What was the use of trying to be better than others when the result was an infamy which, had he been a little more greedy or a little less upright, he might have avoided?
What was the use of conscious innocence and unstained honour, when they could not save him from a sense of shame of which no convicted felon could know the bitterness?
It would go out to all the world that Reginald Cruden, the suspected swindler, had been “let off” for lack of evidence after three days’ imprisonment. The victims of the Corporation would read it, and regret the failure of justice to overtake the man who had robbed them. His father’s old county friends would read it, and shake their heads over poor Cruden’s prodigal. The Wilderham fellows would read it, and set him down as one more who had gone to the bad. Young Gedge would read it, and scorn him for a hypocrite and a humbug. Durfy would read it, and chuckle. His mother and Horace would read it. Yes, and what would they think? Nothing he could say would convince them or anybody. They might forgive him, but—
The thought made his blood boil within him. He would take forgiveness from no man or woman. If they chose to believe him guilty, let them; but let them keep their forgiveness to themselves. Rather let them give the dog a bad name and hang him. He did not care! Would that they could!
Such was the rush of thought that passed through his mind as he stood that bleak winter afternoon in the street, a free man.
Free! he laughed at the word, and envied the burglar with his six months. What spirit of malignity had hindered Mr Sniff from letting him lose himself in a felon’s cell rather than turn him out “free” into a world every creature of which was an enemy?
Are you disgusted with him, reader? With his poor spirit, his weak purpose, his blind folly? Do you say that you, in his shoes, would have done better? that you would never have lost courage? that you would have held up your head still, and braved the storm? Alas, alas, that the Reginalds are so many and the heroes of your sort so few!
Alas for the sensitive natures whom injustice can crush and make cowards of! You are not sensitive, thank God, and you do not know what crushing is. Pray that you never may; but till you have felt it deal leniently with poor Reginald, as he goes recklessly out into the winter gloom without a friend—not even himself.
It mattered little to him where he went or what became of him. It made no odds how and when he should spend his last shilling. He was hungry now. Since early that morning nothing had passed his lips. Why not spend it now and have done with it?
So he turned into a coffee-shop, and ordered coffee and a plate of beef.