John felt that to few people could it be so horrible as it was to him. Honour and integrity, and noble meaning, and a high scorn of everything base had been the very air he breathed. He had stood on this foundation as some people stand on wealth, and some on family and connections. The other pupils in the office had in many cases possessed a foundation of that other kind: but, as for John, he had always stood high on those personal qualities, on the fact that no reproach could be brought against him, and that whatever records were brought to light he never could be shamed. That very morning when he set out to go to the office, puzzled about the loss of the copy, but fearing nothing, feeling in all heaven and earth no shadow of anything to fear, with his papers in his pocket, there was not so much as that cloud like a man’s hand to warn him. And yet he had been on the eve of irremediable and ruinous disgrace. Only to think of it--this morning with a spotless reputation and every prognostic in his favour: and now--a convict’s son! When the soul is overcome in this way with sudden trouble, how constantly does the sufferer feel that the blow has been administered skilfully in that way of all others which cuts most deeply. There were many other kinds of suffering which John could have borne, he thought, patiently enough--but this! Shame! It was the defeat of all his efforts, the keen and poignant contradiction of all he had striven after. And he was wise enough to know that the first impulse of indignant resistance and that cry of despair with which a man protests that he cannot and will not bear what has befallen him--were alike futile. There it was, not to be got over; and bear it he must, whatever ensued. In this maze of dreadful thought, he came home to the little rooms in which his virtuous and austere young life had been passed, not knowing in the least what he was going to do, feeling only that he must acknowledge the--man--the convict--acknowledge him, and thus give him more or less the command of his life. John had been in a fever of excitement and suspense when he went away. He was now calm enough, quite quiet and resolute, though he had as yet no plan of action. He walked quickly, absorbed in himself and the consequences to himself, without thinking of what might have happened on the other side; not able, indeed, without a sinking sensation, to think of the other side at all--and pushed open the door which was unlatched. Probably he had left it so when he went out, he could not tell. He did not remember indeed anything about how he had come out. Mr. Barrett’s appearance and every secondary circumstance had disappeared from his mind; yet he woke, as he felt the door give way under his hand, to the idea that he must have left it so. It is not a thing to do in London, not even in a quiet little street out of the way. Probably he had done it in his madness in the first shock of his dismay.