A ruined character may be as callous as a paralyzed limb. A ruined and repentant one is in itself an independent system of sensitive and tortured nerves.
Zerviah Hope returned to his work, shrinking under the foreknowledge of his fate. He felt as if he knew what kind of people would remind him that they had become acquainted with his history, and what ways they would select to do it.
He was not taken by surprise when men who had lifted their hats to the popular nurse last week, passed him on the street to-day with a cold nod or curious stare. When women who had reverenced the self-sacrifice and gentleness of his life as only women do or can reverence the quality of tenderness in a man, shrank from him as if he were something infectious, like the plague,—he knew it was just, though he felt it hard.
His patients heard of what had happened, sometimes, and indicated a feeling of recoil. That was the worst. One said:
“I am sorry to hear you are not the man we thought you,” and died in his arms that night.
Zerviah remembered that these things must be. He reasoned with himself. He went into his attic, and prayed it all over. He said:
“Lord, I can’t expect to be treated as if I’d never been in prison. I’m sorry I mind it so. Perhaps I’d ought not to. I’ll try not to care too much.”
More than once he was sure of being followed again, suspiciously or curiously. It occurred to him at last that this was most likely to happen on pay-days. That puzzled him. But when he turned, it was usually some idler, and the fellow shrank and took to his heels, as if the nurse had the fever.
In point of fact, even in that death-stricken town, to be alive was to be as able to gossip as well people, and rumor, wearied of the monotonous fever symptom, found a diverting zest in this shattered reputation.
Zerviah Hope was very much talked about in Calhoun; so much, that the Relief Committee heard, questioned, and experienced official anxiety. It seemed a mistake to lose so valuable a man. It seemed a severity to disturb so noble a career. Yet who knew what sinister countenance the murderer might be capable of shielding beneath his mask of pity? The official mind was perplexed. Was it humane to trust the lives of our perishing citizens to the ministrations of a felon who had so skillfully deceived the most intelligent guardians of the public weal? There was, in particular, a chairman of a sub-committee (on the water supply) who was burdened with uneasiness.