He had already reached the conclusion that he must confess absolute error without excuse. For a moment he had considered the justice of such a complete surrender, by arguing that the play of circumstances were to a large extent responsible for his mistakes and their culmination; but he felt, before the tremendous conclusion, that any attempt to extenuate would be peddling and even dangerous. There was truth in the fact that time and chance had played his nature cruel tricks and it might be that others, after hearing the complete admission he designed, would think of these things and advance some few counters on his behalf; but he would not do it himself; he would not take refuge under any sort of justification, or seek to modify the awful thing he had accomplished. Thus the strange spectacle of a man almost cheerful in his destruction appeared to William, and he perceived at once the impatience with which Jacob recounted the details, and the anxiety under which he laboured, to get the past behind him as swiftly as possible and face the future. He was not crushed by what had happened, because he was already clinging, heart and soul, to what might happen. Horror of the thing done no longer dominated him, for interest and concentration upon the things yet to be done.
Thus he came to his ancient friend in a mood beyond Billy's imagination, and as he talked volubly and proceeded from past facts to future hopes, Mr. Marydrew perceived that an angry, old woman, in some mysterious fashion, had known better than himself how these disasters would react upon this man. For Jacob was concerned with his conclusion, not the stages that had led to it. Already he was forgetting them as though they had not existed.
"I knew I was doomed long before the end," said Bullstone. "I saw it in their faces, and I'm a reasonable man, William, and can sit here now and tell you that I wasn't obstinate and stiff-necked about it. Before the judge talked to me and told me the truth—the blessed truth, William, not the bitter truth. 'Blessed' I say, because it opens the door of the future and doesn't close it for all time. Before the judge poured his scalding words upon me, I knew they were deserved. And knowing them deserved, they hurt different from what he meant them to. That's the spirit that began to move the moment after my first enormous astonishment to find I was wrong. And the highest moment—the moment that threw all my years of agony to confusion—was when she and him were able to show the words I heard at Shipley were innocent and had to do with Samuel. From that point the tide turned—and I saw all I'd done, and looked back at a lunatic. And you see me now only hungering for the days and nights to speed past, so that the madness that have overtook me may be sunk—sunk and forgotten in the light of the sanity that's coming—that's come. For I'm here in my right mind, William."
"Don't run on too fast, however, Jacob," warned the elder. "I'm very thankful you can accept the truth, because, thank God, that leaves the door open, as you say. But you must remember that there's a lot more goes to this than for you to say you're sorry about it. You must use your good sense and your new-found wits to see how it all looked and still looks to the injured parties."
It seemed that Bullstone was doomed ever to move in the atmosphere of the unreal. Unreal grief and imaginary disasters had ruined his life; and now he sought to rebuild the wreck by his own achievements, independently of the actual course of affairs, which must depend upon others. His hopes might well prove as illusory as his vanished fears. The man's mind was always in extremes.
Billy's warning cooled Bullstone.
"I know—I know," he answered. "I'm assuming nothing. My whole life will be a long atonement to her—to lift myself from where I have sunk, till I'm worthy to be forgiven. I see that. I ask none to pardon till they can. How soon they can depends on me. I'm dealing with better people than myself; so is it too much to hope, even in this awful pass of my life, with destruction and grief around me, that I may rise myself up to be forgiven by them?"
"Not too much to hope; but a darned sight too much to happen—for a very long while, my dear," explained Mr. Marydrew. "You've done a most fearful deed and those that have suffered from it must be given a deuce of a lot of time before they can calm down and see how it all fell out—how the Devil knew your character was prone to jealousy and fooled you according. The first person for you to consider is your wife, and if you can once rub it into her, fully and frankly, that you be sure you'd done her an awful wrong and be set, while life's in your body, to atone for it, then—presently—when she gets away from the influence of her wonderful mother—perhaps.—For Margery knows the good side of you as none else does, and she's slow to anger and quick to forgive. You've got to lay the foundation of the new life, and I hope to God, my dear, you'll soon find it grow; but the shape it takes will depend a good deal on other folk so well as yourself."
"I must proclaim my wickedness and paint it so black, that the mercy of man will intervene and lessen my blame of myself, if only for the credit of human nature," said Bullstone.
"Man won't be much put about. 'Tis the mercy of woman be going to be most use to you," answered Billy. "You must court that. After all, jealousy be a left-handed compliment to them; and they can always forgive that without much trouble—up to a point. Of course you went far beyond that point, however, because the Devil got in you, and turned your eyes crooked, and made life look like a nightmare, same as it do if you see yourself in a spoon. You'll want the patience of Job to endure the next six months or so; but other men have come through and why not you?"