Hornett edged away upon his knees, and his thumb and fingers traced the creases of his smile up and down his stubbly cheeks.
‘Do you think,’ the old man demanded passionately, ‘that I took away a penny?’
Hornett was afraid to rise. There was such a despair and so much fury in the other’s looks that he could do nothing but crouch at his feet with his mean meek face turned fearfully towards Bommaney, and his body cowering.
‘You think I took that eight thousand pounds?’ Bommaney quavered, with a voice of bitter disdain.
He had never in his life regretted anything so profoundly as he had regretted his resistance of that temptation. To have had all the blame and shame, and to endure all the miseries a convicted thief might earn for himself, to have been an outcast and a pauper, only because he had been resolute against temptation! It is easy enough for a man whom circumstances keep honest to think himself honourable beyond the chance of temptation. But misery has the virtue of Ithuriel’s spear, with a difference. As the one touched the beast and transformed him to the seeming of a high intelligence, so will the other touch a seemingly impregnable armour of bright honour, and turn it into tinder, leaving the poor beast revealed and unprotected from his own base natural longings. The poor Bommaney was maddened to think he had not done what the other’s thoughts charged him with, even though he passionately rebelled against the accusation.
‘When did you ever know me to be a rogue, James Hornett?’ he asked, with an air and voice to which his passion lent something like dignity. ‘When did you ever know me defraud a man of a farthing?’
‘Never, sir, I’m sure,’ Hornett responded, not doubting in his own mind that Bommaney was guilty. ‘But——’
‘But what?’ cried Bommaney. ‘My own son, my own flesh and blood, would hardly shake hands with me. My clerk—I took him out of the gutter, you know that, Hornett! I took you out of the gutter and made a man of you, and lavished kindness on you. Nobody has a minute’s trust in me—nobody thinks of misfortune or disaster. I was right to run away and hide myself, for nobody would have believed me if I had stayed and told the truth.’
Hornett looked more frightened than before after this outburst, but Bommaney read incredulity in his face, and answered it with an added passion.
‘What good would it do me to tell lies to you? Suppose I made you believe me, am I such a fool as to, think your pity could set me on my legs again?’