"I would give anything for it not to have happened," he said.
Wilson opened his eyes. "Why? It's our salvation. An ex-convict—it's enough to damn any candidate. But we want to make sure. Now I've got an idea."
Paul turned on him angrily. "I'll have no capital made out of it whatsoever. It's a foul thing to bring such an accusation up against a man who has lived a spotless life for thirty years. Everything in me goes out in sympathy with him, and I'll let it be known all through the constituency."
"If you take it that way," said Wilson, "there's no more to be done."
"There's nothing to be done, except to find out who put up the man to make the announcement."
"He did it on his own," Wilson replied warmly. "None of our people would resort to a dirty trick like that."
"And yet you want me to take advantage of it now it's done."
"That's quite a different matter."
"I can't see much difference," said Paul.
So Wilson, seeing that his candidate was more unmanageable than ever, presently departed, and Paul sat down to breakfast. But he could not eat. He was both stricken with shame and moved to the depths by immense pity. Far removed from him as Silas Finn was in mode of life and ideals, he found much in common with his father. Each had made his way from the slum, each had been guided by an inner light—was Silas Finn's fantastic belief less of an ignis fatuus than his own?—each had sought to get away from a past, each was a child of Ishmael, each, in his own way, had lived romantically. Whatever resentment against his father lingered in his heart now melted away. He was very near him. The shame of the prison struck him as it had struck the old man. He saw him bowed down under the blow, and he clenched his hands in a torture of anger and indignation. And to crown all, came the intolerable conviction, in the formation of which Wilson's triumphant words had not been necessary, that if he won the election it would be due to this public dishonouring of his own father. He walked about the room in despair, and at last halted before the mantelpiece on which still stood the photograph of the Princess in its silver frame. Suddenly he remembered that he had not told her of this incident in his family history. She too would be reading her newspaper this morning. He saw her proud lips curl. The son of a gaol-bird! He tore the photograph from its frame and threw it into the fire and watched it burn. As the paper writhed under the heat, the lips seemed to twist into sad reproach. He turned away impatiently. That romantic madness was over and done with. He had far sterner things to do than shriek his heart out over a woman in an alien star. He had his life to reconstruct in the darkness threatening and mocking; but at last he had truth for a foundation; on that he would build in defiance of the world.