"Why the thunderation did I ever allow myself to be persuaded to come here? Why was I ever such a fool?...
"How could I be such a fool?..."
He was walking, now, striding swiftly through the silent village streets, meeting few wayfarers and paying them no heed, whether they knew and greeted him or not. His entire consciousness was obsessed by regret, repentance and remorse. He had ruined everything, deceived everybody—even himself for a time—played the cad and the bounder with consummate address. There were no bounds to the contempt he felt for the man who had tricked these simple, kindly folk into believing him immaculate, impeccable; who had hoodwinked "that old prince, Graham," and under false pretences gained his confidence and affection; who had deliberately set out to snare an innocent and trusting girl for the sake of the filthy money her father owned; who had made another and a better girl love him, though that he had done so unconsciously, only to break her heart; who had sacrificed everything, honour and decency and self-respect, to his greed for money.
But it should go no further. He'd given what he called his word of honour to a despicable compact; there could be no dishonour so great as holding by that word, sticking to his bargain, maintaining the deception and—ruining the life of one woman—perhaps two: Josie Lockwood's, for he could never love her; and possibly Betty Graham's, for she was of that sort that loves once and once only. If she truly loved him...
But by his own act he had placed himself forever beyond the joy of her love. He could never accept it, desire it as passionately as he might—and did. He could never consent to drag her down to his base level...
To-morrow—no, to-night, that very night, he would unmask himself, declare his character to them all, pillory himself that all might see how low a man could fall. And to-morrow he would go, leave Radville, lose himself to all that had come to be so dear to him, forever....
So, raving and ranting with the extravagance of youth, he passed through the village, out into the open country, and in the course of an hour and a half, back—all blindly: circling back to the store, in the course of his wanderings, as instinctly as a carrier pigeon shapes its course for home.
It was with incredulity that he found himself again in that cheerful, cherished, homely place. But there he was when he came out of his abstraction: there in those familiar surroundings, with Tracey's round red face beaming at him over the cigar-stand like a lively counterfeit of the round red moon he had watched lift up into the skies, back there in the still countryside, just as he paused to turn back to town.
He recollected his faculties and resumed command of himself sufficiently to acknowledge Tracey's greeting with a moody word.
"All right, Tracey," he said abruptly. "You may go, now. I'll shut up the store."