In youth, a great crisis may only spiritualize and refine the features; in maturity, it leaves ineradicable scars.
The first great blow of Calvert's life had embittered him; the second left him shattered. Farquharson was like his son, more to him in some ways than his own son would have been. Parents have always to face the possibility that their children may go absolutely contrary to their wishes; the transfusion of two souls may create a being which develops on entirely different lines from those desired by they who willed it to exist. But Farquharson had fulfilled Calvert's every hope; his appointment in the Ministry was the culmination of Calvert's ambition. Calvert, looking upon him, felt that he could say his _Nunc Dimittis_ thankfully; how easy to depart in peace when one had left behind, as legacy to the empire, so strong a man of war!
But human strength is, after all, limited; no single unit can hold on steadily against a battalion of armed foes. Farquharson woke the day after the attack in the House to find himself hemmed in, surrounded by enemies, his name bandied from one man to another, in the dockyard, on tubs at Hyde Park Corner, in open booths at Walworth Bridge Road. The socialists saw their opportunity and made the most of it: "A starving man may steal a loaf of bread and be sent to prison for five days--this man, who has sold the secrets of his nation, will probably go unscathed because he is of gentle birth."
It was torture to Calvert to go out that day; he never knew when in 'bus or tube or district railway he would hear Farquharson's name spoken contemptuously by strangers. For men spoke of circumstantial evidence, and "Circumstantial evidence is the hardest to disprove, and frequently unreliable," as a great criminal lawyer once said. Brand had done his work well. But--"In so gloomy a climate as ours we must expect the powers of darkness to prevail," said Lady Wereminster.
Stunned and horrified, Farquharson himself did not at first take in the full force of the rumours that were being spread about him. It was impossible to conceive that he should be suspected of treachery. When, the night before, he lost grip of his audience, he had at first believed that it was through some fault of his own. He had never seen suspicion in men's eyes before. But next day's papers were more explicit. Men and women discussed the subject over the luncheon table, at Princes or the Piccadilly Hotel. "Such a pity--one had always thought Mr. Farquharson quite a nice-minded man." There is after all no ball so light to fling as that of a man's or woman's character, and no sport so amusing to the players.