Pryce smiled. “Of course not.”
“Now at first, doctor, I said to myself that you must be a very wicked man. I was horrified. And then—I thank God for it—I heard the voice of conscience. That voice said, ‘Before you judge others, look at yourself, Lechworthy.’ Now I’m going to tell you. Some years ago a candidate for Parliament, a man not of my colour, asked permission to address the men at my works in their dinner-hour. I ought to have refused him altogether, or to have seen to it that he had a fair hearing. I could have done either, and either would have been right. I did what was wrong. I said that if he addressed them it must be at his own risk, well knowing that he would take the risk. And then I dropped a hint here and a hint there that if intruders said that they would chance rough handling they could hardly grumble if they got it. That was enough. The candidate turned up and was fool enough to bring his wife with him. Stones were thrown, and the woman was seriously injured; it was a chance that she was not killed. There’s a well-known saying, doctor, ‘qui facit per alium facit per se.’ It’s true too. If that woman had died it would have been I—and not the man who threw the stone—who would have been in the sight of God her murderer. Some of my men went to prison over that affair; when they came out I did what I could to make up to them for it—because they had been punished for my fault. That incident did me harm in my business and in my political career, and that I could stand; but it also gave the enemy their opening, and injured the good cause that I was trying to help. It’s terribly easy to be misled by one’s political passions; when one is doing evil that good may come one forgets that one is doing evil. That was one of the things I had to keep in my mind when Smith gave me that warning about you. But there were others. You won’t mind if I put it plainly.”
“By all means,” said Pryce, rolling a cigarette.
“I thought about the Exiles’ Club. Here are these poor chaps, I thought to myself, who have found a corner of the world to hide in. They no longer constitute a danger to Society. They ask nothing but to be left alone—to be hunted no longer. Can it be wondered at that they thought my coming meant the loss of their liberty or their lives? I am no hunter of men, but they didn’t know that. And if they thought that, can it be wondered at that they were ready to take any step, however desperately wicked, to get rid of the informer and save themselves? Ah! and I thought something else, doctor, and it turned out to be right too.”
“And what was that?”
“I thought to myself, the man who is to sink the Snowflake must face an almost absolute certainty of his own death. He must sacrifice himself—body and soul—to help the others. If ever I see him I shall see the finest man on the island.”
Pryce laughed. “This is becoming grotesque, Lechworthy. If you can understand the line I took, and can forgive it because you understand it, that’s far more than I have any right to expect, and I’m grateful. But for goodness sake don’t try to put me upon a pedestal. It—it won’t wash, you know.”
“Listen to me a bit, Pryce. Hilda fell ill. The King told me you were the only man here who could save her—otherwise she would die. But he pointed out that it gave you a chance—that there would be a great risk.”
“That was nonsense. Smith’s a barbarian and doesn’t understand things. I came to you as a doctor.”