His big body shook with the vehemence of his unnatural terror. His moans and cries were utterly without dignity or pathos. He was filled with the immense self-pity of the sensualist.
It is the added torture which comes to the evil-liver.
In the hour of blackness, every moment of physical gratification or sin adds its weight to the terrible burden which must be borne.
This man felt that he was lost. Perhaps all hope was not quite dead. He called on all his courage to make a last attempt at escape.
He must leave this place at once. He would go first to his house in Upper Berkeley Street, Lady Llwellyn's house! His wife.
Something strange and long forgotten moved within him at that word. What might not his life have been by her side, a life lived in open honour! What had he done with it all? His great name, his fame, were built up slowly by his long and brilliant work. Yet all the time that fair edifice was being undermined by secret workers. The lusts of the flesh were deep below the structure, their hammers were always slowly tapping—and now it was all over.
He drove up to his own door, unlocked it, and went up the stairs to his own rooms.
Though he had not been near them for weeks, he saw—with how keen a pang of regret—that they were swept and tidy, ready for his coming at any time.
He rang the bell.