But I see that the battle is going to be infinitely harder than I imagined.  In fact, now I don’t think we have a chance of winning a verdict.  I came here hoping against fear that it could be won, though I always felt that it would be better in the present state of English feeling to go abroad and avoid the risk of a trial.  Now there is no question:  you would be insane, as Clarke said, to stay in England.  But why on earth did Alfred Douglas, knowing the truth, ever wish you to attack Queensberry?”

“He’s very bold and obstinate, Frank,” said Oscar weakly.

“Well, now I must play Crito,” I resumed, smiling, “and take you away before the ship comes from Delos.”

“Oh, Frank, that would be wonderful; but it’s impossible, quite impossible.  I should be arrested before I left London, and shamed again in public:  they would boo at me and shout insults....  Oh, it is impossible; I could not risk it.”

“Nonsense,” I replied, “I believe the authorities would be only too glad if you went.  I think Clarke’s challenge to Gill was curiously ill-advised.  He should have let sleeping dogs lie.  Combative Gill was certain to take up the gauntlet.  If Clarke had lain low there might have been no second trial.  But that can’t be helped now.  Don’t believe that it’s even difficult to get away; it’s easy.  I don’t propose to go by Folkestone or Dover.”

“But, Frank, what about the people who have stood bail for me?  I couldn’t leave them to suffer; they would lose their thousands.”

“I shan’t let them lose,” I replied, “I am quite willing to take half on my own shoulders at once and you can pay the other thousand or so within a very short time by writing a couple of plays.  American papers would be only too glad to pay you for an interview.  The story of your escape would be worth a thousand pounds; they would give you almost any price for it.

“Leave everything to me, but in the meantime I want you to get out in the air as much as possible.  You are not looking well; you are not yourself.”

“That house is depressing, Frank.  Willie makes such a merit of giving me shelter; he means well, I suppose; but it is all dreadful.”

My notes of this talk finish in this way, but the conversation left on me a deep impression of Oscar’s extraordinary weakness or rather extraordinary softness of nature backed up and redeemed by a certain magnanimity:  he would not leave the friends in the lurch who had gone bail for him; he would not give his friend away even to save himself; but neither would he exert himself greatly to win free.  He was like a woman, I said to myself in wonder, and my pity for him grew keener.  He seemed mentally stunned by the sudden fall, by the discovery of how violently men can hate.  He had never seen the wolf in man before; the vile brute instinct that preys upon the fallen.  He had not believed that such exultant savagery existed; it had never come within his ken; now it appalled him.  And so he stood there waiting for what might happen without courage to do anything but suffer.  My heart ached with pity for him, and yet I felt a little impatient with him as well.  Why give up like that?  The eternal quarrel of the combative nature with those who can’t or won’t fight.