Again, if such a thing could be done on a small scale, it might be done on a larger scale with the same result--namely, suspicion to fall upon a blameless person; obloquy to gather round his name--for in some cases simply to be charged is almost as fatal as to be convicted: and perfect impunity for himself. 'This is not my own writing, but a forgery,' said the man who had been robbed. Then, who is the forger? You--you. None but you. The bare suspicion becomes a certainty in the minds of those who were once that man's friends.--And his life is cankered at the outset. He thought of his own life; the bitterness of alienation and exile. Never any time for eight years when he could explain the reasons of his exile. Debt, the cultivation of wild oats, failure to pass examinations--anything would do for such a reason except suspicion of forgery. Athelstan was a cheerful young man. He seldom allowed himself to be cast down by the blows of fate. Nevertheless, during his whole time of exile, the drop of bitterness that poisoned his cup was that he could not tell the whole story because the world would believe no more than half--that half, namely, which contained the accusation. When one walks about thinking, there comes a time when it seems no good to think any longer. The mind can only get a certain amount out of a case at one sitting. That amount absorbed, the best thing is to go on to something else. Athelstan went on to dinner. He left his sister to the care of her young man, and dined by himself. He took a steak at a Holborn restaurant with an evening paper, which he considered professionally. After dinner he returned to his subject. Perhaps he should get a step farther. No--perhaps on account of the sweet influence of dinner he got no farther at all. Here was an astonishing fact. How to account for it? You have seen--by one of two ways--malignity unspeakable: or madness--madness of a very curious kind--the madness of a man whose calm cold judgment had made him appear to his friends as one with an intellect far above any ordinary weaknesses of humanity. Mr. Dering mad? Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the President of the Royal Society, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, the Cambridge Professors of Mathematics--all these men might be mad as well. And nobody to know it or to suspect it. Mr. Dering mad! and yet, if not, what was he? There was one way. He had tried it already once. He left the restaurant and turned eastwards. He was going to try South Square, Gray's Inn, again. Perhaps Mr. Edmund Gray would be in his rooms. He was not. The door was shut. But the opposite door stood open, that of Freddy Carstone. Athelstan knocked, and was admitted with eloquence almost tumultuous. 'Just in time,' said the coach. 'I've got a new brand of whisky, straight from Glasgow. You shall sample it. Have you had dinner yet? So have I. Sit down. Let us talk and smoke tobacco and drink whisky and soda.'