I had no preconceived notion of
destination. It was a moving thing that would carry me away from
the Tottenham Court Road, away from the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring,
away from myself. I was the solitary occupant of the omnibus
roof. The rain fell, softly, persistently, soakingly. I laughed
aloud.
I recognised the predestined irony of things that at every corner
checks the course of the ineffectual man.
CBAPTER XX
November 11th.
I wrote Judith a long letter last night, urging her to disregard
the forfeited claims of her husband and to join her life
definitely with mine. I was cynical enough to feel that if such
a proceeding annoyed the Rev. Rupert Mainwaring it would serve
him right. The fact of a man's finding religion and abjuring
sack does not in itself exculpate him from wrongs which he has
inflicted on his fellow-creatures in unregenerate days.
Mainwaring deserved some punishment of which he seemed to have
had remarkably little; for, mind you, his sack-cloth and ashes at
Hoxton, although sincerely worn, are not much of a punishment to
a man in his exalted mood.
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