He paced the library, thinking aloud, for an hour.
Mrs. Turvey, passing down the stairs, heard him, and muttered to herself that master seemed uneasier in his conscience than ever.
But Mrs. Turvey was wrong. Conscience was torpid for the present. Ambition had taken possession of Gurth Egerton and there was room for nothing else. Conscience and ambition are bad companions. One always lags behind and holds the other back.
Gurth Egerton walked himself tired, and then sat down and shut his eyes and looked into the future.
He saw himself married to a charming wife, his house filled with gay company, his name in the papers, and his doings on every tongue. He saw himself loved, honoured, and powerful.
It was late in the afternoon when Egerton sat down to think. He sat thinking and dreaming till the shadows deepened and darkness crept gently over the room.
‘I will take a position in the world!’ he exclaimed, rising and pacing the room. ‘There is nothing to stand between me and my ambition now.
As he uttered the last words he paused opposite the window and gazed out into the street below, in which the dim light of the gas-lamps was struggling with the deepening shadows.
He looked out into the quiet street with eyes that wandered far beyond into a world where he was famous and beloved.
And as he gazed there crept up the street, between him and his ideal future, a little girl followed by a big mastiff dog.