The thought stung him like nettles. He was a proud man, and his pride had been humbled; he was a conscientious man also, and the thought of his responsibility—of the mother and the five girls dependent on him—alone prevented him writing at once to the head office and demanding either an honourable acquittal or an honourable discharge. But then, again, what charge was he to be acquitted of? None had been brought against him. No one had accused him. No one had dared insinuate to him openly that he had anything to do with the removal of the money from the bank safe, yet he felt that an unseen sword of Damocles hung over his head.
It is this anticipation of disaster—this hourly expectation of something going to happen—that wears out the strongest energy and shatters the strongest nervous system.
The town of Wharfdale, unknown to George, was still indefinitely divided into factions upon the question of the bank robbery, and it was not improbable that in a very little time someone would have accidentally given him evil news if the matter of the robbery had not sunk into insignificance before the discovery of the body of a murdered man down the river.
The news was brought up by the Greenwich the morning after George, the deck-hand, had had such remarkable fishing.
First came the outlines which Rumour filled in for herself, dwelling lovingly on the knife wounds.
Then gossiping tongues began to shape fancies into main facts. A body had certainly been discovered, and people who saw it were convinced that a foul and brutal murder had taken place.
The craving for sensation, like the craving for opium or chloral, is progressive—the patients must keep on increasing the dose. The newspaper down the river published an “extraordinary” on the morning following George’s discovery. The “extraordinary,” printed on a “galley-slip,” was sold all over the district at a penny.
As the day wore on a second edition of the “extraordinary” was issued containing two or three additional paragraphs of news, and the opinion which the “authorities” were supposed to entertain on the subject.
The publication of the paper proper was deferred a day to enable the particulars of the inquest to be inserted.