ck-full
of vigor. But that's not my case." He felt that, though his frame
remained stout enough, he had exhausted his whole supply of
nerve-force; and this was due not to length of years, but to the pace
at which he had lived them. He thought: "That is what has whacked me
out--the rate I've gone. If I'd been some rich swell treating himself
to a harem of women, horse-racing, gambling at cards; or if I'd been
one of these City gentlemen floating companies, speculating on the
Stock Exchange, and so on; or if I'd been a Parliament man spouting
all night, going round at elections all day, people would have said:
'Oh, what a mighty pity he doesn't give himself a proper chance, but
lives too fast.' Yet those men would all be reposing of themselves
compared with _me_. It stands to reason. It could not be otherwise.
And for why? Because a _murderer_ lives other men's years in one of
his minutes--and the wear and tear on him is more than the Derby
Race-Course, the Houses of Parliament, and the Stock Exchange all
rolled into one crowd would ever feel if they went on exciting
themselves from now to the Day of Judgment."

And again he felt self-pity, but of another kind than that which had
stirred him an hour ago. Now it was clear-sighted, analytical, almost
free from weakness. He thought: "It is a bit rough--it is rather hard,
rather cruel on me, all said and done. For I know that I might have
bin a good man. The good lay in me--it only wanted drawing out." He
remembered the elevating effect of his love for Mavis, how through all
the time of his belief in her purity he had tried to purify himself,
to purge away all the grossness and sensualness that, as he vainly
fancied, made him unworthy to be the mate of so immaculate a creature;
but he was not allowed to continue the purifying process; her horrible
revelation ended it--knocked the sense out of it, made it
preposterously absurd. "If Mavis had been in the beginning what she
has come to be at last, she would have kept me on the highroad to
Heaven." But all the chances had gone against him. "My father failed
me, my mother failed me, my wife failed me."

"The worst faults I had in my prime were conceit and uppishness, but
they only came from my ignorance. They'd have been wiped out of me at
the start, if I'd had the true advantages of education; regular
school training, such as gentlemen's sons enjoy, would have made all
the difference. It's all very well to talk about educating