"I am sorry my anonymity as a writer is destroyed," I said, speaking with reserve. "It lessens the value of one's work."
"Oh, I don't know," was his reply. "Up to a certain point it is all very well, but when a man has won his spurs everybody is ready to shake hands with him. What have you to be ashamed of, and why shouldn't you reap your reward? You wrote those things devilishly well; I was amazed at some of your word pictures. You must have had rare opportunities of studying the subject. 'That man is a vivisectionist,' said a very good judge."
It would have been better for me had I made a clean breast of it there and then, had I confided to him the awful sorrow which lay like a poisonous worm in my heart. But I let the opportunity slip.
He remained with me a couple of hours, and urged me to contribute a second series of articles on the same subject.
"You have drawn your illustrations for the first series from the poor," he said; "draw those for your second series from the rich."
"You forget," I rejoined, "that the skeletons of the rich are kept in iron closets with patent locks. The skeletons of the lower classes stand at open doors."
"Invent your instances," he suggested. "With such a rich store of material as you have at command, you can't go wrong. That is an ugly gash you have on your cheek. Cut yourself shaving, I suppose." I nodded. "Ah, I knew a man who was frightened to take a razor in his hand for fear he would cut his throat."
Inwardly resolving not to execute the commission, I promised to consider the matter, and he took his departure. I walked with him to his office, and then mounted an omnibus and rode a few miles, thinking of the disclosure that had been made and dreading to see my name in the papers. But I did not know how to prevent it. We live in an age of personalism, and very little of the private life of public men can be hidden from the Paul Prys of journalism. Almost to a certainty it would come under the notice of Maxwell and my stepmother, who would be ready to weave mischief out of it. Surely no man ever shrank from fame as I did. The prospect chilled me to the heart.
It is anticipating events by a few hours to record that on the following morning I received a letter from the editor informing me that he was over-worked and was going to Germany for a rest. He had designed to go earlier, but while there was a doubt of my election he felt it to be a point of honor not to leave London. He intended now to enjoy his holiday. I gathered from his letter that he would be absent a week.
At five o'clock I returned to my chambers, and my heart sank when I saw a huddled heap of clothes lying in front of my door—a woman in a drunken sleep.