In his weak but ungoverned nervous excitement, from which a faint trace of hysteria was not absent, he now seemed rather more like an ex-convict, despite his good clothes. He had become, to Edwin's superior self-control, suddenly wistful. And at the same time, the strange opening question, and its accent, had stirred Edwin, and he saw with remorse how much finer had been Hilda's morbid and violent pity than his own harsh commonsense and anxiety to avoid emotion. The man in good clothes moved him more than the convict had moved him. He seemed to have received vision, and he saw not merely the unbearable pathos of George Cannon, but the high and heavenly charitableness of Hilda, which he had constantly douched, and his own common earthliness. He was exceedingly humbled. And he also thought, sadly: "This chap's still attached to her. Poor devil!"
"What have you come for?" he enquired.
George Cannon cleared his throat. Edwin waited, in fear, for the avowal. He could make nothing out of the visitor's face; its expression was anxious and drew sympathy, but there was something in it which chilled the sympathy it invoked and which seemed to say: "I shall look after myself." It yielded naught. You could be sorry for the heart within, and yet could neither like nor esteem it. "Punished for looking up at the sky." ... Glimpses of prison life presented themselves to Edwin's imagination. He saw George Cannon again halted and turning like a serf to the wall of the corridor. And this man opposite to him, close to him in the familiar room, was the same man as the serf! Was he the same man? ... Inscrutable, the enigma of that existence whose breathing was faintly audible across the desk.
"You know all about it--about my affair, of course?"
"Well," said Edwin. "I expect you know how much I know."
"I'm an honest man--you know that. I needn't begin by explaining that to you."
Edwin nerved himself:
"You weren't honest towards Hilda, if it comes to that."
He used his wife's Christian name, to this man with whom he had never before spoken, naturally, inevitably. He would not say "my wife." To have said "my wife" would somehow have brought some muddiness upon that wife, and by contact upon her husband.
"When I say 'honest' I mean--you know what I mean. About Hilda--I don't defend that. Only I couldn't help myself.... I daresay I should do it again." Edwin could feel his eyes smarting and he blinked, and yet he was angry with the man, who went on: "It's no use talking about that. That's over. And I couldn't help it. I had to do it. She's come out of it all right. She's not harmed, and I thank God for it! If there'd been a child living ... well, it would ha' been different."