"God knows I wanted to recover what I had lost," he continued in the same rapid tone. "God knows I left this cell weeks since with the honest purpose of working my way up to a position that would entitle me to your respect, and change my mother's shame into pride. But I found a mad-dog cry raised against me. And this professedly Christian town has fairly hunted me back to this prison."
Mrs. Arnot sighed deeply, but after a moment said, "I do not excuse the
Christian town, neither can I excuse you."
"You too, then, blame me, and side against me."
"No, Egbert, I side with you, and yet I blame you deeply; but I pity you more."
He rose, and paced the cell with his old, restless steps. "It's no use," he said; "the world says, 'Go to the devil,' and gives me no chance to do otherwise."
"Do you regard the world—whatever you may mean by the phrase—as your friend?"
"Friend!" he repeated, with bitter emphasis.
"Why, then, do you take its advice? I did not come here to tell you to go to perdition."
"But if the world sets its face against me like a flint, what is there for me to do but to remain in prison or hide in a desert, unless I do what I had purposed, defy it and strike back, though it be only as a worm that tries to sting the foot that crushes it."
"Egbert, if you should die, the world would forget that you had ever existed, in a few days."