There was no other way out of his troubles.  Life had become unendurable; he could not go on with it.  And this thought became now a fixed determination.  He must copy the example of other and better men; he must do for himself, as old Bates and many others had done for themselves when they found their lives too hard for them.

If he didn’t—­oh, the whole thing was hopeless.  Suppose that he rebelled against this cruel necessity.  No, he saw too plainly the torment that would lie before him—­disgrace, grief of wife and children, soon all the world wishing him dead.  And no joy.  The girl would be taken from him.  The world—­or God—­would never allow him to hide and be happy with her.

Suppose he were to carry her off to the Colonies, and attempt to begin the new life that he had planned fifteen years ago.  Impossible—­he was too old; nearly all his strength had gone from him; the mere idea of fighting his way uphill again filled him with a sick fatigue.  And the girl, when she saw him failing, physically and mentally, would desert him. Her love could not last—­it was too unnatural; and when, contrasting him with other men, she saw that he was feeble, exhausted, utterly worn out, she would shake off the bondage of his companionship.  No, there was no possible hope for the future of such a union.

He thought:  “Other men at fifty are often hale and hearty, chock-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