ear for years, and such as came now were few
and painful and bitter as gall; but they would not be repressed. It was
strange, even to himself, that he should be so beaten down by a little
thing--a child's simple words about her mother, a moment's loneliness in
the wood where her father had met his death. The world would not have
recognised him, the cold, subtle, polished, keen-witted _flaneur_, the
witty man of letters, critic, traveller, playwright, novelist, all in
one, in that crushed figure beneath the firs, with head bowed down,
hands clutched in agony, muscular frame shaken by the violence of
convulsive sobs. The convicted sinner, the penitent, had nothing in
common with Hubert Lepel, as known to the world at large.

Presently he came to himself a little and sat up, with his hands clasped
round his knees. Some strange thoughts visited him in those quiet
moments. What if he gave up the attempt to brave life out? What if he
acknowledged the truth and cleared poor Westwood's name? England would
ring from end to end with horror at his baseness. What of that if, by
confessing, he could lay to rest the terrors that at time took a hold of
his guilty soul--terrors, not of death, nor of what comes after
death--terrors of life and of the doom of baseness reserved for the soul
that will be base, the gradual declension of heart and mind for the man
who said, "Evil be thou my good?" He was not one who could bear as yet
to think of moral death without a shiver. He had fallen, he had sinned;
but, for his misery and his punishment, his soul was not yet dead. What
then if he should give himself up to justice after all? It seemed to
him, in that moment of solitude, that only by so doing could he regain
the freedom of mind, the peace of conscience which he had now forfeited,
perhaps for evermore.

He sat thinking of the possibilities of life opening out before him, and
decided that he could give them up without a pang. But there were
persons to be thought of beside himself. To his relatives, to the
relatives of the murdered man, the discovery of the truth would be a
terrible shock. There was no person--except that missing girl, of whom
he dared scarcely think--who could benefit by the clearing of Andrew
Westwood's name. The only gain that would accrue from his confession
would be, he considered, a subjective gain to himself. Abstract justice
would be done, no doubt, and Westwood's character would be cleared; but
that was all. He ou