Thus he reasoned, lost in his selfishness, and shrinking from the
thought of looking the disreputable creature in the eyes. Yet the awful
consciousness haunted him that, if she had fallen into drunken habits and
possibly worse, it was his fault, and the ruin of the once lovely creature
lay at his door, and his alone.
He made haste to his room, and to bed, where for a long while he lay unable
even to think. Then all at once, with gathered force, the frightful
reality, the keen, bare truth broke upon him like a huge, cold wave; he had
a clear vision of his guilt, and the vision was conscious of itself as
_his_ guilt; he saw it rounded in a gray fog of life-chilling dismay. What
was he but a troth-breaker, a liar--and that in strong fact, not in feeble
tongue? "What am I," said Conscience, "but a cruel, self-seeking, loveless
horror--a contemptible sneak, who, in dread of missing the praises of men,
crept away unseen, and left the woman to bear alone our common sin?" What
was he but a whited sepulchre, full of dead men's bones and all
uncleanness?--a fellow posing in the pulpit as an example to the faithful,
but knowing all the time that somewhere in the land lived a woman--once a
loving, trusting woman--who could with a word hold him up to the world a
hypocrite and a dastard--
A fixed figure for the Time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
He sprang to the floor; the cold hand of an injured ghost seemed clutching
feebly at his throat.
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