' 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.
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