But if once more I dreamed of finality in change I deceived myself, forgetting that God Himself cannot unmake the past or undo what is done. A year had hardly gone by in this new apprenticeship to life, when at moments of weariness or overstrain sharp doubts shot through me and were gone again, like twinges of sudden pain recalling old disease to one who has lulled himself with dreams of cure. The feeling of fellowship with men grew weaker, and as it waned I began to shrink once more from my kind. I still believed myself happy, but happiness seemed to need constant affirmation, as though it could make no way in my favour without display of token or credential to confirm its truth. There were pauses in the clatter and jangle of life; the revolutions of the great wheels sometimes slowed into silence; and as these interludes grew more frequent, I caught myself repeating that I really was content. The faint assurance given, I flung myself with devouring industry upon my allotted task, trying to stifle the forebodings which prophesied against my peace.
In one such pause my old self appeared before me again, like the face of an ancient enemy looking in from the darkness; stealthy footfalls which of late I had so often seemed to hear were now referred to their true cause as we saw each other eye to eye. The old Adam had awakened and was come for his inheritance; and the vision of him there across the pane gazing in upon his own, seemed to arraign me for disowning a brother and denying his indefeasible right. I recognized that with this familiar form cold reason had returned to oust the hopes and emotions which had usurped her office. My rush for freedom had ended, as such sallies often do, in exhaustion, capture and despair; upon the thrill and thunder of the charge followed the silence of the dungeon and the anguish of stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply written that a child might have spelled it, lay clear before me: I had left reformation till too late. I was too old to change.
Even a few years before, I might have dashed out, like Marmion, from the prison-fortress; but now the opportunity was past and the portcullis was down. My character with all its faults was formed within me; and the very years which I had passed in the wilderness, instead of averting the danger, had set the final seal upon my fate, for when a man has reached a certain point in life he is intractable to the reforming hand. But though at last I knew myself beaten, and helpless in the hands of an implacable power, I fluttered like a wounded bird and sought wildly for a loophole of escape. I could no longer hope to stand alone against destiny; that conceit was gone: could I find a comrade to help me through the press and lift me when I fell? But here the invincible pride of shyness barred the way, forbidding alike any confession of weakness or any appeal to man's compassion. I could not bring myself to say: I am unable to rule my life, do you undertake it for me. Was marriage a conceivable path of redemption? I had never envisaged it before, but now, in my desperation, I dreamed it for a moment a possible issue. I even fixed upon the person who should thus save me from myself, and beguiled many lonely hours by picturing her charms and enumerating her noble qualities.