The gentleman put his latchkey back in his pocket, folded his hands between his knees, and looked down with a troubled face on the floor; his feeble underlip quivered, and his chin went back as though inclined to dive into and conceal itself in the neckcloth.
'I am very unhappy about this. I—I feel a sort of responsibility in the matter. But, my dear Mr. Dench, what am I to do? Consider how I am placed. I am a gentleman and well connected. My people are tolerably high in life, and I have a Government situation. It may lead—there is no saying to what it may lead. It is a position that necessitates my taking a place in the fashionable world. That single indiscretion in early youth weighs like a millstone attached to my neck. I try to forget, to make light of it. I cannot. The possible consequences are ever before me, and just now anything approaching to a dénoûment would be fatal.'
'Then why the deuce did you come here and risk all?'
'That is just what I—I ask myself—you know how one feels on the edge of a precipice, an irresistible desire to cast one's self down. I really could not help myself. I felt that I must come here and see and hear how matters stand, so as to take my social—my moral bearings—from circumstances. I would do what is right—strictly honourable and right—but I don't want to hurt my prospects. One must always look to one's prospects in the regulation of conduct,—moral conduct, you understand. A thing cannot be right which hurts one—can it?' He put up his eyeglass. 'I ask you as a moralist.'
'My dear sir,' answered the boatman, 'you leave all to me. I am your man, devoted body and soul. No one else knows all the ins and outs as I do. Leave me to manage for you.'
'You have always paid her the annuity in quarterly instalments, or monthly, if preferred. I sent it you quarterly.'
'Regular as the tides.'
'You tell me that she has asked to have it increased. I cannot say but there may be some reason in this, nevertheless I want to be assured that there are to be no undue exactions which might become insupportable.' He dropped his glass.
'It shall go no further.'