Everyone admired
Hill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging" clung to him. But Hill
was to find congratulations and Miss Haysman's enhanced opinion of him,
and even the decided decline in the crest of Wedderburn, tainted by an
unhappy memory. He felt a remarkable access of energy at first, and the
note of a democracy marching to triumph returned to his debating-society
speeches; he worked at his comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal and
effect, and he went on with his aesthetic education. But through it all, a
vivid little picture was continually coming before his mind's eye--of a
sneakish person manipulating a slide.
No human being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that no higher
power existed to see, it; but for all that it worried him. Memories are
not dead things but alive; they dwindle in disuse, but they harden and
develop in all sorts of queer ways if they are being continually fretted.
Curiously enough, though at the time he perceived clearly that the
shifting was accidental, as the days wore on, his memory became confused
about it, until at last he was not sure--although he assured himself that
he _was_ sure--whether the movement had been absolutely involuntary.
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