knew that the sympathy of all hisfather's house was not with him, but with the woman he had wronged. Hewas glad it was so. Looking back now, it seemed so poor and paltry athing that he, a man, should stoop to revenge himself upon those who hadgiven him birth, as a kind of insult to the woman who had lightly set himaside, and should use for that purpose a helpless, confiding girl. Torevenge one's self for wrong to one's self is but a common passion, whichhas little dignity; to avenge some one whom one has loved, man or woman,—and, before all, woman,—has some touch of nobility, is redeemed byloyalty. For his act there was not one word of defence to be made, andhe was not prepared to make it.
The cigars and liquors were beside him, but he did not touch them. Heseemed very far aw