Jem-y-Lord was at the eye-hole of the door. “He's coming on to the bench, sir. The gentlemen of the council are following him, and the Court-house is full of ladies.”
Philip was pacing to and fro like a man in violent agitation. At the other side of the wall the confused murmur had risen to a sharp crackle of many voices.
The constable came back with the Clerk of the Court and the jailor.
“Everything ready, your Excellency,” said the Clerk of the Court.
The constable turned the key of the door, and laid his hand on the knob.
“One moment—give me a moment,” said Philip.
He was going through the last throes of his temptation. Something was asking him, as if in tones of indignation, what right he had to bring people there to make fools of them. And something was laughing as if in mockery at the theatrical device he had chosen for gathering together the people of rank and station, and then dismissing them like naughty school-children.
This idea clamoured loud in wild derision, telling him that he was posing, that he was making a market of his misfortune, that he was an actor, and that whatever the effect of the scene he was about to perform, it was unnecessary and must be contemptible. “You talk of your shame and humiliation—no atonement can wipe it out. You came here prating to yourself of blotting out the past—no act of man can do so. Vain, vain, and idle as well as vain! Mere mummery and display, and a blow to the dignity of justice!”
Under the weight of such torment the thought came to him that he should go through the ceremony after all, that he should do as the people expected, that he should accept the Governorship, and then defy the social ostracism of the island by making Kate his wife. “It's not yet too late,” said the tempter.
Philip stopped in his walk and remembered the two letters of yesterday. “Thank God! it is too late,” he said.