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redeem this ruffian from his bonds and place him in the
honoured seat of his dead father. Such intelligence would be
regarded as a calamity, an unhappy blot upon a fair repu-
tation, a disgrace to an honoured and unsullied name. Let
him succeed, let him return again to the mother who had
by this time become reconciled, in a measure, to his loss; he
would, at the best, be to her a living shame, scarcely less de-
grading than that which she had dreaded.
But success was almost impossible. He did not dare to
retrace his steps through the hideous labyrinth into which
he had plunged. Was he to show his scarred shoulders as a
proof that he was a gentleman and an innocent man? Was
he to relate the nameless infamies of Macquarie Harbour
as a proof that he was entitled to receive the hospitalities
of the generous, and to sit, a respected guest, at the tables
of men of refinement? Was he to quote the horrible slang of
the prison-ship, and retail the filthy jests of the chain-gang
and the hulks, as a proof that he was a fit companion for
pure-minded women and innocent children? Suppose even
that he could conceal the name of the real criminal, and
show himself guiltless of the crime for which he had been
condemned, all the wealth in the world could not buy back
that blissful ignorance of evil which had once been his. All
the wealth in the world could not purchase the self-respect
which had been cut out of him by the lash, or banish from
his brain the memory of his degradation.
For hours this agony of thought racked him. He cried
out as though with physical pain, and then lay in a stupor,
exhausted with actual physical suffering. It was hopeless to

For the Term of His Natural Life