The Prodigal Son

by Sir Hall Caine

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Oscar was just able to control his faculties long enough to reach the railway-station, find the train, and search out an empty second-class compartment and then he collapsed utterly. He was like a beast that has been smitten in the shambles and is shattered in every sense and nerve.

Looking up at the lamp in the roof and seeing smoke floating above it, he thought at first the carriage must be afire, but looking again the smoke was gone and then he knew his sight had suffered and he supposed he must be going blind. There was a roaring noise in his ears and he thought it was the roaring of the train, but when the train stopped the noise continued, and then he knew that his hearing was injured and he supposed he must be going deaf. Two officials came into the carriage to examine the tickets, but though he saw their lips moving he could not hear what they said, or rightly grasp what they wanted, until they were turning to go, and then the noise in his head slid off for a moment and he heard one of them say to the other, "Drunk, poor devil!"

This lasted through the dark hours of the night, and when the morning dawned his experiences were yet more terrible. At the first gleam of light his stunned soul awoke, and with a sharp pain like the after-pain of a bullet wound, he realized where he was and what he was doing. He was flying from the consequences of perhaps the most base and infamous conduct a man could be capable of--conduct the more base and infamous because there was no law to punish it.

Low as he had sunk hitherto he had never sunk so low as this. This was as low as man could go and live in the face of other men and the eye of the light. And he had descended to this depth, he, Oscar Stephenson, son of the Governor of his country! When he thought of his father he thanked God that death had taken him before this disgrace befell.

Every artery in his body seemed to bleed, every tendon to be torn. When the sun rose on him in his ghastly solitude it seemed to sere his very brain and he pulled the blind down to shut it out.

Then the women passengers began to move about the corridor of the train and he thought of Helga. Although it seemed so long ago as almost to belong to another existence, he could still see her frightened face as she sidled away from him last night and left him standing alone at that hideous moment when it seemed certain that he must pay the penalty of the offense to which she had tempted him. He despised her for her cowardice; he loathed her for her treachery; he hated her for herself; and he told himself that never again as long as he lived should love of Helga hold dominion over him.

At one moment he found himself cursing her. At the next he found himself weeping. Could it be Helga whom he was thinking of like this? Helga, who had been so much to him during so many years, who had come so very close to him, nearer than his father, nearer than his mother, nearer--Heaven forgive him!--than his wife or child? Helga, who had been with him early and late, a soft voice always at his ear, a sweet presence always at his heart, a spirit, a support, an inspiration? Helga, whom he had loved and should always love, let her do what she would with him, let him do what he would with her? God pity him! God help him!

Yet his tenderness and tears were stronger than his hatred and rage, and he resolved that for her perfidy and selfishness, Helga should be punished, and that he should punish her. There was no longer any need to ask himself how this was to be done. The words that had rumbled in his ears like the roll of a muffled drum when he ran from the gardens of the Casino were rumbling in his ears still. Oscar Stephenson is dead! At first he could not be sure that the manager had really spoken them, so exactly did they echo the wish that had been bubbling within his own breast. But Oscar Stephenson was dead indeed, and the words that might have crushed him with shame moved him more than a trumpet.

If Oscar Stephenson was dead, then the vow he had made in Thora's death-chamber was dead also! That vow had been intended to punish himself for his infidelity and for all his failures of love and duty, by denying himself the gratification of his greatest pride, the realization of his highest hopes. But what pride could be gratified and what hopes realized to Oscar Stephenson if his name was wiped out, his identity lost, and he was dead to all the world except himself?