her people some time, and till that's done it's no good
thinking about anything else.

"After a while, however--I think it was just before I got into trouble
with the police--I began to see that I was a conceited ass for hating
the Major so much. It was absurd for me, I said, to put on airs, when
the difference between him and me was just that he had been brought up
in one way and I in another. I hated the things he did and said, not
because they were wrong, but because they were what I called 'bad form.'
That was really the whole thing. Then I saw a lot more, and it made me
feel miserable. I used to think that it was rather good of me to be kind
to animals and children, but I began to see that it was simply the way I
was made: it wasn't any effort to me. I simply 'saw red' when I came
across cruelty. And I saw that that was no good.

"Then I began to see that I had done absolutely nothing of any good
whatever--that nothing had _really_ cost me anything; and that the
things I was proud of were simply self-will--my leaving Cambridge, and
all the rest. They were theatrical, or romantic, or egotistical; there
was no real sacrifice. I should have minded much more not doing them. I
began to feel extraordinarily small.

"Then the whole series of things began that simply smashed me up.

"First there was the prison business. That came about in this way:

"I had just begun to see that I was all wrong with the Major--that by
giving way to my feelings about him (I don't mean that I ever showed it,
but that was only because I thought it more dignified not to!), I was
getting all wrong with regard to both him and myself, and that I must do
something that my whole soul hated if it was to be of any use. Then
there came that minute in the barn, when I heard the police were after
us, and that there was really no hope of escape. The particular thing
that settled me was Gertie. I knew, somehow, that I couldn't let the
Major go to prison while she was about. And then I saw that this was
just the very thing to do, and that I couldn't be proud of it ever,
because the whole thing was so mean and second-rate. Well, I did it, and
it did me a lot of good somehow. I felt really rolled in the dirt, and
that little thing in the post-office afterwards rubbed it in. I saw how
chock-full I must be of conceit really to mind that, as I did, and to
show off, and talk like a gentleman.

"Then there came the priest who refused to help me. That made me