But still he knew he was being watched all the time. Strange men questioning the cottage woman next door, as to all his doings. He began to _feel_ a criminal. A sense of guilt, of self-horror began to grow up in him. He saw himself set apart from mankind, a Cain, or worse. Though of course he had committed no murder. But what might he not have done? A leper, a criminal! The foul, dense, carrion-eating mob were trying to set their teeth in him. Which meant mortification and death. It was Christmas--winter--very cold. He and Harriet were very poor. Then he became ill. He lay in the tiny bedroom looking at the wintry sky and the deep, thatched roof of the cottage beyond. Sick. But then his soul revived. “No,” he said to himself. “No. Whatever I do or have done, I am not wrong. Even if I commit what they call a crime, why should I accept _their_ condemnation or verdict. Whatever I do, I do of my own responsible self. I refuse their imputations. I despise them. They are _canaille_, carrion-eating, filthy-mouthed _canaille_, like dead-men-devouring jackals. I wish to God I could kill them. I wish I had power to blight them, to slay them with a blight, slay them in thousands and thousands. I wish to God I could kill them off, the masses of _canaille_. Would they make me feel in the wrong? Would they? They shall not. Never. I will watch that they never set their unclean teeth in me, for a bite is blood-poisoning. But fear them! Feel in the wrong because of them? Never. Not if I were Cain several times over, and had killed several brothers and sisters as well. Not if I had committed all the crimes in their calendar. I will not be put in the wrong by them, God knows I will not. And I will report myself no more at their police-stations.” So, whenever the feeling of terror came over him, the feeling of being marked-out, branded, a criminal marked out by society, marked out for annihilation, he pulled himself together, saying to himself: “I am letting them make me feel in the wrong. I am degrading myself by feeling guilty, marked-out, and I have convulsions of fear. But I am _not_ wrong. I have done no wrong, whatever I have done. That is, no wrong that society has to do with. Whatever wrongs I have done are my own, and private between myself and the other person. One may be wrong, yes, one is often wrong. But not for _them_ to judge. For my own soul only to judge. Let me know them for human filth, all these pullers-down, and let me watch them, as I would watch a reeking hyæna, but never fear them. Let me watch them, to keep them at bay. But let me never admit for one single moment that _they_ may be _my_ judges. That, never. I have judged them: they are _canaille_. I am a man, and I abide by my own soul. Never shall they have a chance of judging me.”