No end of a game. And for the first time I imagined the
faces and voices of Crupp and Esmeer and Gane when they learnt of
this secret flight, this flight of which they were quite unwarned. And
Shoesmith might be there in the house,--Shoesmith who was to have been
married in four days--the thing might hit him full in front of any kind
of people. Cruel eyes might watch him. Why the devil hadn't I written
letters to warn them all? I could have posted them five minutes before
the train started. I had never thought to that moment of the immense
mess they would be in; how the whole edifice would clatter about their
ears. I had a sudden desire to stop the train and go back for a day,
for two days, to set that negligence right. My brain for a moment
brightened, became animated and prolific of ideas. I thought of a
brilliant line we might have taken on that confounded Reformatory
Bill....

That sort of thing was over....

What indeed wasn't over? I passed to a vaguer, more multitudinous
perception of disaster, the friends I had lost already since Altiora
began her campaign, the ampler remnant whom now I must lose. I thought
of people I had been merry with, people I had worked with and played
with, the companions of talkative walks, the hostesses of houses that
had once glowed with welcome for us both. I perceived we must lose them
all. I saw life like a tree in late autumn that had once been rich and
splendid with friends--and now the last brave dears would be hanging on
doubtfully against the frosty chill of facts, twisting and tortured in
the universal gale of indignation, trying to evade the cold blast of the
truth. I had betrayed my party, my intimate friend, my wife, the
wife whose devotion had made me what I was. For awhile the figure of
Margaret, remote, wounded, shamed, dominated my mind, and the thought of
my immense ingratitude. Damn them! they'd take it out of her too. I had
a feeling that I wanted to go straight back and grip some one by the
throat, some one talking ill of Margaret. They'd blame her for not
keeping me, for letting things go so far.... I wanted the whole world
to know how fine she was. I saw in imagination the busy, excited
dinner tables at work upon us all, rather pleasantly excited, brightly
indignant, merciless.

Well, it's the stuff we are!...

Then suddenly, stabbing me to the heart, came a vision of Margaret's
tears and the sound of her voice saying, "Husband mine! Oh! husband
mine! To see