The quick vision that his life was after all a failure, that he was a dishonored man, and must quail before the glance of those towards whom he had habitually assumed the attitude of a reprover—­that God had disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn of those who were glad to have their hatred justified—­the sense of utter futility in that equivocation with his conscience in dealing with the life of his accomplice, an equivocation which now turned venomously upon him with the full-grown fang of a discovered lie:—­ all this rushed through him like the agony of terror which fails to kill, and leaves the ears still open to the returning wave of execration.  The sudden sense of exposure after the re-established sense of safety came—­not to the coarse organization of a criminal but to—­ the susceptible nerve of a man whose intensest being lay in such mastery and predominance as the conditions of his life had shaped for him.

But in that intense being lay the strength of reaction.  Through all his bodily infirmity there ran a tenacious nerve of ambitious self-preserving will, which had continually leaped out like a flame, scattering all doctrinal fears, and which, even while he sat an object of compassion for the merciful, was beginning to stir and glow under his ashy paleness.  Before the last words were out of Mr. Hawley’s mouth, Bulstrode felt that he should answer, and that his answer would be a retort.  He dared not get up and say, “I am not guilty, the whole story is false”—­even if he had dared this, it would have seemed to him, under his present keen sense of betrayal, as vain as to pull, for covering to his nakedness, a frail rag which would rend at every little strain.

For a few moments there was total silence, while every man in the room was looking at Bulstrode.  He sat perfectly still, leaning hard against the back of his chair; he could not venture to rise, and when he began to speak he pressed his hands upon the seat on each side of him.  But his voice was perfectly audible, though hoarser than usual, and his words were distinctly pronounced, though he paused between sentence as if short of breath.  He said, turning first toward Mr. Thesiger, and then looking at Mr. Hawley—­

“I protest before you, sir, as a Christian minister, against the sanction of proceedings towards me which are dictated by virulent hatred.  Those who are hostile to me are glad to believe any libel uttered by a loose tongue against me.  And their consciences become strict against me.  Say that the evil-speaking of which I am to be made the victim accuses me of malpractices—­” here Bulstrode’s voice rose and took on a more biting accent, till it seemed a low cry—­ “who shall be my accuser?  Not men whose own lives are unchristian, nay, scandalous—­not men who themselves use low instruments to carry out their ends—­whose profession is a tissue of chicanery—­ who have been spending their income on their own sensual enjoyments, while I have been devoting mine to advance the best objects with regard to this life and the next.”