The next morning I had a stormy interview with my landlord. He would wait no longer for the arrears of rent. He gave me three days to pay or to find other rooms. In the meantime he would detain my things. My little skiff had decidedly reached the rocks. I went down to the house at Clapham, which I had failed to let. The blinds were drawn and a weather-beaten notice board leant in an intoxicated manner over the shabby railings. I had not been near it for months, and as I opened the front door the place smelt damp and reminded me with a shiver of the deaths that had taken place there. I almost heard the whisper of my mother’s voice in my ear. Curiously enough, I had made no attempt to sell the furniture. I seemed to have had a premonition that the house would yet be a home for me. I went over it, drawing up the blinds and letting in the dreary February light. Every now and then I paused and listened. I seemed to hear someone moving about the house. The garden, which had been my mother’s hobby, was in a most desolate condition, and a dead and decomposing cat lay across the threshold of the back door. The atmosphere of the whole place seemed tuned to the key of my own depression, and I must admit to sitting down in the forlorn parlour and shedding tears. Even the most self-reliant character must resent being absolutely alone in the world, and I felt terribly alone. I suppose those who have listened amazed to the story of what they are pleased to call my crimes would scarcely believe that I have a craving for sympathy. True, it must be sympathy on my own terms, but I crave for it. Personally I do not at present ask for pity, but were the comfortable classes given to psychological analysis—which they are not—it might astonish them to discover in how little they differ from the practised enemy of society, the criminal. Many a highly respected member of society whom prosperity has prevented from feeling the incentive of crime is a criminal in embryo. For myself, I have achieved my object; I shall die Earl Gascoyne, and my child will bear the title after me. My descendants will belong to the ruling classes, and I shall be handed down to posterity as an interesting study. The British snob never wholly deserts a lord, and will consider the scaffold to be not a little honoured by my patronage. I am sure that there are thousands of worthy people who would sooner the whole matter had been hushed up; I for one am of their opinion. I could have dispensed with a niche in history between Gille de Rais and Madame de Brinvilliers. The fame of posterity always asks too heavy a penalty in this life. I realised that I should have to do the work of the house at Clapham myself, so I decided to lock up all the rooms except the sitting-room, a bedroom, and the kitchen. I engaged a woman to come in for the first few days and light fires and clean up. Then, handing her the key, I returned to town.