He could buy a great yacht, go round the world for a year with a choice society of friends of his own standing, and when he returned Court and Society would welcome him with open arms once more—all this he understood very well.
He had but to say a few words and all that was now slipping away from him would be his own once more.
Struggles against conscience and convictions are either protracted or very short. The protracted struggle was over in his case. He had fought out the battle long before. His public action on the night before had been the outcome. But there was still the last after-temptation to be faced, the final and conclusive victory to be won.
It was not far from Lord Camborne's town house to Bond Street, but during the distance the battle within the young man's mind raged fiercely.
He must not be blamed. The whole of his past life must be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that he had just been enduring a succession of shocks, and it must also be taken into account that no one feels the same enthusiasm on a grey, wet morning, when he is alone, as he does in a brilliant, lighted place at midnight, surrounded by troops of friends and sympathisers.
A tiny urchin, wet and ragged, with bare feet, came pattering round the corner. Under his arm he held a bundle of pink papers in an oil-skin wrapper. In front of him, as a sort of soiled apron, was the limp contents-bill of an evening paper.
The duke saw his own name upon it. He realised that by now, of course, the early editions of all the evening papers were on the streets, and that they had copied the news from the Daily Wire.
"Pyper, m'lord!" said the urchin, turning up a shrewd and dirty face to the duke, who shook his head and would have passed on.
"Yer wouldn't sye no, m'lord, if yer noo the noos!" said the child. "'Ere's a bloomin' noo hactress wot's goin' to beat the bloomin' 'ead orf of all the other gels, just a cert she is! And there's a mad dook wot's gone and give all is oof to the pore! P'raps I shell get a bit of it—I don't fink!—'ave a pyper, sir?"
The impish readiness of the boy amused the duke, though his words stung. Yes! all the world was ringing with his name. The knowledge, or rather the realisation of what he had known before, acted as a sudden tonic. In a swift moment he set his teeth and braced himself up. A mad duke, was he?—au contraire, he felt particularly sane! The past was over and done—let it be so. The future was before him—let him welcome it and be strong. If he was indeed mad, then it should be a fine madness—a madness of living for humanity!